Wednesday, April 23, 2014

"It is not ‘progressive’ to try to resolve problems by eliminating a human life".

In Midst of Demands for Abortion, A Voice for Life

Posted on | April 10, 2014 by Wendy Wright |

Swarms of sexual and reproductive rights activists fill the UN this week. But that did not intimidate the Holy See from defending innocent lives from abortion. Here is their statement. (The webcast picked up hearty applause at the end.)

Statement by Msgr. Janusz Urbanczyk, Chargé d’Affaires a.i. Permanent Observer Mission of the Holy See to the United Nations
Commission on Population and Development 47th Session United Nations Headquarters, New York, 10 April 2014
Mr. Chairman,
My delegation takes this opportunity to express its best wishes to you and your Bureau for a productive session, and looks forward to working constructively with delegations as we assess the implementation of the Programme of Action of the International Conference on Population and Development.
According to the report of the Secretary General, no fewer than 80 countries now register a fertility rate below replacement level. These statistics should be a great cause for alarm, as expressed in another report of the Secretary General:
Old-age support ratios, defined as the number of working-age adults per older person in the population, are already low in most countries of the more developed regions and are expected to continue to fall in the coming decades, ensuring continued fiscal pressure on support systems for older people.
The unsustainable phenomenon of ageing populations can only be resolved by promoting family life and fertility.
Support systems for the ageing can only be sustained by a larger, not smaller, next generation, either by paying into a social security system, or by providing intergenerational family support directly.
Mr. Chairman,
My delegation wishes to express grave concern over a very proscriptive approach taken in the zero draft of the outcome document, towards the implementation of the ICPD. This approach seems to treat fertility and pregnancy as a disease which must either be prevented or managed via government or outside assistance. While this may well reflect the concerns of certain highly developed countries, on a universal scale it certainly skews the population and development realities for the most part of the developing countries of the world, for whom other issues take greater priority. My delegation is of the view that a more sensible approach should focus less on reducing fertility and more on programs and values which support integral human development,
namely: personal, social, and spiritual development. Access to education, economic opportunity, political stability, basic health care, and support for the family should serve as the key priorities for achieving such integral human development.
Mr. Chairman,
An issue of great international sensitivity is an insistent promotion of so-called sexual and reproductive “rights”, almost to the exclusion of any other issue. This reflects an improper overtaking of the ICPD Programme of Action by efforts to promote the legalization and/or liberalization of abortion laws, whether by Member States or some UN Agencies, who openly promote laws providing for legal abortion.
However, the Programme of Action in no way promotes abortion, but expressly repudiates it as a mean of controlling families or the population. The ICPD denies that it creates any new rights in this regard. Such laws and policies remain the prerogative of individual Member States according to the Programme of Action. All States emphasized at Cairo that Governments should help women avoid recourse to abortion.
Pope Francis recently addressed this issue:
Among the vulnerable for whom the church wishes to care with particular love and concern are unborn children, the most defenseless and innocent among us. Nowadays efforts are made to deny them their human dignity and to do with them whatever one pleases, taking their lives and passing laws preventing anyone from standing in the way of this. … [T]he church cannot be expected to change her position on this question… It is not ‘progressive’ to try to resolve problems by eliminating a human life…
Mr. Chairman,
The Holy See continues to serve at the front-line addressing greater global poverty, human rights and development. Through its presence and emphasis on providing quality and affordable education, health care, access to food and respect for all human rights, the Holy See demonstrates that care and compassion for the poor, rather than focusing on fertility reduction, serves as a model for a truly human-centered approach to development.

Thank You Mr. Chairman

See OHCRH and UNAIDS, International Guidelines on HIV/AIDS and Human Rights, 2006 Consolidated Version, pg. 35:“Laws should also be enacted to ensure women’s reproductive and sexual rights, … including safe and
legal abortion …”, http://www.ohchr.org/Documents/Issues/HIV/ConsolidatedGuidelinesHIV.pdf
Pope Francis, Evangelii Gaudium, 213 & 214 See Pope Francis, Message to the World Council of Churches, 4 October 2013

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Taken from: http://www.turtlebayandbeyond.org/2014/abortion/in-midst-of-demands-for-abortion-a-voice-for-life/

Tuesday, April 22, 2014

“Anti-Catholicism in Australia now might be called the racism of the intellectuals”

[AMAIC. We would say, rather, "of the pseudo-intellectuals"]

First they came for the Catholics and climate sceptics. Beware: the true bigots will next reach for your throat, too. Attorney-General George Brandis, raised a Catholic, was right last week: “The Left has embraced a new authoritarianism.”

