Pakistani Christian Beaten for Refusing to Convert to Islam

 Brothers converted by Muslim cleric who raised them leave him for dead.

Riaz Masih, covering his face for security reasons, says his brothers seek to kill him.

KALLUR KOT, Pakistan, February 22 (CDN) — The four older Muslim brothers of a 26-year-old Christian beat him unconscious here earlier this month because he refused their enticements to convert to Islam, the victim told Compass.
Riaz Masih, whose Christian parents died when he was a boy, said his continual refusal to convert infuriated his siblings and the Muslim cleric who raised them, Moulvi Peer Akram-Ullah. On Feb. 8, he said, his brothers ransacked his house in this Punjab Province town 233 kilometers (145 miles) southwest of Islamabad.
“They threatened that it was the breaking point now, and that I must convert right now or face death,” Masih said. “They said killing an infidel is not a sin, instead it’s righteousness in the sight of Allah almighty.”
Masih begged them to give him a few minutes to consider converting and then tried to escape, but they grabbed him and beat him with bamboo clubs, leaving him for dead, he said.
“They vented their fury and left me, thinking that I was dead, but God Almighty resuscitated me to impart His good news of life,” he said.
Masih told Compass that his brothers and Akram-Ullah have been trying to coerce him to convert to Islam since his brothers converted.
“They had been coercing me to embrace Islam since the time of their recantation of Christianity,” Masih said, “but for the last one month they began to escalate immense pressure on me to convert.”
He grew up with no chance to attend church services because of his siblings’ conversion to Islam, he said, adding that in any event there was no church where he grew up. He knew two Christian families, however, and he said his love for the Christian faith in which he was originally raised grew as he persistently refused to convert to Islam.
He said Akram-Ullah and his brothers offered him 1 million rupees (US$11,790), a spacious residence and a woman of his choice to marry in order to lure him to Islam, but he declined.
The Muslim cleric had converted Masih’s brothers and sisters in like manner, according to human rights organization Rays of Development (ROD), which has provided financial, medical and moral support to Masih. ROD began assisting Masih after a chapter of the Christian Welfare Organization (CWO) brought the injured Christian to ROD.
A spokesman for CWO who requested anonymity told Compass that Akram-Ullah had offered Masih’s brothers and sister a large plot of residential land, as well as 500,000 rupees (US$5,895) each, if they would recite the kalimah, the profession of faith for converting to Islam.
“He never accepted the Islamic cleric’s invitation to Islam, although his newly converted Muslim sister and four elder brothers escalated pressure on him to convert, as well, and live with them as a joint family,” the CWO spokesman said.
Adnan Saeed, an executive member of ROD, told Compass that when Masih’s parents, carpenter George Albert and his wife Stella Albert, passed away, Masih and his siblings were tenants of Akram-Ullah, who cared for them and inculcated them with Islamic ideology.
Saeed said that when they converted, Masih’s now 37-year-old sister, Kathryn Albert, adopted the Islamic name of Aysha Bibi; Masih’s brothers – Alliyas Masih, 35, Yaqoub Masih, 33, Nasir Masih, 31, and Gullfam Masih, 28 – adopted their new Islamic names of Muhammad Alliyas, Abdullah, Nasir Saeed and Gullfam Hassan respectively.
Masih’s family attempted to kill him, Saeed said. A ROD team visited Masih at an undisclosed location and, besides the support they have given him, they are searching for a way to provide him legal assistance as well, Saeed said.
Masih said that because of Islamist hostilities, it would be unsafe for him to go to a police station or even a hospital for treatment. A well-to-do Christian has given shelter to him at an undisclosed location.
In hiding, Masih said that his brothers and Akram-Ullah are still hunting for him.
“Since they have discovered that I was alive and hiding somewhere, they are on the hunt for me,” he said. “And if they found me, they would surely kill me.”
 

Archaeologist sees proof for Bible in ancient wall

by MATTI FRIEDMAN
The Associated Press
Monday, February 22, 2010; 8:07 PM

JERUSALEM -- An Israeli archaeologist said Monday that ancient fortifications recently excavated in Jerusalem date back 3,000 years to the time of King Solomon and support the biblical narrative about the era. 
If the age of the wall is correct, the finding would be an indication that Jerusalem was home to a strong central government that had the resources and manpower needed to build massive fortifications in the 10th century B.C.
That's a key point of dispute among scholars, because it would match the Bible's account that the Hebrew kings David and Solomon ruled from Jerusalem around that time.
While some Holy Land archaeologists support that version of history - including the archaeologist behind the dig, Eilat Mazar - others posit that David's monarchy was largely mythical and that there was no strong government to speak of in that era.
Speaking to reporters at the site Monday, Mazar, from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, called her find "the most significant construction we have from First Temple days in Israel."
"It means that at that time, the 10th century, in Jerusalem there was a regime capable of carrying out such construction," she said.
Based on what she believes to be the age of the fortifications and their location, she suggested it was built by Solomon, David's son, and mentioned in the Book of Kings. 
The fortifications, including a monumental gatehouse and a 77-yard (70-meter) long section of an ancient wall, are located just outside the present-day walls of Jerusalem's Old City, next to the holy compound known to Jews as the Temple Mount and to Muslims as the Noble Sanctuary. According to the Old Testament, it was Solomon who built the first Jewish Temple on the site.
That temple was destroyed by Babylonians, rebuilt, renovated by King Herod 2,000 years ago and then destroyed again by Roman legions in 70 A.D. The compound now houses two important Islamic buildings, the golden-capped Dome of the Rock and the Al-Aqsa mosque.
Archaeologists have excavated the fortifications in the past, first in the 1860s and most recently in the 1980s. But Mazar claimed her dig was the first complete excavation and the first to turn up strong evidence for the wall's age: a large number of pottery shards, which archaeologists often use to figure out the age of findings.
Aren Maeir, an archaeology professor at Bar Ilan University near Tel Aviv, said he has yet to see evidence that the fortifications are as old as Mazar claims. There are remains from the 10th century in Jerusalem, he said, but proof of a strong, centralized kingdom at that time remains "tenuous."
While some see the biblical account of the kingdom of David and Solomon as accurate and others reject it entirely, Maeir said the truth was likely somewhere in the middle.
"There's a kernel of historicity in the story of the kingdom of David," he said.
 

Movie Review - Lourdes
http://movies.nytimes.com/2010/02/17/movies/17lourdes.html?ref=global-home

Palisades Tartan - Sylvie Testud plays a young woman with multiple sclerosis who goes on a pilgrimage to Lourdes.

February 17, 2010
Mysteries and Hopes Converge on a Shrine
By MANOHLA DARGIS
Published: February 17, 2010

Moving between heaven and hell, or perhaps just sky and earth, the pilgrims who walk and tremble and are sometimes pushed through “Lourdes” in wheelchairs are usually seen at a remove. One exception is Christine, a young woman with multiple sclerosis who is played by the French actress Sylvie Testud. Tucked into a wheelchair, her limbs immobile and hands tightly curled, Christine looks around her — at the other visitors, the helpful aides, the strange locale — with a gaze that seems at once incurious and beatific.
Situated in southwest France north of the Pyrenees, Lourdes is thought by Roman Catholics to have been where the impoverished 14-year-old Bernadette Soubirous saw the Virgin Mary in 1858. She was canonized by Pope Pius XI in 1933 and by Hollywood a decade later when her story was turned into the 1943 kitsch classic “The Song of Bernadette,” with Jennifer Jones. Millions now visit Lourdes annually to attend services and drink from and bathe in the grotto waters, thought to have healing powers. It’s been claimed that the water can cure, though, as the Lourdes Web site, lourdes-france.org, puts it: “For a modern mentality, it is difficult to say that something is ‘inexplicable.’ They can only say that it is ‘unexplained.’ ”
One of the pleasures of this intelligent, rigorously thoughtful, somewhat sly film is that it takes place in the space between the inexplicable (no explanation is possible) and the unexplained (enlightenment might be around the corner). Its director, Jessica Hausner, an Austrian working here in French, wants to explore the mysteries of life, not its certainties. One great mystery, of course, is faith itself, how people come to believe what they do and how those beliefs affect not just their thinking and feelings but also their bodies. For Christine, who speaks most profoundly through the eerie quiet of her nearly inert form — and then later through a possibly miraculous physical transformation — belief is inscribed on the body itself.
The film, which was shot on location in Lourdes — one scene features Cardinal Roger Mahony, the archbishop of Los Angeles, leading a prayer service — is largely organized around the rituals of pilgrimage. Christine, who’s closely assisted by a young woman (Léa Seydoux) who feeds and helps dress her, is pushed here and there. In one scene Christine visits the grotto, her attendant lifting her curled hand to the stone wall. Another time she visits the baths, where grotto water is poured on her head. In between, she eats and sleeps and has encounters with others (including Bruno Todeschini and a very good Elina Löwensohn). Wherever she goes, a shop selling religious souvenirs can usually be seen in the background.
Contrary to expectation, these repeated images of the souvenir shops don’t function as overt critiques, and there’s nothing in the film as crude as an indictment of the commodification of faith. Ms. Hausner, whose earlier titles include “Lovely Rita,” is more interested in the forms that faith takes, in its individual and collective ebbing and flowing. The mesmerizing opening image — a steadily framed and angled overhead shot of a cafeteria — immediately sets her parameters. As the camera holds on the image, men and women, some in wheelchairs, begin to stream in, as if carried along by some unseen force. They’re merely being seated for a meal, but the elevated angle of the shot and the way everyone drifts in together, as if each were part of a single organism, creates a sense of a collective purpose, a unified calling.
The few religious conversations in the film mostly take place at the edges of the story, among the other pilgrims, including a few women who serve as something of a humble Greek chorus. Together they help make up a convincing world inhabited by believers and skeptics whose ideas are largely voiced in asides and through their actions. In a wonderfully choreographed bit, a member of the Order of Malta, a religious group, tells a joke in which the Virgin Mary is the (mild) punch line. Meanwhile, in the background, Christine is secretly wheeled out the door by her roommate, an older woman with a lopsided mouth, Mme. Hartl (Gilette Barbier), who seems to think that her own fate is tied to the handicapped woman.
What happens to Christine is mystifying, simultaneously (as they say at Lourdes) inexplicable and unexplained. Ms. Testud, a tiny actress with an often oversize and ferocious screen presence, delivers a minutely detailed performance that telegraphs a world with a thrust of her chin, a widening of her eyes. Save for the last astonishing shot of Christine’s face — now a whirlwind of expressive feeling — Ms. Testud keeps her performance generally muted, perhaps to help safeguard Ms. Hausner’s secrets. There is, after all, so much that we can’t and don’t know. As one woman says at the end of the film, during a short discussion of God, we do not know who’s in charge. And then this same woman asks a question that puts her spiritual question into comic relief: what, she wonders, is for dessert? Mysteries, as Ms. Hausner attests, abound.

LOURDES
Opens on Wednesday in Manhattan.
Written and directed by Jessica Hausner; director of photography, Martin Gschlacht; edited by Karina Ressler; production designer, Katharina Wöppermann; produced by Mr. Gschlacht, Philippe Bober and Susanne Marian; released by Palisades Tartan. At Film Forum, 209 West Houston Street, west of Avenue of the Americas, South Village. In French, with English subtitles. Running time: 1 hour 39 minutes.
WITH: Sylvie Testud (Christine), Bruno Todeschini (Kuno), Elina Löwensohn (Cécile), Gerhard Liebmann (Pater Nigl), Gilette Barbier (Mme. Hartl), Hubsi Kramer (Herr Olivetti) and Léa Seydoux (Maria).
 

Australia's traditional Anglicans vote to convert to Catholicism
Traditionalist Anglicans in Australia have become the first to vote in favour of leaving their national church and converting to Roman Catholicism.

By Bonnie Malkin, in Sydney and Martin Beckford
Published: 10:00PM GMT 16 Feb 2010

Crossing over to Rome under the new scheme would give the group the chance to retain their Anglican culture without sacrificing their beliefs Photo: REUTERS 

Forward in Faith Australia, part of the Anglo-Catholic group that also has members in Britain and America, is setting up a working party guided by a Catholic bishop to work out how its followers can cross over to Rome.
It is believed to be the first group within the Anglican church to accept Pope Benedict XVI’s unprecedented offer for disaffected members of the Communion to convert en masse while retaining parts of their spiritual heritage.

So far only the Traditional Anglican Communion, which has already broken away from the 70 million-strong Anglican Communion, has declared that its members will become Catholics under the Apostolic Constitution.
The Rt Rev David Robarts OAM, chairman of FIF Australia, said members of the association felt excluded by the Anglican Church in Australia, which had not provided them with a bishop to champion their conservative views on homosexuality and women bishops.
"In Australia we have tried for a quarter of a decade to get some form of episcopal oversight but we have failed," he told The Daily Telegraph.
"We're not really wanted any more, our conscience is not being respected."
Bishop Robarts, 77, said it had become clear that Anglicans who did not believe in same-sex partnerships or allowing women to be ordained as bishops had no place in the "broader Anglican spectrum".
"We're not shifting the furniture, we're simply saying that we have been faithful Anglicans upholding what Anglicans have always believed and we're not wanting to change anything, but we have been marginalised by people who want to introduce innovations.
"We need to have bishops that believe what we believe."
Crossing over to Rome under the new scheme would give the group the chance to retain their Anglican culture without sacrificing their beliefs, he said.
On Feb 13th the group unanimously voted to investigate setting up an Ordinariate - an ecclesiastical jurisdiction of the Roman Catholic Church - in Australia.
It has formed a working group with a Catholic bishop, Bishop Peter Elliott, along with the breakaway TAC and the national church, ACA, to “set in train the processes necessary for establishing an Australian Ordinariate”.
Under the terms of the Vatican’s offer made last October, Anglicans who are disillusioned with the church’s liberal direction will be allowed to enter into full communion with the Holy See. But they may be able to continue using their old prayer books and church services, and will come under the pastoral care of a new bishop called an Ordinary.
Forward in Faith Australia, which is based in Melbourne, has up to 200 members, but not all are expected to convert. The group said it was committed to providing “care and support” for anyone who felt unable to be received into the Ordinariate.
Bishop Robarts said his group was the first FiF branch to "embrace" the Pope's offer so strongly. Anglo-Catholics in the Church of England have welcomed the opportunity but are waiting to see whether they will be given significant concessions on the introduction of women bishops – such as a “men-only” diocese – before deciding whether to cross the Tiber.
The Anglican Church of Australia ordained its first women priests in 1992 but so far its governing body, the General Synod, has failed to approve legislation needed to introduce women bishops.
"It's the first step on the road, saying thank you, we are going to go along this particular track because the door has been closed to us by the Anglican Church of Australia over a long period of time,” said the bishop.
"I love my Anglican heritage, but I'm not going to lose it by taking this step."

http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/newstopics/religion/7249374/Australias-traditional-Anglicans-vote-to-convert-to-Catholicism.html
TelegraphNews
 

Why British children are sad
And why 'happiness classes' in schools won't help them cheer up.
http://www.mercatornet.com/articles/view/why_british_children_are_sad/

Children in England are feeling increasingly miserable, according to a recent survey. A third of young people said they were not happy with life, and one in 20 pupils at secondary schools admitted to having been drunk “two or three times” in the past month.
Should this surprise us? Not really. An increasing number of young people have to endure the misery of parental divorce, or the break-up of unmarried relationship. Many have to cope with the complications of what is coyly called a “merged family” with step-brothers and step-sisters in what may turn out to be yet another temporary arrangement. They are expected to manage the relationships involved in having step-grandparents and an assortment of step-uncles and aunts, some of whom may also be in various sorts of relationships with partners.
Since school discipline is acknowledged to be a problem – evident in a rising number of incidents of attacks on teachers, routine necessary searches for knives, a massive problem of swearing and rowdiness in classrooms – it is scarcely surprising that for many children an ordinary school day presents much that will induce fear and unhappiness. The consumer-culture also produces an array of nasty habits: envy, greed, the nonsense of the “must-have” jeans or trainers, the sneering or bullying involved when a child is deemed to be dressed unfashionably. Obesity presents a further problem: children who instead of family meals are presented with endless opportunities to grab snacks and given money for fast-food to be eaten on the way home from school, and/or in front of the TV at home.

A new book also notes that lack of structure and discipline in children’s lives induces misery. The Spoilt Generation: why restoring authority will make our children and society happier by Aric Sigman points out that children desperately need authority figures, boundaries and discipline and order, parents who are in control. It is cruel to deny children these things, which are essential to mental and emotional health and wellbeing.
If one single cause of misery could be brought out as heading a list, it would be the denial of a child’s right to a father. Cruel policies in divorce courts block fathers from seeing their children: a mother is deemed to have the right to force her children to live with her and her new boyfriend while a father becomes a marginal figure whose visits can be blocked or made extremely difficult by moving to a distant place.

Divorce can also bring other effects: conscious that their children are likely to be unhappy when a home breaks up, parents tend to try to compensate by soft-pedalling on discipline, allowing bad behaviour which really requires correction.
There are other ways of inducing heartache in children, too: over-indulgence and giving them a sense of entitlement to instant gratification makes them angry with themselves and with others, discontented, unable to manage small everyday challenges. Failure to punish bad behaviour means that they are confused and life seems to lack structure and purpose.
And the fashionable emphasis on “genderless parenting” mean that a simple truth has been ignored: children need both mothers and fathers, who relate to them in different ways. A family should not have to be politically-correct, and nor should its means of communication or discipline have to follow fashion. Families need to have a confidence in being what they are, and parents should be allowed and encouraged to make use of their best instincts and their common sense.
None of this seems to have reached Ggovernment circles of thought. Do politicians and bureaucrats live on a different planet from the rest of us? Britain’s “Children’s Minister” announced, in response to the recent survey, that the new system of “happiness” classes at school and compulsory “personal, social, health and economic education” would resolve the problems, along with promotion of healthy eating habits.
It makes one despair. A child needs a secure home, and the knowledge that there is a moral code and a meaning to life. You cannot teach “happiness” in a classroom, and it is bizarre that a government is attempting to do so. Structure and discipline should form a framework in which a child can flourish, a sort of secure flower-pot in which the young plant thrives before it is put out into the larger flower-bed to bloom in the garden.
The angry, frightening young men and women who shriek and vomit and lurch about drunkenly in the streets of Britain’s towns and suburbs on summer nights are evidence that we are getting something terribly wrong. It is very weird when a nation is afraid of its own young.
It is possible to change, and to start making the right decisions and restoring wisdom and truth to the task of child-rearing. If we don’t, the future looks bleak.
Joanna Bogle writes from London.
 

Polish priests are having a devil of a time as demand for exorcists rises
Date: 13 February 2010
By Matthew Day in Warsaw
http://news.scotsman.com/world/Polish-priests-are-having-a.6069658.jp

THE number of priests in Poland willing to do battle with Satan and rid people of evil spirits has soared as a result of growing public demand for exorcisms, say Catholic Church figures.
As Polish exorcists gathered yesterday for their annual conference, few failed to notice the swollen ranks of clergy.

In the early 1990s, there were just three exorcists for the whole country. Now there are more than 100, and each year the number
gets higher. In Europe, Poland now trails only Italy in the number of its registered exorcists.

