Switzerland: Zurich churches to pass on $2,262,000 in tax money to Islamic associations

SEE: https://www.jihadwatch.org/2024/03/switzerland-zurich-churches-to-pass-on-2262000-in-tax-money-to-islamic-associations; republished below in full, unedited, for informational, educational, & research purposes:

From a Muslim standpoint, this is just the natural order of things. Non-Muslims paying for the upkeep of Muslims is a Qur’anic dictate: “Fight against those who do not believe in Allah or the last day, and do not forbid what Allah and his messenger have forbidden, and do not follow the religion of truth, even if they are among the people of the book, until they pay the jizya with willing submission and feel themselves subdued.” (Qur’an 9:29)

The caliph Umar said the jizya payments from the dhimmis were the source of the Muslims’ livelihood: “Narrated Juwairiya bin Qudama at-Tamimi: We said to `Umar bin Al-Khattab, ‘O Chief of the believers! Advise us.’ He said, ‘I advise you to fulfill Allah’s Convention (made with the Dhimmis) as it is the convention of your Prophet and the source of the livelihood of your dependents (i.e. the taxes from the Dhimmis.)’” (Bukhari 4.53.388)

The UK jihad preacher Anjem Choudary said in February 2013: “We are on Jihad Seekers Allowance, We take the Jizya (protection money paid to Muslims by non-Muslims) which is ours anyway." The normal situation is to take money from the Kafir (non-Muslim), isn’t it? So this is a normal situation. They give us the money. You work, give us the money. Allah Akbar, we take the money. Hopefully there is no one from the DSS (Department of Social Security) listening. Ah, but you see people will say you are not working. But the normal situation is for you to take money from the Kuffar (non-Muslim) So we take Jihad Seeker’s Allowance.”

“Zurich churches pass on tax money to Islamic associations,” translated from “Zürcher Kirchen leiten Steuergeld an Islamverein weiter,” HeimatKurier, March 15, 2024 (thanks to Medforth):

The Catholic and Protestant Church in Zurich wants to give away a whopping two million francs in tax money to Islamic associations. What is sold as a gesture of goodwill is a cash injection for Islamization. With the gift of money, the Swiss are involuntarily helping to finance the Islamic conquest of land.
In Zurich, only recognized religious communities are entitled to state funding. Currently these are three Christian and two Jewish communities. Since the Protestant and Catholic churches seem to be swimming in money through tax contributions, they now want to give the “Association of Islamic Organizations Zurich” (VIOZ) a cash gift of around two million francs.

Islamization and false tolerance
A staunch supporter of the project is the reformed church council president and former SP cantonal councillor Esther Straub. She promotes the idea and speaks of it as a sign of “interreligious cohesion”. This kind of accommodation is, of course, sought in vain in Islamic countries with Christian minorities. The church uses this money to distribute money to Islamic organizations, which are often noticed in Switzerland with fanatical tendencies.

Promoting moderate Islam?
The former left-wing politician argues that the move is intended to finance decidedly non-radical and moderate Islamic associations. With over 40 facilities, VIOZ operates around 90 percent of the mosques in the canton of Zurich. There are also other associations. In addition to the three VIOZ facilities in Winterthur, there is also the “An nur Mosque”, which, according to security authorities, is a real hotspot for jihadism. How interconnected or separated the VIOZ is with such communities cannot be clearly determined. In the past there have been cases in which the moderate mask slipped off the faces of radical Islamists in Switzerland

Islamism from the streets to the universities
In October 2023, a 25-year-old Syrian also had to appear in court in Winterthur. He had previously been convicted of a jihadist trip to Syria. However, due to a cozy sentence, he was little deterred and continued to carry out terrorist propaganda for IS. The University of Bern provided another case of Islamism. After the Middle East war broke out last fall, an “Islam expert” and lecturer at the university expressed his joy at the event. The author was even the husband of the head of the Islamic Institute. The couple quickly distanced themselves from violence and terror, which meant they were probably back within the definition of “moderate”. In Schaffhausen it even became known that a convicted “ex-terrorist” was teaching in a mosque.

Switzerland withdraws passports from Islamists
The Islamist side effects of the population exchange have led to a return of passport withdrawals in the Swiss Confederation. Since 2020, a total of seven people have had their citizenship revoked, and corresponding proceedings are pending for another dozen. Just a few weeks ago, Zurich became the scene of an Islamic terrorist act in which a 15-year-old Tunisian injured a Jew with a knife on the street.