They have given us a “new and illiberal climate of anti-intellectualism” so that “rather than winning the argument (they) exclude their antagonists from the argument”. Brandis said he realised this when Senator Penny Wong falsely claimed the debate on global warming was over because “the science is settled”.

She wasn’t alone. The only time the ABC ran a documentary questioning global warming extremists its own staff revolted. Warmists such as Professor Tim Flannery now refuse out of principle to debate sceptics. But it’s not just global warming. Brandis said he was then horrified by “an act of political censorship” — a judge’s banning of two articles in which I questioned why certain fairskinned Aborigines identified solely as Aboriginal.

Last week Dyson Heydon, the former High Court judge now running the royal commission into union corruption, also criticised this fashionable new intolerance.

“Anti-Catholicism in Australia now might be called the racism of the intellectuals,” he said in last week’s Acton Lecture for the Centre for Independent Studies. Indeed, we’ve seen the media class try to drive Catholicism from public debate. So why are Christians routinely attacked by the secularist class that dominates public debate?

Heydon last week hinted at one reason: Catholics especially have a history of fighting movements which don’t treat each person as precious to God, and which carelessly sacrifice them to, say, the Fatherland — or, indeed, Mother Earth.

Heydon quoted poet Heinrich Heine’s prescient warning in 1843 that “a drama will be enacted in Germany compared to which the French Revolution will seem like a harmless idyll”, because once Christianity was “shattered, savagery will rise again”.

Heine was right. The Nazis declared war first on the Jews and then the churches. Pope Francis a fortnight ago warned Catholics to be wary of the next threat — of people once more preaching “a dictatorship of a narrow line of thought” which killed “people’s freedom, their freedom of conscience”.

It is a new dictatorship of the mind in which sceptics who fight the warming idiocy — sacrificing jobs simply to pretend to stop a warming that actually stopped 16 years ago — are told to shut up.

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Taken from: http://www.pressdisplay.com/pressdisplay/viewer.aspx

The joke’s on the climate doomsayers over ‘looming catastrophe’

by:TIM BLAIR

From: The Daily Telegraph

April 21, 201412:00AM

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Bill McKibben has probably never cracked a decent joke in his entire life. That is as you’d expect. McKibben is an American academic who specialises in climate change, and such rigid types usually lack the fleetness of mind to knock out even a simple gag.

Key word: ‘‘usually’’. A few weeks ago McKibben made up for decades of humour deficiency by devising a joke so brilliant that it verges on genius.

The Harvard graduate actually proposed … a climate scientist strike.

BLOG WITH TIM BLAIR

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“At this point it’s absurd to keep asking the scientific community to churn out more reports,” McKibben wrote. “In fact, it might almost be more useful if they went on strike: until you pay attention to what we’ve already told you, we won’t be telling you more.”

For all I know, the climate science community is running with McKibben’s idea. They do seem a little quieter than usual. Picture all the climate scientists dutifully withholding the latest tree ring data or Antarctic ice core measurements. Some of them might even have stopped filing grant applications.

An anxious world awaits news of the strike’s end. Meanwhile, nonscientist members of the climate panic movement — McKibben himself is a mere arts graduate — aren’t maintaining solidarity with their lab-coat comrades. Lately they’ve become louder and crazier than ever, presumably out of panic as the whole global warming issue continues to cool.

Clive James once wrote that hyper-excited Formula One commentator Murray Walker “sounds like a blindfolded man riding a unicycle on the rim of the pit of doom.” But dear old Murray has nothing on Greens senator Scott Ludlam, who last week announced: “This country is going to cook and people are going to die.”

You used to hear that sort of thing from fire-and-brimstone preachers whose remedy to our ills was prayer. The Greens instead believe in the healing power of the carbon tax, among other devotional offerings.

“The weather is turning violent on us because we have left this for decades,” preacherman Ludlam continued, conjuring the standard Greens scenario of a vengeful Gaia gone wild.

Frankly, I don’t think the old girl has got it in her. Come and have a go, Gaia, if you think you’re hard enough. But she sure has put the frighteners on former Australian of the Year Fiona Stanley. “I don’t think I can be silent,” the paediatrician told the ABC last week. On that point, for once a climate alarmist prediction turned out to be 100 per cent accurate.

Declaring herself to be “anxious and angry”, Stanley railed against science deniers and the denigration of scientists. She claimed that climate change would cause an increase in malnutrition among children and a rise in infectious diseases.

“But where are the departments of climate change, health effects of climate change, in Australia?” Stanley asked. “Where are they?” Well, the last I heard they were on strike. Do try to keep up, Fiona. Senator Ludlam’s Greens colleague Adam Bandt evidently felt left out of all last week’s excitement, so late in the piece he made his own run for the headlines. “Coal is the next asbestos or tobacco,” he announced, which is bad news for anyone planning on smoking it or using it to insulate their homes.