"There are so many of us because the problem (of possession] is growing," Father Andrzej Grefkowicz told a press conference that shed a rare light on a practice which remains a mystery to many.
"This isn't funny," he added. "Anybody who has come into contact with somebody who is possessed, or enslaved, knows that this is not a joke."
Despite the spread of secular thought in Poland, according to the Polish Catholic Church, each year the number of people in "torment or enslaved by an evil spirit" increases.
"In Poland, there is a growing human awareness that different types of depression and anxiety can have a spiritual cause. There wouldn't be so many of us, if this wasn't the case," said Fr Grefkowicz by way of explanation.
Another reason cited by priests for the rise in exorcists is increasing public awareness of their role, and more people looking for explanations and cures to behaviour that conventional science struggles to deliver. But despite the age-old struggle between faith and science, trained exorcists refer people to psychologists if they feel the person suffers from a clinical, rather than spiritual problem.
"So how do we recognise if someone is possessed?" said Fr Grefkowicz. "A person may hear voices, and it may be a medical problem, but experience allows us to conclude it is a possession. Exorcists are looking for reasons."
Other ways of discovering if somebody has an evil spirit in them appear more direct.
"In Italy, there is a good way," said Fr Antony Zielinski. "You have three white envelopes, two of which contain cards, while the third has a holy image. A person possessed will behave abnormally in contact with the envelope holding the holy picture."
Aware that talk of cards and evil spirits may invoke a negative reaction from the cynical, and that many people's knowledge of exorcism is based on Hollywood horror films, Poland's exorcists are cautiously trying to demystify their work.
"We really need to shed light on the whole subject," said Dr Alexander Posacki, a Jesuit theologian and exorcism expert.
"There are a lot of unnecessary myths surrounding it, but exorcism is based on the cast-iron rules of the Church," he added. "Everything is consistent with its tradition and its teachings."
In an effort to undermine the dramatic movie image of priests locked in tumultuous battles with evil spirits, Fr Grefkowicz said most exorcisms are more sedate affairs, rather than dramatic scenarios.
"Our work is based mainly on prayers and psalms, and that is how I cast out an evil spirit," he said
 

Why Pope John Paul II Whipped Himself
New book reopens questions on self-denial and "what is lacking in Christ's afflictions."
Collin Hansen | posted 2/08/2010 09:11AM

Pope John Paul II projected a warm, grandfatherly image to the adoring public who flocked en masse to hear his homilies or watched on TV from home as he traversed the globe. So there was no small shock when a recent book revealed that the pope, who died in 2005, whipped himself with a belt and sometimes lay prostrate all night on the floor.

The pope apparently did not want aides to investigate his sleeping habits, going so far as to make his bed appear used by tossing around the sheets. Yet Monsignor Slawomir Oder, who is presenting John Paul II's case for canonization, detailed the behavior in an Italian-language book, Why He's a Saint: The Real John Paul II According to the Postulator of His Beatification Cause. Oder explains that the pope believed these acts of penance would affirm God's primacy and help him seek perfection. While self-inflicted physical suffering is unusual among Catholics, other notables have pursued holiness in this manner. Mother Teresa wore a cilice, a strap secured around the thigh that inflicts pain with inward-pointing spikes. Catholics are quick to point out, however, that these practices bear little resemblance to the bloody, masochistic flogging so graphically portrayed in the movie based on Dan Brown's novel The Da Vinci Code.

So how do Catholics explain self-flagellation, a practice so foreign to Protestants, let alone non-Christians? Several writers have defended the late pope. Writing for the National Catholic Register, Jimmy Akin faults a "pleasure-obsessed culture" for portraying the pope's behavior as repulsive.

"Self-mortification teaches humility by making us recognize that there are things more important than our own pleasure," Akin writes. "It teaches compassion by giving us a window into the sufferings of others—who don't have a choice in whether they're suffering. And it strengthens self-control. As well as (here's the big one I've saved for last) encouraging us to follow the example of Our Lord, who made the central act of the Christian religion one of self-denial and (in his case) literal mortification to bring salvation to all mankind."

Indeed, the pope believed suffering brought him closer to Christ, according to Oder. For precedent, the pope appealed to Colossians 1:24, where the apostle Paul writes, "Now I rejoice in my sufferings for your sake, and in my flesh I am filling up what is lacking in Christ's afflictions for the sake of his body, that is, the church." With no parallel in the New Testament, this verse has vexed biblical commentators for centuries. Surveying the Old Testament apocalyptic literature, Peter O'Brien understands "what is lacking" to mean that God has appointed a measure of suffering before the end comes. Paul's suffering on behalf of the Colossians, whom he never even met, helped to fill that gap. The suffering he endured for the sake of the gospel in his apostolic ministry united him with other Christians and even Christ himself, who suffered untold anguish on the Cross.

Yet for all the hardship he bore (2 Cor. 11:16-32), Paul did not harm himself in pursuit of this union. Suffering found him, and he even pleaded unsuccessfully with God to relent (2 Cor. 12:7-10). God allowed this suffering in order that he might demonstrate his power in Paul's weakness. Whether we seek suffering or not, aging does the same by inflicting hardship on nearly all of us. Does our theology prepare us to endure? As John Paul II aged, Parkinson's disease visibly ravaged his once-vigorous body. He even considered resigning, something no modern pope has done, even though Catholic bishops usually retire at age 75. Politics Daily columnist David Gibson points out that the agonizing end to John Paul II's life deserves more attention than his private suffering.

"In the end, all of the revelations about flagellation and such may be more of an unfortunate distraction from the testimony of the pope's final years, when he struggled against a growing paralysis but continued to write and travel and appear in public and show the zest for life he always had—a kind of self-mortification that was also a powerful public witness for those who were similarly aged or infirm."

Still, we should understand the late pontiff's self-flagellation as part of a more comprehensive Catholic theology. According to Chris Castaldo, author of Holy Ground: Walking with Jesus as a Former Catholic, John Paul II's views can be found in a 2002 homily he preached about St. Pio of Pietrelcina, a Capuchin priest famous for his self-flagellation. Today you can still visit Pietrelcina and see gory traces of his self-affliction. Honoring this saint, John Paul II quoted Galatians 6:14: "But may I never boast except in the cross of Our Lord Jesus Christ." According to the pope, Pio showed the redemption of Christ by conforming to the Cross.

"Is it not, precisely, the 'glory of the Cross' that shines above all in Padre Pio?" Pope John Paul II asked. "How timely is the spirituality of the Cross lived by the humble Capuchin of Pietrelcina. Our time needs to rediscover the value of the Cross in order to open the heart to hope. Throughout his life, he always sought greater conformity with the Crucified, since he was very conscious of having been called to collaborate in a special way in the work of redemption. His holiness cannot be understood without this constant reference to the Cross."

Protestants recoil at mention of collaborating in the work of redemption, because believers have been sanctified by the once-for-all offering of Jesus Christ on the Cross (Heb. 10:10). But perhaps we may still resonate with the spiritual benefits of self-denial. Though we reject self-flagellation as a misguided effort to relate to Christ, we may pursue other disciplines prescribed by Scripture to express our need for God. Maybe the best example is fasting, a common Old Testament practice assumed by Jesus as a means of connecting with God (Matt. 6:16-18). But just as our age scoffs at self-flagellation, so also many skeptics consign fasting to the over-zealous.

"Christians in a gluttonous, denial-less, self-indulgent society may struggle to accept and to begin the practice of fasting," Don Whitney writes in Spiritual Disciplines for the Christian Life. "Few disciplines go so radically against the flesh and the mainstream culture as this one. But we cannot overlook its biblical significance. Of course, some people, for medical reasons, cannot fast. But most of us dare not overlook fasting's benefits in the disciplined pursuit of a Christlike life."

Do you want to strengthen your prayer life? Discern God's leading? Find an outlet to express your grief to God? Confess your utter dependence on God? Whipping is not necessary, but self-denial is a vital means of Christian growth. As Jesus prepared for his earthly ministry, he fasted. His example compels us to do the same.

Collin Hansen is a CT editor at large and co-author of the forthcoming book, A God-Sized Vision: Revival Stories That Stretch and Stir (Zondervan).
 

Haiti: The Untold Story

"There shall be pestilences, and famines, and earthquakes in places: Now all these are the beginnings of sorrows." (Matthew 24: 7,8)

Haiti, formerly known as the Pearl of the Antilles, was once a prosperous French colony where the Catholic Faith predominated. But in August, 1791, Haiti was dedicated to the devil by island rebels and has since been plagued with hurricanes, floods, and civil unrest, with Haiti today being the poorest nation in the Western Hemisphere.
This sharply contrasts its neighbor, the Dominican Republic, which has kept the Faith and has enjoyed an abundance of peace and prosperity over the years.
It is a well documented and historical fact that a group of Voodoo priests (houngans) led by a priestess named Dutty Boukman made a pact with the Devil in Haiti on August 14, 1791. The place was Bois Caiman. All present vowed to exterminate all the white Frenchmen on the island. They offered a black pig in sacrifice in which hundreds of slaves drank the pig blood. In this ritual, Boukman implored the devil to get the French occupation out of Haiti, and in exchange they offered their country to Satan with a vow to serve him.

The event at Bois Caiman marked the beginning of the Haitian revolution which culminated on January 1, 1804, when the nation of Haiti was born and a new demonic tyranny began.
Today over three quarters of Haiti's population practices Voodoo, a curse that was greatly augmented when President Jean-Bertrand Aristide officially sanctioned Voodoo as a national religion on April 8, 2003. Voodoo priests are now permitted to perform marriages and other ceremonies previously reserved only for Christian religions. "An ancestral religion, Voodoo is an essential part of national identity," Aristide said in his decree recognizing Voodoo.
What is worse is the way that Aristide went out of his way to promote the practice of Voodoo in his country. On the day the government recognized the cult, he paid all the radio stations in Haiti to play nothing but Voodoo music all day long. He even flew in 400 Voodoo priests from West Africa to help spur the event on.
According to Reverend Doug Anderson who served as a missionary in Haiti until 1990, "Haiti is the only country in the entire world that has dedicated its government to Satan. Demonic spirits have been consulted for political decisions, and have shaped the country's history." Haitian leaders make no attempt to hide their allegiance to Satan. According to media commentator Tom Barrett, "Haiti's government is a government of the devil, by the devil, and for the devil."
Is it any wonder that Haiti was struck by a killer earthquake on January 12th? Have we forgotten how often the Israelites in the Bible were punished and delivered into slavery when they would depart from the God of their fathers and sacrifice in their groves?
Two hundred years ago the houngans in Haiti called upon the god of Voodoo to direct their country and for the past two hundred years the devil has been driving a whip to their back and holding them in chains of envy. The vulture spirituality produced by the cult was clearly evidenced by the hoards of people looting in the streets while the earth was yet shaking on January 12.
The earthquake in Haiti is a wake-up call for the people to return to their knees and honor the God of Columbus who first brought the Christian Faith to that country. But it is also a lesson as to what will happen anywhere on earth where decadence and degeneracy become a way of life. We saw it in Southeast Asia (tsunami disaster) where children were being forced into the sex industry against their will. We saw it in New Orleans (Katrina) where 135,000 gays and lesbians were scheduled to parade in the streets just two days before the killer hurricane hit.
Shall we play the ostrich and pretend that the killer quake in Haiti was just an accident?
This was a clear and direct message from God to the people of Haiti and the world. The Republic of Haiti was punished for adopting satanic cruelty (Voodoo) as a way of life for its people. But the mercy of God was also extended in taking many of these innocent souls before the devil might have a chance to claim them for himself.
But this mercy too is for the survivors of the quake. God broke Haiti's legs as it were, but in the same move he broke the shackles of sin that they may come out of bondage and walk at liberty as Christians as they were called to do in the beginning. We might see the Haitian quake as a potential exodus from 200 + years of satanic oppression.
Let us pray that Haiti will heed this sign from on high to put away its witchcraft and embrace more fully the laws of God that they may be the peaceful and prosperous nation  they were called to be in the beginning.
David Martin jmj4today@att.net

Reference: St. Petersburg Times, Media Research, Wikipedia, Conservative Truth, Pat Robertson
 

As killers hunted her, Rwandan woman hid in cramped bathroom with Rosary for 91 days

It was beyond a horror movie. It is in the realm of martyrdom. It was during one of history's most brutal genocides.
For 91 harrowing days in 1994, a twenty-two-year-old Catholic student named Immaculée Ilibagiza of the Tutsi people in Rwanda, Africa, hid in the bathroom of a minister's house with seven other adults to escape all but certain death. Hutus were in the midst of a reign of terror that, before it was over, depending on the estimate, would record 800,000 to a million Tutsis -- Immaculée's people -- murdered (in one to three months).
It was a secret bathroom that even some of the minister's family didn't know about: three by four feet and so small that Immaculée and the others -- for those three months -- had to take turns standing.
The alternative was death by machete.
Indeed, Immaculée lost her parents, two brothers, her grandparents, uncles, aunts, cousins, neighbors, friends, and classmates in the "war."
For endless, nail-biting days, she and the others listened in stark terror as killers searched her village for remaining Tutsis and even entered the house in which they were hiding, missing them by God's grace.
Day in and day out, light or dark, just outside the window -- at times, just feet beyond the thin walls that shielded them -- were the sounds of murder.
And every day -- perhaps every hour -- the women wondered how they would meet their end; one of them begged the minister, who was a Hutu, but had hidden them out of Christian kindness, to throw dirt on her corpse if they were next so the dogs -- which were consuming the strewn corpses -- would not tear into hers.
It was so terrifying that often while the women hid their mouths dried and there was no saliva to swallow -- terrifying but for prayer: Immaculée recited 27 rosaries and forty Divine-Mercy chaplets a day -- praying every waking moment.
It was how she survived. It was how they all survived -- physically and emotionally.
"I felt like my head was laying on the lap of the Blessed Mother all day," she recounted to us recently.
"There was no eating. I prayed from the morning until eleven at night.
"Every day, every second, I had to think of the Blessed Mother. And at night, I would dream of Jesus. Although all day I was praying to Mary, at night I always dreamt of Jesus, and He told me, 'Don't fear again.'"
Adds her blog:
"Immaculée credits her salvage mostly to prayer and to a set of rosary beads given to her by her devout Catholic father prior to going into hiding. Anger and resentment about her situation were literally eating her alive and destroying her faith, but rather than succumbing to the rage that she felt, Immaculée instead turned to prayer. She began to pray the Rosary as a way of drowning out the negativity that was building up inside her. Immaculée found solace and peace in prayer and began to pray from the time she opened her eyes in the morning to the time she closed her eyes at night. Through prayer, she eventually found it possible, and in fact imperative, to forgive her tormentors and her family's murderers."
At one point, said Immaculée, a Hutu killer put his hand on the bathroom door but, miraculously, didn't open it.
Afterward, a cabinet was placed in front to obscure the door as Immaculée maintained her incredible ordeal, eating beans with insects in them. The young Rwandan woman dwindled from a healthy 115 pounds to a skeleton of 65 pounds, nourished mainly by that rosary her father, a convert to Catholicism, had given her.
By the end of this modern holocaust -- which largely took place outside world view -- three-quarters of Tutsis would be killed, including nine hundred of 2,500 fellow students. So numerous were the corpses that, as was the case with her father's body, they were stacked by Hutu warriors for roadblocks -- or simply heaved into the Kagera River, where they all but clogged this waterway that empties into Lake Victoria.
The New York Times headline was "Blood in the River" while Time's cover story quoted a missionary as saying, "There are no devils left in hell. They are all in Rwanda."
And indeed that was exactly what Immaculée and the others heard, the sounds of evil as neighbor killed neighbor, the Hutus hunting down every Tutsi they could find -- at one point calling out Immaculée's name as they searched the house!
The Hutus never found the women -- who with the help of the minister eventually escaped to a refugee camp (established by the French Foreign Legion).
Her story is now famous. She has met world leaders like President George Bush (who read her book and sent her a personal letter). She has been honored with an award given legendary people like Mother Teresa, Jimmy Carter, Nelson Mandela, and the Dalai Lama, and has received honorary doctoral degrees from the University of Notre Dame and Saint John's University. She wrote a bestselling book called Left To Tell. President Barack Obama was photographed holding the book. Her account has been told on 60 Minutes.
The story is remarkable enough right there, but then, more remarkably, is the mystical aspect.
For the genocide had been prophesied years before by the same Blessed Mother when she appeared in Rwanda during apparitions that began at Kibeho in 1981 and have been fully approved by the Roman Catholic Church -- apparitions that Immaculée now dedicates herself to publicizing.
It was during those apparitions, as we have previously reported, that Mary warned about materialism, irreverence, and sexual immorality that would bring desolation (soon to be realized as AIDS swept this region).
There were initially twelve visionaries, then nine studied by the Church, three officially approved in 2001, when a declaration was issued in Rome. During an apparition preceding the holocaust, one of the seers saw what was later described as "a river of blood, people who were killing each other, abandoned corpses with no one to bury them" -- precisely what soon transpired and was noted in the headline.
Those revelations are what Immaculée now chronicles, at speaking engagements and in another bestseller called Our Lady of Kibeho. Her main message: Christian forgiveness (after the ordeal, she even kissed one of the killers who murdered two members of her family).
During the holocaust, two of the seers died. A third later succumbed to illness. Only three are officially recognized -- but achieved that status in a pastoral letter issued by the local bishop during a visit to the Vatican in June of 2001.
Ironically, says Immaculée, the bishop said he was most impressed with a pagan boy named Emmanuel Segatashya who was not one of the approved seers but had converted so deeply that he spoke with the wisdom of one who had spent decades immersed in Catholic teaching. "I spoke with the bishop, and he said they will be going back to all the visionaries, but anyone who had an apparition of Jesus, they did not want for now to go there," explains Immaculée. "They approved of Mary but not Jesus."
Perhaps it was also because Segatashya, in addition to claiming an encounter with Jesus, spoke of the "end" of the world.
"I never conceived the world could end until I saw the genocide," reflects Immaculée. "To have seen a million die in three months, to see people leaving, with nothing from their pasts, was incredible."
The warning of Kibeho, she feels, is for the whole world, and also has been transmitted from sites like Medjugorje, which  Immaculée has visited and firmly supports. "I think it is the Lord going to the ends of the world," says the African woman, who now lives in New York and has worked at the United Nations. "So many souls are searching for God. We will see chastisements. We will have trouble because of our sins."
But like her we have the Rosary.
Like her, we have the Divine Mercy chaplet.
And with prayer we too can escape the cramped quarters of hiding no matter what storm or holocaust or genocide (or quaking of the ground) rises around us.
 

Lawsuit calls yoga chain a cult

By Kyra Phillips and David Fitzpatrick, CNN
January 7, 2010 -- Updated 2320 GMT (0720 HKT)

A full investigation into the allegations against the Dahn Yoga centers on tonight's Campbell Brown, 8 ET on CNN.