Remigration instead of Islamization
Due to numerous jihadist incidents and their involvement in Islamic cultural associations, it is uncertain whether the two million francs of tax money that the local churches want to give to Muslim associations will ultimately end up with questionable organizations. In addition, the Swiss people have repeatedly spoken out clearly against further Islamization in the past, for example with the ban on minarets in 2009. By continuing to finance Islamic associations, the canton continues to cultivate a parallel society for itself. This gives rise to Islamist activities and clans, as a look at neighboring states makes clear. Instead of giving further impetus to Islam and the Islamism associated with it, the canton should strive for a policy of remigration. Muslims who want to live strictly according to their beliefs and customs then have the opportunity to do so in an Islamic country.

Italy: Catholic diocese urges Catholics to participate in Islamic prayers and iftar meals during Ramadan

SEE: https://www.jihadwatch.org/2024/03/italy-catholic-diocese-urges-catholics-to-participate-in-islamic-prayers-and-iftar-meals-during-ramadan; republished below in full, unedited, for informational, educational, & research purposes:

Lord, what fools these Infidels be. My comments are below; I’m quoted in the article:

“Italian diocese urges Catholics to join Muslims for prayers and meals in Ramadan,” by Jules Gomes, Catholic Herald, March 8, 2024:

An Italian diocese is instructing its priests to participate in Islamic rituals, citing Pope Francis’ directives on interreligious dialogue.

The Diocese of Bergamo issued a communiqué on Monday urging priests to seek out opportunities for interreligious dialogue during the “holy month” of Ramadan by invite the faithful to join in praying with Muslims and joining in the Iftar ritual meal.

The letter from the northern Italian diocese asks the faithful to pray for “a continuous realisation of all the dimensions that make up humanity desired by the Creator” and for “continuous growth in the dialogue between peoples and different faiths.”

Fr Massimo Rizzi, director of the diocese’s Office for Interreligious Dialogue who signed the directive, upset local Catholics for dating the letter according to the Islamic calendar (23 Sha’ban 1445)….

In comments to the Catholic Herald, Islamic scholar Robert Spencer explained that “the idea of Ramadan providing a possibility of outreach to Muslims is a tragicomic display of the failures and inherent limitations of the ‘dialogue’ imperative”.

Spencer, author of over 23 books on Islam and the Middle East, said: “Ramadan is a month in which Muslims are to redouble their efforts to please Allah.

“The highest form of service to Allah, according to Muhammad, is jihad, which principally involves warfare against unbelievers.

“Every Ramadan, therefore, we see an increase in jihad attacks. The idea that this is a time to seek friendship and cooperation with Muslims is laughably naive and demonstrates abject ignorance of Islam.”

Responding to the diocesan letter’s plea for dialogue in the hope of resolving the Middle East crisis, Spencer pointed out that the Vatican has failed to address the clause in Hamas’ charter that threatens genocide against Israel.

In its preamble, the Hamas charter states, “Israel will exist and will continue to exist until Islam will obliterate it, just as it obliterated others before it”….

Churches Conceding to Mainstream Culture with Pastor Brandon Holthaus

Police Identify Shooter Who Opened Fire At Joel Osteen’s Megachurch In Houston

Emergency vehicles line the feeder road outside Lakewood Church during a reported active shooter event, Sunday, Feb. 11, 2024, in Houston. (Kirk Sides/Houston Chronicle via AP)

Genesse Ivonne Moreno

Emergency vehicles line the feeder road outside Lakewood Church during a reported active shooter event, Sunday, Feb. 11, 2024, in Houston. (Kirk Sides/Houston Chronicle via AP)

OAN’s Elizabeth Volberding
12:15 PM – Monday, February 12, 2024

SEE: https://www.oann.com/newsroom/police-identify-shooter-who-opened-fire-at-joel-osteens-megachurch-in-houston/; republished below in full, unedited, for informational, educational, & research purposes: 

The shooter who opened fire at Pastor Joel Osteen’s megachurch in Houston, Texas, has been identified by law enforcement as 36-year-old Genesee Ivonne Moreno.

On Sunday at approximately 2:00 p.m., the transgender female gunman walked into the Lakewood Church with “Free Palestine” written on their AR-15. According to reports, Moreno was wearing a trench coat and a backpack and was accompanied by a seven-year-old boy who has been confirmed to have been the shooter’s biological son.

According to detectives in the Montgomery County warrant obtained by the Houston Police Department, Moreno entered Lakewood Church, the third largest megachurch in the U.S., and then shot and injured a man with an AR-15 rifle. 