University of Canberra journalism lecturer Crispin Hull devoted his entire Friday newspaper column to the asbestos-coal concept. “Asbestos was toxic. Ultimately it was more economically beneficial to leave it in the ground than use it, aside from the human cost,” he wrote.

“We should now be saying similar things about coal and natural gas.” Hull went on to shriek that in 30 years environment minister Greg Hunt “will look like an asbestos miner so concerned about profits and economic benefits that he is blind to the looming catastrophe’’.

It’s been looming for decades, this glorious catastrophe. Long may it loom over us. Trouble is, once you subtract the looming, there isn’t much left. No bodies piling up. No coastlines falling into the sea. No mass extinctions. Quite the opposite, in fact.

Over the weekend it was announced that Peter Kerr, a scientist in California, had discovered a brand new species of gnat.

He has named the little guy Megophthalmidia mckibbeni, in honour of Bill McKibben.

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Taken from: http://www.dailytelegraph.com.au/news/opinion/the-jokes-on-the-climate-doomsayers-over-looming-catastrophe/story-fni0cwl5-1226890612395

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Tuesday, April 15, 2014

Wife of Pontius Pilate

Obscure but fascinating people:

Claudia Procula

Posted on October 27, 2010 | 5 Comments

As far as we know Claudia Procula was the granddaughter of the Emperor Augustus. She had been born in rather dubious circumstances to Claudia the third wife of Tiberius. However the young Claudia Procula was deemed a good girl by her grandfather who had her live in Rome under his guardianship.

Meanwhile the politically savvy and utterly corrupt Sejanus had grabbed the power of Rome sending the paranoid Emperor to live in isolation and continued fear on the island of Capri.

With the whole Empire in his hands Sejanus set about handing over nice little titles and places of work to his personal cronies. Most of these men had reputations as vicious and corrupt, and it has to be said that Sejanus friend Pontius Pilate of the Equestrian rank fitted the bill nicely.

It seems as though Claudia was married off to Pilate to help solidify his political possition and then he was given the Governorship of Judea, arriving there with his wife in about 26 AD. It has been suggested that as Claudia actually accompanied her husband rather than staying in Rome, that their marriage was a happy one. Legend has it that they had a son Pilo who was disabled in some way, and was apparently healed in the Church.

If that had been the sum of Claudia’s life, she would have been a mere footnote in obscure history, but the thing that brought her just a little more attention was the dream she had one fine siesta around Passover in the year 33AD (ish). She dreamed something about a Jewish rabbi who was behaving and speaking as though he was King of the Jews.

The High Priest who had very coincidentally remained in power while Pilate was there had the man in question standing for trial. Claudia sent a message to her husband begging him to have nothing to do with the man on trial because of the dream she had just had.

Pilate obviously valued his wife’s opinion and must have taken her dream seriously because he spent a great deal of effort trying not to have this Jesus of Nazareth crucified. But in end he had to agree to it all.

Pilate had Christ’s title written on the board for the cross; Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews and he refused to change it. He then went on to break with the normal treatment of crucified criminal in allowing a relation of Christ’s, Joseph of Arimathea and his friend Nicodemus to receive the body for proper entombment.

While some of Pilate’s caution may have been to do with his shaky political position under Sejanus at this point, there is pretty well grounded speculation that Claudia Procula encouraged her husband to behave the way he did.

The Vatican Archives have a first century letter that was apparently written by Claudia. It was found in a monastery in Belgium and has been translated into English.

From the Gospel of Nicodemus and Acts of Pilate, apocryphal books, it is suggested that Claudia was baptised and became a follower of st Paul.

The implication is that she separated from Pilate, and served God with the other women. She is a saint in the Eastern Orthodox churches and her feast day is today,.

But there is also a story that suggests Pilate was also baptised and was even martyred. His is a saint in the Coptic church alongside his wife.

We will probably never get to the whole story of Claudia Procula, but I think it’s fair to say that traditions often have a huge amount of truth to them.

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Taken from: http://mum6kids.wordpress.com/2010/10/27/obscure-but-fascinating-people-claudia-procula/

Monday, April 14, 2014

'The Devil is here, even in the 21st century,' Pope Francis warns

Article Highlights

By Catholic Online (NEWS CONSORTIUM)
Catholic Online (www.catholic.org)

LOS ANGELES, CA (Catholic Online) - Speaking in the chapel of the Vatican guesthouse, St. Martha's House, where the pope resides, he told a small audience that just as Jesus Christ was tempted in the desert by Satan, so too is every person in today's world tempted by the Devil.

