Malachi Smith's List: VATICANITES

• Clive (13) had visions of monsters -- but the truth was even worse
• Haunting memories of a child protection worker

• By All names have been changed
   

  Friday August 22 2008
• The Occupational Therapy Unit at St Vitus's, an adult psychiatric hospital, was a long room with a dirty, vinyl floor and high windows, the lower panes of which were obscured by opaque plastic sheets.
• I was there to see a 13-year-old boy named Clive   Plummer. (All names have been changed). He had been committed due   to the terrible, demonic hallucinations he experienced after the death of   his mother.
• I had been asked to meet him by his sister, Roberta, whom I had been to   college with.
• She was convinced there was more to his apparent breakdown   than met the eye -- I wasn't so sure, but wanted to help her.
• Clive was in terrible physical shape -- thin, hollow-eyed and scarred from   self-harming. He wore an expression devoid of feeling, and sat perfectly   still, gazing unblinking into space.

• I extended my hand. 

   

    "Clive, my name's Shane. I'm a friend of Roberta's, and she's asked me   to come out and have a chat. I'm very pleased to meet you." 

• "I don't know you," he said tonelessly.  

   

    "I'm a friend of Roberta's." 
• "They sent you, didn't they?" he hissed at me, fighting to get   the words out.

• "Hey, relax, Clive. I promise you, I'm here because Roberta asked me   to come." 

   

    "You can't fool me," the boy hissed. "I've been waiting for   you. You're from them... I can tell." 
• "Who are they, Clive?" I asked, trying to calm him. "Who do   you think is trying to hurt you?"
• And then he was on top of me, knocking me backwards off the chair onto the   linoleum, screaming, spitting and snapping at me with shattered teeth.
• For a boy of his size, Clive was powerfully strong, and it took every ounce   of my weight and the momentum of our fall for me to roll over, so that I was   on top of him. Medical staff rushed over, a shot was administered, and poor   Clive was taken away.
• It took me several weeks to build up a relationship with Clive Plummer.
• Despite three visits accompanied by Roberta, the boy continued to be   cautious. Gradually, through perseverance, trust grew and he felt able to   tell me about the visions that haunted him.
• "I'm here, in the hospital, and it's night time," he began,   haltingly.
• "I'm the only one on the ward, and when I go to the door, it's open. I   walk out into the corridor. I know I shouldn't, but I keep going.
• I can see   a light away in the distance, and I can hear something, like voices praying   or chanting.
• "The sound sort of pulls me forward. As I get closer, I can see that   there's someone -- something -- standing at the end of the passage."
• His voice was cracking, as if his very being did not wish for him to   continue this narrative.
• "You don't have to tell me this if you don't want to, Clive," I   said quietly.

• "I need to. I have to tell someone." He looked at me, and the   terror was etched into every line in his face -- I thought, as I watched   him, that 13-year-old boys shouldn't have lines on their faces, but Clive   did.  

   

    "You believe me, don't you, Shane?" 

   

    "I know something awful happened to you, Clive."  
• I paused, squeezing his shoulder in an attempt to anchor him here with me,   with the smell of grass and trees and frozen earth. "What's at the end   of the corridor, Clive?"

• "One of them." 

   

    "Who? Who are they?" 

   

    "Not who. What." 

• "I don't understand." 

   

    "See, Shane, they're not men. Standing at the end of the hallway is   their leader.  
• "He's tall, much taller than you. His body is like a man, but the head   is like a goat or a bull.
• "It has horns and eyes like a cat, and smoke and fire come from the   nose when he breathes. The monster wants me back. In my dreams, he tells me   he's coming."

• I was in the office several days later when the call came from Roberta   Plummer. 

   

    "Clive's had an episode." 

   

    I paused in pushing a piece of paper into a plastic folder, the phone   cradled between my chin and shoulder.  

• "What kind of episode?" 

   

    A pause, then: "He attacked a nurse and almost killed her. He ... he   tried to rip her throat out. Scratched her with his nails. Broke her arm.   They said he almost tore her cheek off with his teeth."

• I went in to the hospital to see him immediately, and found him strapped to   his bed in great distress. 

   

    "You led them to me," Clive said, glowering at me from the bed. "You   tricked me into being your friend, and then you brought them here." 
• This visitor turned out to be a close family friend of the Plummers', Fr   Eddie, but when I spoke to him, he exuded sympathy and compassion for Clive.
• I learned that Clive's violence had occurred after a visit from a priest.
• He told me he was certain the nightmares and hallucinations were linked to   Clive's fascination with the occult, yet a second visit to Clive's home   revealed not a single Tarot card or book on witchcraft -- it didn't add up.
• I was no closer to learning why my client had regressed so badly.
• I found out a week later.
• On a visit to the hospital late one evening, I got talking to a cleaner, who   told me her name was Mildred. She was a handsome woman in her late sixties,   and we struck up a conversation over a hurried cigarette.

• During the course of our chat she mentioned that she knew Fr Eddie.  

   

    I raised an eyebrow. "How do you know him?" 

• She lowered her eyes, scuffing the ground with her toe like a child might. "Do   you know what a Magdalen is?" she asked. 

   

    "You mean the women who were in the Magdalen laundries?" I asked. 

   

    "Yes. I am -- I mean I was -- a Magdalen." 
• Magdelan laundries -- veritable prisons for so-called fallen women -- were   operated by different orders of the Roman   Catholic Church, most famously the Sisters of Mercy and the Good   Shepherd Sisters.
• "Fr Edward used to visit us in the Laundry," Mildred said. "Some   of the priests who came to see us were decent, but some were devils. He was   one of the worst."
• Fr Eddie had a history.
• He had been investigated for alleged abuses in   several parishes, and was said to have an obsession with the more mystical   and arcane side of the Catholic Church.
• As a priest told me: "Clive   Plummer may not be interested in the occult, but Fr Eddie most certainly is."

• It was too much of a coincidence. I decided to speak to the boy's father.   When I met him, he broke down.  

   

    "When my wife became ill, Fr Eddie asked her to attend some prayer   evenings at the presbytery," he said.  

• "I didn't realise until she'd been to a couple that they were actually   more a kind of pagan gathering. I think it was after the third or fourth one   she asked me if she could take him.  

   

    "She told me that Fr Eddie had told her that, because Clive was her   son, he'd amplify her natural energies, accelerate her healing.

  • New Age....
• Clive said   he'd be glad to go -- he was completely devoted to his mother -- and I   thought no more about it.
• "The boy was a bit reserved after some of the meetings, but he's a   teenager, I passed it off as adolescence.
• My wife admitted to me that there   was a sexual element to some of the ceremonies they performed, and that   perhaps this was stirring up some hormonal issues for Clive. I told her I   didn't want him witnessing anything inappropriate, but she laughed and told   me it was more imagery and suggestion than anything else.

• So I said no more   about it. I never thought for a moment she'd allow anything harmful to   happen to our son." 

   

    "But she did, didn't she?" I said. 

• "I didn't find out what they'd done to him until it was too late,"   Plummer said. "My wife was in hospital, by then, and knew she was going   to die. She wanted me to get Clive help.  

   

    "She realised what she had done was wrong, but she was desperate for a   cure. I can't be angry with her. Wouldn't it have been better for him to   have a mother? She thought that was what she was doing, you see. She was   trying to live." 
• "Mr Plummer," I said, unable to hide the disgust in my voice, "in   her effort to live, your wife almost killed her son. Your son."
• Fr Eddie flatly denied the allegations of abuse, almost challenging me to   bring any charges against him.

• "They've tried to put me away before, Mr Dunphy," he crowed. "It   didn't work then, and I don't think it'll work now. But feel free to try."

   

    I told him to be quite certain that I would make every effort to do just   that. 
• 'She thought it would make her get better, didn't she?" Clive said. "That   by doing those things, the cancer would go away." It had not been easy   to tell him, nor for him to understand what had happened.
• "I don't remember any of it," Clive said. The sedatives they were   pumping him full of had been reduced, but he was still a bit groggy.
• "All   I can see when I try to is the monsters. It's dark and they're all around   me, hurting me. Mum isn't there."
• "I think your mind created those nightmares, as strange as it might   seem, to protect you," Roberta said. "What happened was really,   really awful. I suppose being attacked by demons seemed better than ... than   what really did occur."

• Clive Plummer was taken off all medication shortly after his father finally   faced the truth, and was allowed to go home shortly after that.  

   

    Roberta took a career break, to help her brother cope with the reality he   had been forced to accept, and she and Clive are, to the best of my   knowledge, still in therapy. Clive's father died a year later.  
• The Roman Catholic Church has left a legacy that will continue to   reverberate through Irish society for many decades to come. It is a shameful   thing that they continue to duck and dive, and to harbour individuals they   know are a danger to children.

  • Roman Catholic Church...
• The man I based Fr Eddie on was, eventually,   prosecuted, on a lesser charge. He served 10 months, and is at large again,   now.

• Children and teenagers continue to be put in adult psychiatric facilities.   The need for child and adolescent beds has been highlighted countless times,   to no effect. 

   

    'Hush, Little Baby' is published by Gill & McMillan, €11.99 

   

  - All names have been changed

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• Olmert: Let Foreigners Help Change Status of Jerusalem
• by Tzvi Ben Gedalyahu
• (IsraelNN.com) Prime Minister Ehud Olmert has proposed to Palestinian Authority (PA) Chairman Mahmoud Abbas that the international community participate in helping to determine the status of Jerusalem.

