The Catholic Church and You
Zenit reported on November 7, 2005, that Pope Benedict admonished the Catholic clergy in Austria to preach Roman Catholicism in its entirety. The article quoted the pope as follows: “A Catholic teaching that is given in an incomplete manner is a contradiction in itself and cannot be fruitful in the long term… In the uncertainty of this historical period and of this society, offer men the certainty of the complete faith of the Church.”
But what does the Catholic Church teach? For instance, the magazine published the speech of the pope on “All Saints Day,” which “coincides” with Halloween. The pope made some interesting statements: “He who believes in Christ the Son of God is reborn ‘from above,’ is again as though begotten by the work of the Holy Spirit (cf. John 3:1-8). This mystery is acted in the sacrament of baptism, through which Mother Church gives birth to ‘saints.'” When reading this, one should ask: Which is it? Is it “begotten” or born”? Apparently, the pope does not think that there is a distinction, but there is. For more information, please read our free booklet, “Baptism–A Requirement for Salvation?”
The article continued to quote the pope, as follows: “The new life, received in baptism, is not subjected to corruption nor to the power of death. For one who lives in Christ, death is the passage of the earthly pilgrimage to the heavenly homeland, where the Father welcomes all his children, ‘from every nation, from all tribes and peoples and tongues,’ as we read today in the Book of Revelation (7:9).”
However, the Bible nowhere teaches that we go to heaven when we die, nor is death the “passage of the earthly pilgrimage to the heavenly homeland.” For more information, please read our free booklet, “Do We Have An Immortal Soul?”
The pope then addressed Mary, in this way: “May we be helped by the Virgin Mary, Queen of the Saints, whom we now address with filial confidence.” The idea, however, that Mary was a perpetual virgin, and that she lives today and resides in heaven as a “queen,” intervening for Christians, is blatantly unbiblical. For more information, please read our free book, “Jesus Christ–A Great Mystery,” in addition to our free booklet, “Don’t Keep Christmas.”
On November 3, 2005, WorldNetDaily reported that “The Vatican today warned Catholics that if they do not listen to the contentions of modern science–regarding the origin of life and other issues–they risk falling prey to ‘fundamentalism.’… When asked about the debate raging between evolution and intelligent design in the United States, a papal representative reaffirmed John Paul II’s 1996 assertion that evolution was ‘more than just a hypothesis.’ Said Monsignor Gianfranco Basti, director of the Vatican project STOQ, or Science, Theology and Ontological Quest: ‘A hypothesis asks whether something is true or false. (Evolution) is more than a hypothesis because there is proof.'”
However, the concept that man evolved from animals, and that one species (e.g., mammals) evolved from another species (e.g., birds or fish), is UNTRUE. There is NO PROOF for such an assertion, and it clearly contradicts the Holy Scriptures. For more information, please read our free booklet, “The Theory of Evolution–a Fairy Tale for Adults.”
Evolution Under Attack
On November 8, 2005, MSNBC reported that “the Kansas Board of Education approved new public-school science standards Tuesday that cast doubt on the theory of evolution. The 6-4 vote was a victory for ‘intelligent design’ advocates who helped draft the standards. Intelligent design holds that the universe is so complex that it must have been created by a higher power.” The article continued to explain: “The new standards say high school students must understand major evolutionary concepts. But they also declare that the basic Darwinian theory that all life had a common origin and that natural chemical processes created the building blocks of life have been challenged in recent years by fossil evidence and molecular biology.”
Scientists predictably opposed the ruling, as the article explained: “‘This is a significant attack on science,’ said Jack Krebs, vice president of Kansas Citizens for Science. ‘They really are advancing a sectarian religious view. They’re treading on constitutional grounds.'”
However, scientists have not been all that anxious to support “free exercise” of experimentation and reasoning–a “hallmark” of scientific “objectivity.” On October 27, 2005, the New York Times published an interesting article about how scientists try to use copyright law to quench any criticism of the theory of evolution. Kansas’ school board wanted to quote from scientific papers, which promote evolution, to prove that evolution is a controversial theory. The authors objected to such use, quoting copyright law as a basis to prevent it, even though it appears that the use would be legally justified–with or without the authors’ permission–under the concept of the “genuine fair use” exception. The authors’ rebuke came less than two weeks before the state school board in Kansas approved the new science standards.