Moreno then aimed the gun at security guards who weren’t on duty. Before more harm could be done, Moreno was soon shot by two law enforcement officers and died due to the wounds sustained.

The male victim, who was identified to be a 57-year-old, and the seven-year-old boy who was with the Moreno, were both struck by gunfire at some point during the shooting. It’s unclear if the victims were struck by shots fired by the responding officers or by bullets from the suspect’s gun.

According to the police, the child, was transported in critical condition to Texas Children’s Hospital.  

In addition, the warrant stated that Moreno claimed to have a bomb before being killed. In order to investigate Moreno’s motive and intentions for the shooting, detectives sought a warrant for a Conroe address linked to Moreno.

Later, Houston Fire Chief Samuel Peña verified that no explosives had been discovered during the search of the shooters personal items and vehicle.

“Right now, I can safely say that we have not found anything that is of concern to our community or to this location, but we’re going to take our time to ensure that we look at every aspect,” Peña stated in a press conference on Sunday.

“It’s traumatic not only for our community but it’s certainly traumatic for the officers who had to take a life and we worry about their mental health as well, so our prayers are with them,” he added.

According to the press, the shooter identified as transgender and was originally born with the name “Jeffrey Escalante” in El Salvador before eventually changing it to Genesee Ivonne Moreno. Sources have also claimed that Moreno had an extensive criminal background.

Except for the shooter, no other deaths are currently listed as a result of the incident. A local hospital provided treatment to a man who had been shot in the leg. As of Monday morning, the seven-year-old is currently in critical condition.

Additionally, no information has been released regarding the shooter’s possible motivation.

Pastor Joel Osteen, 60, who is an ambassador of the megachurch, made a statement to the press regarding the incident. He mentioned that the tragedy “could have been worse” if the shooting had occurred during the earlier Sunday morning service, in which many more people attended.

“We don’t understand why these things happen, but we know God’s in control,” Osteen said.

This is a developing story. Please check back for updates.

Stay informed! Receive breaking news blasts directly to your inbox for free. Subscribe here. https://www.oann.com/alerts

Manny Silva: Should A General Superintendent Resign For Giving Unbiblical Advice?

The Bible is clear on the standard God has set for human sexuality. It does not take a theologian with a PhD to understand it. Leviticus 18:22 and 20:13 describe homosexuality as an abomination. Romans 1:26-28 says homosexuality is a vile affection practiced by reprobates. The Old and New Testaments clearly condemn this as sin.

It does not take much reading and “conversation” to come the conclusion that the following summarizes God’s biblical standard:

  1. Marriage is between a man and a woman only.
  2. Sex outside of marriage is a sin.
  3. Homosexuality is a sin. (often mentioned in scripture as an abomination).
  4. Same sex marriage is a sin.

The Church of the Nazarene ascribes to these standards, “officially.” And yet we know that often human beings will say one thing, and then do or say the exact opposite in secret. Even worse, there are Nazarene leaders, including those in the highest places, who are secretly supporting, or at best, turning a blind eye to sinful behavior. And there is at least one General Superintendent (as yet his/her name is unknown) who gave blatantly unscriptural advice to a pastor in 2019.

In January of 2019, Will Campbell officiated a same sex wedding for his brother. He was given advice by a General Superintendent, who give him tacit approval to participate in the wedding. The following is direct testimony by Rick Power at a Pastors’ meeting last year. Rick Power told the pastors the following regarding his son-in-law:

“Will participated [in the same sex wedding] by reading a poem and by praying. And he did that at the advice of one of our General Superintendents who said, “as ministers of the gospel, when we are invited to pray or to read scripture, to perform a ministerial function, we do it.”

A General Superintendent is tasked with the main responsibility of guiding and leading the denomination in upholding biblical standards as well as the rules and regulations according to the Church Manual. That is his/her primary duty, to be faithful to the word of God, and also to lead by example; by word, and by deed.

So now, please let this fact sink in. A General Superintendent told an ordained minister of the church that it is perfectly fine to “read scripture”, “read a poem”, and do pretty much anything else at a same sex marriage, and it will be okay... as long as you are not the officially listed minister on the marriage certificate.

A New Code of Conduct?

Well, that surely is a new way to lower the standards of Holy Scripture! The logical conclusion is this: “it is sinful for an individual to marry someone of the same sex, but it is perfectly fine for an ordained elder in the church to approve of the wedding, read scripture or a poem at the wedding, and then celebrate and dance at the reception with all the others who are celebrating what is an abomination before God.”