Cottonwood, Arizona (CNN) -- The cheering was raucous and the applause thunderous for a man who makes few public appearances.
As he made his way gingerly across a gravel park, where he had just dedicated a nearly 40-foot statue representing the "Soul of the Earth," a voice shouted out: "I love you, Ilchi Lee."
Lee, a South Korean businessman, is the founder of a national chain of yoga and wellness centers called Dahn Yoga. The company teaches that its physical exercises "can restore the vibrations of the body and brain to their original, healthy frequencies," according to a video introduction on its Web site.
But Dahn Yoga is now defending itself from allegations by former employees that it is "a totalistic, high-demand cult group" that demands large sums of money from its followers and enshrines Lee as an "absolute spiritual and temporal leader."
A lawsuit, filed in a federal court in Arizona, says that recruits "are unknowingly subjected to an intensive program of psychological manipulation, indoctrination and various techniques of coercive thought reform designed to induce them to become Ilchi Lee's disciples and devote themselves to serving him and his 'vision.' "

Jade Harrelson, one of more than two dozen plaintiffs in the lawsuit, said Dahn leaders "prey upon people like me who are ignorant about the way money works."
The company denies the allegations and calls the plaintiffs "disgruntled former employees."
"In our 30-year history, we have helped millions of people lead healthier and happier lives," corporate spokesman Joseph Alexander told CNN.
Dahn Yoga set up its first shop in the United States in 1991, in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania. It now has 127 storefront centers in the United States, more than 1,000 worldwide, and Forbes magazine estimates the company's 2009 profits at $34 million.
Dahn Yoga teaches that what it calls brain wave vibration can ease some of the debilitating symptoms of illnesses such as diabetes and arthritis. Its publicity materials feature praise for Lee from a variety of sources, including Oscar Arias, Costa Rica's president and a Nobel Peace Prize winner; and Broadway producer/choreographer Tommy Tune. In addition, Elkhonon Goldberg, a clinical professor of neurology at New York University's medical school, praises the work of the International Brain Education Association, a group Lee founded.
"IBREA is in a unique position to disseminate knowledge and to serve as a very effective platform for numerous worthwhile projects," Goldberg is quoted on the Dahn Web site as saying. "Ilchi Lee should be applauded for his pioneering creative vision in conceiving and launching this innovative organization with a truly international outreach."
Goldberg did not respond to requests for comment from CNN.
Harrelson and other former employees say Dahn Yoga instructors coerced them into taking out student loans, then transferring the funds to the company. Payments began in small amounts, she said, then progressively increased as fees for training and courses became more expensive. Harrelson said she eventually paid about $40,000 to Dahn.
Alexander said no one was ever coerced into giving money to Dahn Yoga. The former employees "have misinterpreted natural business cycles, natural business goals, as some type of undue pressure," he said.
 "We make no excuses and no apology for the fact that we are a business," Alexander said. The plaintiffs, he said, "are after one thing -- they are after money."
And Dahn Yoga attorney Alan Kaplan added, "Let's make it clear. My client, Mr. Lee, is not a cult leader. Dahn Yoga is not a cult."
But Ryan Kent, the lawyer who filed suit on behalf of Harrelson and 26 other former employees in May, said Dahn Yoga leaders indoctrinate followers, then "take advantage of you and take all your money."
Harrelson also said Lee singled her out for special attention and eventually sexually assaulted her while she was living and working in Seoul, South Korea.
She said she trusted Lee and saw him as a father figure, eventually following him to Seoul -- where, she says, he assaulted her one night in 2007 at his apartment.
"In my mind, there was no possible way I could have physically or verbally resisted him," Harrelson told CNN. "To say no to him was to say no to his soul. I became numb, and so what happened, happened not at my consent."
Harrelson said she never filed a police report. The first time she publicly made the allegation was when she and other former employees filed suit in early 2009.
Dahn Yoga's U.S. operations are now based near Sedona, Arizona, about 20 miles from Cottonwood -- where Lee appeared in December to dedicate the 39-foot statue of "Mago." The name is Korean for "Soul of the Earth," the mother figure in a seventh-century creation legend Lee cites as his inspiration.
It was a rare appearance for Lee, who is seldom seen in public and routinely travels with a retinue of bodyguards.
CNN requested an on-camera interview with Lee through his representatives, but was turned down. When approached at a dedication ceremony in this small Arizona town, he was surrounded by bodyguards, one of whom said the Dahn Yoga founder needed a translator to understand the questions.
When a CNN photographer who speaks Korean translated, Lee said it was the first time he had heard of the sex assault allegation. Then his bodyguards forced the camera lens to point toward the ground, and Lee continued to the ribbon-cutting.
Later, his attorney said any claims of sexual assault were not true, and "We are confident we will get those claims dismissed in court."
Harrelson, who goes by "Jade," and college friend Liza Miller also say they were strongly urged to undergo extreme physical training at Dahn Yoga's retreat center in Sedona -- training they say left both women at the brink of exhaustion.
One of the exercises, known as "bow training," involved deep knee bends to the floor to a prone position and back up again, with hands raised high over their heads. Miller, who has joined the lawsuit, says once she had to do 3,000 of the exercises -- "Which took about 10 hours, and we didn't eat or drink during that time."
"People were screaming, people were throwing up, people were running away," Miller said. "People were rolling around, moaning, crying, wailing -- there was a lot of emotional distress. We were taught that because of this bow training, we were cleaning what was blocking us, to connect to our soul."
Dahn Yoga calls Miller's description of the exercise inaccurate.
"These are meditation practices," Alexander said. "They are common throughout Asia, especially in Korea. Generally, people do a smaller number of bows, and they build up to more. I know of no one who does 3,000 bows on a regular basis."
And Dahn Yoga instructor Genia Sullivan told CNN, "The practices that we practice are very helpful."
"They empower people to really use everything they have to become the best person they can be, and I've benefited greatly from it," Sullivan said.
Other Dahn employees sent CNN e-mails supportive of the organization and its leader while this report was being prepared. All praised Lee, with one woman saying she had given her life to him and to the organization. The writers all condemned their former colleagues who have gone to court, and they deny the company is a cult.
By all accounts, Dahn Yoga is a booming business. Lee is revered by most of its adherents. But some former employees who say they once loved the organization are now saying far different things.
"The problem was way at the top, at the very, very top, things are completely dishonest," Miller said. "And that information trickled down so that everyone is believing one thing, which is a total lie."
 

Anti-Christian attacks in Iraq part of brutal strategy, says archbishop

Rome, Italy, Nov 30, 2009 / 03:52 am (CNA).- Archbishop Basile Georges Casmoussa of Mosul said last week that last Thursdya’s anti-Christian attacks in Iraq which destroyed a church and damaged a convent “show that there is a strategy to erase our cultural heritage and more than 2000 years of history” on the part of Muslim extremists.
In an interview with L’Osservatore Romano, the archbishop said these Islamic groups “want to destabilize the atmosphere of trust in our country. We must oppose this atmosphere of hatred with strength and with prayer,” he added.
The strategy of these groups “is clear,” the archbishop continued.  “As soon as the situation becomes calm and it appears there is a chance Christians can return to their homes in their cities, the terror and violence reappear with greater threats.”
“This is the not the first time extremist groups lashed out at the symbols of the Christian community in Iraq. And it is not the first time that priests and religious have paid with their blood,” he explained.
After recalling the March 2008 assassination of his predecessor Archbishop Paulos Faraj Rahho, Archbishop Casmoussa said, “It seems like nobody is able to guarantee the safety of Iraqi Christians.”
“The only path to take to placate violence is dialogue,” the archbishop continued.  “Only then will we be able to isolate these extremist groups and become a tolerant country.  Now we must seek to be close to our small community and give ourselves strength and encouragement.”
 

Mosul: Christian buildings attacked, Church of Saint Ephrem levelled
11/26/2009 14:15
IRAQ - AsiaNews Agency

At present, there is no information about casualties. Attackers carried out their action in broad daylight without any opposition. The methods used are like those used in the attack against the Bishop’s Palace in 2004. Christian sources say the “attack was like a Mafia warning”, a message to Christians “to leave the city.” The faithful are left with anger, disappointment and fear.
 Mosul (AsiaNews) – Explosive devices were detonated this morning at two Christian sites in Mosul, the Church of Saint Ephrem and the Mother House of the Dominican Sisters of Saint Catherine. At present, there are no reports about casualties but the church was entirely destroyed. The convent also suffered damages but it is not known how much. Christian sources in Mosul told AsiaNews that the “attack was like a Mafia warning”, a message to Christians “to get out of the city.” 
At around 10 am, a commando of about ten gunmen stormed the Church of Saint Ephrem in the al-Jadida neighbourhood, in a new section of the city. Attackers told everyone inside to leave and then calmly proceeded to place explosives around the building. When they were set off the whole structure was levelled. The same thing happened to the Bishop’s Palace in December 2004.
According to early reports, no one among the faithful was hurt in the blast.
After the first operation, the attackers moved to the Mother House of the Dominican Sisters of Saint Catherine, where a second explosion was heard around 10.30 am. For the moment, there are no details about the damages inflicted on the building or any casualties among the nuns.
Sources in Mosul told AsiaNews that the attacks were the work “of a group of about ten people who acted calmly.”
The area is under the control of Sunni Arabs and had not seen any major act of violence until now.
“We received threats and episodes of intimidation but nothing major,” a Christian source said.
This morning’s attacks resemble “the series of attacks that hit Mosul’s Christian community in the past.”
Local sources suggest that Kurds might be involved in the action in order to get Christians out of the area and into the “Nineveh Plain.”
“There is a lot of fear among the people because those who carried out the attack acted unimpeded and without opposition,” the anonymous source said.
In fact, it is more than just fear. A sense of “anger and disillusionment against the local and national governments is growing. It is the latest attack and latest disillusionment for Christians who feel abandoned.”  (DS)

Masked Gunman Kills Russian Priest At Moscow Church

By REUTERS
Published: November 20, 2009

MOSCOW (Reuters) - A masked gunman entered a church and murdered a Russian Orthodox priest who had received death threats for converting Muslims to Christianity and criticizing Islam, prosecutors and church officials said Friday.
The killing could threaten delicate relations between the powerful majority Russian Orthodox Church, which has close ties to the Kremlin, and the country's growing Muslim minority of about 20 million.
The gunman approached priest Daniil Sysoyev, 34, in St Thomas Church in southern Moscow Thursday night, checked his name and then opened fire with a pistol, a spokesman for the investigating committee of the Prosecutor-General's office said.
"The main theory is that religious motives are behind the crime," spokesman Anatoly Bagmet said.
Sysoyev died on the way to hospital. His choirmaster was injured in the attack, Bagmet said, and is in hospital under armed guard.
Sysoyev was from Tatarstan, a predominantly Muslim region of Russia on the Volga river. He was threatened after preaching to Muslims and Christians from other denominations.
"I have received 10 threats via e-mail that I shall have my head cut off (if I do not stop preaching to Muslims)," Sysoyev stated on a television program in February 2008, according to Interfax. "As I see it, it is a sin not to preach to Muslims."

Russia is home to Europe's largest Muslim community and Islam is the country's second-biggest faith, something which Sysoyev criticized.
"Islam is far from being a religion in the way we understand it," he said in one of his video lectures posted on YouTube (http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=uJNPSyh4zFk&feature=related).
"Islam can be rather compared with projects like National Socialism or the Communist party seeking to create God's kingdom on Earth using humanly instruments," he added.
He also wrote books including "An Orthodox Response to Islam" and "Marrying a Muslim," in which he advised Russian women against taking a Muslim partner.
Russia has seen a religious revival after the collapse of the Soviet Union and the dominant Orthodox Church has become an important political force. Its leader, Patriarch Kirill, is frequently seen in public with Russian and foreign leaders.
But Orthodox bishops have complained that rival Christian denominations are seeking to make converts on its territory and Islam is spreading fast among a sprawling community of migrants from predominantly Muslim republics of the former Soviet Union.
The Russian Patriarch's press service refused to comment on the murder but some of Sysoyev's Orthodox colleagues referred to Muslim attacks on him prior to the killing.
"Father Daniil ... has been periodically receiving e-mails which said he will be treated as 'infidel' if he did not stop polemics with Muslims," Kiril Frolov, the head of the Orthodox Experts Association, told Interfax news agency.
Russia's Chief Mufti Ravil Gainuddin expressed his condolences to the Orthodox Church and to Sysoyev's family. He cautioned against assigning blame prematurely or speculating about the motives for the killing.
"We want to say that we oppose any expressions of terrorism and extremism," he told reporters. "Islam denounces terror and the murder of an imam, an orthodox priest, is an awful sin..."
Sysoyev also preached against small religious groupings such as Seventh-day Adventists and Jehovah's Witnesses, viewed as "totalitarian sects" by the Orthodox Church.
(Additional reporting by Aydar Buribayev; editing by Michael Stott and Janet Lawrence)

Vatican Researcher Finds Writings On The Shroud of Turin

November 21st, 2009 - 7:13 pm ICT by GD -
By Ranjan Bhaduri,
Nov. 21, (THAINDIAN NEWS) Vatican scholar, Barbara Frale, has come up with the information that the ‘Shroud of Turin‘, debated as the burial cloth of Jesus, has several writings on it that could prove its viability. According to Frale, the text includes the words “(J)esu(s) Nazarene” which translates into Greek as Jesus of Nazareth. The claim has been made in her book, La Sindone di Gesu nazareno or ‘The Shroud of Jesus of Nazareth’.
The discovery was made by Frale with the help of the computer analysis of the shroud’s photos which are not accessible very frequently. Frale further believes that the words were written on a document so as to identify the body (Jesus’s), but the ink seeped into the shroud.
The piece of cloth bears the images of a man who has been crucified, and its validity as the cloth used to cover Jesus during his burial, has been debated for ages. The experts dismiss Frale’s claims saying that the shroud has been concluded to be a medieval forgery established through carbon-dating. To this, Frale said, that during the medieval times, no one except a heretic could have omitted to use these particular words of divinity, and even a forger “would have had all the reasons to put up the words on the object”. She also says that the shroud could have been seen as a hoax if the words ‘Christ’ or ‘Son of God’, were found instead of ‘Jesus of Nazareth’. Gian Marco Rinaldi, an expert on the matter, said that the signs are brought out by computer enhancements and that the letters are a figment of imagination.
 
 

Death certificate is imprinted on the Shroud of Turin, says Vatican scholar

Wednesday, 25 Nov 2009
A Vatican scholar claims to have deciphered the "death certificate" imprinted on the Shroud of Turin, or Holy Shroud, a linen cloth revered by Christians and held by many to bear the image of the crucified Jesus.
By Richard Owen

Dr Barbara Frale, a researcher in the Vatican secret archives, said "I think I have managed to read the burial certificate of Jesus the Nazarene, or Jesus of Nazareth." She said that she had reconstructed it from fragments of Greek, Hebrew and Latin writing imprinted on the cloth together with the image of the crucified man.
The shroud, which is kept in the royal chapel of Turin Cathedral and is to be put in display next spring, is regarded by many scholars as a medieval forgery. A 1988 carbon dating of a fragment of the cloth dated it to the Middle Ages.

However Dr Frale, who is to publish her findings in a new book, La Sindone di Gesu Nazareno (The Shroud of Jesus of Nazareth) said that the inscription provided "historical date consistent with the Gospels account". The letters, barely visible to the naked eye, were first spotted during an examination of the shroud in 1978, and others have since come to light.
Some scholars have suggested that the writing is from a reliquary attached to the cloth in medieval times. But Dr Frale said that the text could not have been written by a medieval Christian because it did not refer to Jesus as Christ but as "the Nazarene". This would have been "heretical" in the Middle Ages since it defined Jesus as "only a man" rather than the Son of God.
Like the image of the man himself the letters are in reverse and only make sense in negative photographs. Dr Frale told La Repubblica that under Jewish burial practices current at the time of Christ in a Roman colony such as Palestine, a body buried after a death sentence could only be returned to the family after a year in a common grave.
A death certificate was therefore glued to the burial shroud to identify it for later retrieval, and was usually stuck to the cloth around the face. This had apparently been done in the case of Jesus even though he was buried not in a common grave but in the tomb offered by Joseph of Arimathea.
Dr Frale said that many of the letters were missing, with Jesus for example referred to as "(I)esou(s) Nnazarennos" and only the "iber" of "Tiberiou" surviving. Her reconstruction, however, suggested that the certificate read: "In the year 16 of the reign of the Emperor Tiberius Jesus the Nazarene, taken down in the early evening after having been condemned to death by a Roman judge because he was found guilty by a Hebrew authority, is hereby sent for burial with the obligation of being consigned to his family only after one full year". It ends "signed by" but the signature has not survived.
Dr Frale said that the use of three languages was consistent with the polyglot nature of a community of Greek-speaking Jews in a Roman colony. Best known for her studies of the Knights Templar, who she claims at one stage preserved the shroud, she said what she had deciphered was "the death sentence on a man called Jesus the Nazarene. If that man was also Christ the Son of God it is beyond my job to establish. I did not set out to demonstrate the truth of faith. I am a Catholic, but all my teachers have been atheists or agnostics, and the only believer among them was a Jew. I forced myself to work on this as I would have done on any other archaeological find."
The Catholic Church has never either endorsed the Turin Shroud or rejected it as inauthentic. Pope John Paul II arranged for public showings in 1998 and 2000, saying: "The Shroud is an image of God's love as well as of human sin. The imprint left by the tortured body of the Crucified One, which attests to the tremendous human capacity for causing pain and death to one's fellow man, stands as an icon of the suffering of the innocent in every age." Pope Benedict XVI is to pray before the Shroud when it is put on show again next Spring in Turin.

Big anti-abortion rally in Spain

Pro-life protesters turned out in numbers

More than a million people are said to have taken part in a march in Madrid to oppose government plans to liberalise Spain's abortion law.

Several dozen centre-right opposition party joined the demonstration, which was backed by Roman Catholic bishops. Socialist Prime Minister Jose Luis Rodriguez Zapatero wants to introduce abortion on demand. At present, a pregnancy can only be terminated in mainly Catholic Spain under specific circumstances. The government wants the procedure to be available to all women up until the 14th week of pregnancy.
Most controversially, the draft law currently before parliament would also permit girls aged 16 and 17 to have an abortion without their parents' knowledge. It is the latest in a series of ethical issues which have pitted the Catholic right against the government, which has legalised gay marriage and made divorce easier.

Police estimates put the crowd at 250,000, but the regional government said that over a million had turned out, with the organisers claiming a turnout of two million. 'Every life matters'
The march brought together more than 40 religious and civil society groups calling for the government to withdraw the draft bill.
The march drew together more than 40 religious and other groups

"This new law is a barbarity," said one protester, Jose Carlos Felicidad, from the southern town of Algeciras.
"In this country, they protect animals more than human beings," he told AFP news agency.
A broad cross-section of Spanish society were represented, says the BBC's Steve Kingstone in Madrid - old and young, parents with babies, priests, nuns, immigrant families and organised groups coached in from all over the country.
They gathered in the heart of Madrid under an enormous blue banner the height of a two-storey building emblazoned with the simple message: "Every life matters."
The crowd stretched all the way up the city's main avenue in what our correspondent says was a show of strength by Spain's traditional Catholic right.
The demonstrators would have been hoping that lawmakers at the parliament nearby were listening, our correspondent adds, because it is they who in due course will vote on this controversial legislation.

Respect and rights?
Spain's existing law, dating from 1985, allows abortion in cases of rape and when there are signs of foetal abnormality.
Spanish women can also end a pregnancy if their physical or psychological health is at risk. In practice, the last category has been used to justify the vast majority of abortions - of which there were 112,000 in 2007.
The government says the new law is about respect and rights for women, and that anyone wanting to terminate a pregnancy will first be explained the alternatives - including state help for young mothers.
It also claims its proposal will make abortion safer - by ensuring the procedure does not happen beyond 22 weeks of a pregnancy.
In recent years shocking cases have emerged in which doctors performed abortions on women eight months pregnant, with the justification that their mental health was under threat.

Charismatics for generations

There is a little known story about Fr. Angelo Roncalli (future Pope John XXIII) in Patti Gallagher’s book “As by a New Pentecost”:

While he was still Bishop Angelo Roncalli, Pope John XXIII used to visit a tiny Czechoslovakian village of approximately three hundred people where a dear friend of mine, Mrs. AnnaMariea Schmidt, was living. For many centuries all the Catholics in this village had experienced the full spectrum of charismatic gifts as recorded in 1 Corinthians 12-14. It was part of normal Christian life for them . . . Pentecost was a daily reality.

AnnaMariea related to me the circumstances surrounding the first manifestation of charismatic gifts in the eleventh century. When the villagers were in danger of starvation due to the severe cold which ruined their crops, they prayed for God’s help. A beautiful lady, who did not identify herself, appeared on the mountain and taught them how to implore the Holy Spirit. As they followed her instructions, they were all filled with the Spirit and received charismatic gifts, such as discernment of spirits, prophecy and the gift of tongues. They also experienced a growth in the sanctifying gifts of the Holy Spirit, especially love. The bread which they baked that winter was blessed, and their supply lasted miraculously until the next harvest.

Each successive generation of villagers manifested the gifts of the Holy Spirit. They did not realize that their charismatic experience was unique, since their village was fairly isolated. AnnaMariea describes how the power of prayer and the presence of God’s love were so strong that they needed no jails or hospitals. When someone was sick, the entire village united in prayer, expecting God’s healing. Children were welcomed into families; there was no divorce. Peace and love reigned. Sunday Mass was a glorious celebration of Jesus in their midst and was followed by a sharing of food and fellowship. Scripture was read in the homes and children were instructed to live in the power of the Holy Spirit.

It was into this charismatic environment that Bishop Roncalli came for visits in the 1930s. He was joyfully received as a spiritual father. AnnaMariea, who was a child at the time, remembers him as a priest imbued with God’s love. She delighted to sit at his feet and listen to him speak about Jesus. He seemed perfectly at home amidst the manifestations of the charismatic gifts as he prayed with her family and the other villagers.

When I asked AnnaMariea if she thought that Pope John XXIII’s prayer for a new Pentecost was inspired by his visits to her village, she said that she thought it would be presumptuous to draw such a conclusion. AnnaMariea believes that this desire for a new Pentecost was born in his heart long before he visited them. It seemed to her as though he knew full well what was possible when people turned to God with repentant, humble hearts and implored the Holy Spirit to act in their midst.

AnnaMariea’s description of Bishop Angelo Roncalli is confirmed by many other people. Certainly, Pope John XXIII is widely regarded as one of the most charismatic figures of the twentieth century. He has been called by Cardinal Suenens, “a man completely docile to the Holy Spirit, a man who, completely free from himself, followed the path of the Holy Spirit.”