Flu Pandemic Just a Matter of Time
AFP reported on November 7, 2005, that “A three-day council of war on avian influenza [warned] that a flu pandemic was inevitable, could kill millions and inflict up to 800 billion dollars in economic damage… An influenza pandemic, potentially unleashed by a mutation of the H5N1 bird flu virus, ‘is only a matter of time,’ World Health Organisation (WHO) Director General Lee Jong-Wook said Monday. ‘We don’t know when this will happen, but we know it will happen,’ Lee said. ‘… If we are unprepared, the next pandemic will cause incalculable human misery… no society will be exempt and no economy will be unscathed.’… Lee said that 63 deaths, out of 124 known cases of human infection, had been reported to the WHO, 150 million fowl had been slaughtered and the economic cost of the virus was more than 10 billion dollars…
“At present, H5N1 is transmissible from bird to humans who are closely exposed to virus expelled by sickly fowl in their faces and nasal secretions. But it cannot be easily passed from humans to humans. The fear is that the more the virus spreads, the greater chance it has to mutate, picking up genes from ordinary flu that could make it highly contagious from humans to humans. This feared mutation could occur if H5N1 is transmitted to a human or a PIG that already has been infected by the conventional flu virus. No-one would have any immunity against the new pathogen, which means a pandemic could swiftly spread in the modern era of jet travel and the globalised economy.”
Germany Unhappy
Although not that surprising and, unfortunately, almost commonplace in our world of broken promises, especially in politics, Germany’s future “grand coalition” has been described by the German press as a grand coalition of liars and thieves. Bild Online showed a picture of Merkel (CDU), Stoiber (CSU) and Muentefering (SPD), portraying them as lying “Pinocchios” with long noses. Broken election promises are the cause for the outrage. Merkel had stated on July 7 that she would not agree to raising taxes (does this sound familiar?); Stoiber had proclaimed, on July 17, that he would decrease the amount of individual contributions to unemployment insurance; and Muentefering had promised on August 19 that he would not increase the added value tax.
Subsequently, the pro-CDU tabloid published a new picture, removing Merkel’s long “Pinocchio-nose,” claiming that Merkel had been placed “on probation,” as she is apparently willing to make good on some of the election promises.
In one of its biting commentaries, titled, “Dear Beloved Liars of Berlin,” Bild Online wrote this week:
“Apparently, we have accepted the fact that there is no more faithfulness of our words, and no more faith in our words… Today, lying has become our hobby. ‘You are Germany,” is a nice campaign. ‘You are the country of lies,’ is the truth.”
In another commentary, titled, “Lazy, Cowardly And Without Imagination,” Bild Online wrote: “Never before have election promises been broken that quickly. That is why there is a third category of victims [in addition to the taxpayers and the unemployed]–the trustworthiness of these politicians.”
Bild also published an interview with a lawyer, explaining that the public has no legal way to prevent politicians from lying during election campaigns. The German president has no jurisdiction, and a lawsuit would be immediately dismissed. Bild concluded: “The nation’s anger is brewing.”
Germany’s Fateful Day
On November 8, 2005, Der Spiegel Online published a remarkable and outstanding lengthy article about the events that took place on November 8 and 9, 1939. We are bringing the following excerpts:
“November 9 is often considered a fateful date in German history. The first German republic was proclaimed in Berlin on November 9, 1918. On November 9, 1923, Adolf Hitler attempted to overthrow the German government in Munich. On November 9, 1938, Jewish businesses and synagogues throughout Germany were set on fire during the nationwide pogrom known as the Night of the Broken Glass. And on November 9, 1989, the Berlin Wall came down. A fateful date? Definitely one imbued with the weight of history.
“But it is the day before — Nov. 8 — which shows how tragic the mixture of coincidence, nature, and human activity can be. Indeed, had the world not lost 13 minutes on the evening of Nov. 8, 1939, an entire series of later, ominous dates in German history would never have taken place. Even the fall of the Berlin Wall would never have happened. Indeed, the Wall would never have been built. Those 13 minutes on November 8, 1939 were the most costly in the history of the 20th century. Within a period of less than six years, from 1939 to 1945, they cost humanity 50 million lives and virtually wiped European Jewry from the map. For the Germans, these 13 minutes resulted in post-war expulsions from Poland and Czechoslovakia — and a divided nation.”
What were these 13 fateful minutes? The article explained:
“The Munich airport was shut down on November 8, 1939, because of heavy fog. As a result, the city’s most prominent visitor on that day was forced to cancel his flight to Berlin and take the train instead. Adolf Hitler, who, on September 1, 1939, had ordered the German Wehrmacht to attack Poland, thereby triggering World War II, had come to Munich on that evening to give a speech at the Munich beer hall called the Bürgerbräukeller, just as he had done on November 8 in previous years. It was where the founding members of the Nazi party met every year to celebrate the attempted putsch of November 8, 1923 — a putsch that ended with Adolf Hitler in jail. Because of the fog in Munich, Hitler began his speech at the Hofbräuhaus at 8:00 p.m., 30 minutes earlier than planned, so as not to miss the night train to Berlin. The Führer left the Bürgerbräukeller at 9:07 p.m. As it turned out, the bad weather was what saved his life. A bomb that had been hidden [by Johann Georg Elser, a carpenter from southern Germany] in a column directly behind where Hitler had been speaking exploded at 9:20 p.m. The explosion was so powerful that part of the ceiling collapsed. Eight people were killed and 60 were wounded, some seriously. When the bomb went off, Hitler was already sitting in a heated limousine, on his way to the train station.”