"The Devil tempted Jesus many times and Jesus experienced temptation and persecution throughout his lifetime," said the Pope, as reported by Vatican Radio. "And He warned that whoever wants to follow Jesus must be aware of this reality."

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He steadfastly warned Christians to avoid "gossiping" as this is one of the temptations used by the devil to corrupt good people.

Life is a constant battle against evil due to the presence of the devil, Pope Francis said, admitting that even he "has been tempted to gossip'" about others.

"We too are the target of attacks by the devil because the spirit of Evil does not want our holiness," he said.

"We have a temptation that grows: it grows and infects others. For example, let's look at gossip: I'm a bit envious of this or that person and at first I'm just envious inside and I need to share it and go to another person and say: 'But have you seen that person?' ... and this gossip tries to grow and infects another and another ... This is the way gossip works and all of us have been tempted to gossip.

"Maybe not one of you, if you're a saint, but I too have been tempted to gossip! It's a daily temptation. And it begins in this way, discreetly, like a trickle of water. It grows by infecting others and in the end it justifies itself."

Pope Francis brushed aside the fact that some consider him old-fashioned for speaking about the devil.

"But look out because the devil is present! The devil is here ... even in the 21st century! And we mustn't be naïve, right? We must learn from the Gospel how to fight against Satan."

The pope added that devil does not want people to follow Christ, so he tempts them, and this is not old-fashioned rhetoric because "the Devil is here, even in the 21st century" and we must learn "how to fight against Satan."

"We are all tempted because the law of our spiritual life, our Christian life, is a struggle, a struggle," Pope Francis said. "That's because the Prince of this world, Satan, doesn't want our holiness, he doesn't want us to follow Christ."

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Pope Francis calls for your 'Prayer and Action'

© 2014 - Distributed by THE NEWS CONSORTIUM

Pope Francis Prayer Intentions for March 2014
Respect for Women: That all cultures may respect the rights and dignity of women.
Vocations: That many young people may accept the Lord’s invitation to consecrate their lives to proclaiming the Gospel.

Thursday, April 10, 2014

Pope Francis says human trafficking is ‘a crime against humanity’

Pope Francis has described human trafficking as “a crime against humanity” as international police chiefs and religious figures pledged in the Vatican to work together to fight modern-day slavery.

At the end of a two-day meeting, organised by the bishops’ conference of England and Wales and chaired by the archbishop of Westminster, Cardinal Vincent Nichols, Pope Francis met privately with four women, all former sex workers who were the victims of trafficking.

In his address, the Argentinian pontiff said: “Human trafficking is an open wound on the body of contemporary society, a scourge upon the body of Christ. It is a crime against humanity.”

Attended by the home secretary, Theresa May, as well as Sir Bernard Hogan-Howe, the commissioner of the Metropolitan police, the conference was designed to encourage cooperation between the Catholic church and law enforcement officials on the ground.

The pope’s backing for the project was invaluable, said Hogan-Howe, not only for the moral stance it would send and the network of 1.2 billion Catholics it would reach but also for his sheer pulling power.

“If I’d asked 20 police chiefs from Thailand [and] Australia to travel to London, they may have, but I can guarantee that if the pope shows his interest, people will be interested. And that leadership is so powerful,” he said.

The pope’s backing of the conference could help move human trafficking up the agenda of governments throughout the world, added Hogan-Howe. “Apart from its mere statement, it encourages governments to pass laws. It seems to me that by making such a declaration it encourages governments to take this as a very high priority.”

The conference heard that only 1% of human trafficking victims currently come forward and the church believes it can play an important role in providing sanctuary for them, as well as support in reintegration, regularisation and psychological recovery.

Participants of the conference have dubbed themselves the Santa Martha group because many were accommodated in the Vatican guesthouse, or Casa Santa Marta, where the pope lives. They have agreed to meet again, in London, in November, said Nichols.

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Taken from: http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/apr/10/pope-francis-human-trafficking-crime-humanity

The seam and missing corners of the Turin Shroud as characteristics of John Mark’s temple garment.

For complete article go to:

http://www.academia.edu/1536599/The_seam_and_missing_corners_of_the_Turin_Shroud

A.A.M. van der Hoeven,

www.JesusKing.info, updated June 6, 2013

In this article I identify the garment left by the young man who "ran away naked" (Mark 14, 51-52) with the burial shroud of Jesus (John 19-20) and that young man with the secret disciple John Mark, co-author of the Gospel of John.

I explain that it is possible and probable that Joseph of Arimathea bought the garment to give Jesus a burial “as is the burial custom of the Jews” (John 19,40), namely: in a garment.

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