Benedict XVI expressed his desire that everyone should enjoy religious freedom in a message written for the new ambassador from India, where Christians were the object of a wave of violence last year in the eastern state of Orissa.
Authorities said they had a suspect in custody Sunday afternoon in the shooting death of George Tiller, a Wichita doctor who was one of the few doctors in the nation to perform late-term abortions.
Dr. Tiller, who had long been a lightning rod for controversy over the issue of abortion and had survived a shooting more than a decade ago, was shot inside his church here on Sunday morning, the authorities said. Dr. Tiller, 67, was shot with a handgun inside the lobby of his longtime church, Reformation Lutheran Church on the city’s East Side, just after 10 a.m. (Central Time). The service had started minutes earlier.
Dr. Tiller, who had performed abortions since the 1970s, had long been a lightning rod for controversy over the issue of abortion, particularly in Kansas, where abortion opponents regularly protested outside his clinic and sometimes his home and church. In 1993, he was shot in both arms by an abortion opponent but recovered.
Murder is wrong, no matter who the victim or what the context. That’s as much as I feel comfortable offering right now. I recommend everyone who chooses to comment on this thread be similarly circumspect.
Now, dear brothers and sisters, in today’s solemnity Scripture tells us how the community must be, how we must be to receive the Holy Spirit. In his account of Pentecost the sacred author says that the disciples “were together in the same place.” This “place” is the Cenacle, the “upper room,” where Jesus held the Last Supper with his disciples, where he appeared to them after his resurrection; that room that had become the “seat,” so to speak, of the nascent Church (cf. Acts 1:13). Nevertheless, the intention in the Acts of the Apostles is more to indicate the interior attitude of the disciples than to insist on a physical place: “They all persevered in concord and prayer” (Acts 1:14). So, the concord of the disciples is the condition for the coming of the Holy Spirit; and prayer is the presupposition of concord.
This is also true for the Church today, dear brothers and sisters. It is true for us who are gathered together here. If we do not want Pentecost to be reduced to a mere ritual or to a suggestive commemoration, but that it be a real event of salvation, through a humble and silent listening to God’s Word we must predispose ourselves to God’s gift in religious openness. So that Pentecost renew itself in our time, perhaps there is need — without taking anything away from God’s freedom [to do as he pleases] — for the Church to be less “preoccupied” with activities and more dedicated to prayer. Mary Most Holy, the Mother of the Church and Bride of the Holy Spirit, teaches us this. This year Pentecost occurs on the last day of May, when the Feast of the Visitation is customarily celebrated. This event was also a little “Pentecost,” bringing forth joy and praise from the hearts of Elizabeth and Mary — the one barren and the other a virgin — who both became mothers by an extraordinary divine intervention (cf. Luke 1:41-45).
The ecclesiastical Court for the Trial of a Bishop has issued a temporary gag order prohibiting the Rt. Rev. Charles E. Bennison, Jr., Bishop of Pennsylvania, from making public more than 200 letters that Bishop Bennison claims would exonerate him of charges that he failed to report sexual misconduct committed by his brother, John.
The misconduct occurred while John Bennison was serving on the staff of a California church where Bishop Bennison was rector in the 1970s. John Bennison previously admitted to sexual misconduct with a 14-year-old girl who was a member of the church youth group. He was deposed from the ordained ministry of The Episcopal Church in 2006.
Bishop Bennison maintains that he did not know about his brother’s misconduct until many years later, but in 2008, the court found Bishop Bennison guilty of conduct unbecoming a member of the clergy and recommended that he be deposed. He remains under inhibition pending appeal.
Mr Berlusconi’s private life is, of course, private. But as President Clinton found, scandal does not become high office. To his critics, Mr Berlusconi retorts that he still commands high popularity ratings, is very much in control of his Government and will not be intimidated by what he calls opposition attempts to smear him. Many may also say that Italy is not America: that the puritan ethic framing standards in the US has never dominated Italian public life, and that few Italians are shocked by womanising. This is patronising nonsense. Italians understand just as well as Americans what is and what is not acceptable. And like Americans, they regard a cover-up as contemptible.
The Catholic faith has always taught that sexual relations between two consenting married heterosexual adult human beings not related already by blood are not just good but, among the baptized, sacramental.
The West got rid of the Catholic faith and assumed that its moral norms would just continue by inertia. The trouble is: In this world, inertia always encounters friction….
Two weeks ago, the U.S. Treasury released additional details (link opens .pdf) about the homeowner bailout, or in Washington-speak the “Making Home Affordable” program. Part of those details included some new ways for homeowners to avoid foreclosure. I thought the far more fascinating part, however, was the so-called “Home Price Decline Protection Incentives” (HPDP). It’s the most interesting part of the homeowner bailout that you probably haven’t heard about. I have been fascinated with the HPDP since the bailout was announced in February, and now we finally have some detail to dig into.
For some strange reason, virtually no one is talking about the HPDP. I haven’t seen a single article on it. Here’s how the new fact sheet describes it:
This initiative provides lenders additional incentives for modifications where home price declines have been most severe and lenders fear these declines may persist. These incentives will encourage servicers to undertake more modifications by assuring that incremental investor losses will be partially offset.
All of the initiatives within the homeowner bailout have attempted to stabilize the housing market. But this is the only one that provides a sort of insurance to investors if home prices continue to decline. In February I remarked that it seemed like the housing bailout included everything but the kitchen sink. I was wrong: this is the kitchen sink.
Christ Episcopal Church will celebrate its 150th anniversary at 10 a.m. June 7.
S.C. Bishop Mark Lawrence of Charleston will lead the service at the quaint church, which is listed in the National Register of Historic Places.
Father Michael Burton is the rector of Christ Episcopal, located at 2305 U.S. 327. He is assisted by Deacon Hiram Moseley.
Christ Episcopal’s building is in the shape of a cross, originally painted white. The outside walls are boarded and battened. The boards are 10 inches wide running up and down, every seam covered with a beveled board about four inches wide and two inches in the center.
The first poll of Britain’s churchgoers, carried out for The Sunday Telegraph, found that thousands of them believe they are being turned down for promotion because of their faith.
One in five said that they had faced opposition at work because of their beliefs.
More than half of them revealed that they had suffered some form of persecution for being a Christian.