  • "Revised" Roman Empire?
• He will meet with Abbas on Sunday, probably for the last time before Kadima party members go to the polls in less than three weeks to elect his replacement.
• The international community's role would be that of advisors, but would give it large media exposure in attempts to divide the city and make it a shared capital of both Israel and a new Arab country.
• Leaders of the European Union (EU) and other Western countries have suggested that Jews not have exclusive sovereignty over its holy sites in the city.
• Yasser Arafat, Abbas's predecessor, rejected a similar offer by then-Prime Minister Ehud Barak in 2000. His rejection of the proposal stemming from the Oslo Agreements helped spark the Oslo War, also referred to as the "second intifiada,"
• Prime Minister Olmert as recently as two years ago stated that Jerusalem is Israel's "undivided and eternal" capital, and the Shas party has said several times it will leave the coalition and topple the government if the status of Jerusalem is negotiated.
• However, the Prime Minister has successfully maneuvered negotiations around this obstacle while the Knesset remains out of session, and the media generally has avoided restraining him or questioning him or Shas on its previous promises.
• Technically, the agreement could allow Shas to claim that Prime Minister Olmert only is placing into effect a mechanism to discuss the status of Jerusalem in the future and that dividing the city is not being negotiated at the moment.
• Possible international monitors under consideration are Jordan, the Vatican, Egypt and the Quartet, which includes Russia, the United Nations, the United States and the EU.

  • The Vatican? Why?
• Prime Minister Olmert's proposal calls for a final status agreement to be reached within five years. If Abbas agrees, the deal could effectively bind the next government through international pressure.

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• Vatican Gives Nod to ETs
• by Paola Harris
    FATE :: September-October 2008
• On May 14, 2008, Father Gabriel Funes, the Jesuit priest who directs the Vatican’s observatory at Castel Gandolfo near Rome, declared: “As an astronomer, I continue to believe that God is the creator of the Universe. The search for extraterrestrial life does not contradict belief in God.”
• He added that some aliens might even be innocent of original sin.
• “How can we rule out that life may have developed elsewhere?” Funes said. “Just as we consider earthly creatures as ‘a brother,’ and ‘sister,’ why should we not talk about an ‘extraterrestrial brother’? It would still be part of creation.”
• When Funes calls the extraterrestrial “our brother or sister,” we are involved in some revolutionary thinking. That statement goes beyond saying that we are not alone in the Universe.
• To make this statement even more important, the newspaper Il Osservatore Romano, the official mouthpiece of the Vatican, released the interview. In the article, Funes stated, “Even if we don’t currently have any proof, the hypothesis of extraterrestrial life cannot be ruled out.
• “Just as there are a plethora of creatures on Earth, there could be others, equally intelligent, created by God.”
• With this statement, Funes echoes the words of Monsignor Corrado Balducci, a UFO researcher with many years in the field.
• Balducci is known to fellow researchers as the “unofficial” voice of the Vatican.

  • Monsignor Corrado Balducci
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• At UFO conferences in Italy, Monsignore Balducci, once Vatican Nuncio to Washington, D.C., presaged the words of Father Funes when he said: “All is possible. God created us to give praise to Him, as I imagine He created others species to do the same. How can God be glorified without a varied creation?”

  • Balducci was once Papal Nuncio to Washington DC...interesting connection.
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• For the past 15 years, I lived in Italy very close to the Vatican, and I often dined with Monsignor Balducci at his home.
• Balducci, who was also an expert demonologist, wanted to open the door to the Catholic study of ufology.

  • Apparently Balducci is the master of several trades....
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• Since he was never hindered in this pursuit by Vatican authorities, he felt they had given him their silent approval. With the proclamation of Father Funes, that approval is no longer silent.
• I often asked Balducci if he thought that some aliens were demonic. His answer was, “The devil does not need UFOs.”

  • Vatican coverup? SEE: Fr Malachi Martin and his "Windswept House" and "Keys of this Blood."
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• Balducci believes that over the last 150 years, the UFO phenomenon has appeared sequentially and with an increasing and spreading frequency.
• He made a strong distinction between this phenomemon and manifestations of the paranormal, such as Spiritualism.

  • I just bet he did.....To have the public convinced that UFOs and Et are actually fallen angels, demonic beings, would be to give it away too soon. Better to work to keep the connections between the two subjects as far apart as possible.
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• He believes adamantly there must be creatures between us and the angels on the evolutionary scale.
• Humans are at the bottom of the evolutionary ladder because we know the difference between good and evil, and often choose evil.

  • That is not what the Bible states if humanity; even after the Fall and the coming of original sin. The Vatican and it's crew claim to speak for God. Can they not speak accurately and correctly if they are going to speak at all?
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• These could be ETs.
• The Catholic Church will have a difficult time incorporating such beliefs into official dogma.

  • Oh, I feel sure they will find a way once the Devil's choice is ready to be coronated.
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• Maintaining official Catholic doctrine may be impossible in the face of an ET disclosure process. This is all unmapped territory.
• Unlike Father Funes, who says that humans may be the only creatures with original sin, Monsignor Balducci said in 2004 that Jesus died for the sins of extraterrestrials as well: “Jesus died for all beings in the cosmos.

  • Again a falsehood. The Bible does not say this at all. In fact: it states Christ died to redeem "Adam's seed."....not "ET's."
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• In the sacred Scriptures, He is called King of the Universe at least 66 times. Never underestimate the great mercy or compassion of God, whose grace and compassion surpass all.”

  • God is not forgiving of fallen angels, demons or their Leader
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• Father Funes asserts that original sin refers to the fallen state from which humans can be saved only by God’s grace.
• “If other intelligent beings exist, it’s not certain that they need redemption,” he said.
• “[They could] have remained in full friendship with their creator” without committing original sin. If not, extraterrestrials would benefit equally from the Incarnation, in which Jesus Christ, the Son of God, assumed earthly flesh, body, and soul in order to redeem humankind.
• Father Funes called the Incarnation “a unique event that cannot be repeated.”
• Father José Gabriel Funes has been named by Pope Benedict XVI as the new director of the Vatican Observatory.
• He will succeed a controversial American, Father George Coyne. Father Funes, an Argentine Jesuit, is already a member of the Vatican Observatory team.

  • A Jesuit
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• The Vatican Observatory was established by Pope Leo XIII in 1891 to advance astronomical knowledge and to demonstrate the Church’s support for the physical sciences.

  • Ain't that a 180?!
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• Originally it was located at Castel Gandolfo, near the Pope’s summer residence. In 1981, because of the smog that obscures viewing of the sky near Rome, the main observatory was moved to Arizona.

  • Nice of the Vatican to wheel it's "Observatory" over to Arizona, USA...
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• The scientific community and the church split more than four centuries ago as a result of the persecution of Galileo, who said that neither the Earth nor the Sun were situated in the center of the universe. In 1633, Galileo was tried for heretical beliefs and forced to deny his theory.
• The reconciliation between science and the church began in 1992 when Pope John Paul declared that Galileo’s trial was a “tragic mutual incomprehension.”
• Is the Vatican looking for ET? With two major observatories and the indication that it’s okay to believe in aliens, we can see hints of a revolutionary new policy...

  • I just be we do....!
  Add Sticky Note

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• Barry Chamish on Netanyahu
• From: matheis
     Added:  August 17, 2007
    

   

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    Notice what Barry has to say about Peres and the VATICAN at the end. -Matt

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• David Gibson

    

  Columnist
• A Catholic Court? Let the Arguments Begin
• Posted:

   

  10/4/09
• The new session of the Supreme Court of the United States opens Monday with a slate of important cases looming -- and a novelty that some worry is more than a historical curiosity:
• namely, with the addition of the newest justice, Sonia Sotomayor, six of the nine justices on the high court are . . . Roman Catholics.
• John Grisham, where are you? Do we need to call Dan Brown? Or has this issue already moved well beyond the realm of popular fiction? Some would say so.
• The five Catholic justices that Sotomayor joins -- Antonin Scalia, Clarence Thomas, Samuel Alito, Anthony Kennedy and Chief Justice John Roberts -- already represented a historic high, and now Catholics will comprise two-thirds of the bench.
• This is well out of proportion to the 24 percent or so of the general American population that is Catholic. The question is, does it matter?
• In a column penned after Sotomayor's nomination, Joyce Appleby, a distinguished historian emerita from UCLA, argued that because the Catholic Church has taken strong stands on issues such as abortion, gay marriage and the death penalty, "it raises serious questions about the freedom of Catholic justices to judge these issues."
• Her suggestion is that they ought to recuse themselves from such cases.
• "Surely ingrained convictions exert more power on judgment than mere financial gain," Appleby wrote in the Tallahassee Democrat. "Many will counter that views on abortion, same-sex marriage, and the death penalty are profound moral commitments, not political opinions. Yet who will argue that religious beliefs and the authority of the Catholic Church will have no bearing on the justices when presented with cases touching these powerful concerns?"
• There are counterarguments, to be sure.
• For one thing, the preponderance of Catholics on the high court today still leave Catholics underrepresented, historically speaking.
• All told, there have been 11 Catholic justices out of 108 in U.S. history, just 10 percent of the total.
• By themselves, Episcopalians and Presbyterians have accounted for 50 percent of all Supreme Court justices, even though, as of the year 2000, those two denominations accounted for less than 5 percent of the population.
• Unitarians have been most overrepresented, historically; and Jewish justices now account for two of the three non-Catholic seats on the high court -- a 22 percent share that is much greater than the 1.5 percent of the population that Jews would be accorded by proportion, and a higher percentage even than the current overrepresentation of Catholics.
• But few are citing those disproportionate numbers today, nor were there complaints in the past about having too many mainline Protestants on the high court.
• And if Catholics should recuse themselves from certain cases, why was this never an issue during the 150 years when there was generally just one Catholic justice? Theoretically, the principle would have applied all the same.
• Yet It seems likely that the Catholic question will continue to percolate during the coming term given the number of high-profile cases on the docket.
• Already, on Wednesday, the court will hear arguments in Salazar v. Buono, which will decide challenge to the presence of an eight-foot-tall cross on federal land in the Mojave National Preserve in California.
• The ruling by the justices is likely to have a lasting impact on the many controversial displays of religious symbols on public land around the country.
• In addition, cases regarding the regulation of executive compensation, the constitutionality of life sentences for juvenile offenders, and parental custody statutes will all reveal something about the beliefs and temperaments of the various justices.
• Add to that the fact that John Roberts is expected to start shaping the court even more vigorously as he enters his fifth year as chief justice, and Samuel Alito is also expected to begin putting his stamp on decisions; both men are conservative Catholics, and Alito replaced the more moderate Sandra Day O'Connor, the first woman to serve on the high court. (Sotomayor is only the third -- talk about underrepresentation!)
• But it is the numerical weight of Catholics that seems to spark the concern.
• In 2007, when all five Catholic justices voted in a 5-4 decision in Gonzales v. Carhart to uphold the constitutionality of a federal ban on late-term, or so-called partial-birth, abortions, University of Chicago Law School Professor Geoffrey Stone wrote a blog post, "Our Faith-Based Justices," arguing not only that the majority was dead wrong, but pinning the reason on their religion:
• "Here is a painfully awkward observation: All five justices in the majority in Gonzales are Catholic. The four justices who are either Protestant or Jewish all voted in accord with settled precedent. It is mortifying to have to point this out. But it is too obvious, and too telling, to ignore. Ultimately, the five justices in the majority all fell back on a common argument to justify their position. There is, they say, a compelling moral reason for the result in Gonzales."
• (Cartoonist Tony Auth also sparked controversy with a caricature of the five Catholic justices wearing bishops' miters.)
• And that morality, Stone argued, was based on their sectarian Catholic views.
• In the wake of Sotomayor's confirmation, Stone reprised his views in a Huffington Post essay, noting that his longtime friend Scalia had objected strongly to Stone's arguments. But Stone persisted, and tried to bolster his thesis while at the end admitting "none of this necessarily 'proves' anything."
• Scalia would no doubt agree with that last statement. He has for years protested that his faith has no impact on his decisions, nor should it:
  