It was prophesied in the 1930s that a severe testing would come upon AnnaMariea’s village to empty it, but that there would be joy as the villagers stood firm through the trial. This prophecy was fulfilled when Nazi troops came in 1938 and killed almost every villager. The power of the Holy Spirit sustained them, and not one person renounced his faith. I am grateful to God for sparing the life of Mrs. AnnaMariea Schmidt, who survived both Nazi and Russian concentration camps, and who has allowed me to share this portion of her amazing testimony.

Webmaster's note: After some queries I find out the name of this village; Ležáky. This village was entirely destroyed after the war, and the name was removed from all maps, as the Communists wanted to take away even the memory of this God-filled place. It was near another village where the population was also massacred, Lidice; but the people there were all communists, and this village has now become a place preserved in their memory. Click here to know more.  VideoMapPhotos
 

Abortion Clinic Director Converts During "40 Days"

National Campaign Claims 542 Lives Saved

Abby Johnson, left, the former director of a Planned Parenthood clinic in Texas
(Bluefish Photography/Coalition for Life)

By Genevieve Pollock

BRYAN, Texas, NOV. 3, 2009 (Zenit.org).- Abby Johnson, former director of a Planned Parenthood center, left the organization after watching a baby being aborted, and is now working with those who prayed for her conversion.

Johnson, 29, worked for Planned Parenthood for eight years until she watched, by an ultrasound transmission, a fetus "crumple" as it was vacuumed from its mother last September.
On Oct. 6, she quit her job as the Bryan center director. She walked across the street to the Coalition for Life, a pro-life group that was at that time joined with cities across the nation in a 40 Days for Life campaign.
David Bereit, national director of 40 Days for Life, told ZENIT that in the latest campaign, which ended Sunday, seven other abortion workers quit their jobs, and 542 lives were saved.
And "these are just the ones we know of," he added, summing up the immediate results from the campaign that united 212 cities across 45 states, five Canadian provinces and Denmark.
The 40 Days program actually began at the Bryan clinic in 2004, as a grass-roots prayer and fasting initiative. Pro-life workers have gathered in front of this Planned Parenthood center for six campaigns to date, keeping a prayer vigil around the clock for those considering and advocating abortions.
Bereit stated: "From that first campaign in 2004, we've prayed for Abby -- and for all abortion workers -- that they would come to see what abortion really is, and that they would leave the deadly business.
"In this case, those prayers have been answered. We are so proud of Abby's courage to leave the abortion industry and publicly announce her reasons for leaving."
He noted that this conversion story "demonstrates the importance of a constant, peaceful prayer presence in front of abortion facilities."

Breaking point

Johnson, who is now appearing on radio and television shows around the country, explained that she had a "change of heart on this issue," 40 Days for Life reported.
She stated, "Over the past few months I had seen a change in motivation regarding the financial impact of abortions and really reached my breaking point after witnessing a particular kind of abortion on an ultrasound."
"I just thought, I can't do this anymore; and it was just like a flash that hit me and I thought that's it," she told KBTX.com.
Johnson, an Episcopalian, described this moment as a "definite conversion" of heart, a "spiritual conversion." Johnson also reported that although she originally got involved with Planned Parenthood because she wanted to help women, she had been having second thoughts because the center was changing its business model. "The money wasn't in prevention," she said, "the money was in abortion."
Johnson told FoxNews.com that she was actually instructed by her regional managers to increase the number of abortions performed to drive up profits. "Every meeting that we had was, 'We don't have enough money, we don't have enough money -- we've got to keep these abortions coming,'" She said. "It's a very lucrative business and that's why they want to increase numbers."
Although Johnson's former place of employment only performed abortions on two days each month, every day the doctor was in, he could do up to 40 of these.
Now Johnson is helping women, but from the other side of the street. She began praying with volunteers outside Planned Parenthood, for those who were once her coworkers.

Power of prayer

Coalition for Life's director, Shawn Carney, affirmed: "It's truly been a testament to the power of prayer and the courage of Abby to leave a job she felt she could no longer do in good conscience.
"It has been a joy for all of our volunteers who have prayed outside of the clinic for the conversion of the clinic workers to witness that conversion actually happen."
Though Johnson has not yet found another job, she has been working closely with Carney and other members at the coalition.
Bereit explained to ZENIT, "Pro-life people are welcoming these former abortion workers with love and open arms."
He pointed to his organization's Web site, which has posted on its blog hundreds of notes from people worldwide who are expressing support for Abby.
Bereit stated that even one conversion will have far-reaching results. This will "certainly encourage other cities to conduct multiple 40 Days for Life campaigns, as well as to develop a regular prayer presence" even while the program is not going on, he said.
Bereit continued, "We are committed to press on until that day when no more women cry and no more children die."
He told ZENIT that two more campaigns are being planned for 2010, one during Lent, beginning Feb. 17, and another in the fall, Sept. 22-Oct. 31.
"In addition," Bereit said, "40 Days for Life is actively developing tools, training, and resources to educate, equip, and empower local pro-lifers to grow and expand the impact of their efforts."

To read more;
Hundreds of babies saved from abortion in recent pro-life campaign
Planned Parenthood's abortion quotas exposed

Bangalore: Miscreants Vandalise Catholic Church - Mob Protests
by Amarnath Dinesh Roy - Bangalore

Bangalore, Sep 10: Over 10 window glasses and two statues were destroyed at St. francis de Sales church in Hebbagudi on Hosur road, about 20 kms from Bangalore, on the night of september 09th.  In incident came to light when Fr. Selvaraj, the assistant parish priest of the  church woke up on 10th morning to turn off the compound lights.

He said "The vandals broke and toppled down the statues of John the disciple and another image of Mary" These statues were part of the Calvary scene.  Youth at the venue who were found shouting slogans against the government and against the police pointed to a site where there were ahses. "The misreants must have attempted to set fire to portions of the church" they said.

Speaking to SAR NEWS Fr Selvaraj Assistant Parish Priest said” we did not have a watchman but a boy was staying in the watchman quarters. They had locked the room of that boy and had indulged in this vandalism. Though the church has a burglar siren, it functions only when the doors are broken and entered-in. They had only broken the window panes but had not entered inside the church”.
Fr.Selvaraj further added that “Since we have mass in the evening today, it was only when we came for a visit in the morning at about six we realized the damage.

Father Aloysius Parish Priest of St.Francis de sales church estimated the loss over two lakhs.
The Francis de sales Church belongs to Members of the Society of Francis de Sales (MSFS). The campus comprises a hospital, formation house, PUC and Degree colleges, besides the church. The School and college were closed. The students and parishioners  from neighbouring parishes blocked the Hosur Highway and staged a protest demanding justice and a probe. Police assured them of immediate action and protection.

Father Francis C, Finance officer of the archdiocese and Father Adolf Washington, Public Relations Officer of the Archdiocese visited the spot to take stock of the damage and loss. They interacted with the Police officials and Local BJP MLA Narayanswamy.  It may be recalled that this attack comes exactly after a year from the churches in Bangalore and Mangalore were attacked.  Fr. Francis while pacifying the agitated crowds told  media persons "We do not want to comment without knowing the fact of the matter.  We will definitely want an inquiry into the reason behind this attack.  None of us want any disruption of peace, be it the hindu, muslim or christian community"

The Archbishop who was away for the Karnataka Bishops Council Meeting was unable for comment. Answering queries from media persons, Fr. Adolf Washington, PRO of the archdiocese said "This is not a time to speculate and make blatant accusations against anybody.  We have an incident of vandalism at hand and none of us are in the know of who could behind this.  We can hardly suspect anyone given the fact that this church has always enjoyed a peaceful fellowship. We must allow the law to take its course.  We have asked the police to register a case of vandalism and a case of disruption of communal harmony." It is our hope that the Government and the police machinery will take congnisance of this incident and bring the culprits to book."     When asked if he saw any internal problem in the Church that sparked off this act of vandalism, he said "if this was an internal church conflict, no christian in his right senses would destroy a sacred image or cause physical destrution to the church".  "There has to be an outside hand" he said.

Superintendent of Police Dr. Mahesh,  Police Officer Shankarappa from Anekal Police Limits, area BJP MLA Narayanswamy and panchayat officials visited the spot to pacify the agitated crowd.
 

Fr Pat Collins CM summarizes the conclusions of a recent report on Reiki brought out by the American bishops

Over the years a number of people have asked me what I think about Reiki. To tell the truth, more often than not, I have had to admit that I do not know much about the subject, but that it sounds a bit like a New Age form of healing to me. Recently, I was delighted to find that, in March 2009, the doctrinal committee of the American hierarchy, consisting of eight archbishops and bishops, had published a lucid and helpful document entitled Guidelines for Evaluating Reiki as an Alternative Therapy.

It begins by echoing the teaching of Sirach 38:1-15, when it says there are two kinds of healing, natural and divine. On the one hand, we can be healed by human means such as surgery, psychotherapy and medicine, while on the other hand God can heal us by means of such things as the anointing of the sick and the charism of healing. In this connection the bishops refer to the Instruction on Prayers for Healing which was published by the then Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger in 2000, and to par. 1508 of the Catechism of the Catholic Church. The bishops point out that charity demands that we should not neglect natural means of healing people because even the most intense prayers do not always obtain the healing of all illnesses.

The Origins of Reiki

A Zen Buddhist monk, Mikao Usui, discovered Reiki in the mid nineteenth century in Japan. At the end of a 21-day meditation on Mount Kurama he achieved a spiritual awakening and received the knowledge of Reiki, i.e., how to attune to the universal lifeforce or energy. According to Reiki, sickness is ultimately due to an imbalance of the universal life force in the human body. So a Reiki practitioner brings about healing by placing his or her hands in certain key positions on the patient’s body in order to facilitate the flow of Reiki or universal energy. Rather than being the ultimate source of this healing energy, the healer is merely a channel for something that exists everywhere and in everything, including the healer. To become a practitioner of Reiki healing a person must receive an “initiation,” or “attunement” from a Reiki master, i.e. someone who has reached a high level of attunement as a result of completing an advanced stage of training.

Is Reiki a Natural Means of Healing? When one reads books and articles on Reiki it becomes clear that its beliefs are mainly expressed in spiritual and religious terms of a pantheistic kind. Such literature is filled with references to God, the Goddess, the “divine healing power,” and the “divine mind.” The life force is described as being directed by the “Higher intelligence,” or the “divine consciousness.” Furthermore Reiki healers make use of Japanese sacred symbols and engage in religious type ceremonies. Reiki is often referred to as a way of living governed by five ethical precepts. As the bishops point out, in some respects Reiki is similar to a religion.

That said, many practitioners such as nurses, use Reiki as a purely natural form of healing. However, there is no empirical evidence to show that this form of alternative medicine has any good effects. In fact it lacks credibility in so far as the universal life energy that Reiki talks about is unknown to modern science. As the bishops observe, the justification for this form of therapy must necessarily come from something other than science.

Reiki and the Healing Power of Christ

As I know from personal experience, some modern day Christians such as priests, nuns and charismatics, try to harmonise Reiki with Christian healing. To do so they have to accept, at least in an implicit way, the central tenets of the worldview that underpins Reiki healing. Many of these tenets are incompatible with Christian thinking. This is so, for instance, because Christians see divine healing as a free gift of God’s grace, which is not within human control, whereas Reiki practitioners believe, in a Pelagian way, that healing can be reliably experienced as a result of human insight and effort. The American document points out, “the fact remains that for Christians access to divine healing is by prayer to Christ as Lord and Saviour, while the essence of Reiki is not prayer but a technique that is passed down from the ‘Reiki Master’ to the pupil, a technique that once mastered will reliably produce the anticipated results.” Apparently, some practitioners of Reiki, who are influenced by New Age thinking, consult with angelic beingsIt e r c e and spirit guides when they are ministering healing to others. The American bishops point out that this practice can open a channel to sinister demonic influences. They observe, “This introduces the further danger of exposure to malevolent forces or powers.” This point may explain why I have heard quite a number of people say that, having received Reiki healing, they developed all kinds of problems ranging from depression to headaches and physical ailments. Indeed, a man who had been a Reiki master rang me up one day to say that he had heard me warning about the dangers of this form of therapy in one of my recorded talks. He told me that he had come to see the truth of my words from his own personal experience and that of his clients. I was pleasantly surprised when he revealed that he was giving up Reiki because he had discovered that it sometimes had a very dark side.

While some practitioners attempt to Christianise Reiki, in a syncretistic way, by adding a prayer to Christ and using Christian symbols, the American bishops point out that these cosmetic changes do not alter the essentially pagan nature of this form of therapy. For these reasons, Reiki cannot be identified with what Christians call healing by divine grace.

“Reiki is operating in the realm of superstition, the no man’s land that is neither faith nor science”

The bishops conclude by observing that “for a Catholic to believe in Reiki therapy presents insoluble problems.” They say that a Catholic who puts his or her trust in Reiki ends up “operating in the realm of superstition, the noman’s land that is neither faith nor science.” The bishops warn that superstition corrupts the person’s worship of God by turning religious feeling and practice in a false direction. They explain that while “sometimes people fall into superstition through ignorance, it is the responsibility of all who teach in the name of the Church, to eliminate such ignorance as much as possible.” That was the main reason why I wrote this short article.

The document ends with these salutary words, “Since Reiki therapy is not compatible with either Christian teaching or scientific evidence, it would be inappropriate for Catholic institutions, such as Catholic health facilities and retreat centres, or persons representing the Church, such as Catholic chaplains, to promote or provide support for Reiki therapy.”

Fr Pat Collins CM is a prolific writer and a respected retreat leader. He is based in Dublin, Ireland.

US Bishops Declare Reiki Therapy Unchristian
Denounce Its Use in Catholic Institutions

WASHINGTON, D.C., APRIL 1, 2009 (Zenit.org).- Reiki, a Japanese alternative medicine, lacks scientific credibility and is outside Christian faith, making it unacceptable for Catholic health care institutions, the U.S. bishops' conference stated.

On Saturday, the conference issued the "Guidelines for Evaluating Reiki as an Alternative Therapy," developed by their committee on doctrine, headed by Bishop William Lori of Bridgeport, Connecticut, and approved by the administrative committee Friday.
The document notes that "the Church recognizes two kinds of healing: healing by divine grace and healing that utilizes the powers of nature," which "are not mutually exclusive."
Reiki, however, "finds no support either in the findings of natural science or in Christian belief," it explained.
The guidelines note that this technique of healing "was invented in Japan in the late 1800s by Mikao Usui, who was studying Buddhist texts."
The report continues: "According to Reiki teaching, illness is caused by some kind of disruption or imbalance in one's 'life energy.' A Reiki practitioner effects healing by placing his or her hands in certain positions on the patient's body in order to facilitate the flow of Reiki, the 'universal life energy,' from the Reiki practitioner to the patient."

Spiritual healing
It further explains that the therapy has several aspects of a religion, being "described as a 'spiritual' kind of healing," with its own ethical precepts or "way of life."
Reiki "has not been accepted by the scientific and medical communities as an effective therapy," noted the guidelines. "Reputable scientific studies attesting to the efficacy of Reiki are lacking, as is a plausible scientific explanation as to how it could possibly be efficacious."
Nor can faith be the basis of this therapy, the bishops affirmed, as Reiki is different than the "divine healing known by Christians."
They explained, "The radical difference can be immediately seen in the fact that for the Reiki practitioner the healing power is at human disposal." For Christians, they said, "access to divine healing is by prayer to Christ as Lord and Savior," while Reiki is a technique passed from "master" to pupil, a method that will "reliably produce the anticipated results."

Insoluble problems
The guidelines state: "For a Catholic to believe in Reiki therapy presents insoluble problems. In terms of caring for one's physical health or the physical health of others, to employ a technique that has no scientific support -- or even plausibility -- is generally not prudent."
On a spiritual level, the document states, "there are important dangers." It explains: "To use Reiki one would have to accept at least in an implicit way central elements of the worldview that undergirds Reiki theory, elements that belong neither to Christian faith nor to natural science.
"Without justification either from Christian faith or natural science, however, a Catholic who puts his or her trust in Reiki would be operating in the realm of superstition, the no-man's-land that is neither faith nor science.
"Superstition corrupts one's worship of God by turning one's religious feeling and practice in a false direction. While sometimes people fall into superstition through ignorance, it is the responsibility of all who teach in the name of the Church to eliminate such ignorance as much as possible."

The document concludes, "Since Reiki therapy is not compatible with either Christian teaching or scientific evidence, it would be inappropriate for Catholic institutions, such as Catholic health care facilities and retreat centers, or persons representing the Church, such as Catholic chaplains, to promote or to provide support for Reiki therapy."

Messenger of Saint Anthony
Interview - God & I: John Pridmore

He was a serious East End 'face' who carried a machete and tear gas in his exquisitely tailored jackets until, after almost killing a man, something extraordinary happened...
Mario Conte, OFM Conv.

IN YOUR BOOK, From Gangland to Promised Land, you mentioned that you had a very happy childhood. How then did your fall into crime begin?
The big change came when I was 10. I came home one night and my parents told me that I had to choose who I wanted to live with because they were getting divorced. My parents were the two people I loved most in the world, and I just couldn't choose. So I think I made an unconscious decision that I wouldn't love anyone anymore because if I didn't love I wouldn't be hurt. My mom ended up having nervous breakdowns and then going to mental hospitals, whereas my dad remarried.
My step-mom felt that one of the ways to bring up a child was with a lot of violence; she was very strict. So it was all very hard for me. My father was a policeman, and one of the ways I began to see policemen was as vengeful people, against whom it was right to commit petty crimes. I wanted attention and tried to capture it in all the wrong ways - by being bad. At 13 I was caught by the police, and charged with a few different offences, and at 15 I was in detention.
My only qualification was stealing, and because I didn't love anyone, and because I certainly wouldn't let anyone love me, I began taking pain-killers, drugs, anything to take away the pain of not having God in your life. At 19 I was in prison again, and then there was a net change in me. I began to lash out in anger, so I was put into 23 hours of solitary confinement. That was really tough for me because I began to turn that anger against myself, but God must have been there even though I didn't know it because I didn't kill myself. However, when I came out, I was as angry and bitter as ever. I said to myself, When you're out, you have to take, because no one gives you anything in this world. So I became a bouncer round the clubs of the West and East Ends of London. I there met people who seemed to have everything: money, power, the best girls, drugs. Every time I walked into the place everyone knew who I was and had respect for me, and I thought that this respect would fill the emptiness in my heart. However, before long I was no longer working for these people, but with them. These people were running most of the organised crime in London, so to my shame I became involved in the major drug deals and protection rackets. I got to the point that I was carrying a machete in one pocket of my jacket and knuckle-dusters and CS spray in the other. There is no glory in being paid to hurt people, I'm saying this only to glorify what God can do in someone's life.
With that lifestyle, I slowly obtained everything, showy cars, money, women, etc., but inside I was still empty, and to kill my conscience which was telling me that this was wrong, I was on crack-cocaine, dope and heavy drinks, anything to blot out that inner voice.

Your life is extraordinary in the sense that you are a former drug-pusher and gangster turned Christian. Can you describe in greater detail the events that led to your conversion?
I was working in a club in the West End, and I ended up punching a man with my knuckle-dusters. I thought I had killed him. The only reason I hit him was because there was one of the underworlds bosses at the club that particular night, and I wanted to show this boss how good I was at my job. What scared me most was that I seriously didn't care whether the man would die.
When I came home that night I said to myself, What have I become? To kill someone and not to care? Because I used to care; when I was a child I wanted to be a good person, but now all I was doing was hurt everyone around me; also I had everything, but inside I was empty and miserable. I was very promiscuous and using a lot of women. It was just an awful way of living.
One night I became aware of a voice speaking to my heart, a voice we all know, the God within us. I thought God was a nice little story made up to keep us from being bad, but here I was faced by the fact that God was real. All this scared me; I was very frightened, and it wasn't a nice conversion. People say that separation from God is hell, if that is true then I experienced it. It was the most terrifying moment of my life. I cried out for another chance, not because I was sorry, but because I didn't want to stay in this desolation, and I walked out of that flat, and I said the first prayer I ever said in my life. I said, Up to now all I've done is take from you, God. Now I want to give. As I said that prayer that emptiness which had always filled my heart was finally filled with the love of God, and in that moment I knew God could love someone like me. Up to that moment I always thought I was useless, and that it didn't matter whether I lived or died. But that moment it did matter because God loved me.