We can safely say that it was not “mere coincidence” that Hitler escaped death in 1939. As the leader [together with Mussolini] of the ninth resurrection of the ancient Roman Empire, he was used by Satan to fulfill an important role in human history, as prophesied in the Bible. The beginning of the tenth and last resurrection is happening right now in Europe. It, too, will bring havoc over this planet–ushering in the return of Jesus Christ to end man’s incompetent attempts to rule this world. For more information, please read our free booklets, “Europe in Prophecy” and “The Great Tribulation and the Day of the Lord.”
Civil War in France
“President Jacques Chirac declared a state of emergency Tuesday, paving the way for curfews to be imposed on riot-hit cities and towns in an extraordinary measure to halt France’s worst civil unrest in decades after 12 nights of violence,” according to the Associated Press of November 8, 2005.
The article continued: “Nationwide, vandals burned 1,173 cars [on Monday-Tuesday], compared to 1,408 vehicles Sunday-Monday, police said… The violence erupted on Oct. 27 as a localized riot in a northeast Paris suburb angry over the accidental deaths of two teenagers, of Mauritanian and Tunisian descent, who were electrocuted while hiding from police in a power substation. It has grown into a nationwide insurrection by disillusioned suburban youths, many French-born children of immigrants from France’s former territories like Algeria. France’s suburbs have long been neglected and their youth complain of a lack of jobs and widespread discrimination, some of it racial… In terms of material destruction, the unrest is France’s worst since World War II. Never has rioting struck so many French cities simultaneously.”
The article also pointed out that “Apparent copycat attacks have spread to Belgium and Germany, where cars were burned.”
How Empires End
On November 7, 2005, Patrick J. Buchanan published an interesting editorial in “Human Events,” titled, “How Empires End.” He stated: “The Romans conquered the barbarians–and the barbarians conquered Rome. So it goes with empires. This is the larger meaning of the ritual murder of Theo Van Gogh in Holland, the subway bombings in London, the train bombings in Madrid, the Paris riots spreading across France. The perpetrators of these crimes in the capitals of Europe are the children of immigrants who were once the colonial subjects of the European empires… The rioters [in France] are of Arab and African descent, and Muslim. While almost all are French citizens, they are not part of the French people. For never have they been assimilated into French culture or society. And some wish to remain who and what they are.”
Buchanan continued: “…no European nation has ever assimilated a large body of immigrant peoples, let alone people of color. Moreover, the African and Islamic peoples pouring into Europe–there are 20 million there now–are… strangers in a new land, and millions wish to remain proud Algerians, Muslims, Moroccans. These newcomers worship a different God and practice a faith historically hostile to Christianity, a traditionalist faith that is rising again and recoils violently from a secular culture saturated in sex. Severed from the civilization and cultures of their parents, these Arab and Muslim youth may hold French citizenship and carry French passports, but they are no more French than Americans who live in Paris are French. Searching for a community to which they can truly belong, they gravitate to mosques where the imams, many themselves immigrants, teach and preach that the West is not their true home, but a civilization alien to their values and historically hostile to their nations and Islam.”
Buchanan concluded with this sober–almost prophetic–warning: “Yet, to keep Europe’s economy growing and taxes coming in to fund the health and pension programs of Europe’s rising numbers of retired and elderly, Europe needs scores of millions of new workers. And Europe can only find them in the Third World. Nor should Americans take comfort in France’s distress. By 2050, there will be 100 million Hispanics in the United States, half of them of Mexican ancestry, heavily concentrated in a Southwest most Mexicans still believe by right belongs to them. Colonization of the mother countries by subject peoples is the last chapter in the history of empires–and the next chapter in the history of the West–that is now coming to a close.”
Europe’s Historic Role in the Middle East
The Jerusalem Post reported on November 3, 2005, about an “historic” military involvement of Europe in the Middle East. The article stated: “The security cabinet approved the placement of an EU contingent at the Rafah crossing between the Gaza Strip and Egypt on Tuesday, but the role envisioned for this force caught some EU officials by surprise. Prime Minister Ariel Sharon… said the force should have ‘real powers,’ not just supervisory ones… [Sharon] termed the security cabinet’s decision ‘historic’ and said it gave the EU–which has for years expressed an interest in taking a more active part in the diplomatic process–an unprecedented role. Sharon said the willingness to give the EU this role indicated a newfound trust and confidence in Europe.”