   

  "There is no such thing as a 'Catholic judge,' " Scalia said in a 2007 speech. "The bottom line is that the Catholic faith seems to me to have little effect on my work as a judge. . . . Just as there is no 'Catholic' way to cook a hamburger, I am hard-pressed to tell you of a single opinion of mine that would have come out differently if I were not Catholic."
• In 2002, Scalia went so far as to argue that any Catholic judge who opposed the death penalty because they believed it to be immoral "would have to resign. . . . You couldn't function as a judge."
• Scalia speaks, as do Clarence Thomas and, to a certain extent, the other conservative Catholics on the bench, from the point of view of an "originalist," or one who argues that justices must decide cases only according to the original intent of the framers of the Constitution.
• (Originalism is an updated -- and some argue improved -- version of "strict constructionalism.")
• Divining the original intent can itself be a matter of debate, so some argue it is unrealistic to say there is a fixed and correct answer to every case that judges can call like an umpire.
• Cast in the opposing role is the concept of the "living Constitution,"-- that is, the view of the Constitution as a dynamic document that must be interpreted to meet evolving standards and new developments (such as what constitutes "cruel and unusual punishment," or when something is obscene, or whether racial segregation is illegal or abortion legal).
• This debate does have a clear "religious" parallel in that it underscores a common dynamic at play in both American jurisprudence and Roman Catholicism (as well as other faiths) -- that is, whether or how much the Constitution, in the first instance, and religious doctrine, in the second, can or should change.
• Arguments over whether churches should ordain openly gay clergy or permit same-sex marriage seem open-and-shut cases (in the negative) to religious "originalists," while those who embrace the notion of the "development of doctrine" note that Christianity has changed its teachings on slavery, usury, capital punishment, religious freedom and, in some cases, the ordination of women.
• Some Catholics might take one side (Scalia, e.g.) while others (perhaps Sotomayor) would have another view. In other words, there are Catholics and there are Catholics.
• How else to explain this coincidence: On April 16, 2008, the day Pope Benedict XVI arrived for a historic visit to the United States, during which he would repeat the church's opposition to capital punishment, the Supreme Court upheld the lethal injection method of execution and all five Catholic justices combined to back a decision that goes against Catholic teaching.
• This division between enforcing established principles and applying developing doctrine was at the heart of the "empathy" debate swirling around Sotomayor's nomination, and the propriety of her remarks that her experience as a "wise Latina woman" would lead her to reach different conclusions on cases than other justices. President Obama has also said he wanted to nominate justices with "empathy," who would understand the plight of the little guy in court cases.
• The "empathy argument" outraged many conservatives, who tend -- like Scalia et al. -- to be originalists who would oppose the "activism" that such feelings could lead to.
• Ironically, some conservatives are uneasy about justices checking their beliefs at the door, as that could lead to an affirmation of, for example, gay marriage as a matter of constitutionally protected equal protection rather than something barred by longstanding social custom and religious belief.
• In First Things, a conservative journal, Joe Carter argued recently that everyone has religious beliefs that influence their views, and so sectarian believers -- like Catholic Supreme Court justices -- should not retreat from invoking those specific beliefs.
• Otherwise, he wrote, "the result is that certain religious beliefs (e.g., those that are reductionist and based on materialism) are welcomed while others (any religion that relies both on general and special revelation) are excluded."
• In the end, the arguments from both sides as to whether the court is too Catholic, or the justices too strict in their rulings, or too empathetic, come down to where one stands politically, and where different people want to court to go, politically. That can include justices. And beyond the relatively few easy calls, the Constitution is what the justices say it is.
• That explanation doesn't satisfy everyone, however.
• On Sunday morning, in fact, at the Catholic cathedral of St. Matthew the Apostle in Washington, hundreds of lawyers and judges and politicians gathered for an annual rite called the "Red Mass," a service held on the Sunday before the opening of the Supreme Court session to invoke "God's blessings and guidance in the administration of justice under the power of the Holy Spirit."
• Last year at this time, Marci Hamilton, a legal scholar at Yeshiva University's law school and a lawyer who represents victims of sexual abuse by Catholic clergy, pointed up not only questions of "propriety" about the attendance of six Supreme Curt justices at the Red Mass (five Catholics and Justice Breyer, who is Jewish -- go figure) but also about the none-too-subtle influence the rituals could have on their minds, and ours.
• "The Red Mass is a public affair intended to reinforce the ties between government and the Church," she wrote.
• Alas, it was hard to figure out what was behind this year's agenda.
• Five Catholic justices were there, including Sotomayor. But Clarence Thomas was not. And Breyer came again!
• Vice President Biden was there, to boot, along with two Cabinet secretaries and hundreds of legal professionals. But in his homily at the Mass, Cardinal Daniel DiNardo of Galveston-Houston, the newest U.S. cardinal, preached about the scriptural example of adding "a tone of sympathetic understanding and a message of consolation" to legalistic pronouncements, and the duty to work for a "reversal of injustice and a merciful uplifting of the poor and those of no account."
• Formal, specialized legal knowledge, the cardinal said, "frequently becomes semi-mechanical and distancing."
• "A person can forget that the basis of that knowledge is something much more natural in the human condition, that the law and lawyers are around because justice among human beings is always an issue. There are always smoldering wicks and bruised reeds needing our human attention, an attention that cries out and says that even sophisticated, knowledgeable 'human' lawyers need reminding, need a purifying divine fire from the Lord, both in their personal lives and in their profession itself."
• That sounds suspiciously close to empathy. Maybe Sotomayor is the Catholic everyone should be worried about.

53 more annotations...

• Africa bishops speak of Obama in religious terms
• Oct 7 11:00 AM US/Eastern
    By DANIELA PETROFF
  Associated Press Writers
• VATICAN CITY (AP) - African bishops attending a Vatican meeting are speaking about the election of Barack Obama in divine terms—putting them very much at odds with many of their U.S. counterparts.
• Archbishop Gabriel Charles Palmer-Buckle of Accra, Ghana said Wednesday that there was "a divine plan behind" Obama's election.

  • That's for damned sure....
  Add Sticky Note
• "It's like the biblical story repeating itself," he told reporters, citing the Old Testament figure Joseph, who after being sold into slavery in Egypt ends up becoming a top official.
• "We believe God has his own plans. God directs history," he said of the U.S. election. "We pray that it (Obama's presidency) brings blessings for Africa and the whole world."
• He acknowledged that Obama has earned the wrath of many conservative American bishops because of his support for abortion rights. Earlier this year, dozens of U.S. bishops denounced the leading U.S. Catholic university, Notre Dame, for giving Obama an honorary degree.
• "We are definitely aware of it," Palmer-Buckle said. "But we feel it our duty to meet him and find out what are the things that unite us more than divide us."
• Earlier this week, the Ghanian prelate leading the three-week meeting on the Church in Africa, Cardinal Peter Kodwo Appiah Turkson of Cape Coast, Ghana, cited Obama's election in saying he didn't see any reason why there couldn't now be a black pope.
• And the archbishop of Kinshasa, Congo, Monsignor Laurent Monsengwo Pasinya, told the formal synod itself that it would be wise to not ignore what he called a "primordial event" in recent times.
• "If the election of a black as head of the United States of America was a divine sign and a sign from the Holy Spirit for the reconciliation of races and ethnic groups for peaceful relations ... this synod and the universal church would gain from not ignoring this primordial event of contemporary history which is far from being a banal game of political alliances," he said in his speech.

• Archbishop John Onaiyekan of Abuja, Nigeria gave more tangible reasons for praise in meeting with reporters.

  "Obama has the authority to talk straight to our bad leaders and tell them they are messing up our countries," he said. Besides, he added, "In Africa we are always happy when our brother is big."
• Associated Press reporter Nicole Winfield contributed to this report

11 more annotations...

• VATICAN   BACKS OBAMA'S GLOBAL AGENDA
• By Cliff Kincaid
    October 13, 2009
    NewsWithViews.com
• Some   pro-life Catholics are acting shocked that the Vatican warmly greeted   the awarding of the Nobel Peace Prize to President Obama, who is pro-abortion.
• They don’t seem to understand that the Vatican and Obama agree on   most major international issues.
• This is the untold story—how Obama   and the Vatican accept major ingredients of what has been called a New   World Order.