When you became Christian, why did you turn to Roman Catholicism?
The only person I knew who had faith was my mom. She had had a conversion, so I went to her and told her my story. She replied that she had prayed for me every single day of my life, and that just two 2 weeks earlier she had prayed to Jesus to take me rather than seeing me hurt other people or myself. I know how much she must have loved me to pray that prayer; it must have broken her heart, but she was seeing the monster I was becoming. She suggested that I see the local priest, so I went to see him, and he told me that I had had a genuine conversion, and he suggested that I go on a retreat. I didn't have a clue what a retreat was. I though it was lying on the beach, bacardy drinks, and so on. It was on this retreat that I met about 250 young people. They enjoyed a freedom I had never seen before. I wanted this freedom, but I didn't know how to get it. I went to a talk by Fr. Zlatko Sudac from Medjugorje, called Give Me Your Wounded Heart. While he was giving this talk I was looking at the crucifix, and for the first time in my life I realised why Jesus had died on that Cross - for the darkest, most terrible sins I had ever committed. I was filled with real sorrow for my sins, but greater than this sorrow was this incredible joy in my heart. It was like Jesus saying to me, John, I love you so much, I'd go through all this again just for you. That time I cried for the first time since I was 10, because that love which I had wanted so much since my parents divorced was given back to me, and I was crying like a baby. I came out of that talk and said a prayer to Our Lady: What is it your son wants me to do? I had found a deep sense of the Virgin Mary in that talk, and I heard her whisper to my heart, Go to confession. Now I'd never been to confession before, and I was 27 years old. I had broken practically every commandment, but somehow Mary gave me the courage to go even though I was terrified. I was there for over an hour, and I was totally honest, I left nothing out. At the end of it the priest put his hand on my head, and I knew it was Jesus' hand and that He had truly forgiven me. Jesus' heart is like a window, on one side is his love pouring down every minute of every day, but on the other side are the stains of our sins, and I couldn't see how much I was loved, I could only see all the sins I had ever committed. The thing that touched me the most was that the priest himself was crying, because he knew I had met the mercy of Jesus. Then there was a Mass, and I had never been to any Mass before, so I couldn't understand all that talk about the host being the body of Jesus and so on. So I said a simple prayer, If this is true to You, Jesus, them show me because I don't understand. I received Jesus on that day, and the only way I can describe it  is that every good feeling I ever felt in my life was magnified a million times, and I knew two things. One, that Jesus Christ, body, blood, soul and divinity, was present in that sacrament, and the other that I would be a Catholic to the day that I died, for I had no doubt about any of the teachings of the Church. It was like an infusion of knowledge, that the Truth was in the Catholic Church.

Which character in the New Testament do you feel the greatest sympathy with?
There are two. The first is Saint Peter, because, like me, he was always putting his foot in it. He said things he shouldn't have said, and did things he shouldn't have done. He just reminds me so much of the mistakes I make, but he also had incredible courage which, through God's grace, I have as well. He didn't care what people thought, he just wanted to love Jesus. The other character is obviously Saint Paul. He had such an incredible grace of truth. He didn't care if they wanted to kill him. He just wanted to preach the truth of Christ, and that is what I want more than anything else in the world.

Cardinal Cormac Murphy O'Connor said that the future for Christianity could lie in new movements, like Youth 2000, which you are personally involved in, and New Faith, and in the building of small Bible study and prayer groups. Do you agree?
Absolutely. I know and love the Cardinal very much. He is a man of vision who sees that these new movements, through the Holy Spirit, are helping the Church to grow and develop. Youth 2000 is very simple; it's really the sacraments, Our Lady, and the teachings of the Church. The reason why it works and brings young people to Christ is simply because we give them the sacraments. Many people think that we have to reinvent Christ's Will, but to me that Will is already here, and it is called the Catholic Church, which is called upon to promote the culture of life, and these new movements are part of the culture of life.

What spiritual projects do you have for the future?
In Ireland we've just set up a community which is in its third year now. There are six of us in this community. We live off God's providence; we don't earn any money. The retreats we organise are donation funded only, we would never allow a young person to not experience Christ for lack of money. We feel sure that if God wouldn't support us financially then it would mean that we are not doing things as He wants. We organise one day school retreats in Ireland where we get the young to experience the wonder of God's mercy, and to know his true presence in adoration.
We are also involved with parish missions. We give talks over the weekends in the parishes, and we enliven the sacraments on these occasions. We organise Eucharistic healing services where people touch the Blessed Sacrament and receive healing. We've had wonderful experiences in this connection, with many people telling us that they had met Jesus for the first time in their lives. We've also received incredible encouragement from parents, for example. One mother told me that her daughter, who had tried to commit suicide, was able to overcome her depression, and now prays the rosary and goes to Mass regularly.

Do you have a girlfriend? Is marriage in sight for you?
I was engaged to a girl once, but I didn't get married because I felt that I couldn't be married and do what I do. Even though I loved her I didn't love her enough to give up my greater love, which is evangelisation. In the community we take a year's commitment to poverty and chastity, so the girls have no boyfriends and the boys no girlfriends.
So marriage is not an option for me at the moment. I feel called to be a single lay-person; consecrated to God, but not a priest.

What image and experience do you have of God?
My image of God is of a Father. Everything I want to serve, and everything I want to be is God. The image is that of me as a little child in front of the throne of God, and God picking me up in his arms and holding me. Then God starts crying, and I ask Him why He's crying, and He replies that it's because He had never wanted me to suffer so much in my life. He is the Alpha and the Omega; He is beyond words and expressions. He is love, but the word love is so abused in our society.  Jesus is forever patient with me, forever encouraging me, forever bringing me closer to Him despite my unfaithfulness.

Some say the Church is cold and uncaring, and lacks a feeling of cohesiveness and family, so they lose interest in attending. What is your impression?
The Church is Christ, who is everything, so our inner emptiness can only be filled by the Church. We should look at the Church not so much in terms of the people it contains, but as the sacraments. If we bear in mind that Christ gives everything of himself, body, soul, blood and divinity, to us through the Church, and that He can't give us anything more, we will find it incomprehensible that some people should say that Mass is boring. When Cardinal Newman left the Anglican Church he lost his reputation and livelihood as a consequence, but he said, What is all that compared to receiving Jesus just once, in his body, blood, soul and divinity?
If we only understood the mystery and the wonder of what we are receiving, then Mass would never be boring. If I'm watching a film on TV, but I'm looking out of the window and paying no attention, I won't get anything out of it. The Church is no different. If we really put the effort in, put the prayer in, if we give of ourselves to reach out and help others in the Church and through the Church, then we will receive very many blessings, but if we think that the Church has to fulfil us while we remain passive, then we've got the wrong idea, because the Church can give only if she receives. Some members of the Church might be cold, but there are also many who aren't. We shouldn't look at the Church in human terms, but in divine terms.

Your life journey has brought you into contact with all sorts of people: from hardened criminals to very holy people like Mother Teresa. Could you describe someone who impressed you deeply?
One person was an old lady. She was housebound and had leukaemia. She was a Quaker, and loved God with all her heart. We used to pray together, and after that there would be a moment of silence, of waiting for something. Once she said a prayer that I will never forget because it was just like as if Jesus had been in her place. Two days before she died I went to the hospital and gave her a rosary. She said, I know what this is, this is Our Lady's hand, and she is talking to me about her son, Jesus.
The other person was a friend of mine who died at 38. He was baptised on his death bed. He was a man of great love and tenderness; he was the closest thing to Christ I ever came in contact with. He never judged anyone, all he did was love people. He had had a horrendous childhood yet, unlike me, he turned to love, care and understanding. I have two very good friends in heaven.

Has Saint Anthony ever played a role in your life?
Saint Anthony has played many roles in my life. In the image of him holding the Baby Jesus I can see the love that he has for the Baby Jesus. That's why the Baby Jesus appeared to him. I pray for his intercession to receive that same tenderness and gentleness which he has, especially before preaching I ask Saint Anthony to speak through me and pray through me, because he has the great gift of speaking with the love of Christ.
Finally, when I lose something I seek out his help. Once I actually 'bribed' him. I told him that I would given money to the poor if he helped me find a lost object, and it worked, I found it immediately!

BIOGRAPHY:
The son of a policeman, John was born in east London. Although baptised a Catholic, he had no Christian upbringing. After his parents divorced, he got involved in petty crime. At the age of 17 he was sent to a youth prison. After his release, he did security work at pop concerts for artists such as Michael Jackson, Bruce Springsteen and Queen, and then moved on to night clubs and bars in and around the capital.
He eventually drifted into the London underworld, and soon became a drug dealer and hard man, involved with notorious criminals for whom stabbings and shootings were common. He was heavily involved in organised crime, and was descending into a spiral of violence. One night at a busy bar in central London, he almost killed a man.
A few nights later he experienced a powerful conversion.
He soon became involved in Youth 2000, an international spiritual initiative for young people which is particularly active in the Catholic Church. He now lives in a Christian lay community just outside Dublin.
 
 

Agca says he is now a Catholic - April 30, 2009

In a letter written from a Turkish prison, Mehmet Ali Agca, author of the failed attempt against Pope John Paul II in 1981, claims to have renounced Islam and embraced the Catholic faith.
Italian weekly Diva e people donna published the letter, French journal 7s7 reports.
"I am looking for an Italian woman, who wants to correspond with me. Obviously (I hope) she is Catholic because from May 13 2007, I decided to renounce the Muslim faith and becoming a member of the Roman Catholic Church," Agca writes.
"I have decided to return peacefully to the (St Peter's) square and to testify to the world of my conversion to Catholicism," he says in the letter written in Italian.
"Just for a day, I would wish to return to Rome to pray at the tomb of John Paul II to express my filial appreciation for his forgiveness," he adds.
Questioned by AFP in Turkey, his former lawyer Mustafa Demirbag, said he was "very skeptical" about the conversion, given the steps required to receive baptism.
Ali Agca also claimed to have expressed his desire to visit St Peter's Square to Pope Benedict XVI, without having received "no response to date". He also claimed to have informed the Vatican of his conversion.
"For the Vatican, I may still be the man who tried to assassinate the Polish Pope, but now I have changed, I am a different man," he says.

Is there a natural right to same-sex marriage?
Juan R. Vélez | Friday, 12 December 2008

No -- but sometimes the most obvious truths are the hardest to explain.

The people of California, Arizona and Florida recently voted to amend their state constitutions to defend the age-old truth that marriage is the life-long union of a man and a woman with the object of mutual love and the raising of a family. Ever since, those in favor of recognition of same-sex marriage have complained that they have been deprived of their civil rights and denied equality. The recognition of same-sex partnerships with legal and financial benefits akin to marriage is not enough for them. They repeatedly lament the supposed loss of their civil rights and compare themselves to oppressed slaves.
 

None. In fact proponents of same-sex marriage are usurping the natural and civil right to marriage between a man and a woman. Unfortunately defenders of traditional marriage often have trouble defending the obvious precisely because it is self-evident and defies sound bites. Here I’d like to present a few simple reasons why defending the uniqueness and dignity of traditional marriage is not discriminatory and unfair.

Biblical revelation about God’s creation of man and woman and his plan for marriage is abundant, but arguments for traditional marriage and against same-sex marriage are not exclusively religious. Far from it. The most convincing ones are based on universally recognised natural rights which exist prior to the state and are not created by government fiat or popular consent. Civil rights are the legal recognition of rights which derive from natural rights.

All one needs to do is reflect upon the human experience. It is easy to grasp that each human faculty, including the generative faculty, has its proper functions and ends. We can also discern basic human goods that are necessary for existence and social life, such as procreation, health, safety, freedom, friendship and religion.

Throughout the centuries people have come to recognize different rights -- such as the right to just trials, the right to practice a religion, and the right of universal suffrage. Civil rights are important mainly because they safeguard these basic human rights. Governments protect natural rights, but they do not create them.

Marriage is one of these basic human rights, one which is based on complementary sexual differences between men and women and the good of procreation. Marriage joins a male and a female in a way the involves the total person: soul, body and affections. Usually this union brings forth offspring and the children are raised in a stable environment where the children learn about manhood and womanhood. Children need both a father and a mother because each parent is different and as male and female provide for different needs.

For example, boys need a father to teach them how to respect women, to develop masculine traits and to learn discipline. A Nobel Prize laureate in economics, George Akerlof, has shown how the breakdown of marriage (1)  and the absence of a father in the family or some good father figure is related to the sharp rise of delinquency in the US. This alone is nearly conclusive evidence that there is no natural right to same-sex marriage.

What about the mutual affection of homosexuals? Isn’t that enough for marriage?

Not really. Homosexual persons can be united by an emotional union, but never by a biological union. Their sexual activity does not lead to procreation. Heterosexual marriage, on the other hand, involves more than this. “The same sexual act that unites the spouses is also the act that creates new life.”(2)  Heterosexual marriage provides offspring for society and a home where children are raised with the love of a father and a mother and the corresponding masculine and feminine role models.

Homosexual sex is essentially different from heterosexual sex within marriage. The conjugal act has an inherent language of self-giving expressed by the man’s giving of his progenitor cells to his wife. Their love is always linked to procreation even though procreation does not always follow the conjugal act. Widespread contraception and co-habitation have separated procreation from sexuality in such a way so that sexual acts between two persons of the same sex are now considered normal by many. But the sexual union of a man and a woman is objectively different.

Are we just quibbling about words here? Partnerships are more or less like marriage, people often argue. Why be so defensive about a few syllables?

But this approach is completely unrealistic. Marriage is more than a word. Words are subject to development, but they mean something. Words are conventional, but they represent fixed realities. No change in language or law can alter reality. Sodomy by any other name is still sodomy. Sexual intercourse between persons of the same-sex is not procreative. A meal is not a snack; work is not play; adultery mere consented sexual behavior among adults. Language both describes reality and defines moral standards. By changing accepted language about marriage, new moral standards regarding marriage and procreation gradually emerge.

If traditional marriage is natural, why does it need to be fenced around with laws? Can’t it fend for itself?

Yes and no. Traditional marriage will survive, but it needs the support and protection of society to flourish. Laws not only recognize existing natural rights; they create and solidify social habits and standards. A bad law creates social standards that others gradually come to accept as good and true. Abortion is an instructive example. What began as a rare concession has become a "right" to take the life of an innocent human being.

So the consequences of legal recognition of same-sex marriage are serious. The first will be moral damage to our understanding of human beings and marriage. By elevating human choices to the status of human rights, governments undermine the very idea of natural rights, which is the recognition of what corresponds to our human make-up and the basic goods necessary to flourish as human beings.

Legal recognition of same-sex marriage also threatens freedom of speech and freedom of religion. Those who disagree with same-sex unions, including educators, doctors and adoption agencies, are already being treated with contempt and intolerance by proponents of same-sex marriage. The next target is surely the tax-exempt status which churches enjoy because of their important service to society.

Furthermore, although proponents of same-sex marriage contend that they only want equality of rights for their own personal choices, they also want equality of esteem. The normality of same-sex marriage will be taught to school children, beginning with those in public schools and eventually reaching schools with religious affiliations.

Already in Massachusetts an adverse judicial ruling was passed against a parent who did not wish his children attending public school to be taught that two fathers can constitute a family. In San Francisco, young children have been obliged to witness a same-sex "marriage" ceremony. Forcing children to accept same-sex marriage as normal constitutes a grave abuse to children and their parents.

To be sure, every person deserves equal respect before the law; but equality is not sameness, and there can be no true respect for human rights apart from a clear understanding of human nature with the sexual and psychological differences between male and female, and the needs that children have for a father and a mother.

Juan R. Vélez is a Los Angeles Catholic priest. Before becoming a priest, he worked as a physician.

Notes
(1) Akerlof, GA, et al. "An Analysis of out-of-wedlock childbearing in the United States". Q J Econ. 1996 May; 111(2): 277-317.
(2) Marriage and the Public Good: Ten Principles, The Witherspoon Institute, Princeton, June 2006, p. 47.
 

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December 13, 2008
Vatican Issues Instruction on Bioethics
By LAURIE GOODSTEIN and ELISABETTA POVOLEDO

The Vatican issued its most authoritative and sweeping document on bioethical issues in more than 20 years on Friday, taking into account recent developments in biomedical technology and reinforcing the church’s opposition to in vitro fertilization, human cloning, genetic testing on embryos before implantation and embryonic stem cell research.
The Vatican says these techniques violate the principles that every human life — even an embryo — is sacred, and that babies should be conceived only through intercourse by a married couple.
The 32-page instruction, titled “Dignitas Personae,” or “The Dignity of the Person,” was issued by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, the Vatican’s doctrinal office, and carries the approval and the authority of Pope Benedict XVI.
Under discussion for six years, it is a moral response to bioethical questions raised in the 21 years since the congregation last issued instructions.
It bans the morning-after pill, the intrauterine device and the pill RU-486, saying these can result in what amount to abortions.
The Vatican document reiterates that the church is opposed to research on stem cells derived from embryos. But it does not oppose research on stem cells derived from adults; blood from umbilical cords; or fetuses “who have died of natural causes.”
The document does not prohibit the use of vaccines developed using “cell lines of illicit origin” if children’s health is at stake. But it says that “everyone has the duty” to inform health care providers of personal objections to such vaccines.
The church also objects to freezing embryos, arguing that doing so exposes them to potential damage and manipulation, and that it raises the problem of what to do with frozen embryos that are not implanted. There are at least 400,000 of these in the United States alone.
“Our advice is that freezing should not take place,” said Bishop Elio Sgreccia, president emeritus of the Pontifical Academy for Life. “Because once it is done, you’re in a situation where to correct the error implies a further offense. Once you have them, what do you do with them?”
The Vatican’s intended audience is not only individual Roman Catholics, but also non-Catholic doctors, scientists, medical researchers and legislators who might consider regulating stem cell research and other recent developments in biomedical technology.
In the United States, President-elect Barack Obama has said he will end the restrictions on federal financing of embryonic stem cell research that were instituted by President Bush.
Among the new developments discussed in the document are the attempts by scientists to find alternative techniques of producing embryonic-like stem cells that could ultimately be used in medical treatments, without involving human embryos, said the Rev. Thomas Berg, executive director of the Westchester Institute for Ethics and the Human Person, a Catholic ethics institute in New York. He said such techniques could “allow us to get past this cultural divide on stem cell research.”
Father Berg said he was pleased to see that the Vatican document did not prohibit such techniques, although it cautioned that there must be absolute assurance that human embryos were not destroyed in the process.
The document does little to clarify the Vatican’s position on whether couples can “adopt” surplus embryos that have been frozen and abandoned. Such “prenatal adoption,” although rare, has been promoted by some Catholics and evangelical Christians. The document says that while “prenatal adoption” is “praiseworthy,” it presents ethical problems similar to certain types of in vitro fertilization — in particular, surrogate motherhood, which the church prohibits.
Experts said that there was little new in this document, but that it might still come as a surprise to many Catholics who were unaware of the church’s ban on in vitro fertilization.
Kathleen M. Raviele, an obstetrician and gynecologist in Georgia who is president of the Catholic Medical Association, said she tells her patients: “God creates through an act of love, and that’s not what’s happening in the laboratory. It’s the technician who’s creating. What in vitro does, is it separates the creation of a child from the marital act.”
But the Vatican’s opposition to in vitro fertilization seemed neither moral nor intuitive to Josephine Johnston, a research scholar at the Hastings Center, an independent bioethics research institute in Garrison, N.Y.
“For a married couple who go to get in vitro fertilization, the Vatican’s idea that it’s not done with a serious amount of love and commitment is very bizarre to me, because it’s such a deliberate act, done in the cold light of day, with enormous amounts of thought and intention attached to it,” she said. “The idea that it’s not done within the spirit of marital love, I find very strange.”
Archbishop Luis Francisco Ladaria Ferrer, a Jesuit who is secretary of the doctrinal office, said at a news conference in Rome that the document would probably “be accused of containing too many bans.” Nonetheless, he said that the church felt a duty “to give voice to those who have no voice.”
Laurie Goodstein reported from New York, and Elisabetta Povoledo from Rome.

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US Bishops Welcome "Dignitas Personae"
Cardinal: Instruction Gives Guidance in Heavily Scientific Age

WASHINGTON, D.C., DEC. 12, 2008 (Zenit.org).- The president of the U.S. episcopal conference welcomed the statement released today by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, saying it gives guidance in a heavily scientific age.

