Thursday, May 30, 2024
Wednesday, May 29, 2024
Tuesday, May 28, 2024
Monday, May 27, 2024
Saturday, May 25, 2024
Pray for Dr Ganoune Diop - GC PARL Director
23 MAY 2024
BUC COMMUNICATIONS
PRAY FOR DR GANOUNE DIOP - GC PARL DIRECTOR
The British Union Conference (BUC) invites you to join the Adventist World Church in prayer for Dr Ganoune Diop, whose hospitalisation for cardiac treatment comes as a shock to us at the BUC. Dr Diop was recently here in the UK to conduct a Public Affairs and Religious Liberty programme for the BUC at Hinckley nearly two weeks ago, blessing those who attended with his insightful presentations. GC President Ted Wilson shared the following words for our collective prayers.
Dr Ganoune Diop, General Conference Public Affairs and Religious Liberty director, was admitted to the hospital on May 16, 2024. He is being treated in an intensive care unit for a cardiac ailment of uncertain cause. He is receiving excellent, state-of-the art medical treatment.
The Diop family have shared that Pastor Diop's condition is currently stable and includes certain surgical procedures that have been performed.
Pr Ted Wilson thanks the world church family for your prayers of intercession on behalf of a complete recovery for Dr Diop.
We ask everyone to earnestly pray for the entire Diop family and for Pastor Diop's healing and complete restoration by the Master Physician.
GC Communication Department
Thursday, May 23, 2024
Wednesday, May 22, 2024
Tuesday, May 21, 2024
Digital Lockdown Becomes Law: No Digital ID, No Job, No Travel, No rent, A Tsunami Of Genocide
Disclaimer:
Personally, I don't agree with all the opinions expressed on this video, but most of the information expressed here is very important.
✴
Monday, May 20, 2024
Sunday, May 19, 2024
Pope: US Catholic Conservatives Have 'Suicidal Attitude'
Sunday, 19 May 2024 12:44 PM EDT
Pope Francis said his conservative critics within the Roman Catholic Church in the United States are trapped in a "suicidal attitude," according to an interview with CBS.
During the April 24 interview with "60 Minutes" that aired Sunday, Francis was asked his thoughts on the conservative backlash against his papacy, with many of his critics being American clergy members.
Francis responded by saying a conservative is someone who "clings to something and does not want to see beyond that."
"It is a suicidal attitude," the pontiff said.
"Because one thing is to take tradition into account, to consider situations from the past, but quite another is to be closed up inside a dogmatic box."
Francis has clashed with the conservative wing almost since he was elected as head of the church in 2013.
Moves conservatives have opposed include papal attempts to make the church more welcoming to the LGBT community and to give lay people more responsibility in the church.
When asked during the interview about his decision to allow priests to bless same-sex couples, the pope replied that the church cannot actually bless the union, as it is against church teaching, but they can bless the individual.
"The blessing is for everyone — for everyone. To bless a homosexual-type union, however, goes against the given rite, against the law of the church. But to bless each person, why not? The blessing is for all. Some people were scandalized by this, but why? Everyone, everyone."
Francis replied when asked about his being more open and accepting than his predecessors that "you have to be open to everything. The church is like that. Everyone, everyone, everyone. That so-and-so is a sinner. Me, too. I am a sinner. Everyone.
"The gospel is for everyone. If the church places a customs officer at the door, that is no longer the church of Christ. Everyone."
Francis last year dismissed a conservative U.S. bishop who was a withering critic of his papacy and said the conservative wing in the U.S. church was "reactionary." He also stripped a conservative American cardinal of some Vatican privileges.
When asked about the state of Texas potentially shutting down a Catholic charity on the U.S.-Mexico border that gives humanitarian aid to migrants, Francis replied that it is "sheer madness."
"To close the border and leave them there, that is madness. The migrant has to be received. Thereafter you see how you're going to deal with them. Maybe you have to send them back. I don't know. But each case ought to be considered humanely, right?"
Regarding surrogacy, Pope Francis said that "in each case, the situation should be carefully and clearly considered, consulting medically and then morally as well. I think there is a general rule in these cases, but you have to go into each case in particular to assess the situation — as long as the moral principle is not skirted."
Newsmax staffer Jeremy Frankel contributed to this report.
© 2024 Thomson/Reuters. All rights reserved.
Saturday, May 18, 2024
Friday, May 17, 2024
The Trouble With World Government
The World Health Organization logo is seen at the entrance of its headquarters in Geneva, Switzerland, on March 9, 2020. (Fabrice Coffrini/AFP via Getty Images)
By Jeffrey A. Tucker
5/14/2024Updated:
5/15/2024
Commentary
Well, at least that’s one setback for world government.
A court in Australia has told the government’s own eSafety Commission that Elon Musk is correct: One country cannot impose censorship on the world. The company X, formerly known as Twitter, must obey national law but not global law.