  • George Bush at the end of his last term in office became quite chummy with the Pope as well..
  Add Sticky Note
• Another   untold story is how, despite a disagreement over abortion, the U.S. Catholic   Bishops and the Obama Administration agree on major aspects of so-called   health care reform.
• These   topics are mostly taboo in the liberal and conservative media.
• Liberal   and conservative Catholics alike would prefer not to discuss how the Catholic   Church, here and abroad, functions like a liberal/left-wing political   lobby.
• But   the facts should not be much of a surprise.
• A majority of Catholics voted   for Obama, despite the fact that his pro-abortion record was well known,
• and when he was honored at Notre Dame, the premier Catholic University   in the U.S., only about one-third of U.S. Catholic Bishops publicly objected.
• The   Nobel Committee’s award to Obama has been viewed by many, on the   left and right, as a surprise. But it makes perfect sense.
• The committee   noted that Obama “has as President created a new climate in international   politics. Multilateral diplomacy has regained a central position, with   emphasis on the role that the United Nations and other international institutions   can play.”
• All of this is true. Obama has built up the power of   global institutions at the expense of the United States.
• While   the Vatican statement   congratulating Obama was also seen by some as a surprise, it too makes   sense.
• The Vatican expressed the hope that “this most important   recognition will ultimately encourage such a difficult but fundamental   commitment for the future of humanity, so that it might bring the expected   results.”
• The   “expected results” are evident when one considers that Pope   Benedict, the leader of 1.2 billion Catholics, had endorsed a “World   Political Authority,” a form of world government, in his recent   encyclical “Caritas in Veritate.”
• This world political authority,   in the Vatican view, is supposed to “manage the economy,”   bring about “timely disarmament,” and ensure “food,   security and peace.”
• However,   researcher Carl Teichrib points out in a   new study (PDF) that some Catholic writers are reluctant to face up   to the Vatican’s embrace of global government.
• On domestic   matters, it is frequently reported that the Roman Catholic Bishops in   the U.S. oppose the Obama health care plan. In fact, the bishops believe   that “health care is a basic human right,” which is the premise   of the Obama plan and it is driving the campaign to have the federal government   take over the health care sector.
• The   Bishops disagree with Obama on tax-funding of abortion, but on other matters—such   as health care for immigrants and the poor—the Bishops are to the   left of the plans introduced by Congressional Democrats.
• The   Bishops also agree with the Obama Administration and Congressional Democrats   on what is euphemistically called “immigration reform.”
• On   October 8, Catholic Cardinal Theodore McCarrick told   the Senate that a new bill should help bring illegal aliens “out   of the shadows” and give them permanent residency and citizenship.
• Such a bill figures to be one of the next major Obama initiatives.
• On the   matter of a cap-and-trade energy bill, which would raise energy prices   supposedly to combat global warming, the Catholic Bishops believe that   the U.S. should adopt “mitigation and adaptation” approaches   that mean “shifting behavior now to adjust to the near-term impacts   of climate change.”

  • For one: the American people per the old United States and it's Constitution have been nurtured in the principles of representative government and freedom of the individual with a participation in that government and a say in the laws of the land; whereas the Roman Catholic Church has been for centuries and still is an hirearchy of priest noblemen with an religious monarchy headed by the "Roman" style emperor/Pope.
  Add Sticky Note

• The Bishops explain   that “Mitigation means cutting back on the emissions of harmful   global warming pollutants and taking action to prevent further harm to   the atmosphere.”

   

  Again,   this is the Obama Administration position.
• The   Bishops have launched a “Climate   Change Justice and Health Initiative” that promotes “legislative   action,” including “the transfer of such technologies and   technical assistance that may be appropriate and helpful to developing   countries in meeting the challenges of global climate change.”
• This,   too, is accepted and being promoted by the Obama Administration.
• On the   controversial matter of what to do in Afghanistan, left-wing pressure   is being applied on the Obama Administration by Pax Christi, a Catholic   group which insists that the U.S. military presence has “fueled   the spiral of violence and further destabilized the region.”
• It   says that the solution lies in “reducing the U.S. military footprint”   and favors ending the use of air strikes and drones on terrorist targets.   Its “solution” is more diplomacy and foreign aid.
• On an   equally serious matter, Iran’s pursuit of nuclear weapons, Dave   Robinson, executive director of PaxChristi USA, recently signed   a letter endorsing “the administration’s intent to engage   Iran diplomatically…”
• Robinson favors more talking with Iran,   not more sanctions and certainly not military action against the fanatical   regime.
• What’s   interesting is that you find the same Catholic personnel working on domestic   and foreign policy issues.
• For   example, the executive committee on the Pax Christi national council includes   figures such as Donna   Toliver Grimes, a “Poverty Education and Outreach Manager”   for the bishops who also serves on the staff of the Catholic Campaign   for Human Development (CCHD).
• This is the entity that has poured millions   of dollars into ACORN and related organizations over the years. Funding   of ACORN was recently suspended because of corruption allegations.
• In an   October 2 memorandum   (PDF), Bishop Roger P. Morin acknowledged that the CCHD had also been   funding several groups promoting public policy positions in violation   of Catholic moral teaching.
• These were groups promoting homosexual rights   and abortion. Morin claimed that the funding had been cut off.
• However,   Bellarmine Veritas Ministry, which uncovered the scandal, says   that Morin’s response is unsatisfactory and “factually deficient   in several areas.”
• In response   to one   of my previous columns on the Catholic connection to ACORN, a conservative   Catholic blog called CatholicCulture.org   agreed with my point that some in the media are reluctant to raise the   issue because they fear being accused of having an anti-Catholic bias.
• The blog said, however, that the matter must be thoroughly probed because   while funding for ACORN has been suspended, the ties that CCHD has to   other radical groups remain.
• My column   also noted evidence that Obama’s community organizing days in Chicago   began in an organization funded by the Catholic Church.
• This   has been confirmed by several sources.
• Obama “worked in several   Catholic parishes, supported by the Catholic Campaign for Human Development,   helping to address severe joblessness and housing needs in economically   disadvantaged neighborhoods of Chicago,” noted the group calling   itself Catholic   Democrats.
• Another group, Catholics   for Obama, says that “President Barack Obama reflects core values   of Catholic Social Teaching, which informs how we live our faith in the   world.”
• The   president of Catholic Democrats, Patrick Whelan, serves on the board of   Catholics for Obama and as co-director of Pax Christi in Massachusetts.
• In the   newsletter   (PDF) of Pax Christi Massachusetts, Whelan writes about flying to Chicago   in May of this year, “where I attended a reunion of Catholic Priests   and community activists who hired a young Barack Obama in 1985.”
• Whelan says that Obama, in his book, Dreams from My Father, “created   a character named Marty Kaufmann, based on two real-life community organizers   who attended this gathering on May 16, 2009.”
• Whelan   also writes about Obama’s meeting with the Pope.
• “Overall,”   he says, “it was clear that the common ground between the US Government   and the Holy See—on poverty, the environment, international armed   conflict and peace in the Middle East—far outweighed their differences.”
• ©   2009 Cliff Kincaid - All Rights Reserved

• Cliff Kincaid,   a veteran journalist and media critic, Cliff concentrated in journalism   and communications at the University of Toledo, where he graduated with   a Bachelor of Arts degree.

   

  Cliff has written or co-authored   nine books on media and cultural affairs and foreign policy issues. One   of Cliff's books, "Global   Bondage: The UN Plan to Rule the World" is still awailable.

   

  Cliff has appeared on Hannity &   Colmes, The O’Reilly Factor, Crossfire and has been published in the Washington   Post, Washington Times, Chronicles, Human Events and Insight.  

   

  Web Site: www.AIM.org
   
    E-Mail: cliff.kincaid@aim.org

49 more annotations...

• Satan in the Vatican
• TheSixStringRevolver
    October 02, 2008
• Malachi Martin was no ordinary catholic priest. He was an exorcist for 30 years and the advisor to two popes. In this interview he says satan is now in the vatican.

2 more annotations...

• VATICAN-ANGLICANS (SECOND UPDATE) Oct-20-2009
• Pope establishes structure for Anglicans uniting with Rome
  
• By Cindy Wooden
   Catholic News Service
• VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Pope Benedict XVI has established a special structure for Anglicans who want to be in full communion with the Roman Catholic Church while preserving aspects of their Anglican spiritual and liturgical heritage, said U.S. Cardinal William J. Levada.
• The cardinal, prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, said a new apostolic constitution would establish "personal ordinariates" -- similar to dioceses -- to oversee the pastoral care of those who want to bring elements of their Anglican identity into the Catholic Church with them.

