On a warm evening in Rome, as waiters flapped tablecloths for outdoor diners at a trattoria down the cobbled alley, Ramy Al Shakarji leaned back on a bench and laughed as he described how the head of the Roman Catholic Church, plucked him, a Muslim, from a squalid refugee camp in Greece and flew him to a new life.
“When we were given the chance to come to Rome, my wife and I took about three minutes to decide ‘yes,'” he recalls. MORE
ZALYSHANY, Ukraine (AP) — Viktoria Vetrova knows the risk her four children take in drinking milk from the family’s two cows and eating dried mushrooms and berries from the forest.
But the cash-strapped Ukrainian government canceled the local school lunch program for 350,000 children last year — the only source of clean food in this village near Chernobyl. So rural families are resorting to milk and produce from land still contaminated by fallout from the world’s worst nuclear accident three decades ago. Vetrova’s 8-year-old son Bogdan suffers from an enlarged thyroid, a condition which studies have linked to radioactivity. MORE
If Bishop Francis of the Holy See wants to have the world cut down on air pollution then he could help by asking Catholics, or the world for that matter, to go back to eating fish on Fridays, or abstain from meat that day. It’s a known fact that cattle are a big contributor to air pollution and cattle herds will continue to grow much bigger in the years ahead.
Vol 9 Issue 17 ~ Editor: Rev. Fr. Courtney Edward Krier
April 23, 2016 ~ Saint George, opn!
1. Baptism: Means of Salvation (65)
2. Fourth Sunday after Easter
3. St. Fidelis of Sigmaringen
4. Christ in the Home (39)
5. Articles and notices
Dear Reader:
Most Catholics always look at the Infallibility of the Pope and even will say to us: What have these “Popes” declared to be an infallible statement? Continue reading
Funny, one of my childhood friends had ties with the Fair play for Cuba committee in the West at Berkley CA. and we were both from Massachusetts.Also the students for a Democratic Society. Then came Arab Spring. Colleges are a camping grounds for revolutions.
The National Enquirer has published what it says is conclusive evidence that Ted Cruz’s father, Rafael B. Cruz, is the man photographed next to JFK assassin Lee Harvey Oswald distributing pro-Castro leaflets in 1963 in New Orleans. MORE
A Christian brother and sister from Syria say they have been ‘let down’ by the Pope after he left them behind in a Lesbos refugee camp despite promises they would be given a new life in Italy. MORE
I believe that, after 40 years or so of stalemates by both sides, with no end in sight, both sides would be ready to look at a refreshing practical solution that would benefit everyone involved.
All this would take is a willingness to cooperate. As is often the case, the obvious solutions seem to get ignored. The proposal I’m making is to make a NEW COUNTRY out of the three different States of Gaza, the West Bank and Israel. It would be fashioned like the United States of America. This United Israel Palestinian States, would draw up a new constitution, a federal flag, with each state adopting their own flag and the religion they chose to follow and go from there. The only way I can think of, to solve the Jerusalem problem, would be to make it an international city controlled by the New Federal Country.
As for the Golan Heights, This could be returned back over to Syria over an agreed upon period of time. Hopefully we could get the United Nations to occupy the area during this negotiated allocated time. I see this as a win, win situation with really very little cost or hardship on all the party’s involved. Consider the FACT that, as it stands right now, no end to the fighting until one side or the other is totally eliminated or both sides are eliminated. Not impossible in this day and age.
With respect, Joseph B. D. Saraceno
More than 20 Roman Catholic churches across north Wales are set to close as part of a major reorganisation.
Bishop Peter Brignall, of the Wrexham Diocese, plans to shut 22 out of the current 62 Catholic churches by 2020.
The measures, outlined in a letter, are due to a fall in under-retirement-age priests, he said. Some churches would close “within weeks”. Continue reading
Pentecost Sunday falls on June 4 this year. Though various Christian denominations commemorate Pentecost, many forget that it was a Jewish holiday before the Church was established. The name Pentecost comes from the Greek word for 50, but the Jewish name is Shavuot (meaning weeks or sevens).
Traditional Jews of Jesus’ time celebrated Pentecost (or Shavuot) on the fiftieth day after the waving of the firstfruits. (Firstfruits coincided with the Feast of Unleavened Bread.) The firstfruits wave offering consisted of a sheaf of barley, the first crop of the spring growing season. This early growing season ended seven weeks later with the cutting of the wheat harvest, and for that crop, a different kind of offering was decreed. We find the Old Testament commandment for Shavuot, the Feast of Weeks, and its required offering in Leviticus 23:15-17: MORE
MONTECRISTI, Ecuador — The earth shook and the steeple fell, taking most of the bell tower with it. A white facade gave way, leaving the pews open to the street.
But amid the wreckage at the basilica, one object remained untouched: Our Mother of Monserrate, the statue of the Virgin Mary for which the church was named.
Dressed in gold robes and wearing a tiny crown, she is only about three feet tall. But the statue, which landed on these shores from Spain in the 16th century, has long played an outsize role in the history of Montecristi. MORE
SEOUL, April 20 (UPI) — China is deploying troops along its border with North Korea, as Pyongyang could be preparing a fifth nuclear test ahead of its Seventh Party Congress in May. MORE
I lucked out, those 80 and over will not be effected. They can just die off, ha.
More than a quarter of a million active and retired truckers and their families could soon see their pension benefits severely cut — even though their pension fund is still years away from running out of money. MORE
When Helen Gurley Brown published her book Sex And The Single Girl in 1962, it sold two million copies in the first three weeks and shot straight to the top of the bestseller lists. MORE
We’re half way to the end of the world week of Pentecost Sunday and the Angels are putting on a show. Earthquakes, Flooding, Fires, Tornadoes and Hurricanes.
A violent explosion associated with a partial dome collapse occurred Monday morning at the Caliente dome. The eruption generated an ash column that rose several kilometers and a pyroclastic flow that traveled through the canyon draining from the dome complex to the SE.