Mr. Musk seems to have won a very similar fight in Brazil, where a judge demanded not just a national but global takedown. X refused and won. For now.
This really does raise a serious issue: How big of a threat are these global government institutions?
Dreamy, dopey, and often scary intellectuals have dreamed of global government for centuries. If you are rich enough and smart enough, the idea seems to be the perennial temptation. The list of advocates includes people who otherwise have made notable contributions: Albert Einstein, Isaac Asimov, Walter Cronkite, Buckminster Fuller, and many others.
Often the dream comes alive following huge upheavals such as war and depression. Or a pandemic period such as the one we’ve just gone through. The use of “disinformation” as a cross-border test case of global government power is designed to deploy a new strategy of governance in general, one that disregards national control in favor of global control.
That has always been the dream. In history, for example, following the Great War, we saw the creation of the League of Nations, which was a forerunner to the United Nations, at the urging of President Woodrow Wilson. Both were seen by the intellectual class as necessary building blocks for what they really wanted, which was a binding world state.
This is not a conspiracy theory. It’s what they said and what they wanted.
In 1919, H.G. Wells, inspired by the League, became so excited about the idea that he wrote a sweeping reinterpretation of world history that extended from the ninth century B.C. until that present moment. It was called “The Outline of History.”
The goal of the book was to turn on its head the popular Whig theory from the previous century, which saw history as the story of ever more freedom for individuals and away from powerful states. Wells told a story of tribes turning to nations and then to regions, with ever less power to the people and ever more to dictators and planners. His purpose was to chronicle and defend exactly this.
It was a huge bestseller at a time when the appetite for books was voracious because they were becoming affordable and there was a burning passion in the population for universal education. The thesis of his book, however valuable in some historical respects, was genuinely bizarre. He imagined a future world state ruled by a tiny elite of the smartest people who would plan all economies, information flows, migration patterns, and governance systems while crushing national ambitions, free enterprise, traditions, and constitutions.
It was crazy stuff and didn’t really happen. But the efforts never stopped among a certain class of intellectuals. Following World War II, we saw similar efforts, the U.N. being only one. In the agreement hammered out at Bretton Woods in 1944, we had forged the World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF), which were seen as the basis of a global planning apparatus, together with a new world monetary system.
None of this worked out either. The IMF and World Bank ended up being well-funded sinecures for elite academics but not really the financial basis of a world state. The U.N. turned into a disappointment for many. The efforts at global management of trade finally came to fruition with the World Trade Organization, but that machinery has proven mostly toothless and unable to stop the sweeping turning back on free trade that has taken place over the past five years. Today, no nation really fears that entity.
The drive to unite Europe was advertised as a liberal move to inspire cooperation on trade and travel and to make economic cooperation possible. But that was just the pitch. The reality of the European Union was the creation of a mean bureaucracy in Brussels that would override the sovereignty of nations and force deference to a new central state in Europe that actually had no historical precedent. It was an experiment in region-wide government planning.
Britain was always a reluctant member, but when its worst fears were realized, the people voted to leave the whole thing. The result was Brexit, a political movement that panicked elites all over the world. They saw the plans of decades going up in smoke. Boris Johnson became prime minister with the task of making Brexit happen, but his rule was confounded at every step. Finally, the COVID-19 pandemic came along to upend his entire tenure.
One way to understand the COVID-19 pandemic response is as a further experiment in world government, a way for the elites to broadcast to the entire planet that they can achieve global cooperation when they want to.
In most every nation, the response was the same in terms of timing and protocol. Social distancing was everywhere, and masks, too. The breakup of gatherings including worship, along with idiotic schemes such as one-way grocery aisles, were imposed everywhere. The slogans (“We are all in this together”) and signage (wash hands, keep distance, mask up) were also the same.
It was creepy in the extreme, especially when you consider the way it all happened at once, even though we knew for sure that there are huge hemispheric differences in the way respiratory pathogens spread. Something can be a problem in New York but not in Sydney. Why did this happen all at once? The message seemed to be: This is just what we do in a global pandemic.
What they did not tell anyone is that none of this constituted “common sense public health measures” but rather amounted to an experiment without any precedent in the history of humanity. Nowhere had all this cockamamie stuff ever been implemented. Only crazy people had recommended them in the past, but the crazies somehow carried the day. There was a message behind the entire effort: We are the government, and we rule the world, populists’ resentment be damned.
In the aftermath, the World Health Organization (WHO) has picked up the mantle to goad the nations of the world to give up their sovereignty and agree to implement the same protocols anytime that the WHO demands it. They have this treaty or agreement that they have been shopping around the planet for signers. At first, it seemed to be in the bag. But with the calamity of the COVID-19 pandemic response in the rearview mirror, it turned out to not be so easy.