  • The "Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith" is the modern title of the Medieval "Inquisition", so some have claimed
  Add Sticky Note
• Anglican priests who are married may be ordained Catholic priests, but married Anglican bishops will not be able to function as Catholic bishops in keeping with the long-standing Catholic and Orthodox tradition of ordaining only unmarried clergy as bishops, Cardinal Levada said.
• The cardinal announced the new arrangement at a press conference Oct. 20 at the Vatican.
• He said the pope's apostolic constitution and norms for implementing it were undergoing final revisions and would be published in a couple of weeks.
• In establishing the new jurisdictions, Pope Benedict is responding to "many requests" submitted by individual Anglicans and by Anglican groups -- including "20 to 30 bishops" -- asking to enter into full communion with the Catholic Church, the cardinal said.
• At the same time, Cardinal Levada said the new provision does not weaken the commitment of the Vatican to promoting Christian unity, but is a recognition that many Anglicans share the Catholic faith and that Anglicans have a spiritual and liturgical life worth preserving.
• "It has always been the principal aim -- the principal aim -- to achieve the full, visible unity" of the Catholic Church and Anglican Communion, the cardinal said.
• But given recent changes within many Anglican provinces with the ordination of women priests and bishops and the acceptance of homosexuality in some areas, the prospect of full unity "seemed to recede," he said.
• The church recognizes and welcomes those Anglicans who fully share the Catholic faith, agree with the Catholic view that only men can be ordained priests and recognize the role of the bishop of Rome -- the pope -- as the sign and guarantor of church unity, he said.
• At a press conference in London Oct. 20, Anglican Archbishop Rowan Williams of Canterbury, head of the Anglican Communion, and Archbishop Vincent Nichols of Westminster, president of the Catholic Bishops' Conference of England and Wales, issued a joint statement saying the new provisions are a recognition of "the substantial overlap in faith, doctrine and spirituality between the Catholic Church and the Anglican tradition."
• "Without the dialogues of the past 40 years, this recognition would not have been possible, nor would hopes for full visible unity have been nurtured," the two leaders said.
• Archbishop Williams told reporters that some members of the Church of England are uneasy about positions their church is taking, yet they would not want to become Roman Catholic.
• "This will not resolve their challenges, and we in the Church of England have to continue to engage with that," he said.
• Cardinal Levada told reporters he met personally Oct. 19 with Archbishop Williams, who had been told about the new arrangement a month earlier.
• In a letter to top Anglican leaders, Archbishop Williams said, "In the light of recent discussions with senior officials in the Vatican, I can say that this new possibility is in no sense at all intended to undermine existing relations between our two communions or to be an act of proselytism or aggression. It is described as simply a response to specific inquiries from certain Anglican groups and individuals wishing to find their future within the Roman Catholic Church."
• "For those who wish to enter into full communion with the Roman Catholic Church in the near future, this announcement will clarify possible options, and we wish them God's strength and guidance in their discernment," the Anglican leader said.
• Cardinal Levada also said Cardinal Walter Kasper, president of the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity, had been informed about the pope's decision.
• Asked Oct. 15 about the possible entrance of groups of former Anglicans into the Catholic Church, Cardinal Kasper said, "We are not fishing in the Anglican lake; proselytism is not the policy of the Catholic Church. But if there are people who, obeying their consciences, want to become Catholic, we cannot shut the door."
• U.S. Archbishop J. Augustine Di Noia, secretary of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Sacraments and former undersecretary of the doctrinal congregation, spoke at the press conference with Cardinal Levada.
• "We have been praying for unity for 40 years. We find now that the prayers we have had are being answered in a way that we did not anticipate. So the Holy Spirit is at work here and the Holy See cannot not respond," the archbishop said.
• In 1993 the Catholic bishops of England and Wales asked the Vatican not to implement special structures for former Anglicans in their country, saying that the formation of Anglican-identity Catholic parishes would only further fracture the Christian community and would make the eventual unity of the Catholic Church and Anglican Communion more difficult.
• Participants in the Anglican-Roman Catholic dialogue also have expressed concern in the past that the movement of Catholics to the Anglican Communion is making the Anglican Communion more liberal, while the movement of Anglicans to the Catholic Church is making the Catholic community more conservative.
• Archbishop Di Noia said, "The ecumenical movement has changed. There has been a tremendous shift" in the prospects for full, complete union.
• Many Anglicans already consider themselves to be Catholic, Archbishop Di Noia said, and the pope's new initiative will make "explicit the bond that is already implicit."
• In 1980 the Vatican made a special pastoral provision for members of the Episcopal Church, the U.S. province of the Anglican Communion, who wanted to become Catholic after the Episcopalians began ordaining women priests. The provision included permission for entire parishes of former Episcopalians to use elements of their liturgy in the Catholic Mass.
• Archbishop Di Noia said only a handful of parishes took advantage of that special permission, and in 2003 the Vatican approved "The Book of Divine Worship" for their liturgical use.
• But he said many of those now seeking communion with Rome wanted a stronger affirmation of their Anglican heritage and a guarantee that it would continue to have a place in the Catholic Church, which is why the pope ordered the establishment of personal ordinariates.
• The number of ordinariates and their headquarters will be determined by the number of Anglicans seeking full communion,
• The head of each ordinariate will be a former Anglican clergyman, who will not necessarily be ordained a Catholic bishop.
• New priests for the ordinariates will study in seminaries with other Catholic seminarians, but an ordinariate can "establish a house of formation to address the particular needs of formation in the Anglican patrimony," Cardinal Levada said.
• In general, married Anglican priests and bishops who become Catholic will be ordained Catholic priests, as will married Anglican seminarians, he said.
• But an unmarried man ordained a Catholic priest will not be permitted to marry, and the pope's apostolic constitution will state a clear preference for a celibate clergy, Archbishop Di Noia said.
• Cardinal Levada told reporters that he realizes "for some people it seems to be a problem" that the Vatican is allowing married former Anglicans to be ordained Catholic priests, but will not allow Catholic priests who have left to marry to return to ministry.
• "They are two different circumstances," the cardinal said. Respecting "the authenticity of the call to service" of Anglican clergy who were married when they came to the decision to become Catholic is different from the case of "a Catholic who knowingly commits to a celibate priesthood and then decides for different reasons to leave the priesthood for married life."
• "I do not think it is an insurmountable problem," Cardinal Levada said, adding that the church needs to educate Catholics that the dispensation for former Anglican clergy is an exception and that the church continues to uphold the virtue of celibacy.

37 more annotations...

• Operation Rat Line (1 of 3)
• eyespyonU2B
    July 22, 2007
• How Nazi war criminals escaped into Argentina after WWII. It was a massive operation that only one entity could've pulled off

2 more annotations...

• Operation Rat Line (2 of 3)
• eyespyonU2B
    July 22, 2007
• How Nazi war criminals escaped into Argentina. It was a massive operation that only one entity could've pulled off.

2 more annotations...

• Operation Rat Line (3 of 3)
• eyespyonU2B
    July 22, 2007
• How Nazi war criminals escaped into Argentina after WWII. It was a massive operation that only one entity could've pulled off.

2 more annotations...

• Black cardinal in pole position to be next pope
• Published Date:   25 October 2009 

   

  By John Marks in Vatican City
• POPE Benedict has appointed a Ghanaian cardinal to one of the most influential jobs in the Vatican, increasing the possibility that the next pontiff might be a black man.
• He named Cardinal Peter Kodwo Appiah Turkson, of Cape Coast, Ghana, to head the justice and peace commission, a position roughly equivalent to justice minister.
• Turkson, 61, Ghana's first cardinal, becomes only the second African to head the body,

  ADVERTISEMENT

   

    <!-- begin Dart Banner html tag --> <script language="JavaScript" type="text/javascript">  var adPos = 0;  if (top != self)  {  try { adPos = parent.GetNextAdNum(); } catch(err) { adPos = parent.parent.GetNextAdNum(); }  }  else  {  adPos = GetNextAdNum();  }   document.write('<script undefined language="JavaScript" src="http://ad.uk.doubleclick.net/adj/scotlandonsunday.scotsman.jp/international;channel=editorial;tile='+adPos+';pos=mpu;sectionid=7000;sz=300x250;mtfIFPath=/template/expandables/;' + (typeof(segQS) != "><\/script>');  </script><script language="JavaScript" src="http://ad.uk.doubleclick.net/adj/scotlandonsunday.scotsman.jp/international;channel=editorial;tile=5;pos=mpu;sectionid=7000;sz=300x250;mtfIFPath=/template/expandables/;ord=730389046?" type="text/javascript"></script>  <!-- End Dart Banner html tag --> 

   

  which advises the Pope and the Vatican on justice issues and prepares documents on topics such as human rights, immigration and law.
• He has just completed a high-profile stint as the relator, or secretary-general, of the three-week synod on Africa that ends on Sunday, and has been tipped in Church circles to be a strong candidate for the papacy after the death of Benedict.
• Turkson's new appointment will give him increased visibility in the Roman Catholic Church and around the world.
• The Catholic Church is growing faster in Africa than on any other continent
• and Turkson has years of experience in relations with Islam, an attribute that should stand him in good stead for a shot at the papacy.
• He was born in Ghana and educated there as well as in the United States.
• At the start of the synod three weeks ago, Turkson was asked if, after Barack Obama became the first black US president, the next pope could be an African. He answered: "Why not?"
• There have been only two African popes in the history of the Church, the last in the fifth century.
• Page 1 of 1
      
   
        
   
  •   Last Updated:   24 October 2009 8:06 PM 
   
  •     Source:   Scotland On Sunday   
   
  •   Location:   Scotland 

• Tatties ower the side,

  Johannesburg 25/10/2009 05:01:36 

   

  Just look for the puff of black smoke......

• drunken proffet,

  Tassy 25/10/2009 07:19:16 

   

  It sounds a fair and sensible deal, however if I was black in skin colour, plus a Cardinal in Rome, I would naturally ask myself. "Is there something they are maybe not telling me".

• Hugh McLoughlin,

  Scotland 25/10/2009 10:38:24 

   

  John Marks states that as the newly appointed Cardinal President of the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, His Eminence Peter Kodwo Appiah Turkson -- Kodwo in his native Fante means "Monday", the day of the week upon which he was born -- will occupy “one of the most influential jobs in the Vatican” and that this is a position “roughly equivalent to justice minister”.
  
  Both of these assertions are, quite frankly, utter nonsense.
  
  Taking the second assertion first and according to the words there usual meanings this would imply that Cardinal Turkson now occupied a position “roughly equivalent”, to use John Marks’s own phrase, to Kenny MacAskill in Scotland, or to a combination of Jacqi Smith and Jack Straw at Westminster, or to Eric Holder the Attorney General of the United States.
  
