Pope Francis welcomes Palestinian Authority President Mahmoud Abbas, right, as he arrives at the Vatican, Sunday, June 8, 2014. (AP Photo/Riccardo De Luca, Pool)
Vatican recognizes state of Palestine in new treaty
Tag Archives: Catholic Church
Pope’s U.S. visit a chance to mend fences with conservatives
Pope Francis waves to the waiting crowds after a mass at the Cathedral in Manila January 16, 2015. REUTERS-Romeo Ranoco
Middle East Updates / Amnesty: 1,165 forcibly evicted from northern Sinai
Smoke rises as a house is blown up during a military operation by Egyptian security forces in the Egyptian city of Rafah, near the border with southern Gaza Strip November 6, 2014. Photo by Reuters
Egypt court declares ISIS a terror group; Pope ends Turkey trip in Orthodox feast, meeting with refugees; Iran hospital manager attacked with acid
Pope Francis tells world to listen to ‘cry for peace’
Pope Francis told the crowd at St Peter’s Square: ‘Everyone must be committed to building a society that is truly just and caring.’ Photograph: Giampiero Sposito/Reuters
Pontiff uses Vatican new year message to say too many people are indifferent to war, violence and injustice
Boy Scouts to accept openly gay youth starting New Year’s Day
Boy Scouts from the Chief Seattle Council carry U.S. flags as they prepare to march in the Gay Pride Parade in downtown Seattle. The Boy Scouts of America, in the most contentious change of membership policy in a 103-year history, will accept openly gay youths in Scout units starting on New Year’s Day 2014. Elaine Thompson/AP
From Jan. 1, 2014, the Boy Scouts of America will no longer bar gay youth. While some churches have dropped the Scouts because of the new policy, the majority of the organization’s members and sponsors are staying. A new conservative alternative Trail Life USA will also launch in January.
Halloween, should Christians stay away or is it ok to celebrate?
Priests threatened with arrest if they minister to military during shutdown
Alex Pappas
Daily Caller
Oct 5, 2013
In a stunning development, some military priests are facing arrest if they celebrate mass or practice their faith on military bases during the federal government shutdown.
“With the government shutdown, many [government service] and contract priests who minister to Catholics on military bases worldwide are not permitted to work – not even to volunteer,” wrote John Schlageter, the general counsel for the Archdiocese for the Military Services USA, in an op-ed this week. “During the shutdown, it is illegal for them to minister on base and they risk being arrested if they attempt to do so.”
According to its website, the Archdiocese for the Military Services “provides the Catholic Church’s full range of pastoral ministries and spiritual services to those in the United States Armed Forces.”
In his piece, Schlageter worries about this restriction as Sunday nears. “If the government shutdown continues through the weekend, there will be no Catholic priest to celebrate Mass this Sunday in the chapels at some U.S. military installations where non-active-duty priests serve as government contractors,” he wrote.
Baby Saved in Brighton
Earlier this week a baby was saved in Brighton after pro-life volunteers were able to speak with a woman considering an abortion.
Abort67 volunteers Pauline Peachy and Kathryn Attwood were outside the Wistons abortion clinic in Brighton. Pauline tells the story:
“A taxi stopped and a young woman got out alone. I thought she might stop but she hurried past, not looking at me. However she came out less than half an hour later. She stopped and listened then. She hadn’t taken the pill. She took some leaflets, but when I showed her the little feet pin she started to cry. We talked together for a while. We asked her what help she needed to keep the baby, said that whatever it was we could provide it (God has never let us down!). We decided to go to a cafe where we could talk.
“She was afraid; her husband was afraid… She was a Catholic who believed in God. She wanted to have an early abortion because she thought it wasn’t really a baby yet.”
Kathryn added:
“After our conversation with her she was adamant she would keep the baby no matter what anybody said.
“I think that baby was saved through a combination of factors. Firstly, the Holy Spirit softening her heart through prayer. Secondly, our obedience to God to stand outside the clinic and openly share with her the reality of abortion.”
Clarkson Academy
At Christian Concern, we have teamed up with Abort67 to run a two day pro-life training conference.
The Clarkson Academy will take place from 5-7 September in central London and offers participants a chance to hear talks from some of the foremost pro-life campaigners and thinkers from the US. If you’d like to find out more, visit www.clarksonacademy.org
Where the pope gave ground on ‘gays’
Exclusive: Scott Lively says Francis is ensnared by ‘sophistry of sexual-orientation theory’
The Bible instructs that “As a man thinks in his heart, so is he” (Proverbs 23:7). And it warns “do not conform to the pattern of this world, but be transformed by the renewing of your mind” (Romans 12:2). Thus there is no such thing as a “Thief Christian,” an “Adulterer Christian,” or a “Drunkard Christian.” There are only Christians whose lower nature leans toward those or other sins of the flesh. We do not define ourselves by the sins that tempt us. There is no such thing as a “Gay Christian.” The very notion is anti-biblical.
The concept of “Gay Christians” originates in sexual-orientation theory, an ideological invention of the homosexual movement designed to advance the idea that homosexuality is “immutable,” meaning unchangeable. It was adopted as a legal and political strategy of the American homosexual movement in the 1980s to try to make homosexuality appear to meet the requirements of civil rights case law. U.S. Supreme Court rulings in that era required members of a group to have “immutable traits” to qualify for minority status under civil rights laws.