The group REPPARE started looking carefully at this agreement and the amendments and saw that the entire thing rested on faulty premises, twisted thinking, and fiscal profligacy. Governments around the world are now flat-out rejecting the offer to give up their control over nations. It appears now that the World Health Organization’s agreement is in trouble. We are even starting to see movements in the direction of leaving the WHO completely, just as President Donald Trump attempted to do back in 2017.
No question that a nascent world government is in operation today. It is hugely influential over media, technology, and the operation of the internet. It is managing global money flows and asset prices. It aims to reduce national sovereignty to mere brand names of the same thing and make it impossible for the will of the voters to prevail in any policy outcomes. It consists of large and well-funded elites that swim between the public and private sectors and operate through foundations and nongovernmental organizations. It is utterly detached from democratic processes.
“Nothing more disastrous could happen in the field of international economic relations than the realization of such plans,” Ludwig von Mises wrote in 1944. “It would divide the nations into two groups—the exploiting and the exploited; those restricting output and charging monopoly prices, and those forced to pay monopoly prices. It would engender insoluble conflicts of interests and inevitably result in new wars.”
In other words, like all government actions, the results of a world government would end in the opposite of the promise: not peace but war, not prosperity but poverty, not health but sickness, not a better environment but a worse one. It would be a prison for the world and utterly unworkable. People of the world need to be on the lookout for what is happening and reject it whenever the opportunity presents itself to do so.
For this reason, we should cheer anytime global government impositions such as censorship experience a setback. Government in one country causes enough trouble. A unitary government ruling all countries would doom what’s left of civilization.
Views expressed in this article are opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.
By Jeffrey A. Tucker
5/14/2024Updated:
5/15/2024
Commentary
Well, at least that’s one setback for world government.
A court in Australia has told the government’s own eSafety Commission that Elon Musk is correct: One country cannot impose censorship on the world. The company X, formerly known as Twitter, must obey national law but not global law.
Mr. Musk seems to have won a very similar fight in Brazil, where a judge demanded not just a national but global takedown. X refused and won. For now.
This really does raise a serious issue: How big of a threat are these global government institutions?
Dreamy, dopey, and often scary intellectuals have dreamed of global government for centuries. If you are rich enough and smart enough, the idea seems to be the perennial temptation. The list of advocates includes people who otherwise have made notable contributions: Albert Einstein, Isaac Asimov, Walter Cronkite, Buckminster Fuller, and many others.
Often the dream comes alive following huge upheavals such as war and depression. Or a pandemic period such as the one we’ve just gone through. The use of “disinformation” as a cross-border test case of global government power is designed to deploy a new strategy of governance in general, one that disregards national control in favor of global control.
That has always been the dream. In history, for example, following the Great War, we saw the creation of the League of Nations, which was a forerunner to the United Nations, at the urging of President Woodrow Wilson. Both were seen by the intellectual class as necessary building blocks for what they really wanted, which was a binding world state.
This is not a conspiracy theory. It’s what they said and what they wanted.
In 1919, H.G. Wells, inspired by the League, became so excited about the idea that he wrote a sweeping reinterpretation of world history that extended from the ninth century B.C. until that present moment. It was called “The Outline of History.”
The goal of the book was to turn on its head the popular Whig theory from the previous century, which saw history as the story of ever more freedom for individuals and away from powerful states. Wells told a story of tribes turning to nations and then to regions, with ever less power to the people and ever more to dictators and planners. His purpose was to chronicle and defend exactly this.
It was a huge bestseller at a time when the appetite for books was voracious because they were becoming affordable and there was a burning passion in the population for universal education. The thesis of his book, however valuable in some historical respects, was genuinely bizarre. He imagined a future world state ruled by a tiny elite of the smartest people who would plan all economies, information flows, migration patterns, and governance systems while crushing national ambitions, free enterprise, traditions, and constitutions.
It was crazy stuff and didn’t really happen. But the efforts never stopped among a certain class of intellectuals. Following World War II, we saw similar efforts, the U.N. being only one. In the agreement hammered out at Bretton Woods in 1944, we had forged the World Bank and International Monetary Fund (IMF), which were seen as the basis of a global planning apparatus, together with a new world monetary system.
None of this worked out either. The IMF and World Bank ended up being well-funded sinecures for elite academics but not really the financial basis of a world state. The U.N. turned into a disappointment for many. The efforts at global management of trade finally came to fruition with the World Trade Organization, but that machinery has proven mostly toothless and unable to stop the sweeping turning back on free trade that has taken place over the past five years. Today, no nation really fears that entity.
The drive to unite Europe was advertised as a liberal move to inspire cooperation on trade and travel and to make economic cooperation possible. But that was just the pitch. The reality of the European Union was the creation of a mean bureaucracy in Brussels that would override the sovereignty of nations and force deference to a new central state in Europe that actually had no historical precedent. It was an experiment in region-wide government planning.