  Had Marks even conducted the most cursory research he would quite easily have found out that used in this context “Justice” has nothing to do with law and order and nor shall Cardinal Turkson have any responsibility for advising “the Pope and the Vatican on justice issues” in sort of jurisprudential meaning and if he does find himself dealing with “documents on topics such as human rights, immigration and law” it will be in support of the Holy See’s efforts in aid of the most oppressed of this world, economic migrants and other asylum seekers, most likely in conjunction with the Holy See’s representatives before international bodies such as the UN or at international conferences
  
  As to the first assertion, in order of importance the Secretariat of State is the most important curial dicastery, as each office of the governance of the Holy See is known, and the Cardinal Secretary of State, currently His Eminence Tarcisio Cardinal Bertoni, is the Pope’s principal adviser. After the Secretariat of State there are nine Congregations, each headed by a Cardinal Prefect. There are then three Tribunals, two of which rank higher in importance than any Pontifical Council: namely the Ap

• Hugh McLoughlin,

  Scotland 25/10/2009 10:40:07 

   

  (continuing the above)
  There are then three Tribunals, two of which rank higher in importance than any Pontifical Council: namely the Apostolic Penitentiary and the Apostolic Signatura. These, then, are the twelve top ranking dicasteries whose Prefects must be Cardinals or, if they are not when appointed, they must be elevated to the Sacred College at the earliest possible opportunity.
  
  There then follow the Councils, of which there are eleven. In the Apostolic Constitution Pastor Bonus, Justice and Peace comes fourth in the list, after the Councils for the Laity, Promoting Christian Unity, and the Family. With the exception of the Council for Social Communication, the Presidents of the Councils are usually Cardinals, either upon appointment or they are elevated at some point thereafter, but not necessarily soon thereafter never mind at the first opportunity.
  
  I don’t know of any self-respecting, self-proclaimed Vaticanologist who would talk in terms of any Cardinal having “a shot at the papacy”. But then I also do not know of any purported Vaticanologist who would so embarrass himself and his publication by failing to check his facts before publishing such a silly error as that by which John Marks concludes his piece.
  
  He states that there have been “only two African Popes in the history of the Church”. According to the Liber Pontificalis ? but you only have to refer to Google ? it would seem likely that there have in fact been three, all hailing from North Africa, from the Maghreb, basically modern day Algeria, Mauretania, Numidia and Tunisia.
  
  These Popes were: Saints Victor, the first Latin-speaking Pope, circa 186-198ad; Miltiades, 311-14ad, and; Gelasius, 492-96ad. It is thought that each of these was an ethnic North African ? although Miltiades and Gelasius might very well have been born in Rome ? and so probably Berber and hence brown, not black, skinned. So, yes, Cardinal Turkson might very well become the first black Pope.

15 more annotations...

• My Health
• My Health
• My Health
• My Health
• My Health
• IMPORTANT STATEMENT ABOUT MY PHYSICAL AND MENTAL HEALTH!
• by Wes Penre, Friday April 24, 2009, 8:30 PM
• I want you to know that at the end of February 2009, I had a very thorough physical exam. The doctor said I am in excellent physical health and have a heart of a 25 year old. All lab tests and other tests came back normal. Liver, kidneys, all vital organs are in perfect shape. There is no reason why I should get seriously ill or having a heart attack or stroke in the near future.
• I am a happy person, mentally stable and have never ever considered suicide; that would be totally against my nature and beliefs!
• Therefore, I want the reader to know that if I “disappear” or something happens to me, it’s not because of ’sudden life-threatening illness’ or suicide on my part – it’s most probably murder.
• I intend to have regular physical exams due to the nature of what I am publishing, and if my health would deteriorate in any shape and form I will let my readers know, because I don’t want people to think it’s murder either, if it’s not.
• Again, due to the nature of what I am exposing, being aware that it is a dangerous task, I am extra careful. It is highly unlikely that I would be involved in a fatal accident.
• In addition, I am not, and have never been, accident prone.
• I will never abruptly discontinue this blog without first notifying my readers. If it’s gone from one day to another, someone forced it to happen.

  • As happened to Robert Howard of "Wake Up America"
  Add Sticky Note
• I have taken actions so that if someone forces this blog off the Internet, I have other people who have it all downloaded and will set it up in three new different places within 24 hours from the time when it was taken down, but will just use another wordpress or blogsite account . That way the information will be out there whatever happens to me.

• Disclaimer: If I ever pull this blog off the Internet, it is never because of threats against me, and like I said, I will always notify my visitors first.

   

  Thank you,
   Wes Penre
• 2 responses
•   Avenueoflight (18:26:22) :    
     

   

  Thanks again Wes for the link and your work for the Lord. Check this out!
• ATTENTION ATTENTION ATTENTION
   MOVIE 2012
• Being placed before your very eyes are the factual truths our Lord warned us about. He foretold these endtime events to ‘prove’ He alone is God; He alone makes known the future endtime events.
• This movie along with all the other same direction hype; securely plant in the minds and hearts of men that GOD is fully to blame when these meteorites//stars start falling upon the Earth; creating Earthquakes and Tsunami’s UNlike anything man has ever seen or ever will again.
• I assure you that the Katholic Institution has professed and proclaimed this//these events since 1917; it is in FACT, “man” (Jesuits) who have created, and thus brings forth all this devastation and “BLAMES” God!
• This is the same as when HE was crucified. Thus, securring the next and final Pope’s throne in Jerusalem… Mary shall declare this unto the whole world that it is essential; man worship traditional Catholocism or be killed(CONVERT OR DIE)!
• No one is uttering a word about this???????????? This is the hottest news on Planet Earth…
• None even see that they are putting it in your face what they are about to do. They blame God! But remember Jesus Words:
   Revelation 11:18
   And the nations were angry, and thy wrath is come, and the time of the dead, that they should be judged, and that thou shouldest give reward unto thy servants the prophets, and to the saints, and them that fear thy name, small and great; and shouldest destroy them which destroy the earth.
• The Katholic Church has set forth since 1917 telling everyone this is “The Great Chastisement;” they will blame GOD for this claiming HE is angry against man. It “IS” a total lie!
• Notice the Tsunami at the end? Possibly from the mountain sized planetary fallout (Star) named: (WORMWOOD)!
   opening date (of this movie)?
• This “IS” EXACTLY what the Scriptures teach is going to happen.
• They have a lottery listed for the winner to be taken underground during the cataclysmic event!!!!! WAKE UP! WAKE UP WAKE UP!
• Myrddin (16:36:14) :    
     

   

  Hi Wes

   

  I am glad to hear you are in good health, that was a smart thing to do.

   

  Thank you so much for your work both in the past and now. I could feel something amist for sometime and had searching the internet for the likes of this story, and at last have found a story with more then just sepculation.

   

  After reading the book I of course checked all the companies involved with Supriem direct or indirectly, in doing I found what I consider Red Flag pop up on several companies not listed in the book.

   

  Anyway my friend Thank You again for your work and take care

   

  Myrddin

28 more annotations...

• A Woman Rides the Beast - Dave Hunt
• BereanBeacon
    August 04, 200
• Are you missing half the story about the last days?
  Most of the discussion of the end times focuses on the coming Antichrist - but he is only half the story.
• Many are amazed to discover in Revelation 17 that there is also another mysterious character at the heart of prophecy - a woman who rides the beast.
• Who is the woman? Tradition says she is connected with the church of Rome.
• But isn't such a view outdated? After all, today's Vatican is eager to join hands with evangelicals [unchanging Rome has changed again] and all religions worldwide.
• "The Catholic church has changed." is what we hear. Or has it?
• In "A Woman Rides the Beast", biblical truth and global events present a well - defined portrait of the woman and her powerful place in the Antichrist's future empire.
• At least ten remarkable clues in Revelation 17 and 18 prove the woman's identity beyond any reasonable doubt.
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     Hi braves, great thanks, I think there is a big difference between what Saul did & what the Church has done for 2000 years. Heb 12 shows that the saints are watching what we are doing from Heaven, Eph 2v6 says that God has seated us with HIm in heavenly places. Things have changed from OT days. 
• Identifing the Early Church by Richard Bennett - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=cbC9I0...
• THE INQUISITION - http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=Rx8Pdv... .
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     hello paul...how are you? i am not saying that Christians that have passed from this life to the next are dead, i am using the word dead as in they are no longer physically with us on the earth, thus i used the old testament to state how God despised the talking to the dead.(no longer with us physically) Remember that saul talked with samuel from his grave and asked him why he did so. (he shouldnt have). I dont remember anywhere in the Bible that states to pray to any passed on saints. 
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• Pope John Paul II 'whipped himself in remorse for sins'
• Pope John Paul II regularly whipped himself in a sign of "remorse for his   sins", a nun has claimed.
• By Nick Pisa in Perugia
      Published: 6:00AM GMT 23 Nov 2009
•  

    Pope John Paul II   Photo: AFP/GETTY
• The Pope, who died five years ago, is being considered for sainthood by the Catholic Church.
• As part of the Vatican's investigation thousands of documents have been collected and examined by officials from the Congregation for the Causes of Saints.
• Among them is the testimony of Tobiana Sobodka, a Polish nun of the Sacred Heart of Jesus order, who worked for Pope John Paul in his private Vatican apartments and at his summer residence in Castel Gandolfo near Rome.
• Sister Sobodka said: "Several times he (Pope John Paul) would put himself through bodily penance.
• "We would hear it – we were in the next room at Castel Gandolfo. You could hear the sound of the blows when he flagellate himself. He did it when he was still capable of moving on his own."
• The flagellation is also confirmed by another bishop who has given testimony. Emery Kabongo was a secretary for Pope John Paul.
• "He would punish himself and in particular just before he ordained bishops and priests," he said.
• "I never actually saw it myself but several people told me about it."
• Self flagellation is sometimes used by devoted Catholics as it reminds them of the whipping endured by Christ at the hands of the Romans before he was crucified.
• It is still common in the Philippines and Latin America, some members of strict monastic orders and some members of the lay organisation Opus Dei – who feature in the Dan Brown blockbuster The Da Vinci Code.
• A Vatican spokesman said: "The investigation and documentation is still secret and as such we can make no comment on it until the final report is published.
• "I know that the nun in question has returned to Poland and she would have spoken with the Congregation as she was with an order that worked in the apartments of Pope John Paul."
• The Congregation for the Causes of Saints has been investigating the case for Pope John Paul since he died and has approved the late pope's "heroic virtues" and the paperwork has been sent to his German successor.
• The late Polish pope's beatification is expected to take place sometime next year, perhaps in April, to coincide with the fifth anniversary of his death or in October to coincide with his election in 1978.