Cardinal Francis George, archbishop of Chicago, said in a statement today that the document on ethical issues arising from biomedical research again defends the life of unborn human beings.

"We welcome the instruction as theologians, medical personnel, researchers and married couples consider new scientific and medical procedures that have profound ethical implications bearing upon the procreation of children and the integrity of marriage," he said.

"We applaud developments which advance medical progress with respect for the sanctity of human life from the moment of conception," the cardinal added. "We oppose discarding or manipulating innocent lives to benefit future generations, or promoting the creation of new human life in depersonalized ways that substitute for the loving union between a husband and wife."

Cardinal George noted that the document approves fertility treatments that "succeed in re-establishing the normal function of human procreation" as well as "stem cell research and therapies that respect the inherent dignity of the human person."

He also pointed out the instruction's encouragement of research into infertility and adoption, as assistance for infertile couples.

"Dignitas Persone" notes that "behind every 'no' in the difficult task of discerning between good and evil, there shines a great 'yes' to the recognition of the dignity and inalienable value of every single and unique human being called into existence."

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Synthesis of Instruction "Dignitas Personae"

VATICAN CITY, DEC. 12, 2008 (Zenit.org).- Here is the synthesis of the instruction "Dignitas Personae" that was released today by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith on certain bioethical questions. It was published in English, French, German, Italian, Spanish, Portuguese and Polish.

* * *

Aim
In recent years, biomedical research has made great strides, opening new possibilities for the treatment of disease, but also giving rise to serious questions which had not been directly treated in the Instruction Donum vitae (22 February 1987). A new Instruction, which is dated 8 September 2008, the Feast of the Nativity of the Blessed Virgin Mary, seeks to provide some responses to these new bioethical questions, as these have been the focus of expectations and concerns in large sectors of society. In this way, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith seeks both to contribute "to the formation of conscience" (n. 10) and to encourage biomedical research respectful of the dignity of every human being and of procreation.

Title

The Instruction opens with the words Dignitas personae - the dignity of a person, which must be recognized in every human being from conception to natural death. This fundamental principle expresses "a great ‘yes' to human life and must be at the center of ethical reflection on biomedical research" (n. 1).

Value

The document is an Instruction of a doctrinal nature, published by the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith and expressly approved by the Holy Father, Pope Benedict XVI. The Instruction therefore falls within the category of documents that "participate in the ordinary Magisterium of the successor of Peter" (Instruction Donum veritatis, n.18), and is to be received by Catholics "with the religious assent of their spirit" (Dignitas personae, n. 37).

Preparation

For several years, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith has been studying new biomedical questions with a view to updating the Instruction Donum vitae. In undertaking the examination of such new questions, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith "has benefited from the analysis of the Pontifical Academy for Life and has consulted numerous experts with regard to the scientific aspects of these questions, in order to address them with the principles of Christian anthropology. The Encyclicals Veritatis splendor and Evangelium vitae of John Paul II, as well as other interventions of the Magisterium, offer clear indications with regard to both the method and the content of the examination of the problems under consideration" (n. 2).

Intended recipients of the document

The Instruction is meant for "all who seek the truth" (n. 3). Indeed, in presenting principles and moral evaluations regarding biomedical research on human life, the Catholic Church "draws upon the light both of reason and of faith and seeks to set forth an integral vision of man and his vocation, capable of incorporating everything that is good in human activity, as well as in various cultural and religious traditions which not infrequently demonstrate a great reverence for life" (n. 3).

Structure

The Instruction has three parts: "the first recalls some anthropological, theological and ethical elements of fundamental importance; the second addresses new problems regarding procreation; the third examines new procedures involving the manipulation of embryos and the human genetic patrimony" (n. 3).
 
 

The two fundamental principles

"The human being is to be respected and treated as a person from the moment of conception; and therefore from that same moment his rights as a person must be recognized, among which in the first place is the inviolable right of every innocent human being to life" (n. 4). "The origin of human life has its authentic context in marriage and in the family, where it is generated through an act which expresses the reciprocal love between a man and a woman. Procreation which is truly responsible vis-à-vis the child to be born must be the fruit of marriage" (n. 6).

Faith and human dignity

"It is the Church's conviction that what is human is not only received and respected by faith, but is also purified, elevated and perfected" (n. 7). God has created every human being in his own image, and his Son has made it possible for us to become children of God. "By taking the interrelationship of these two dimensions, the human and the divine, as the starting point, one understands better why it is that man has unassailable value: he possesses an eternal vocation and is called to share in the trinitarian love of the living God" (n. 8.).

Faith and married life

"These two dimensions of life, the natural and the supernatural, allow us to understand better the sense in which the acts that permit a new human being to come into existence, in which a man and a woman give themselves to each other, are a reflection of trinitarian love. God, who is love and life, has inscribed in man and woman the vocation to share in a special way in his mystery of personal communion and in his work as Creator and Father... The Holy Spirit who is poured out in the sacramental celebration offers Christian couples the gift of a new communion of love that is the living and real image of that unique unity which makes of the Church the indivisible Mystical Body of the Lord Jesus" (n. 9).

The Church's Magisterium and the legitimate autonomy of science

"The Church, by expressing an ethical judgment on some developments of recent medical research concerning man and his beginnings, does not intervene in the area proper to medical science itself, but rather calls everyone to ethical and social responsibility for their actions. She reminds them that the ethical value of biomedical science is gauged in reference to both the unconditional respect owed to every human being at every moment of his or her existence, and the defense of the specific character of the personal act which transmits life" (n. 10).

Techniques for assisting fertility

Among the procedures which respond to problems of fertility are the following:
"techniques of heterologous artificial fertilization" (n. 12): that is, "techniques used to obtain a human conception artificially by the use of gametes coming from at least one donor other than the spouses who are joined in marriage" (footnote 22). "techniques of homologous artificial fertilization" (n. 12): that is, "the technique used to obtain a human conception using the gametes of the two spouses joined in marriage" (footnote 23). "techniques which act as an aid to the conjugal act and its fertility" (n. 12). "techniques aimed at removing obstacles to natural fertilization" (n. 13). "adoption" (n. 13).

Techniques are morally permissible if they respect: "the right to life and to physical integrity of every human being", "the unity of marriage, which means reciprocal respect for the right within marriage to become a father or mother only together with the other spouse" and "the specifically human values of sexuality" (n. 12), which require that the procreation of a new human person come about as a result of the conjugal act specific to the love between a husband and wife.
Therefore, "techniques which act as an aid to the conjugal act and its fertility are permitted" (n. 12). In such procedures, the "medical intervention respects the dignity of persons when it seeks to assist the conjugal act either in order to facilitate its performance or in order to enable it to achieve its objective once it has been normally performed" (n. 12). "Certainly, techniques aimed at removing obstacles to natural fertilization... are licit" (n. 13). "Adoption should be encouraged, promoted and facilitated so that the many children who lack parents may receive a home... In addition, research and investment directed at the prevention of sterility deserve encouragement (n. 13).

Invitro fertilization and the deliberate destruction of embryos

The experience of recent years has shown that in all techniques of in vitro fertilization "the number of embryos sacrificed is extremely high" (n. 14). Even in the most technically advanced centers of artificial fertilization, the number is above 80% (cf. footnote 27). "Embryos produced in vitro which have defects are directly discarded"; a increasing number of couples "are using artificial means of procreation in order to engage in genetic selection of their offspring"; of the embryos which are produced in vitro "some are transferred into the woman's uterus, while the others are frozen"; the technique of multiple transfer in which "the number of embryos transferred is greater than the single child desired, in the expectation that some embryos will be lost... implies a purely utilitarian treatment of embryos" (n. 15).

"The blithe acceptance of the enormous number of abortions involved in the process of in vitro fertilization vividly illustrates how the replacement of the conjugal act by a technical procedure...leads to a weakening of the respect owed to every human being. Recognition of such respect is, on the other hand, promoted by the intimacy of husband and wife nourished by married love... In the face of this manipulation of the human being in his or her embryonic state, it needs to be repeated that God's love does not differentiate between the newly conceived infant still in his or her mother's womb and the child or young person, or the adult and the elderly person. God does not distinguish between them because he sees an impression of his own image and likeness.. Therefore, the Magisterium of the Church has constantly proclaimed the sacred and inviolable character of every human life from its conception until its natural end" (n. 16).

Intracytoplasmic sperm injection (ICSI)

Intracytoplasmic sperm injection is a variety of in vitro procreation in which fertilization in the test tube does not simply "take place on its own, but rather by means of the injection into the oocyte of a single sperm, selected earlier, or by the injection of immature germ cells taken from the man" (footnote 32).
This technique, which is morally illicit, causes a complete separation between procreation and the conjugal act" (n. 17). It takes place "outside the bodies of the couple through actions of third parties whose competence and technical activity determine the success of the procedure. Such fertilization entrusts the life and identity of the embryo into the power of doctors and biologists and establishes the domination of technology over the origin and destiny of the human person" (n. 17).

Freezing embryos

"In order to avoid repeatedly taking oocytes from the woman's body, the process involves a single intervention in which multiple oocytes are taken, followed by cryopreservation of a considerable number of the embryos conceived in vitro. In this way, should the initial attempt at achieving pregnancy not succeed, the procedure can be repeated or additional pregnancies attempted at a later date" (n. 18). The freezing or cryopreservation of embryos "refers to freezing them at extremely low temperatures, allowing long term storage" (cf. footnote 35).

"Cryopreservation is incompatible with the respect owed to human embryos; it presupposes their production in vitro; it exposes them to the serious risk of death or physical harm, since a high percentage does not survive the process of freezing and thawing; it deprives them at least temporarily of maternal reception and gestation; it places them in a situation in which they are susceptible to further offense and manipulation" (n. 18).

With regard to the large number of frozen embryos already in existence the question becomes: what to do with them? All the answers that have been proposed (use the embryos for research or for the treatment of disease; thaw them without reactivating them and use them for research, as if they were normal cadavers; put them at the disposal of infertile couples as a "treatment for infertility"; allow a form of "prenatal adoption") present real problems of various kinds. It needs to be recognized "that the thousands of abandoned embryos represent a situation of injustice which in fact cannot be resolved. Therefore, John Paul II made an "appeal to the conscience of the world's scientific authorities and in particular to doctors, that the production of human embryos be halted, taking into account that there seems to be no morally licit solution regarding the human destiny of the thousands and thousands of ‘frozen' embryos which are and remain the subjects of essential rights and should therefore be protected by law as human persons" (n. 19).

The freezing of oocytes

"In order avoid the serious ethical problems posed by the freezing of embryos, the freezing of oocytes has also been advanced in the area of techniques of in vitro fertilization" (n. 20).

In this regard it needs to be stated that while the cryopreservation of oocytes is not in itself immoral, and is employed in other medical contexts which are not the subject of this document, when it takes place "for the purpose of being used in artificial procreation" it is "to be considered morally unacceptable" (n. 20).

The reduction of embryos

"Some techniques used in artificial procreation, above all the transfer of multiple embryos into the mother's womb, have caused a significant increase in the frequency of multiple pregnancy. This situation gives rise in turn to the practice of so-called embryo reduction, a procedure in which embryos or fetuses in the womb are directly exterminated" (n. 21).

"From the ethical point of view, embryo reduction is an intentional selective abortion. It is in fact the deliberate and direct elimination of one or more innocent human beings in the initial phase of their existence and as such it always constitutes a grave moral disorder" (n. 21).

Preimplantation diagnosis

"Preimplantation diagnosis is a form of prenatal diagnosis connected with techniques of artificial fertilization in which embryos formed in vitro undergo genetic diagnosis before being transferred into a woman's womb. Such diagnosis is done in order to ensure that only embryos free from defects or having the desired sex or other particular qualities are transferred" (n. 22).

"Unlike other forms of prenatal diagnosis..., diagnosis before implantation is immediately followed by the elimination of an embryo suspected of having genetic or chromosomal defects, or not having the sex desired, or having other qualities that are not wanted. Preimplantation diagnosis...is directed toward the qualitative selection and consequent destruction of embryos, which constitutes an act of abortion... By treating the human embryo as mere ‘laboratory material', the concept itself of human dignity is also subjected to alteration and discrimination...Such discrimination is immoral and must therefore be considered legally unacceptable..." (n. 22).

New forms of interception and contragestation

There are methods of preventing pregnancy which act after fertilization, when the embryo is already constituted.
"Such methods are interceptive if they interfere with the embryo before implantation" (n. 23); for example, the IUD (intrauterine device) and the so-called ‘morning-after pills' (footnote 42). They are "contragestative if they cause the elimination of the embryo once implanted" (n. 23); for example, the pharmaceutical known commercially as RU-486 (footnote 43).
Even if such interceptives may not cause an abortion every time they are used, also because conception does not occur after every act of sexual intercourse, it must be noted, however, that "anyone who seeks to prevent the implantation of an embryo which may possibly have been conceived and who therefore either requests or prescribes such a pharmaceutical, generally intends abortion". In the case of contragestatives "what takes place in reality is the abortion of an embryo which has just implanted... the use of means of interception and contragestation fall within the sin of abortion and are gravely immoral" (n. 23).

Gene therapy

Gene therapy commonly refers to "techniques of genetic engineering applied to human beings for therapeutic purposes, that is to say, with the aim of curing genetically based diseases" (n. 25).
Somatic cell gene therapy "seeks to eliminate or reduce genetic defects on the level of somatic cells" (n. 25). Germ line cell therapy aims "at correcting genetic defects present in germ line cells with the purpose of transmitting the therapeutic effects to the offspring of the individual" (n. 25).

From the ethical point of view:
Procedures used on somatic cells for strictly therapeutic purposes "are in principle morally licit...Given that gene therapy can involve significant risks for the patient, the ethical principle must be observed according to which, in order to proceed to a therapeutic intervention, it is necessary to establish beforehand that the person being treated will not be exposed to risks to his health or physical integrity which are excessive or disproportionate to the gravity of the pathology for which a cure is sought. The informed consent of the patient or his legitimate representative is also required" (n. 26). With regard to germ line cell therapy, "the risks connected to any genetic manipulation are considerable and as yet not fully controllable" and therefore "in the present state of research, it is not morally permissible to act in a way that may cause possible harm to the resulting progeny" (n. 26). ith regard to the possibility of using techniques of genetic engineering to introduce alterations with the presumed aim of improving and strengthening the gene pool, it must be observed that such interventions would promote a "eugenic mentality" and would introduce an "indirect social stigma with regard to people who lack certain qualities, while privileging qualities that happen to be appreciated by a certain culture or society; such qualities do not constitute what is specifically human. This would be in contrast with the fundamental truth of the equality of all human beings which is expressed in the principle of justice, the violation of which, in the long run, would harm peaceful coexistence among individuals... Finally it must also be noted that in the attempt to create a new type of human being one can recognize an ideological element in which man tries to take the place of his Creator" (n. 27).

Human cloning

Human cloning refers to "the asexual or agametic reproduction of the entire human organism in order to produce one or more ‘copies' which, from a genetic perspective, are substantially identical to the single original" (n. 28). The techniques which have been proposed for accomplishing human cloning are artificial embryo twinning, which "consists in the artificial separation of individual cells or groups of cells from the embryo in the earliest stage of development... which are then transferred into the uterus in order to obtain identical embryos in an artificial manner" (footnote 47) and cell nuclear transfer, which "consists in introducing a nucleus taken from an embryonic or somatic cell into an denucleated oocyte. This is followed by stimulation of the oocyte so that it begins to develop as an embryo" (footnote 47). Cloning is proposed for two basic purposes: reproduction, that is, in order to obtain the birth of a baby, and medical therapy or research.

Human cloning is "intrinsically illicit in that...it seeks to give rise to a new human being without a connection to the act of reciprocal self-giving between the spouses and, more radically, without any link to sexuality. This leads to manipulation and abuses gravely injurious to human dignity" (n. 28).
With regard to reproductive cloning, "this would impose on the resulting individual a predetermined genetic identity, subjecting him - as has been stated - to a form of biological slavery, from which it would be difficult to free himself. The fact that someone would arrogate to himself the right to determine arbitrarily the genetic characteristics of another person represents a grave offence to the dignity of that person as well as to the fundamental equality of all people... In the encounter with another person, we meet a human being who owes his existence and his proper characteristics to the love of God, and only the love of husband and wife constitutes a mediation of that love in conformity with the plan of the Creator and heavenly Father" (n. 29). With regard to cloning for medical therapy or research, it must be said that to "create embryos with the intention of destroying them, even with the intention of helping the sick, is completely incompatible with human dignity, because it makes the existence of a human being at the embryonic stage nothing more than a means to be used and destroyed. It is gravely immoral to sacrifice a human life for therapeutic ends" (n. 30). As an alternative to therapeutic cloning some researchers have proposed new techniques which are presented as capable of producing stem cells of an embryonic type without implying the destruction of true human embryos, for example, by altered nuclear transfer (ANT) or oocyte assisted reprogramming (OAR). Doubts still remain, however, "regarding the ontological status of the ‘product' obtained in this way" (n. 30).

The therapeutic use of stem cells

"Stem cells are undifferentiated cells with two basic characteristics: a) the prolonged capability of multiplying themselves while maintaining the undifferentiated state; b) the capability of producing transitory progenitor cells from which fully differentiated cells descend, for example, nerve cells, muscle cells and blood cells. Once it was experimentally verified that when stem cells are transplanted into damaged tissue they tend to promote cell growth and the regeneration of the tissue, new prospects opened for regenerative medicine, which have been the subject of great interest among researchers throughout the world" (n. 31).

For the ethical evaluation, it is necessary above all to consider the methods of obtaining stem cells.
"Methods which do not cause serious harm to the subject from whom the stem cells are taken are to be considered licit. This is generally the case when tissues are taken from: a) an adult organism; b) the blood of the umbilical cord at the time of birth; c) fetuses who have died of natural causes" (n. 32). "The obtaining of stem cells from a living human embryo...invariably causes the death of the embryo and is consequently gravely illicit... In this case, research...is not truly at the service of humanity. In fact, this research advances through the suppression of human lives that are equal in dignity to the lives of other human individuals and to the lives of the researchers themselves" (n. 32). "The use of embryonic stem cells or differentiated cells derived from them - even when these are provided by other researchers through the destruction of embryos or when such cells are commercially available - presents serious problems from the standpoint of cooperation in evil and scandal" (n. 32).

Numerous studies, however, have shown that adult stem cells give more positive results than embryonic stem cells.

Attempts at hybridization

"Recently animal oocytes have been used for reprogramming the nuclei of human somatic cells... in order to extract embryonic stem cells from the resulting embryos without having to use human oocytes" (n. 33).

"From the ethical standpoint, such procedures represent an offense against the dignity of human beings on account of the admixture of human and animal genetic elements capable of disrupting the specific identity of man" (n. 33).

The use of human "biological material" of illicit origin

For scientific research and for the production of vaccines or other products, cell lines are at times used which are the result of an illicit intervention against the life or physical integrity of a human being.
Experimentation on human embryos "constitutes a crime against their dignity as human beings who have a right to the same respect owed to a child once born, just as to every person. These forms of experimentation always constitute a grave moral disorder" (n. 34). With regard to the use of "biological material" of illicit origin by researchers, which has been produced apart from their research center or which has been obtained commercially, the moral requirement "must be safeguarded that there be no complicity in deliberate abortion and that the risk of scandal be avoided. In this regard, the criterion of independence as it has been formulated by some ethics committees is not sufficient. According to this criterion, the use of ‘biological material' of illicit origin would be ethically permissible provided there is a clear separation between those who, on the one hand, produce, freeze and cause the death of embryos and, on the other, the researchers involved in scientific experimentation". It needs to be remembered that the "duty to refuse to use such ‘biological material' springs from the necessity to remove oneself, within the area of one's own research, from a gravely unjust legal situation and to affirm with clarity the value of human life. Therefore, the above-mentioned criterion of independence is necessary, but may be ethically insufficient" (n. 35). "Of course, within this general picture there exist differing degrees of responsibility. Grave reasons may be morally proportionate to justify the use of such ‘biological material'. Thus, for example, danger to the health of children could permit parents to use a vaccine which was developed using cell lines of illicit origin, while keeping in mind that everyone has the duty to make known their disagreement and to ask that their healthcare system make other types of vaccines available. Moreover, in organizations where cell lines of illicit origin are being utilized, the responsibility of those who make the decision to use them is not the same as that of those who have no voice in such a decision" (n. 35).
 