Britain was always a reluctant member, but when its worst fears were realized, the people voted to leave the whole thing. The result was Brexit, a political movement that panicked elites all over the world. They saw the plans of decades going up in smoke. Boris Johnson became prime minister with the task of making Brexit happen, but his rule was confounded at every step. Finally, the COVID-19 pandemic came along to upend his entire tenure.
One way to understand the COVID-19 pandemic response is as a further experiment in world government, a way for the elites to broadcast to the entire planet that they can achieve global cooperation when they want to.
In most every nation, the response was the same in terms of timing and protocol. Social distancing was everywhere, and masks, too. The breakup of gatherings including worship, along with idiotic schemes such as one-way grocery aisles, were imposed everywhere. The slogans (“We are all in this together”) and signage (wash hands, keep distance, mask up) were also the same.
It was creepy in the extreme, especially when you consider the way it all happened at once, even though we knew for sure that there are huge hemispheric differences in the way respiratory pathogens spread. Something can be a problem in New York but not in Sydney. Why did this happen all at once? The message seemed to be: This is just what we do in a global pandemic.
What they did not tell anyone is that none of this constituted “common sense public health measures” but rather amounted to an experiment without any precedent in the history of humanity. Nowhere had all this cockamamie stuff ever been implemented. Only crazy people had recommended them in the past, but the crazies somehow carried the day. There was a message behind the entire effort: We are the government, and we rule the world, populists’ resentment be damned.
In the aftermath, the World Health Organization (WHO) has picked up the mantle to goad the nations of the world to give up their sovereignty and agree to implement the same protocols anytime that the WHO demands it. They have this treaty or agreement that they have been shopping around the planet for signers. At first, it seemed to be in the bag. But with the calamity of the COVID-19 pandemic response in the rearview mirror, it turned out to not be so easy.
The group REPPARE started looking carefully at this agreement and the amendments and saw that the entire thing rested on faulty premises, twisted thinking, and fiscal profligacy. Governments around the world are now flat-out rejecting the offer to give up their control over nations. It appears now that the World Health Organization’s agreement is in trouble. We are even starting to see movements in the direction of leaving the WHO completely, just as President Donald Trump attempted to do back in 2017.
No question that a nascent world government is in operation today. It is hugely influential over media, technology, and the operation of the internet. It is managing global money flows and asset prices. It aims to reduce national sovereignty to mere brand names of the same thing and make it impossible for the will of the voters to prevail in any policy outcomes. It consists of large and well-funded elites that swim between the public and private sectors and operate through foundations and nongovernmental organizations. It is utterly detached from democratic processes.
“Nothing more disastrous could happen in the field of international economic relations than the realization of such plans,” Ludwig von Mises wrote in 1944. “It would divide the nations into two groups—the exploiting and the exploited; those restricting output and charging monopoly prices, and those forced to pay monopoly prices. It would engender insoluble conflicts of interests and inevitably result in new wars.”
In other words, like all government actions, the results of a world government would end in the opposite of the promise: not peace but war, not prosperity but poverty, not health but sickness, not a better environment but a worse one. It would be a prison for the world and utterly unworkable. People of the world need to be on the lookout for what is happening and reject it whenever the opportunity presents itself to do so.
For this reason, we should cheer anytime global government impositions such as censorship experience a setback. Government in one country causes enough trouble. A unitary government ruling all countries would doom what’s left of civilization.
Views expressed in this article are opinions of the author and do not necessarily reflect the views of The Epoch Times.
Thursday, May 16, 2024
Real ID deadline is rapidly approaching, what to know about the new flight requirement
TRAVEL NEWS
Real ID deadline is rapidly approaching, what to know about the new flight requirement
When will a Real ID be required to fly?![]()
You or your loved ones need to have a Real ID compliant document, driver’s license or identification card, by May 7, 2025.
If you have another form of identification that is TSA-approved, like an up to date passport or a permanent resident card then you probably don’t need a Real ID compliant document.
Here are a couple TSA-approved alternatives, if you’re on the fence about getting a Real ID.
How long does it take to get a Real ID?
It will take about two weeks, or 15 business days to get your Real ID or Enhanced Driver’s License from your state's Motor Vehicle Department.
Enhanced driver’s licenses, which are only issued in a couple of states, including Washington, Michigan, Minnesota, New York and Vermont, are considered acceptable alternatives to REAL ID-compliant cards, DHS says.
How do I know if I have a Real ID?
All Real IDs will have a stamp on the right hand corner to show that the identification document meets federal standards set forth by The Real ID Act of 2005.
The symbol stamped on your Real ID card will vary, depending on which state you obtain your new identification card from.
What does a Real ID look like?![]()
Your Real ID will have most, if not all of the information that’s included on your driver’s license.
The only difference is the seal included in the right-hand corner.