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• Confirmation: Europe's New President is a Jesuit! Video Interview with David Icke on the EU
• 2009 11 23
• Ed Comment: This is confirmation on what we talked with David Icke about regarding the Symbolism and Roots of the European Union. Catholicism and the Vatican are at the heart of the EU. See our interview with David Icke below for more on this. Read the full article below the video. Please spread this article and video far and wide.
• Apart from his fondness for haikus, and his giggle-inducing name, it's hard to think of anything interesting to say about Herman Van Rompuy, the first president of the European Council.
• In fact, the whole point of the Belgian's election was the avoidance of color and interest: they were looking for a low-profile eurocrat with a record of patiently building relationships, one whose focus was internal rather than external.
• As the Economist points out: "For all his merits, Mr Van Rompuy’s main experience of an international dispute as prime minister is the Belgo-Dutch row over the dredging of the River Scheldt."
• But one interesting thing about Mr Van Rompuy is his Catholicism, about which he makes no bones.
• He was educated (drumroll, s'il vous plaît) by Jesuits in Brussels, went onto the Catholic University of Leuven, and in the 1980s wrote a book about Christendom as a modern idea.
• He is, in short, a bearer of the torch first lit by the Catholic architects of European unity-- De Gasperi, Schuman, Adenauer -- who, like Van Rompuy, were all Christian Democrats for whom faith and Europe went together.
• In 2004, when he was an opposition deputy, Van Rompuy objected to Turkey joining the EU in terms very similar to those used by the then Cardinal Ratzinger (h/t to Tom Heneghan at Reuters, who puts the two quotes side by side):
• namely that Turkey's Islamic character would dilute the Christian character of the EU.
• That kind of talk makes me queasy. But I am impressed by a speech (in French) Van Rompuy gave on Caritas in Veritate which he carries on his website.
• It shows a sophisticated grasp of Catholic social doctrine.
• Dull he may be, but I for one am delighted that at the heart of the European Union is a politician who can write (my trans):
• According to [Catholic] social doctrine, the political community is at the service of the civil society from which it is born.
• Civil society represents the sum total of the goods, cultural or relational, which are relatively independent of politics and the economy.
• The state should make sure that the legal framework allows the social actors (societies, associations, organisations, and so on) to carry out their activities in total freedom; it should be ready to intervene, only if needed and in conformity with the principle of subsidiarity, in order that the interaction between freedom of association and the democratic way leads in the direction of the common good."
• Herman Van Rompuy, we salute you.
• Source: americamagazine.org
  
• Ed Comment: Herman Van Rompuy, we DO NOT salute you!

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• Russia and the Vatican establish full diplomatic ties
• Russia and the Vatican have agreed to establish full diplomatic relations, the Kremlin has announced.
• Until now, Moscow only had an office of representation at the Vatican.
• The new status means full-fledged embassies will be established in Moscow and Rome.
•  

  Pope Benedict and President Medvedev held talks at the Vatican
• The announcement comes after President Dmitry Medvedev met Pope Benedict XVI while on a visit to Italy.
• The move follows improvements in relations between the Russian Orthodox Church and the Vatican.
• Decades of distrust
• "President Medvedev told Pope Benedict at today's meeting that he signed a decree concerning the establishment of full diplomatic relations with the Vatican," presidential spokeswoman Natalya Timakova told reporters.
• "He asked the foreign ministry to lead discussions to establish the relations and raise the level of representation to apostolic nuncio and embassy," she added.
• Since 1990, the two sides have maintained representation below the rank of ambassador.
• The political detente follows decades of distrust between the Roman Catholic and Russian Orthodox churches.
• The Orthodox Church has long accused the Catholic Church of seeking to convert Russians to Catholicism.
• The Vatican says its activities in the country cater largely for traditional Catholic minorities like Poles, Germans and Lithuanians, who have faced discrimination and persecution in the past.
• Property disputes between the churches have also put them at odds.
• Relations have improved since Metropolitan Kirill took over as the leader of the Orthodox Church after the death of Patriarch Alexiy II in December 2008.

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• Thursday, December 10, 2009
• Climate: The new god of left-wing Christianity
• The following is based on an article by Cliff Kincaid for Accuracy in Media.
• With the ClimateGate revelations of flimsy “science” behind the man-made global warming theory, the role of the religious left in promoting this fraudulent scheme now deserves serious media scrutiny.
• Because that is unlikely, consider the following:
• Dr. James Wanliss, Associate Professor of Physics at Presbyterian College, has written The Green Dragon,
• a book about how environmentalism is actually committed to “the reconstruction of a pagan world order” and “rejection of Christian spirituality.”
• Wanliss argues that the environmental movement “is a religion with a vision of sin and repentance, heaven and hell. It even has a special vocabulary, with words like ‘sustainability’ and ‘carbon neutral.’
• Its communion is organic food. Its sacraments are sex, abortion, and when all else fails, sterilization.
• Its saints are Al Gore and the InterGovernmental Panel on Climate Change.”
• “Both professing Protestants and Roman Catholics bear a burden of guilt for the current political mess we are in with the global warming and other hysterias,” he argues.
• “If the church had not turned from the gospel of Jesus Christ it is unlikely the Green Dragon would have been able to so deeply sink its fangs into our lives.”
• Major U.S. religious groups involved in the “climate change” campaign include the National Religious Partnership for the Environment, the Catholic Campaign on Climate Change, the Evangelical Environmental Network and the Evangelical Climate Initiative.
• Dr. E. Calvin Beisner, national spokesman for the Cornwall Alliance for the Stewardship of Creation, identifies evangelical leftist Ron Sider as a key figure behind the Evangelical Environmental Network and the Evangelical Climate Initiative.
• “He’s been pressing for wealth redistribution for over thirty years, and the global treaty being touted to fight global warming is nothing if it isn’t an exercise in wealth redistribution,” says Beisner.
• Sider, who is also founder and president of Evangelicals for Social Action, is the author of Rich Christians in an Age of Hunger.
• Richard Cizik, who served for ten years as vice president for governmental affairs of the National Association of Evangelicals, was instrumental in creating the Evangelical Climate Initiative.
• He now serves as a fellow of the George Soros-funded Open Society Institute, where his current job is to “organize and host gatherings of evangelical faith leaders, policy-makers and academics” on climate change.
• Beisner says it’s a shame that evangelicals are being asked to jump on the global warming bandwagon right when the wheels are falling off because of the ClimateGate scandal.
• Wanliss identifies the National Council of Churches (NCC) as playing a major role.
• He says massive infusions of “green” — money, that is — for the NCC come from left-leaning philanthropies including Pew Charitable Trusts, Tides Foundation, Rockefeller Brothers Fund, Turner Foundation, W. Alton Jones Foundation, V. Kann Rasmussen Foundation, and New World Foundation.
• As a result, “There has been, in past decades, a cosmic shift towards a social climate that begins to favor the environment — polar bears, trees, and bugs — over human beings.”
• Another major player, the National Religious Partnership for the Environment (NRPE), “has an awesome army of organizational links and is itself something of a matryoshka, the Russian nested doll, which is never what it appears at first sight.
• For it is also not grassroots but launched with funding from left-leaning foundations, primarily the Pew Charitable Trust,” he says.
• NRPE describes itself as “an association of independent faith groups” that includes the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, the National Council of Churches, the Coalition on the Environment and Jewish Life, and the Evangelical Environmental Network.
• “When it began in 1993,” Wanliss says, “NRPE had over $5 million in grants to accomplish the goal, according to executive director Paul Gorman, of utilizing churches to produce a ‘distinctly religious response to the crisis of environmental sustainability and social justice.’
• The Partnership has been able to spread environmentalist propaganda and teaching aids to almost every Jewish, and to several hundred thousand Protestant congregations in America.”
• Through another entity, the Au Sable Institute, Wanliss says that these forces “have infiltrated Christian higher education by careful placement of teachers and teaching materials on environmental activism in schools associated with the Council for Christian Colleges and Universities (CCCU).
• Many of these schools are conservative in politics or theology.
• What they teach there under the Au Sable banner, will surprise their supporters.
• Not surprisingly, the Au Sable Institute and the NRPE share a subset of the same donor pool.
• Little by little wolves try to douse Christian resistance and lead sheep by troubled waters to accept the inevitability of a divine environmental movement.”
• The Catholic Coalition on Climate Change was launched in 2006 as a vehicle of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops.
• This group says that “Because we are not experts on climate change and its consequences, we rely on a scientific consensus (best represented by the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change) to guide our activities.”
• Of course, it is the IPCC that is embroiled in the ClimateGate scandal.
• In addition to the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, the Catholic Coalition on Climate Change enjoys the active support of the Association of Catholic Colleges and Universities, Carmelite NGO, Catholic Charities USA; the Catholic Health Association of the United States, Catholic Relief Services, the Conference of Major Superiors of Men, the Franciscan Action Network, the Leadership Conference of Women Religious, the National Catholic Rural Life Conference, and the National Council of Catholic Women.
• A related organization is the Catholic Climate Covenant, which claims that the poor are suffering because of the “carbon footprints” of people in the United States and other “rich” nations.
• Wanliss says such notions are essential to the “alternative religion” of environmentalism.
• He explains that, “people with money to burn can buy indulgences just like in the medieval Roman Catholic Church.
• In that religion priests sold indulgences to souls burdened with guilt over their sins.
• Even today, when Roman indulgences are not generally for sale — at least  not for money — forgiveness is only assured to those who complete the required tasks that earn the indulgence.
• Whatever it may mean, raping the earth is not ecologically sound or morally attractive. But if you must rape Mother Earth, then be sure to visit the Green Dragon and pay a sum of money to cleanse your guilt, until next time. Forgiveness for sins is only a carbon offset away.”
• “It is possible to calculate the extent of one’s sins online,” Wanliss points out.
• “According to TerraPass, over the past three years my weekly driving has resulted in about 5,224 pounds of CO2 a year, and for a mere $29.95 I can buy an indulgence that will offset the environmental impact of my reckless, indeed sacrilegious, lifestyle.
• These ‘carbon offsets’ will do as little for the salvation of the world as papal indulgences would for my soul. But for people with a desperate spiritual hunger it is a panacea and penance they are eager to embrace, and an incredible gift to give —
• it promises guilt free living and a purpose driven life. If only it were true.
• Go ahead, say the Gore-like business barons, pay the toll at our gate, and this year ‘Give the gift of green.’”
• Meanwhile, America Magazine, the national Catholic weekly published by the Jesuits, is complaining that Congress did not pass legislation on greenhouse gas emissions before the current United Nations Copenhagen meeting.
• “The United States will thus remain the only developed nation with no established target for carbon reduction,” it says.
• The magazine praises the National Religious Partnership for the Environment and the Catholic Campaign on Climate Change for being “vigorous advocates for integrating the world’s poor in a climate covenant with funding for both adapting infrastructure to meet the hardships of changing climate and for transferring green technology.”
• It goes on, “If the planet is to survive, as Pope Benedict XVI concluded in Caritas in Veritate, all nations must accept binding reductions in carbon emissions and construct an equitable structure for energy consumption and for sharing the development of green technology among rich and poor nations — for the sake of this generation and generations to come.”
• At the same time, he warned that “it is contrary to authentic development to view nature as something more important than the human person” and that this position “leads to attitudes of neo-paganism or a new pantheism.”
• Indeed, the U.N. Environmental Program, which is now promoting a “Global Green New Deal,” has celebrated the idea of an “Environmental Sabbath,” in which children hold hands around a tree and meditate.
• Wanliss notes that George Orwell’s book Animal Farm tells of the visionary pig Old Major who had a dream that soon proved disastrous: “And now, comrades, I will tell you about my dream of last night. I cannot describe that dream to you. It was a dream of the earth as it will be when Man is forgotten.”
• Wanliss cautions that attempts by Church leaders and Christian organizations to synthesize a Christian environmentalism can succeed “only by exorcising truth, and ultimately, by expelling Christianity…”
• But he adds, “Will it not be ironic if the Green Dragon they so adore ends up destroying them?”
• COMMENT
• Comments
• Environmentism - the new home of Stalin! The only thing this group has in common with Christians is the nomenclature... These perverts of faith are peddling a new religion under the guiese of Christianity. They are the true prophets of Baal!    