Abortionist Turned Pro-Life Apostle
 

Stojan Adasevic will never forget the day he was organizing the filing cabinet in the doctors’ room. He was a medical student at the time. A number of gynecologists entered the room. Paying no attention to the student crouched over a pile of papers in the corner, they began swapping stories about their medical practice.

Dr. Rado Ignatovic recalled a patient who had come to him for an abortion. The procedure failed because the doctor had been unable to align the cervix. As the gynecologists went on discussing the woman’s history, Stojan, who had been listening in, suddenly stiffened. He realized that the woman under discussion — a former dentist at the nearby clinic — was his mother.

“She’s dead now” — observed one of the doctors — but I wonder what happened to the unwanted child?”

Stojan couldn’t resist. “I’m the child!” he said, getting up. Silence fell over the room. Seconds later the doctors were walking out.

Over the years Dr. Adasevic would have cause to recall that event many times. It was perfectly clear to him: he owed his life to the fact of a failed abortion. He would never make such a blunder himself. Many women were referred to him because of difficulty in aligning the cervix. This was never a problem for Stojan. He became the best abortionist in Belgrade. Before long he had surpassed his master in the profession — Dr. Ignatovic, to whose incompetence he owed his life.

“The secret lies in training the hand through frequent procedures” he would say, citing the German proverb: Übung macht Meister (practice makes perfect). Faithful to this maxim, he would perform from twenty to thirty abortions a day. His record was thirty-five abortions in one day. Today he has difficulty reckoning up the abortions he performed in his twenty-six years of practice. He estimates anywhere between 48,000 and 62,000.

For years he remained convinced that abortion, as taught in the medical faculties and textbooks, was a surgical procedure not unlike that of removing an appendix. The only difference was in the organ removed: a piece of intestine in the one case, and embryonic tissue in the other. Doubts began to arise during the 1980s when ultrasound technology came to Yugoslavian hospitals. It was then that Adasevic first saw on the USG monitor what had until then been invisible to him — the inside of a woman’s womb, a live child, sucking its thumb, moving its arms and legs. As often as not, fragments of that child would soon be lying on the table beside him.

“I saw without seeing — he recalls today. — Everything changed after I started having the dreams”.

Dr. Adasevic’s dreams

Actually, it was the same recurring dream. It haunted him every night, day after day, week after week, month after month. He dreamed he was walking in a sunlit meadow. Beautiful flowers grew all around. The air was thick with colored butterflies. It was warm and pleasant, yet, despite this, some anxious feeling oppressed him. Suddenly the meadow was filled with laughing and running children. They were playing ball. In age, they ranged from three or four to about twenty years. All were strikingly beautiful. One boy in particular, and two of the girls, seemed strangely familiar, but he could not recall where he had seen them. When he tried to speak to them, they ran off in terror, screaming. The entire scene was presided over by a man in a black habit who watched intently in silence.

Every night Adasevic would wake in terror and stay awake till morning. Herbal remedies and pills were useless. One night, he became distraught in his dream and began chasing the fleeing children. He caught one of them, but the child cried out in terror: “Help! Murderer! Save me from the murderer!” At that moment the man dressed in black, turned into an eagle, swept down, and pulled the child away. The doctor woke up, his heart thumping like a hammer in his ribs. The room was cold, yet he was hot, drenched in sweat. In the morning he decided to see a psychiatrist. Since there were no immediate openings, he booked an appointment. That night he decided he would ask the man in his dreams to identify himself. This he did. The stranger said: “Even if I told you, my name would mean nothing to you”. When the doctor persisted, the man finally replied: “I am called Thomas Aquinas”. Indeed, the name meant nothing to Adasevic. It was the first time he had heard it. The man in black continued: “Why don’t you ask who the children are. Don’t you recognize them?” When the doctor said he didn’t, he replied: “Not true. You know them very well. These are the children you killed while performing abortions”. “How is that possible?” countered Adasevic. “These are grown children. I have never killed born children”. Thomas replied: “Do you not know that here, on this side of the eschaton, children continue to grow?” The Doctor refused to yield: “But I have never killed a twenty-year-old boy”. “You killed him twenty years ago” replied the monk, “when he was three months old”.

It was then that Adasevic recognized the faces of the twenty-year-old boy and the two girls. They resembled people he knew well, for whom he had performed abortions over the years. The boy looked like a close friend of Adasevic’s. Stojan had performed the abortion on his wife twenty years ago. In the two girls the doctor recognized their mothers, one of whom happened to be Stojan’s cousin. Upon awaking, he decided he would never perform another abortion in his life.

I held a beating heart in my hand

Waiting for him upon his arrival at the hospital that morning was a cousin along with his girlfriend. They had booked an abortion with him. Four months pregnant, the woman was about to do away with her ninth consecutive child. Adasevic refused, but his cousin was so importunate that he gave in: OK, but this was the very last time.

On the USG monitor he clearly saw the child with its thumb in its mouth. Stretching the uterus, he inserted the forceps, took hold of something, and pulled. In the jaws of the forceps was a little arm. He placed it on the table, but in such a way that one of the limbs’ nerve endings touched a drop of spilled iodine. Suddenly, the arm began to twitch. The nurse standing beside him almost screamed out. Just like frogs’ legs in a physiology lab!

Adasevic shuddered, but went on with the abortion. Again he inserted the forceps, gripped, and pulled. This time it was a leg. Just as he was thinking: “Better not let it touch that drop of alcohol”, a nurse standing behind him dropped a tray of surgical instruments. Startled by the crash, the doctor released the forceps, and the leg landed right beside the arm. It too began to move.

The staff had never seen anything like it: human limbs twitching on the table. Adasevic decided to mash up what was left in the womb, and pull it out in a formless mass. He began mashing, squashing, crushing. Upon withdrawing the forceps, now certain that he had reduced everything to a pulp, he produced a human heart! The organ was still beating. Weaker and weaker it beat, until it stopped altogether. It was then that he realized he had killed a human being.

The world turned dark around him. He cannot recall how long this lasted. Suddenly he felt a tug on his arm. A nurse’s terrified voice called out: Doctor Adasevic! Doctor Adasevic! The patient was bleeding. For the first time in years, the doctor began praying earnestly: “Lord! Save not me, but this woman”.

Normally it could take up to ten minutes to clean the womb of all remaining embryonic matter. This time two insertions of the instrument through the vagina were enough to complete the task. When Adasevic removed his gloves, he knew this was the last abortion he would ever perform.

The pail: instrument of abortion

When Stojan informed the head of the hospital of his decision, there was a considerable stir. Never before in a Belgrade hospital had a gynecologist refused to perform abortions. Pressure was brought to bear on him. They cut his salary in half. His daughter was fired from her job. His son “failed” his university entrance examinations. He was attacked in the press and on television. The Socialist State — they said — had provided him with an education so that he could perform abortions, and now he was carrying out sabotage against the State.

Two years of persecution brought him to the brink of nervous exhaustion. He was on the point of asking the hospital administrator to reassign him to abortion duty, when Thomas Aquinas appeared to him in a dream. Patting him on his shoulder, Thomas said: “You are my good friend. Continue your struggle”. Adasevic did not go to the administrator. He decided to fight on.

He got involved in the pro-life movement. He traveled throughout Serbia, lecturing and giving talks on abortion. Twice he succeeded in airing on Yugoslav state television Bernard Nathanson’s The Silent Scream, a USG recording of an actual abortion. In the early 1990s, thanks largely to Adasevic’s activism, the Yugoslav parliament passed a decree protecting the rights of the unborn. The decree went to President Slobodan Milosevic, who refused to sign it. Then the war broke out, and the decree fell into abeyance.

As for the war, Adasevic wonders: “To what else can we attribute the slaughter that took place here in the Balkans if not our alienation from God and lack of respect for human life”.

And to make his point he describes what is common practice in Serbia: “Since our laws protect the life of the child only from the moment of its first breath, that is, from the instant it utters its first cry, abortions are legal in the seventh, eighth, and even ninth month of pregnancy. Actually the word “abortion” has no place here, since it applies more to miscarriages. Beside the birthing seat stands a bucket of water. Before the child has a chance to utter a cry, you stop up its mouth and plunge it under water. Officially this is an abortion, and it is all perfectly legal, since the child never draws a breath”.

Here Adasevic likes to cite Mother Teresa of Calcutta: “if a mother can kill her own child, what is there to prevent you and me from killing one another?”

Today, most abortions are performed in private clinics, which do not release figures on aborted pregnancies. Adasevic estimates that for every twenty-five children conceived barely one live birth results. Twenty-four beings are destroyed.

“What further complicates statistical analysis in this area — he observes — is the use of abortifacients such as the IUD  and the RU-486 pill, which are officially classified as contraceptives. The IUD is an abortifacient; for the coil acts as a sword, which severs the tiny human being from its source of food in the womb. It is a terrible death. A human being dies of starvation in a place that is filled with nourishment.

“This is a real war, waged by the born upon the unborn — he adds. — In this war I have crossed the front several times: first as an unborn child condemned to die, then as an abortionist myself, and now as a pro-life apostle.

“I have also become interested in the life of Thomas Aquinas, about whom I knew nothing before. I have often wondered why he appeared in my dream, and not other saints, especially since he is a Catholic saint, and I am Orthodox. To explain this, I started studying Thomas’ writings.  Guess what I found? According to Aquinas, human life begins 40 days after fertilization in the case of men, and 80 days in the case of women. So what is a child in those preceding days? Nothing? I think what Thomas said gives him no peace in the eschaton. Mind you, it should be stated that Thomas accepted this view from Aristotle. Aristotle was the great authority then. Thomas allowed himself to be influenced by his view, and committed an error.

“It was a long time before I grasped the fact that a child in the mother’s womb is a living person, that it is a living person not from the time it draws its first breath, as the communist professors taught us, but from the instant the human embryo is formed, that is, from the moment the spermatozoon joins with the egg cell”.

Grzegorz Gorny

Originally published in Love One Another Catholic Magazine, No. 1/2004 dedicated to the New Evangelization.  An abbreviated form of this article appeared in the Polish secular daily Rzeczpospolita (1 December 2003).  Used with Permission.

INDIA
Catholic priest killed in Meerut diocese (Agra)
by Nirmala Carvalho  - Sep 22, 2008
The clergyman lived like an Indian ascetic in an ashram, preaching peace and promoting inter-faith dialogue. Nothing is known of the motive behind the deed; police will not exclude a botched robbery attempt as the possible cause. The funeral is scheduled for tomorrow.

Mumbai (AsiaNews) – Another Catholic priest has been murdered in India. Fr Samuel Francis (in photo), better known as Swami Astheya (he who is without greed), was found dead this morning in the chapel of his ashram in the village of Chota Rampur. His hands were tied behind his back, his mouth gagged (with cloth) and injuries on his forehead. The 50-ear-old clergyman dressed like an Indian Sanyasin (Hindu monks who lead an ascetic life) and lived in an ashram (monastery) where he taught yoga and meditation.
Chota Rampur, the village where the catholic priest found a refuge, is located 27 kilometres from Dehradun, in the Suffragan diocese of Agra archdiocese, or some 400 kilometres from New Delhi.
How and why he was murdered is not yet clear, but police will not exclude the possibility that it might have been a robbery gone badly wrong. The ashram was in fact ransacked and a woman suffering from psychological problems was also found dead in the ashram’s warehouse.
Fr Davis Varayilan, professor at Samanvayan Theological College, said he knew the slain priest and had nothing but words of praise for his generosity, good heart and intelligence.
“This is a great tragedy for the Church in India,” he said. “We used to send our seminarians for an experience to his Ashram, and in the early 1980s he was in charge of the youth in Meerut Diocese.”
His ashram had become a beacon for inter-faith dialogue and harmony among people.
“He was much loved and respected by all: Hindus, inter-faith harmony and unity, He was a holy person and his spirituality was well respected by all Hindus, Muslims, Sikhs, Jains, the poor and the marginalised.”
Fr Francis embodied the India’s spirit, best exemplified by the Sanyasi lifestyle which calls for no meat and a rigid vegetarian diet.
“Killing so brutally such a man who worked for the betterment of society is a crime against humanity,” said Father Davis.
Swami Astheya’s funeral will be held tomorrow morning at 11 am local time in Chota Rampur village.

From left to right: Varya Kurmina, Olga Pukhova, Andrei Sorokin and Anya Gorokhova

The four teenagers slain in Russia by Satanist Cannibals. From left to right: Varya Kurmina, Olga Pukhova, Andrei Sorokin and Anya Gorokhova Tony Halpin in Moscow
A gang of alleged Satanist cannibals has been accused of dismembering and eating four Russian teenagers in a series of gruesome cult killings.
The remains of a 16-year-old boy and three girls aged 16 and 17 were discovered in a pit near the home of the alleged ringleader in the Yaroslavl region. The remains of a rat tied to an upturned cross marked the spot where they had been executed.
The eight suspected killers told police that they had stabbed their victims 666 times, in line with Satanic ritual, before cooking parts of their flesh over a bonfire to eat. Investigators found tufts of hair from the teenagers, in the ashes of the fire.
The victims, Varya Kuzmina, Anya Gorokhova, Olga Pukhova and Andrei Sorokin, were lured to their deaths in the woods after being plied with alcohol in a cemetery close to the home of the alleged gang leader Nikolai Ogolobyak. They had apparently been singled out by the Satanists because they were fans of "Goth" music and fashion. One of the girls was said to have had a document titled "101 rules of Satanism" among her belongings.
The gang told police that their newest member, a 19-year-old university student, was coated in the blood of their victims as an initiation ceremony. The group then lit a fire and ate body parts before burying the dismembered remains.
The victims all went missing in June but police in Yaroslavl did not discover their remains until last month. They initially arrested four men and a woman, who led them to three others, including a man who had checked himself into a local psychiatric hospital.
The man, Anton Makovkin, allegedly claimed that Satan would help him to escape responsibility because he had made "many sacrifices to him". Another gang member, Alexander Voronov, told police in a statement that they had visited a cemetery in 2006 and dug up a fresh grave to eat the heart of a girl buried there.
The same group had also crucified a cat and attacked graves and crosses in the cemetery earlier this year before killing the teenagers. Police discovered the remains after learning that the victims had all made telephone calls to Mr Ogolobyak, a former church choirboy who called himself The Count.
Russia has a history of gruesome killings. The so-called "chessboard killer" Alexander Pichushkin was convicted of 48 murders and three attempted murders last October after he told a court that he had wanted to kill enough people to fill all 64 squares on a chessboard.
He claimed to have murdered 63 people in a bid to overtake the country's worst serial killer, the notorious "Rostov ripper" Andrei Chikatilo, who was executed by firing squad in 1994 for the deaths of 52 women and children.

Karnataka CM orders probe into attack on churches
Abhirr VP & Deepa Balakrishnan
CNN-IBN Mon, Sep 15, 2008

Bangalore: Karnataka chief minister BS Yeddyurappa has ordered an enquiry into Sunday's attacks on seven churches. The Karnataka CM is scheduled to visit Mangalore and Udupi, where churches were vandalised. This is the third Sunday in a row when the Christian community has been targeted in the BJP ruled state. Attacks on churches continue in three communally sensitive districts by suspected Bajrang Dal activists.The state has a BJP led government ruling the assembly and chief minister Yeddyurappa does not wish to send out a panic amongst the minorities.
Sculptures and prayer halls in churches were vandalised. Terror struck the Chrisitian communities of Mangalore, Udupi and Chikmangalur in the state shortly before morning mass on Sunday.
"We had just cleaned up the place and started out when some people came and attacked the church," said Paul, a church employee."There were about 15 to 20 people on bikes and they left soon after," he added. The attacks led to a bandh in Mangalore which has a sizable Christian population. Most shopkeepers and private bus operators in Mangalore stopped work. The state police are worried about the recurring pattern of attacks on churches allegedly by saffron groups.
Police have also surrounded the Cordel church in Mangalore asking protesters to surrender presently a bandh called by the Christian community is on at Mangalore and Udupi.
Some highways including the Mangalore - Mumbai National Highway have been blocked. Police have already clamped prohibitory orders in these areas.
The Hindutva groups say these churches indulge in forced conversions. The Christian groups are quick to point out that the attacks started after the BJP came to power three months back.
"We're not people who indulge in violence. We came to pray and we are peace loving people. The community will hold a meeting to see how to counter this," said father Willliam, the spokesperson at the Bishop's office.
The Karnataka home minister Dr V S Acharya however gives a clean chit to the Bajrang Dal.
"We condemn these attacks and we'll take action against the culprits. But Bajrang Dal has no role in this. At the same time, in the name of conversions, some people are offering incentives to helpless people and converting them," said Acharya.
Immediately after the attacks, prohibitory orders were clamped in Mangalore. Christian groups demonstrated demanding that the accused be brought to book.

(With inputs from Abbas Kinya)

Behind the anti-Christian violence in India
By Vijay Simha, Tehelka Magazine

New Dehli, Sep 17, 2008 / 09:30 am (CNA).- When they came for Narmada Digal, she wasn’t there. She had fled, five children and mother-in-law in tow, to the safety of the jungles. So, they set about what she left behind. A framed picture of Jesus, a Bible in Oriya, utensils in the kitchen and some clothes. By the time Narmada tiptoed back, her home was gone. What was left was still hot from the ashes, and smoking. Narmada took a good look, stood erect, and pulled her sari over her head. She began to pray.

“Lord, forgive us our sins. Save us from our misfortune. Free us, Lord.” She is weeping as she pleads for deliverance. So is everybody else. “I will die. But I won’t stop being a Christian,” Narmada says.

This is in the heart of Kandhamal, a district at the geographical center of Orissa, ravaged by probably the worst fighting in India between Hindus and Christians. The rise in the number of Christians in Kandhamal is offering radical Hindu outfits like the Vishwa Hindu Parishad (VHP) the perfect alibi to launch an aggressive anti- Christian movement. The movement has two aims: to reconvert Christians to Hinduism, and to stop the alleged slaughter of cows.

The death of Swami Lakshmananda Saraswati
An 81-year-old Rashtriya Swayamsevak Sangh (RSS) activist, Swami Lakshmananda Saraswati, was heading the VHP movement in Kandhamal.  On August 23, Saraswati was gunned down while celebrating Janmashtami. It was the tenth attempt at killing Saraswati, a figure disliked by the Christians, but revered by a band of fanatic Hindu male followers.

RSS is an 83-year-old socio-political organization, which is the fountainhead of many Hindu outfits in India.
Few know who killed Saraswati. But, there are some theories. The Orissa Government says the Maoists killed him. A second theory is coming from the VHP. After Saraswati’s murder, VHP International President Ashok Singhal issued a statement saying, “Once again the cruel face of the Christian missionaries has been exposed. Swami Lakshmananda Saraswati was working for 45 years among the tribals by building hospitals, schools and hostels . . . Because of his work, the tribals were awakened to our culture and religion, which was an obstacle only for the Christian missionaries.”

Christian bodies, on the other hand, have a third view. They say they have nothing to do with Saraswati’s murder and have sought an inquiry by the Central Government.
Whatever the truth, the murder inflamed passions. By August 25, hordes of Hindu militants were attacking Christian homes and places of worship in Kandhamal. On September 1, the Orissa Government told the story in figures: 16 persons killed, 35 injured, 185 arrested; 558 houses and 17 places of worship burnt; 12,539 fed in 10 relief camps; 12 companies of paramilitary forces, 24 platoons of the Orissa State Armed Police, two sections of the Armed Police Reserve Force, and two teams of the Special Operation Group deployed.
The human story is worse. VHP International General Secretary Praveen Togadia said a Christian sect had killed Saraswati. It was enough to trigger murderous assaults on Christians in Kandhamal and elsewhere in Orissa. Hundreds of Christian homes were set ablaze, a few pastors were slain, and warnings were issued asking them to return home as Hindus, or never.