Real ID deadline is rapidly approaching, what to know about the new flight requirement
The really real deadline to make your state-issued identified card, or driver’s license Real ID compliant will be here before you know it.
And you won’t be fly domestically after 2025 without it. The government has been trying to make Real IDs a thing for a while, initially passing The Real ID act in 2005 in an attempt to set “minimum security standards” for state-issued identification documents.
The law was set to take effect in 2020 but was pushed back by the Department of Homeland Security over “backlogged transactions” at MVD offices nationwide as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, according to USA TODAY reporting.
The May 2025 extension was necessary, DHS says, as state driver’s licensing agencies worked to address the mountains of paperwork, which in turn impacted the MVD’s ability to make any real progress on the Real ID rollout.
“Following the enforcement deadline, federal agencies, including the Transportation Security Administration, will be prohibited from accepting driver’s licenses and identification cards that do not meet these federal standards,” DHS said in 2022.
That means every every traveler, 18 or older, must have a compliant form of identification in order to travel.
![]()
When does Real ID go into effect?
The Real ID “full enforcement date” is Wednesday, May 7, 2025, according to DHS.
And you won’t be fly domestically after 2025 without it. The government has been trying to make Real IDs a thing for a while, initially passing The Real ID act in 2005 in an attempt to set “minimum security standards” for state-issued identification documents.
The law was set to take effect in 2020 but was pushed back by the Department of Homeland Security over “backlogged transactions” at MVD offices nationwide as a result of the COVID-19 pandemic, according to USA TODAY reporting.
The May 2025 extension was necessary, DHS says, as state driver’s licensing agencies worked to address the mountains of paperwork, which in turn impacted the MVD’s ability to make any real progress on the Real ID rollout.
“Following the enforcement deadline, federal agencies, including the Transportation Security Administration, will be prohibited from accepting driver’s licenses and identification cards that do not meet these federal standards,” DHS said in 2022.
That means every every traveler, 18 or older, must have a compliant form of identification in order to travel.
When does Real ID go into effect?
The Real ID “full enforcement date” is Wednesday, May 7, 2025, according to DHS.
When will a Real ID be required to fly?
You or your loved ones need to have a Real ID compliant document, driver’s license or identification card, by May 7, 2025.
If you have another form of identification that is TSA-approved, like an up to date passport or a permanent resident card then you probably don’t need a Real ID compliant document.
Here are a couple TSA-approved alternatives, if you’re on the fence about getting a Real ID.
- State issued enhanced driver’s license
- DHS trusted traveler cards (Global Entry, NEXUS, SENTRI, FAST)
- U.S. Department of Defense ID, including IDs issued to dependents
- Border crossing card
- An acceptable photo ID issued by a federally recognized Tribal Nation/Indian Tribe
- HSPD-12 PIV card
- Foreign government-issued passport
- Canadian provincial driver's license or Indian and Northern Affairs Canada card
- Transportation worker identification credential
- U.S. Citizenship and Immigration Services Employment Authorization Card (I-766)
- U.S. Merchant Mariner Credential
- Veteran Health Identification Card (VHIC)
How long does it take to get a Real ID?
It will take about two weeks, or 15 business days to get your Real ID or Enhanced Driver’s License from your state's Motor Vehicle Department.
Enhanced driver’s licenses, which are only issued in a couple of states, including Washington, Michigan, Minnesota, New York and Vermont, are considered acceptable alternatives to REAL ID-compliant cards, DHS says.
How do I know if I have a Real ID?
All Real IDs will have a stamp on the right hand corner to show that the identification document meets federal standards set forth by The Real ID Act of 2005.
The symbol stamped on your Real ID card will vary, depending on which state you obtain your new identification card from.
What does a Real ID look like?
Your Real ID will have most, if not all of the information that’s included on your driver’s license.
The only difference is the seal included in the right-hand corner.
Wednesday, May 15, 2024
Monday, May 13, 2024
Sunday, May 12, 2024
Saturday, May 11, 2024
Friday, May 10, 2024
Finally, (some) US dioceses are taking the pope's climate message seriously
Bishop John Stowe of the Diocese of Lexington, Kentucky, at a press conference April 23 announces a net-zero initiative to make the diocese one of the first in the U.S. to adopt such a commitment. At right is Adam Edelen, founder and CEO of Edelen Renewables. At left is Joshua van Cleef, director of the diocese's peace and justice office. (Courtesy of Diocese of Lexington)
BY NCR EDITORIAL STAFF
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April 30, 2024
Nine years after the publication of Pope Francis' encyclical "Laudato Si', on Care for Our Common Home," four years following the announcement of the Vatican-led Laudato Si' Action Platform and six months since the release of Francis' apostolic exhortation "on the climate crisis," Laudate Deum, Catholics in the United States are beginning to see the type of clear, tangible and decisive climate action for which the pope has called.