Saddam’s Attorneys Murdered
As Reuters reported on November 8, 2005, “Gunmen opened fire on a car carrying two lawyers defending some of Saddam Hussein’s co-defendants in a trial for crimes against humanity, killing one and wounding the other, police and defense team sources said.Tuesday’s attack followed the murder of another defense lawyer in the team… who was shot the day after the trial started in Baghdad last month.”
Jordan Bombings
As Reuters reported on November 10, 2005, “Iraq’s al Qaeda group claimed responsibility for the suspected suicide bombings, which left blood and destruction in Amman’s Grand Hyatt hotel and the nearby Radisson. A third blast targeted a Days Inn hotel.”
BBC News added: “On the face of it, Jordan is an obvious target for Islamic militants. It is a close ally of the United States and a strong supporter of the war in Iraq, and it has signed a peace treaty with Israel. Yet Jordanians were confident in pronouncing the monarchy one of the safest countries in the Middle East. This confidence sprang from trust in Jordan’s respected and feared security services–described by Western diplomats as the most professional and dedicated in the Arab world.”
The article concluded:
“[Jordan’s] choice will be between imposing even stricter controls on public life and carrying out promised democratic reforms. Having seen the ability of Islamic militants to evade one of the region’s most effective security services, the choice will not be easy.”
AntiWar Sermons and the IRS
On November 7, 2005, the Los Angeles Times reported: “The Internal Revenue Service [IRS] has warned one of Southern California’s largest and most liberal churches [All Saints Episcopal Church in Pasadena] that it is at risk of losing its tax-exempt status because of an antiwar sermon two days before the 2004 presidential election.”
The article explained what had actually happened in 2004:
“In his [guest] sermon [by the church’s former rector, George F. Regas, he] from the pulpit opposed both the Vietnam War and 1991’s Gulf War [and] imagined Jesus participating in a political debate with then-candidates George W. Bush and John Kerry. Regas said that ‘good people of profound faith’ could vote for either man, and did not tell parishioners whom to support. But he criticized the war in Iraq, saying that Jesus would have told Bush, ‘Mr. President, your doctrine of preemptive war is a failed doctrine. Forcibly changing the regime of an enemy that posed no imminent threat has led to disaster.'”
As the LA Times explained, the church received a letter from the IRS stating that “‘a reasonable belief exists that you may not be tax-exempt as a church…’ The federal tax code prohibits tax-exempt organizations, including churches, from intervening in political campaigns and elections.”
USA Today added on November 8, 2005: “Marcus Owens, the church’s tax attorney and a former head of the IRS tax-exempt section, said the agency offered to drop the proceedings if the church admitted wrongdoing. The church declined the offer, he said. The IRS has revoked a church’s charitable designation at least once. A church in Binghamton, N.Y., lost its status after running advertisements against Bill Clinton’s candidacy before the 1992 presidential election.”
In a subsequent article by the Los Angeles Times on November 8, 2005, the following was revealed:
“The IRS threat to revoke the tax-exempt status of All Saints Episcopal Church in Pasadena because of an antiwar sermon there during the 2004 presidential election is part of a larger, controversial federal investigation of political activity at churches and nonprofit groups.”
The article continued to report about outrage of numerous churches in the United States about the conduct of the IRS:
“… the IRS action has triggered an unusual coalition of critics who say they are concerned about the effect on freedom of speech and religion. When Ted Haggard, head of the 30-million-member National Assn. of Evangelicals, heard about the All Saints case Monday, he told his staff to contact the National Council of Churches, a more liberal group. Haggard said… he wants to work with the council of churches ‘in doing whatever it takes to get the IRS to stop’ such actions. ‘It is a violation of the Constitution for the IRS to threaten that church. It may not be a violation of IRS regulations, but IRS regulations have been wrong,’ said Haggard.”
The article continued:
“In 1976, Congress passed a law that required audits of churches to be done only if there was a ‘reasonable basis’ to believe a violation had occurred, and made such audits subject to a special approval process from senior IRS officials. [Tax attorney] Marcus Owens… said that the more recent IRS policy changes lowered the threshold for church audits, allowing front-line IRS agents to pursue probes with only cursory approval from above. ‘This is exactly the sort of 1st Amendment briar patch the Congress wanted to keep the IRS out of,’ said Owens. The IRS disputed Owens’ contention, saying audits still face a rigorous approval process by high-level agency officials.”
Based on the facts reported in the press, it is indeed difficult to see how the “All Saints Episcopal Church” in Pasadena would have violated the Federal Tax Code, as they clearly did not endorse a particular candidate. It is inconceivable that the IRS would be allowed, under the Constitution, to deny or revoke tax exempt status of churches, which preach against war in general. As President Bush’s former press secretary so eloquently put it on one occasion, we have a clear and long-standing tradition in this country, which is being upheld by the Bush Administration, that churches can legitimately take the position that it is wrong to fight in war.