Thanks to homosexualist Justice Anthony Kennedy, who wrote four of the last five opinions relating to homosexuality, “gays” no longer need to prove that. But sexual-orientation theory turned out to be a boon to the “gay” agenda in innumerable ways, so it continues to be advocated. More accurately, it serves as an unstated and unchallenged assumption at the foundation of all “gay” arguments.
Until recently, the church had not embraced sexual-orientation theory but always distinguished conduct from personal identity. “Love the sinner, hate the sin,” is the most recognizable shorthand for this idea. But in the past decade or so, an increasing number of formerly Bible-centered pastors and churches have been changing their theology to accommodate sexual orientation presuppositions: “gayness” is innate, “being gay” is equivalent to being black, “being gay” is the way God intends some people to be, etc. The members of the so-called Emergent Church Movement are the chief culprits in this trend, but it is spreading fast.
This week, Pope Francis appears to have, at least in part, subtly embraced sexual-orientation theory in his comments about homosexuality in the Catholic Church. He said:
“I think that when we encounter a gay person, we must make the distinction between the fact of a person being gay and the fact of a lobby, because lobbies are not good. They are bad. If a person is gay and seeks the Lord and has goodwill, who am I to judge that person? The Catechism of the Catholic Church explains this point beautifully but says, wait a moment, how does it say, it says, these persons must never be marginalized and ‘they must be integrated into society.’”
Clearly, Pope Francis is NOT endorsing homosexual conduct as so many in the liberal media have dishonestly claimed. He affirms the Catholic Catechism, which is explicit on that point.
My concern is about his use of the phrases “a gay person” and “the fact of that person being gay.” Saying “a gay person,” instead of “a person who struggles with homosexual temptation,” or “a person who defines himself as homosexual” is on its face a major concession to sexual-orientation theory when used by a church leader about Christians.
Further, in the context of the sentence, it implies a softening of church policy that those with a deep-seated homosexual identity, even if celibate, are unfit for the priesthood. The 2005 “Instruction Concerning the Criteria for the Discernment of Vocation with regard to Persons with Homosexual Tendencies in view of their Admission to the Seminary and to Holy Orders” forbids “those who practice homosexuality, present deep-seated homosexual tendencies or support the so-called ‘gay culture.’”
What is “gay culture” if not the association of people based on a common self-identification as “gays”? Pope Francis has, wittingly or unwittingly, affirmed “gay” culture by his terminology, even while lamenting (and implicitly confirming the existence of) a “gay lobby” in the Vatican.
If the pope has conceded that “gayness” is an acceptable basis for self-identity, that suggests he is willing to integrate people into the priesthood who define themselves by their sin, rather than as sinners washed and transformed by the blood of Christ. When identification with sin is a present-tense basis for your identity, you are unrepentant about remaining unwashed and untransformed. That’s very dangerous for the priests themselves, and in the church community virtually guarantees that the “gay lobby” will continue.
Of all the secular media coverage of this story, I think the Wall Street Journal was most accurate. It said in an article with the perhaps overstated title “Pope Signals Openness to Gay Priests” that “Pope Francis reaffirmed church teaching by referring to homosexual acts as a sin. But he wielded his formidable bully pulpit to shift the tone of how the church regards homosexual orientation at its highest ranks.” Indeed, the problem is the view of “orientation.”
The story also quoted Cardinal Dolan of New York who said, “My worry is that we’re buying into the vocabulary that one’s person is one’s sexual identity, and I don’t buy that and neither does the church.” Dolan obviously “gets” what Pope Francis seemingly does not. Dolan’s phrase “… and neither does the church” looks to me like an attempt at damage control by one who recognizes the hazards of sexual-orientation ideology infiltrating the church.
It is possible Pope Francis did not intend to convey what his terminology implied. I understand better than most how one’s off-the-cuff comments sometimes imply things we really don’t mean. But in the full context of his remarks that day, and the still larger context of his tolerant and compassionate nature and style that is so admirable on the whole, I’m afraid he may have become (like an increasing number of evangelical leaders) ensnared in the subtle sophistry of sexual-orientation theory.
I hope I am wrong. I’ll be the first to applaud if Pope Francis clearly shows he does not recognize “gayness” as a legitimate basis for self-identification. At this point, however, the evidence points the other way.
Gay priest is ‘optimistic, but cautious’ over Pope Francis’ olive branch to homosexuals
The Rev. Gary Meier says he believes pontiff’s welcoming attitude may change the Catholic Church.
St. Louis priest, the Rev. Gary Meier, says the Pope knows ‘the impact of his words.’ fathergary.com
When I heard what Pope Francis said, I was a little bit surprised. And I felt optimistic — but cautious.
To me, it’s a beginning. What a breath of fresh air to hear a voice that’s not hostile.
There are voices from the pulpit, and there are voices from the pews. This is the first pulpit voice that we’ve heard that has not been judgmental. That gives a lot of people in the LGBT community hope.
End Time Bible Prophecy 
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