Catholics in the U.S. are also starting to see glimpses of the type of leadership and community promoted by the global synod process that Francis has identified as the way forward for the church today.
The latest encouraging news came from the Diocese of Lexington, in the middle of Kentucky coal country, when on April 23 Bishop John Stowe announced his diocese has committed to achieving net-zero emissions by 2030. As reported for EarthBeat by NCR environment correspondent Brian Roewe, they've assembled an 11-member task force of diocesan officials and business leaders of major industries in the area, including Toyota and Lexmark.
It's a bold goal from an unlikely region of the country, but the apparent enthusiasm surrounding the initiative goes to show what might be possible when leadership prioritizes climate issues and engages the community in pursuing solutions together. Some might even call it an exercise in synodality, an organizational process that rests on the type of mutual listening and collaboration many people weren't sure the U.S. church hierarchy was capable of practicing. And yet, it's precisely the approach demanded by an integral ecology that recognizes the connectedness of all creation and every facet of a community with a focus on the common good.
Stowe has long been a champion of such themes of the Francis papacy and here again strives to show others how it can be done. He said during the April 23 press conference, "On this day we take this important step forward because our Holy Father, Pope Francis, has invited us to take seriously the encyclical, the teaching, that he gave us back in 2015. … Pope Francis has picked up on [the teachings of] Francis of Assisi as an example of how humanity needs to work together to cross over all kinds of lines of separation and division, culture and every other way that we find to separate ourselves, and work together to preserve, protect and allow to flourish our common home."
Pope Francis listens during an ecumenical prayer vigil before the assembly of the Synod of Bishops in St. Peter's Square at the Vatican Sept. 30, 2023. (CNS/Vatican Media)
Stowe also called attention to the urgency of the issue, and the thus far large lack of attention from the U.S. church, noting that the pope's tone in 2023's Laudate Deum "was almost scolding in nature because not much has happened since 2015. … He says we're losing time. We have to begin to act."
Of the Lexington Diocese's decision to pursue a net-zero future, he added, "We're grateful to say we're gonna do this, and reduce our carbon consumption, our carbon footprint, and bring ourselves to net-zero, in a pretty short amount of time, because we only have a pretty short amount of time to make an impact in a lasting way on this world."
Adam Edelen, CEO and founder of Lexington-based Edelen Renewables, who will be partnering with the diocese on the net-zero initiative, said, "I think the real soul-building stuff here is that we can provide a roadmap for others who want to do the same thing."
And despite reports earlier this year that even some U.S. bishops themselves feel the U.S. church is failing on the pope's climate goals (an opinion NCR has also often expressed within our editorial pages), it does seem that at least some diocesan leadership is ready to rise to the challenge and might be interested in that roadmap.
In January, the Archdiocese of Chicago, led by Cardinal Blase Cupich, began to power its parishes and schools with 100% renewable energy and the Diocese of San Diego, led by Cardinal Robert McElroy, was the first diocese in the U.S. to divest from fossil fuels.
These are measurable, long-term and large-scale systemic changes to how Catholic dioceses operate in the United States that reflect a holistic approach to creation care beyond the ministry office. These initiatives require cooperation with the offices of facilities, finance, maintenance, human resources and more. They require input from experts in sectors outside religion, including energy, economics, sustainability, labor and business.
"It's one thing to talk about doing something. It's another thing to put something out there that you can be held accountable to and have measured for you," said Stowe of the Diocese of Lexington's net-zero plans.
And while the first U.S. diocese to commit to net-zero emissions is incredibly important news, it's that invitation for accountability and the implementation of a structure to follow through with it that may signify an even more important shift for the church in the U.S. today.
Westphalian Sovereignty
Westphalian Sovereignty
Westphalian sovereignty, sometimes known as state sovereignty, refers to the premise that each state possesses exclusive sovereignty over the territory that it controls.
TABLE OF CONTENT
Challenges to Westphalia
Defenders of Westphalia
The meaning of Westphalian
The principle is enshrined in the United Nations Charter, which states that it forms the basis of the modern international system of sovereign states and that it “shall not be infringed.”
“Nothing… shall give the United Nations the authority to intervene in matters that are fundamentally within the purview of the domestic jurisdiction of any particular state.
The concept maintains that every state, regardless of its size, possesses an equal claim to the freedom to exercise sovereignty. According to political scientists, the idea dates back to the Peace of Westphalia (1648), which put an end to both the Thirty Years’ War (1618–1648) and the Eighty Years’ War (1568–1648) The idea that one should stay out of other people’s business was refined during the 18th century.The Westphalian system reached its zenith in the 19th and 20th centuries, but in more recent times, it has come up against opposition from proponents of humanitarian intervention.
Challenges to Westphalia
Following the conclusion of the Cold War, there was a rise in international integration and, one could argue, a decrease in Westphalian sovereignty. A significant portion of the available literature was principally devoted to the criticism of realist models of international politics.