Christianity in Kandhamal
Today, there are around 1,500 churches and congregations in the 2,515 villages of Kandhamal. The Catholic Church has a big presence. And among the Protestants, the most active denominations are the Baptists, the Pentecostals, the Church of North India, and the Church of South India.
To a man like Swami Lakshmananda Saraswati, the rise of the Church would’ve been an insult. Sometime in the 1960s, the RSS leadership summoned Saraswati. The RSS had begun to implement its plan of working in the most backward areas of India, unlike the Marxists who had begun to work in the industrial townships. The then RSS Orissa head Bhupendra Kumar Basu chose Kandhamal for Saraswati.
In December 2007, major clashes erupted between Hindus and the Christians when Saraswati ordered his followers to demolish an arch that the Christians had erected on government land in front of a church. The Christians said it was for Christmas and they would take the arch down in a day or two. Saraswati didn’t wait. After his men pulled the arch down, Saraswati drove down to see it.
Some Christians in the village stopped Saraswati’s car and pulled him out. Stones were also pelted at him. One of Saraswati’s assistants called friends in the VHP and told them “Babaji ko maar diya (they’ve got Babaji).” Saraswati’s men set upon the Christians on a scale similar to that of the current attacks.
After the December riots, Saraswati gave an interview, probably his last, to the RSS publication Organiser. He said, “With their numbers increasing, Christians forcefully took away Hindu girls and forced the neo-converts to eat beef.” He called for a constitutional ban on conversion of Hindus to “Abrahamic faiths” and warned that “Christians in India must understand fast that they cannot be protected by the US State Department writing its annual vituperative anti- Hindu reports on religious freedom and human rights.” He added: “Christians can be protected only by the goodwill of the majority Hindus in whose midst they have to live.” These thoughts Saraswati drilled into the Kandha tribals.

RSS war council
The tribals of Orissa are a tough people. They gave Ashoka the Great the fight of his life. Ashoka invaded Kalinga in 261BC. There was no king to oppose him, but the tribals fought against him. Ashoka won the Kalinga War, but 110,000 people died in battle. Ashoka never fought again and took to Buddhism.
It is this lineage that Rupesh Kanhar, 19, comes from. Rupesh and his friends are part of an RSS war council meeting on August 28 in the jungles near Gopingiya village. There are 15 people in the meeting who are working out plans to attack Christians. The meeting concludes that they will not kill Christians, but scare them into leaving Kandhamal.
Rupesh recites the RSS prayer fluently. He hasn’t killed a Christian, but he has burned some houses down. In a few hours, Rupesh and his friends will prepare to attack. Some of them would have downed plenty of liquor by then. The group will assemble at 9 pm, about 200 of them. They will have axes, swords and machetes and torches. They will tie red threads around their wrists, so tight in some cases that they leave red marks on the skin, and they will anoint each other’s foreheads with vermillion.
Rupesh and his group will march until past midnight, scaring Christians and sending them rushing into the jungles at night. It’s a daily routine in Kandhamal, the Hindu militants shouting slogans and conducting torchlight marches.

A conversion to Christ
But introspection respects no ideology. Even the best efforts of the RSS and the VHP can’t stop a change of heart. Vijay Pradhan, 35, is hiding in Raikia. For eight years, Vijay Pradhan says, he was an active RSS worker. He worked with Saraswati and conducted several reconversions. “I taught people what I was taught. That I must serve the country by fighting the Muslim and Christian religions, which are foreign to us. Our culture had to be saved. Then, one day a young pastor told me about Jesus. I was surprised at his courage in accosting me, but I was curious. This man told me that I could have eternal life with Jesus,” says Pradhan.
The one-time RSS worker says he was confused after this encounter. “I began searching for Jesus because I was intrigued by what I was told about him. On January 26, 1994, I challenged the creator. I said whoever you are, I need to know you by name. I threatened that I would turn atheist if the Creator didn’t show himself. I couldn’t sleep at night. At 4.30 am, as I was getting ready for yoga, I saw a human-like figure. There was plenty of light. A voice said, ‘I am the one you are looking for,’” says Pradhan.
He says his thought process changed after this. He began spreading the gospel and going to church. “The RSS workers came to me and asked me why I had converted. They asked me how much money I was given. I used to ask people the same things. But I wasn’t paid. The RSS searched for me. I had to hide in the jungles. As long as there is trouble, I will hide,” he says.
Pradhan says only those who are called by Jesus are the true converts. “Only the attraction of God can make them that. Hindus become Christians, they are never made into Christians. The reconversions by the VHP and the RSS are false. They are conducting a political war in the name of God.”

Christian defense
On the night of September 1, there were two meetings in the Raikia relief camp. The Inspector General of Police chaired a peace meeting with 21 officials and several Christian seniors. Then, a group of young Christian men met separately. They declared pride in two villages of Raikia: Gundhani and Gamandi. Christians mainly populate these villages. Yet, they have been untouched so far. Apparently, because the Christians there have put together a few home made bombs and repulsed at least one attack by Hindu militants.

The young men said these villages were the pride of Christians and that they had shown the way. They said they needed to arm themselves so that they could fight the Hindu militants. Some pastors objected. They said Christianity doesn’t teach violence. They are not sure if they were heard.

Printed with permission from Tehelka Magazine, Vol 5, Issue 36, Dated Sept 13, 2008

India’s national shame
Anjalee Lewis | Wednesday, 10 September 2008

Attacks on impoverished Christians in the northeastern state of Orissa have shocked the nation.

China and India may be keeping the world economy ticking over with their phenomenal growth rates, but their human rights records lag far behind. China’s treatment of Tibet, its cruel one-child policy and itspersecution of independent religious groups is well-known. But India has its own problems with human rights and savage religious persecution which are being ignored by the world media. In the latest eruption of religious violence in the poor northeastern state of Orissa, impoverished Christians have been the target of horrific violence.
The respected newspaper The Times of India says that "many believe Orissa has brought religious hatred in India to a new low". It quotes Asit Mohanty, of the Global Council of Indian Christians, who describes recent incidents as "the worst-ever attack on the Christian community in the history of independent India." They have been described as a "national shame" by Prime Minister Manmohan Singh.

The violence began on August 23. Eighty-five-year-old Swami Laxmanananda Saraswati and four of his followers were gunned down at a school in the Kandhamal district of Orissa. Guruji, as he was known, was a fanatical Hindu nationalist. One of his objectives was to wipe out Christians and Christianity from Kandhamal and its environs, because their numbers had increased over the past 30 years. He attributed this to force and fraud by Christian missionaries. "The sooner Christians return to the Hindu fold the better it would be for the country," was his feeling.

A local TV channel reported that the murderers had left a note declaring that this was a revenge killing for attacks on Christians last Christmas. Who really killed him? Guruji had many enemies. The most likely suspects, say local police, are the Maoist guerillas who still infest the jungles of Orissa. But it was Christians who were blamed by local Hindus.

On the following day, a meeting of leaders of the Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) of Orissa, the Hindu nationalist party, Rastriya Swayam Sevak (RSS), a Hindu militant organisation, and other groups, decided on immediate retaliation.

In the violent aftermath at least 25 people have died and about 50 churches and 4,000 Christian houses have been destroyed. The violence is spreading to the nearby states of Chattisgarh and Madhya Pradesh.

On August 25, FatherThomas Chellan was dragged out of a house in Kandhmal where he and a nun had taken shelter. A mob of about 50 men armed with clubs, axes, spades, crowbars, iron roads, sickles mercilessly thrashed him and kerosene was poured over him to burn him. They were paraded half-naked for half a kilometer.

Another priest, Father Edward Sequera, who was running an orphanage in Kandhamal was beaten with spades, sickles and iron bars for more than an hour. After that his room was set on fire. Fortunately he escaped death by locking himself into the bathroom. But his attackers scaled the roof of the orphanage where Rajani Majhi, the 19-year-old caretaker, had locked herself in along with the 20 children. They entered the room, dragged her outside, tied her hands together and burnt her alive. Rajani was a Hindu.

More than 400 churches, 500 houses and many Christian institutions have been gutted. Many Christians have fled to the jungle for safety. Similar incidents have happened throughout Orissa. Even in its capital Bhuvaneswar, Christian schools have been ransacked. Raphael Cheenath, the Catholic archbishop of Cuttack-Bhubaneshwar, says that it is clear that "the fanatical forces of Hindutva want to eliminate Christians from Orissa".

Hindu fanatics are even invading the camps set up for the 50,000 Christians in relief camps in Kandhamal. There are credible reports of groups going to the relief camp and threatening people to reconvert to Hinduism. In one relief camp, two extremists were caught by a security guard trying to poison the drinking water.

Sadly, none of this comes as a surprise. On Christmas Eve 2007, more than 40 churches, convents and 700 Christian houses were burnt down. Christian villagers hid in the jungles for weeks. In 1999, an Australian evangelical missionary and his two sons were burnt to death by a mob.

What is the truth of Hindu accusations of forced conversions to Christianity? Nearly all of them are absurd. An anti-conversion law recently came into force in the state of Gujarat, on the western coast of the sub-continent. Missionaries convicted of "forcibly converting" someone could face up to three years in prison. However, there have been only three complaints of "forcible" conversions in Gujarat in the last 10 years, and only two of those concerned Christians.

In fact, the Christian population of India appears to be declining slightly. From 2.61 percent of the population in 1981, it fell to 2.53 percent and 2.3 percent in the census for 1991 and 2001. According to the latest census, conducted in 2001, 80.5 percent of India's inhabitants are Hindu, while 13.4 percent are Muslim.

The fundamental rights of freedom of conscience and freedom of religion are enshrined in Article 25 of the Indian Constitution. Officially, India is secular. However, outside of the capital, New Delhi, the state ideology of secularism quickly runs out of steam. In fact, the BJP has managed to pass anti-conversions laws in five of India’s 28 states. In 1967 Orissa became the first state to legislate against religious conversion -- with an act bizarrely named the Orissa Freedom of Religion Act.

The upshot of this is that in some of the BJP-ruled states, this fundamental right to practice and propagate one’s religion now almost ceases to exist -- especially among the poor dalits, or untouchables, and aboriginal tribal peoples.

The violence against the Christians in Kandhamal is linked to the empowerment of the dalits and tribals. Through education dalits and tribals have been achieving dignity freedom from oppressive traditions of caste-based discrimination and slavery. This has sometimes been violently opposed by dominant castes, who could no longer rely upon them for cheap farm labour or bonded labour. 

As Telesphore Toppo, the Cardinal of Ranchi -- India’s first tribal cardinal – has said, "Suppressing and restricting the freedom of religion and conscience is the worst kind of slavery. The dalits and the tribals have suffered as they are deprived of freedom by opportunists who are raising the issue of conversion for their own political mileage".

The Guruji’s followers remain adamant, claiming they will "do everything possible to protect the Hindu faith in Orissa." Kabi Chandra Nath, his successor, says ominously, "We are not converting anyone. We are simply bringing misguided followers back to the fold."

Catholic authorities have asked the Supreme Court and the National Human Rights Commission to investigate the violence against Christians in Orissa. But it is unrealistic to expect much support. After the December riots, government compensation for damage to Christian property was meagre. "This paltry amount given by way of compensation is also the reflective of the will to secure justice for the Christians, more seriously", said Archbishop Cheenath. "No serious action was taken against the perpetrators of the December violence and the culprits are emboldened by their freedom."

Like China, the Indian government will not accept any interference in its internal affairs. But without pressure from overseas, it is unrealistic to expect the central government to take firm steps to quench the violence. There is not much sign of that at the moment. A spokesman for the British High Commission in Delhi, almost yawned. ‘‘India is viewed as a diverse place and the country has made a success of diversity,’’ he said. "A few incidents cannot mar the image of the country." What is needed is a world action, like the "Free Tibet" campaign which has galvanised people around the world. Otherwise, it is absolutely certain that more impoverished Christians will die for their faith.

Anjalee Lewis is a freelance journalist writing from Mumbai.

Carmelite Priest Slain in India
En Route to Celebrate Sunday Mass
http://www.zenit.org/article-23400?l=english

HYDERABAD, India, AUG. 18, 2008 (Zenit.org).- A 37-year-old Carmelite priest was tortured and killed on Saturday night as he traveled to the site where he was to celebrate Sunday Mass.

The body of Carmelite of Mary Immaculate Father Thomas Pandippallyil was found by religious sisters headed to the Mass he was to celebrate at the center in Yellareddy, where he was director.

The Carmelite had joined the Chanda mission of his order in 1987. He was ordained a priest in 2002.

He was last seen alive by those same nuns who offered him dinner Saturday after he had celebrated Mass for them.

"Father Thomas is a martyr: He sacrificed his life for the poor and marginalized," said Archbishop Marampudi Joji of Hyderabad. "But he did not die in vain, because his body and his blood enrich the Church in India, particularly the Church in Andhra Pradesh -- the southeastern state where he died."

"The Church in India is shocked and deeply saddened by this barbarous killing, the result of a growing climate of intolerance and violence against Christians in this country," the 65-year-old archbishop added.

Archbishop Joji contended that the crime is the result of "jealousy of the Catholic Church."

"Priests and nuns," he said, "have for decades been at the service of the least fortunate in India, and this makes them targets of forces of evil who do not want the marginalized and impoverished to become empowered."

By Ethan Cole
Christian Post Reporter
Mon, Aug. 04 2008 05:11 PM EDT
http://www.christianpost.com/article/20080804/top-hamas-leader-s-son-converts-to-christianity.htm
 

Masab Yousef, son of West Bank Hamas leader Sheik Hassan Yousef, revealed for the first time in an exclusive interview with Haaretz newspaper that he has left Islam and is now a Christian. Prior to the interview’s publication last Thursday, Yousef’s family did not know of his faith conversion even though he is in regular contact with them.

“[T]his interview will open many people's eyes, it will shake Islam from the roots, and I'm not exaggerating,” Yousef, who now resides in the United States, said. “What other case do you know where a son of a Hamas leader, who was raised on the tenets of extremist Islam, comes out against it?”

Yousef, who is now 30-years-old, was first exposed to Christianity eight years ago while in Jerusalem where out of curiosity he accepted an invitation to hear about Christianity. Afterwards, he became “enthusiastic” about what he heard and would secretly read the Bible every day.

“A verse like ‘Love thine enemy’ had a great influence on me,” Yousef recalled. “At this stage I was still a Muslim and I thought that I would remain one. But every day I saw the terrible things done in the name of religion by those who considered themselves ‘great believers.’

“I studied Islam more thoroughly and found no answers there. I re-examined the Koran and the principals of the faith and found how it is mistaken and misleading.”

But with Christianity, Yousef said he could understand God as revealed through Jesus Christ. He said he could talk about God and Jesus for days, but Muslims are not able to say anything about God.

“I consider Islam a big lie,” said the son of one of Hamas’ founders. “The people who supposedly represent the religion admired Mohammed more than God, killed innocent people in the name of Islam, beat their wives and don’t have any idea what God is.

“I have no doubt that they’ll go to hell. I have a message for them: There is only one way to Paradise – the way of Jesus who sacrificed himself on the cross for all of us.”

Four years ago, Yousef decided to convert to Christianity but did not let his family know. He still helped his father with his political activities, and his father only knew his son had Christian friends.

“I felt responsible. It was better for me to be there rather than a gang of fools who would poison his mind,” Yousef explained. “I tried to understand those people, their thoughts, in order to change them from inside by means of a strong person like my father, who admitted to me in the past that he does not support suicide attacks.”

Yousef described his father as a moderate Hamas leader.

But even before his encounter with Christianity, Yousef had already become disenchanted with Hamas and Islam while being imprisoned at the age of 18 years old for heading a youth Islamic movement at his high school.

He described the Hamas leaders he met in prison as people with “no morals” and “no integrity,” although they hide their corruption better than Fatah party members.

“Nobody knows them and how they operate as well as I do,” Yousef said, recalling how the family of Hamas members killed by Israel were forced to beg for financial assistance while the leadership “abandoned” them and “wasted” tens of thousands of dollars a month only on security for themselves.
 
 

Then (in prison) I understood that not everyone in Hamas is like my father. He's a nice, friendly man. But I discovered how evil his colleagues are,” Yousef said. “After my release I lost the faith I had in those who ostensibly represented Islam."

Hamas is considered a terrorist group by the United States, Israel, and many Western countries. The group has publicly vowed to destroy Israel.

Now Yousef, the eldest son of Sheikh Yousef, says he “admires” Israel.

"You Jews should be aware: You will never, but never have peace with Hamas,” Yousef stated. “Islam, as the ideology that guides them, will not allow them to achieve a peace agreement with the Jews. They believe that tradition says that the Prophet Mohammed fought against the Jews and that therefore they must continue to fight them to the death."

He denounced the “entire” Palestinian society as one that “sanctifies death and the suicide terrorist.”

“In Palestinian culture a suicide terrorist becomes a hero, a martyr. Sheiks tell their students about the ‘heroism of the shaheeds (martyr).’”

Yousef highlighted that Hamas was the first to use suicide bombers as weapons against civilians.

"They (Hamas) are blind and ignorant. It's true, there are good and bad people everywhere, but Hamas supporters don't understand that they are led by a wicked and cruel group that brainwashes the children and gets them to believe that if they carry out a suicide attack they'll get to Paradise,” he said.

The Muslim-turned-Christian says he does not think Islam will survive for more than 25 years because the truth about Islam will be exposed given the mass communication available in the modern age.

For his part, Yousef says he hopes to “open the eyes” of Muslims and “reveal the truth” to them about Islam and Christianity with the goal to “take them out of the darkness and the prison of Islam.”

“In that way they'll have an opportunity to correct their mistakes, to become better people and to bring a chance for peace in the Middle East,” he said.

Yousef, who has taken the biblical name of Joseph, said he dreams of one day becoming a writer to tell his personal story and about the Middle East conflicts.

“But at the moment, at least, my ambitions are only to find work, a place to live,” Yousef admits. “I have no money, I have no apartment,” said the son of the Hamas leader who left behind properties in Ramallah to find true freedom.

“I was about to become one of those homeless people [in the United States],” he confessed, “but people from the church are helping me. I'm dependent on them."

He also dreams that someday he can return to his homeland and his family will accept Jesus Christ.

"I know that I'm endangering my life and am even liable to lose my father, but I hope that he'll understand this and that God will give him and my family patience and willingness to open their eyes to Jesus and to Christianity,” Yousef said. “Maybe one day I'll be able to return to Palestine and to Ramallah with Jesus, in the Kingdom of God.”

-------------------------

Hamas convert warns Israel they cna never be at peace with rebel group
Thursday, 14th August 2008. 6:45am

By: Roberto Sanchez Guevara.

The son of top Hamas leader has affirmed his faith in Jesus Christ and warned that Israel can never be at peace with the "wicked and cruel" men who lead Hamas.

"At this stage I was still a Muslim and I thought that I would remain one. But every day I saw the terrible things done in the name of religion by those who considered themselves 'great believers,’" Yousef told the Haaretz news organization.

"I studied Islam more thoroughly and found no answers there. I re-examined the Koran and the principles of the faith and found how it is mistaken and misleading. The Muslims borrowed rituals and traditions from all the surrounding religions."

Masab Yousef, who now prefers to be known as "Joseph," is the oldest son of Sheikh Hassan Yousef, a political leader of the Hamas organization in the West Bank and one of the movement's most popular public figures.

Four years ago, Yousef decided to convert to Christianity but did not let his family know. "When I was with my father, I in effect pushed a moderate Hamas leader into making logical decisions, such as stopping the attacks and establishing two states alongside one another," Yousef said.

"I felt responsible. It was better for me to be there rather than a gang of fools who would poison his mind.”

Talking about Islam he said “it is a culture sanctifies death and the suicide terrorists” Hamas extremists "are blind and ignorant. It's true, there are good and bad people everywhere, but Hamas supporters don't understand that they are led by a wicked and cruel group that brainwashes the children and gets them to believe that if they carry out a suicide attack they'll get to Paradise."

"I tried to understand those people, their thoughts, in order to change them from inside by means of a strong person like my father, who admitted to me in the past that he does not support suicide attacks," he said.

"He thinks that harming innocent people gives the organization a bad name. The sheikh once said to me that when he sees an insect outside the house he is careful not to harm it, 'so what can I say about harming civilians?'"

“Joseph” concludes: “Many people will hate me for this interview, but I'm telling them that I love all of them, even those who hate me. I invite all the people, including the terrorists among them, to open their hearts and believe," he added.

"Now I'm trying to establish an international organization for young people that will teach about Christianity, love and peace in the territories, too. I would like to teach the young people how to love and forgive, because that's the only way the two nations can overcome the mistakes of the past and live in peace."

Click here to read the complete interview