   

    Mda       11:52 a.m. / Sunday, December 13, 2009 
• I believe that the climate issue together with the global financial issue are part of a manipulation leading to a ONE WORLD GOVERNMENT lead by the AntiChrist. Sound crazy?   

   

    Bill Ducker       6:36 a.m. / Sunday, December 13, 2009 
• Have you seen what the UN served to the children of the world?

   See: http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=P_9mjBUSDng

   There are others equally vile. I'm very angry.   

   

    Dave McK       8:22 p.m. / Thursday, December 10, 2009 

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• BLAME   THE BISHOPS
• By Cliff Kincaid
    December 24, 2009
    NewsWithViews.com
• A lot   is being said and written about why national health care legislation is   becoming a reality.
• The simple fact, available for all to see, is that   the U.S. Catholic Bishops ensured passage of the bill in the House, enabling   the Senate to move forward with its version.
• Like   “progressive” strategist Robert B. Creamer, the Bishops believe   that health care is a right to be guaranteed by government.
• This position   has driven the debate and has rarely been challenged by Republicans.
• The   debate over abortion has been mostly a diversion. Perhaps it has been   planned that way
• As we   were the first to disclose,   Creamer, an ex-con and husband of Rep. Jan Schakowsky, emphasized using   “the faith community” to mobilize support for universal health   care by highlighting the morality of providing medical care to people   in need.
• His book, Stand Up Straight! How Progressives Can Win,   emphasized that
• “We must create a national consensus that health   care is a right, not a commodity; and that government must guarantee that   right.”
• Now   compare this to what the Bishops have said.
• “Our   approach to health care is shaped by a simple but fundamental principle:   ‘Every person has a right to adequate health care,’”   they   say.
• They go on, “For three quarters of a century, the Catholic   bishops of the United States have called for national action to assure   decent health care for all Americans. We seek to bring a moral perspective   in an intensely political debate; we offer an ethical framework in an   arena dominated by powerful economic interests.”
• Reform,   the Bishops said, would “require concerted action by federal and   other levels of government and by the diverse providers and consumers   of health care. We believe government, an instrument of our common purpose   called to pursue the common good, has an essential role to play in assuring   that the rights of all people to adequate health care are respected.”
• Also   this: “For three quarters of a century, the Catholic bishops of   the United States have called for national action to assure decent health   care for all Americans.”
• The   only real chance of defeating the health care legislation came when the   bill was lacking a majority of votes for passage in the House. That’s   when the first deal was made.
• This was the deal that made all other deals   possible. Acting at the behest of Catholic Cardinal Theodore McCarrick   and the Catholic Bishops, House Speaker Nancy Pelosi agreed to a vote   on the pro-life amendment introduced by Rep. Bart Stupak. It passed and   then the bill itself was approved.
• But   why did Republicans vote for the Stupak amendment if they opposed the   basic premise of the bill?
• House Republican Leader Rep. John Boehner got   his marching orders as well.
• He   was told by Cardinal Francis George, president of the U.S. Conference   of Catholic Bishops, that the Republicans shouldn’t scuttle the   Stupak amendment.
• The   Senate then proceeded to pass its own version of the legislation, without   the Stupak language. Predictably, Stupak is complaining about that.
• But   he–and the Democrats and Republicans who voted for his amendment–only   have themselves to blame.
• At least five lobbyists for the Bishops worked   with Pelosi and Stupak on the deal that is now also predictably falling   apart.
• Clearly, the pro-life deal was a ploy designed to keep the legislation   alive.
• It has   become apparent to some observers that the Bishops want the legislation   to pass, with or without abortion language, because of its perceived impact   on 600 Catholic hospitals.
• As they say in their own document, “Catholic   dioceses, parishes, schools, agencies, and hospitals are major purchasers   of insurance and health care. The rapidly escalating costs of coverage   are impacting almost every diocese, agency, parish, and school.”
• In other   words, the Bishops see national health care legislation as a way to reduce   their own costs.
• In addition, by expanding federally-subsidized health   care to as many as 30 million people, many of whom might normally depend   on Catholic hospitals for inexpensive or free care, the Catholic Bishops   could save even more money.
• Andrew   P. Napolitano, the senior judicial analyst at the Fox News Channel, has   written a very revealing article about what has been missing in the debate   over health care.
• He   writes, “In the continually harsh public discourse over the   President’s proposals for federally-managed healthcare, the Big   Government progressives in both the Democratic and the Republican parties   have been trying to trick us.
• These folks, who really want the government   to care for us from cradle to grave, have been promoting the idea that   health care is a right. In promoting that false premise, they have succeeded   in moving the debate from WHETHER the feds should micro-manage health   care to HOW the feds should micro-manage health care. This is a false   premise, and we should reject it. Health care is not a right; it is a   good, like food, like shelter, and like clothing.”
• Rights   come from God, not government, Napolitano points out.
• It would   have been nice if it had been pointed out on Fox News and elsewhere that   the Catholic Bishops who claim to be offering a “moral perspective”   on this controversy have bought into the false premise.
• But they didn’t   believe it to be false, and that is the critical point.
• In short,   the Catholic Bishops have merged as a major “progressive”   force in the United States, determined to saddle the country with a socialized   medicine scheme.

  • SEE: Duduman's site "Hand of Help Ministires" for the role of the Roman Catholic Church in America's and Christians' futures
  Add Sticky Note
• The disagreements over abortion among the “Big   Government progressives” should not distract our attention from   this basic fact. The Bishops also favor “climate change” legislation   and amnesty for illegal aliens.
• In addition   to the lobbyists who were working on Capitol Hill, the bishops have a   staff of 350 in Washington, D.C. and operate on a budget that was estimated   back in 2002 at $131 million a year.
• By contrast, the George Soros-funded   Center for American Progress operates on about $48 million a year.
• Ironically,   we have also discovered that Soros, an atheist, is putting big   money into various Catholic organizations, such as Catholics in Alliance   for the Common Good.
• Not surprisingly, it is backing the health care legislation.
• “Sadly,   the bishops have misunderstood the entire process, and now we will all   pay,” one conservative Catholic blogger points   out.
• “They thought they could influence our lawmakers to provide   us a ‘clean’ government takeover of the nation’s health   care system, ‘clean’ in the sense they hoped this ‘reform’   would include strong conscience protections while defunding abortion,   without objecting to the basic premise of unprecedented government growth.”
• It is   interesting and newsworthy that, as the nation prepares to celebrate Christmas,   we are witnesses to the passage of legislation promoted in part by elements   of the “faith community” who have put most of their faith   in the federal government and its mammon.
• ©   2009 Cliff Kincaid - All Rights Reserved

• Cliff Kincaid,   a veteran journalist and media critic, Cliff concentrated in journalism   and communications at the University of Toledo, where he graduated with   a Bachelor of Arts degree.

   

  Cliff has written or co-authored   nine books on media and cultural affairs and foreign policy issues. One   of Cliff's books, "Global   Bondage: The UN Plan to Rule the World" is still awailable.

   

  Cliff has appeared on Hannity &   Colmes, The O’Reilly Factor, Crossfire and has been published in the Washington   Post, Washington Times, Chronicles, Human Events and Insight.  

   

  Web Site: www.AIM.org
   
    E-Mail: cliff.kincaid@aim.org

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