These are the types of models in which the concept of the state as a unitary agency is accepted as an axiomatic statement.In 1998, during a Symposium on the Continuing Political Relevance of the Peace of Westphalia,
NATO Secretary-General Javier Solana stated that “humanity and democracy [were] two principles that [were] essentially irrelevant to the original Westphalian order.” He also levelled the criticism that the original Westphalian order did not adequately account for human rights and democracy.
“The Westphalian system was not without its deficiencies.
To begin, the notion of sovereignty that it relied on likewise produced the framework for rivalry, rather than a community of states; moreover,
it produced the premise for exclusion, rather than integration.”
Tony Blair, then the Prime Minister of the United Kingdom, delivered a speech in Chicago in the year 1999 in which he “laid out a new, post-Westphalian,
‘Doctrine of the international community.'” Blair contended that globalisation had rendered the Westphalian method obsolete in this modern day.
After some time had passed,
The Daily Telegraph referred to Blair as “the man who brought in the post-Westphalian period.” Others have made the claim that the Westphalian system has been rendered obsolete as a result of globalisation.
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Defenders of Westphalia
In spite of the fact that the Westphalian system was initially formed in early modern Europe, its most ardent supporters can currently be found in non-Western countries. In a declaration issued together in 2001, the leaders of China and Russia made a solemn commitment to “Concepts such as “humanitarian intervention” and “limited sovereignty”
Can be used to combat efforts that are being made to undermine the fundamental rules of international law.
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The meaning of “Westphalian”
The European settlements of 1648 known as the Peace of Westphalia were responsible for bringing an end to both the German portion of the Thirty Years’ War and the Eighty Years’ War that had been raging between Spain and the Dutch. Beginning in the year 1644, the peace was negotiated in the cities of Münster and Osnabrück in the state of Westphalia.
The treaty between the Spanish and Dutch was signed on January 30th, 1648. The Holy Roman Emperor Ferdinand III, together with the other German princes, France, and Sweden, were all parties to the treaty that was signed on October 24, 1648.The only European powers that did not have a representative present at either of the two sessions were England, Poland, Russia, and the Ottoman Empire.
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The significance of the Treaty of Westphalia
Before one can begin to comprehend the importance of the Treaty of Westphalia, one needs to have a solid grounding in the background of the Protestant Reformation. A person who “protests” against the theology that is taught in Catholic churches is known as a Protestant. Martin Luther, a German theologian, was opposed to the doctrine as well as the practises of the Catholic Church.
As a result, he established his own denomination of Christianity, which is now known as Lutheranism. During the course of the following century, millions of Europeans abandoned the Catholic Church in favour of one of the numerous newly established Protestant faiths.
This movement resulted in a series of terrible conflicts across Europe between leaders of the Protestant and Catholic faiths.The most significant of these wars was the Thirty Years’ War, which took place between 1618 and 1648 and was fought mostly inside the boundaries of the Holy Roman Empire.
Conclusion
This is a term that is used in international affairs and is said to have originated from the Treaties of Westphalia in 1648, which put an end to the Thirty Years War. It is commonly understood to refer to a network of states or an international society that is made up of sovereign state entities that hold the monopoly on the use of force inside their own boundaries, which are acknowledged by each other.
The official diplomatic relationships that exist between the heads of state and governments are what are used to conduct international relations. International law is comprised of the treaties that are created (and broken) by the various sovereign entities that make up the world.
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Tuesday, May 07, 2024
Wake Up America...Wake Up World
No peace without the Prince of Peace
AUBREY L DUNCAN
MAY 07, 2024
Seeing with prophetic eyes
Paul Blanshard was one of the most outspoken, far-reaching critics of Catholic power in American society. He was an American author, public official, lawyer, and political activist. His uncompromising criticism, yea, exposure of the Catholic campaign to overtake America was met with ridicule and accusations of being anti-Catholic. He was assailed as a Catholic basher and trouble maker.
His book, American Freedom and Catholic Power, is perhaps his most comprehensive treatment of the impact, goals and objectives of Roman Catholicism in America. In it Blanshard not only delineates the focused determination of the church’s hierarchy to rule America, but he also sounded a clarion call for the nation to be more aware of the inroads of this most formidable foe of our civil and religious liberties. He writes: “There is no Catholic plan for America distinct from the Catholic plan for the world. The hierarchy’s techniques of promotion vary from country to country, but the masterplan is only one plan and the world-wide strategy is directed from Rome. In a catholic world every national government would establish the Roman Catholic Church in a unique position of privilege, and support its teachers and priests out of public revenues. This is what the Holy See has always demanded in every country where it has had the power to support the demand with reasonable strength” (Paul Blanshard, American Freedom and Catholic Power, pg.269-270).
Blanshard was certainly not the first to sound this alarm. Thomas Maley Harris, physician, politician, Army General and member of the military commission which tried the Lincoln Conspirators, emphasized the threats of the Roman Papacy to our blood-bought freedoms in his long-forgotten masterpiece, Rome’s Responsibility for the Assassination of Abraham Lincoln. Harris provided incontrovertible evidence that the Jesuit Order, the most cruel, unscrupulous, deceptive and powerful champions of popery, conspired to eliminate the one who engineered the end of the civil war and bequeathed to the nation tangible hopes of a more perfect union.
General Harris writes: “It [The Roman Papacy] is, in fact, only a compact, well-organized, and powerful political machine, wielded in the interest of the greatest despotism that has ever cursed the earth. "If any man have not the spirit of Christ he is none of His;" and if this organization has not the spirit of Christ, it is not a church of Christ. That it is not animated by the Christ spirit is clearly manifest”.
He continued: “It has never manifested the spirit of Christ in all of its past history, and so is not a Christian church at all; and as it has always been grasping after temporal power, and civil domination, and is now, as it always has been, laboring for civil supremacy all over the world, we are surely warranted in calling it a huge and dangerous political machine, that has stolen the livery of heaven to enable it the more effectually to serve the Devil; and the more easily to deceive and enslave mankind).
He concluded: “But are our institutions in danger from this foe? Have we any cause for alarm? Is it necessary that we should sound the trumpet throughout the length and breadth of our land, and muster the hosts of freedom for the conflict? Yes, my fellow countrymen; there is cause for alarm, there is real danger in the immediate situation” (Thomas M. Harris, Rome’s Responsibility for the Assassination of Abraham Lincoln, pg.). If there was a danger in Harris’ time, then today we are undoubtedly standing on the precipice of a catastrophe that neither mind can imagine nor pen portray.
The Biblical prophet Daniel foretold: “ And at that time shall Michael stand up, the great prince which standeth for the children of thy people: and there shall be a time of trouble, such as never was since there was a nation even to that same time: and at that time thy people shall be delivered, every one that shall be found written in the book” Daniel 12:1). It is not too difficult to conjecture that the world is on the brink of a stupendous crisis and the Roman power is involved in every aspect.
We are living in rather troublous times, aren’t we? There are wars and rumors of wars, earthquakes and tsunamis, pestilences, uncertain economic times, killings of innocent babies, moral declension, and a host of other atrocities too numerous to mention. The is exactly as our Savior predicted it would be just before He returns. But then He added: “All these are the beginning of sorrows” (Matthew 24:8).” In colloquial terms, “we ain’t seen nothing yet”. The worst is yet to come…but praise God, beyond that, the BEST is yet to come.
Sunday, May 05, 2024
Drastic Measures
Volume 43 Issue Five May 2024
Last Trumpet Ministries · PO Box 806 · Beaver Dam, WI 53916
Phone: 920-887-2626 Internet: http://www.lasttrumpetministries.org
“For if the trumpet give an uncertain sound, who shall prepare himself to the battle?” I Cor. 14:8
Drastic Measures
“But let man and beast be covered with sackcloth, and cry mightily unto God: yea, let them turn every one from his evil way, and from the violence that is in their hands. Who can tell if God will turn and repent, and turn away from his fierce anger, that we perish not?” -Jonah 3:8-9
The American people have many concerns in this modern age. In recent years, the cost of living has skyrocketed, inflation refuses to go away, the housing market is unaffordable, the national debt is soaring, a contentious election looms, there are wars in Europe and the Middle East, and bird flu is not only sickening birds but also cattle and other animals. However, if you read the news, it quickly becomes evident that the media, scientists, politicians, world leaders, and even religious figures such as Pope Francis believe the biggest concern on everyone’s mind should be climate change.
For his part, the leader of the Roman Catholic Church lashed out against climate skeptics in a recent television interview. “There are people who are foolish and foolish even if you show them research, they don’t believe it. Why? They don’t understand the situation or because of their interest, but climate change exists,” Pope Francis told CBS News. (1) On April 22, 2024, which was celebrated as Earth Day, the Pope doubled down on his message when he posted on X, “Our generation has bequeathed many riches, but we have failed to protect the planet and we are not safeguarding peace. We are called to become artisans and caretakers of our common home, the Earth which is ‘falling into ruin.’” (2)
In March 2024, after it had been reported that 2023 was the hottest year on record, United Nations Secretary-General Antonio Guterres proclaimed, “Earth’s issuing a distress call. Fossil fuel pollution is sending climate chaos off the charts.” He then insisted, “Changes are speeding up.” (3) Celeste Saulo, who is the Secretary-General of the World Meteorological Organization, also expressed her displeasure when she said, “I am now sounding the red alert about the state of the climate. 2023 set new records for every single climate indicator.” (4)
Saturday, May 04, 2024
Wednesday, May 01, 2024
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