That’s the new standard that this General Superintendent has expressed, albeit in private to one ordained elder. Except the problem is that it is no longer private. Pastors in the Hawaii District were told about this, and so what’s to stop them from doing the same thing? More Nazarenes are aware since we posted this information, so what is to stop more Nazarene elders to do what Will Campbell did?

At the Pastor’s meeting, Rick Power continued to rationalize that what Will Campbell did was perfectly fine for any Nazarene elder to do:

“We show up. But of course we draw the line at actually performing the wedding. That's very clear in church polity. So if you're just watching the video, you might think, well, they're both there and they're both officiating the ceremony. But we do make that distinction between the minister of record who signs the marriage license and pronounces the couple man and wife, and others who might participate in other ways by praying or singing, whatever it might.”

Rick Power says that it’s “very clear in church polity” that there is a new standard. Very clear? How many Nazarene elders have received a new memo from the General Superintendents that this is the new standard? Is Rick Power totally making up his own perceived denomination-wide standard, or is there only a tacit, secret approval from the top leaders in the church?

Again, what is suggested is clear. “Do whatever you want, attend a same sex wedding, read scripture or a poem, celebrate an abomination all you want. As long as you don’t sign the official line on that marriage certificate, you are just fine.”

Welcome to the new, “unofficial” Code of Conduct in the Church of the Nazarene. With a wink and a nod perhaps.

Repent or Resign

We need to be equal opportunity Bible believers when it comes to sin. And when it comes to those who are high profile, the standards should not deviate one bit. Recently Alistair Begg, a highly respected pastor and solid preacher, made the egregious error of recommending to a grandmother that she attend a same sex marriage, and also bring a gift! Since this revelation, Alistair Begg has refused to recant from his horribly bad and unbiblical advice. As much as he has blessed so many with his preaching, this man is wrong and must be called out as well. He must be held accountable and repent from his very harmful advice. Coming from someone with such prominence, it can be even more damaging to the body of Christ.

When church leaders are not held accountable, it brings untold damage to the church. The same accountability must be applied in the Church of the Nazarene. The General Superintendent who gave Will Campbell this advice needs to repent of what he/she said. He or she needs to confess this error to the church publicly, because only then will there be a chance to be “rehabilitated”. But if he or she cannot give up this unbiblical idea and admit it is wrong, then the only option is to resign, along with any other General Superintendent who knew and went along with the idea, or ignored the opportunity to correct a fellow leader.

The General Superintendents who were on duty in January of 2019 were: David Busic, Filimão Chambo, Gustavo Crocker, Eugenio Duarte, David Graves, Carla Sunberg.

-----

“Not many of you should become teachers, my brothers, for you know that we who teach will be judged with greater strictness”. James 3:1

https://reformednazarene.wordpress.com/2024/02/09/should-a-general-superintendent-resign-for-giving-unbiblical-advice/

Manny Silva

Stand For Truth Ministries
"The entirety of Your word is truth, And every one of Your righteous judgments endures forever." Psalm 119:160

--


“Within the theological structure of the cults there is considerable truth, all of which, it might be added, is drawn from biblical sources, but so diluted with human error as to be more deadly than complete falsehood.”
  ― Walter Martin, Kingdom of the Cults


Christian UPS driver takes on the corporation over extreme LGBT and anti-Christian work environment.

Confronted pro-LGBT Teamsters Union that was supposed to help him.

Filed multiple grievances with UPS, the union, and federal agencies EEOC & NLRB.

We need more like him across America.

February 7, 2024
ALT TEXT
When employees are at work in UPS facilities during Pride month, this is what is broadcast up above them.

As we all have seen, corporate America has become militantly pro-LGBT and anti-Christian over the past few decades. Unfortunately, most pro-family people who work for these companies have become too frightened (or compromised) to complain, much less fight for their rights.

This is the story of one man who decided he wouldn’t take it anymore, and fought back all the way to the top.

James Earls has worked at UPS for 35 years and is a devout Christian. He has received some of UPS’s highest awards for safety and loyalty. He is a driver of a large UPS “feeder truck.” He lives in Alabama and is represented by Teamsters Local 402. He recently brought the details of his efforts to MassResistance.

ALT TEXT 
James with his awards from UPS for loyalty and safety.

When most people think of anti-Christian and pro-LGBT companies, they think of Target, Amazon, Bank of America, the NFL, Delta Airlines, etc. But UPS is right up there with them. If you work there, you’re bombarded by the “woke” propaganda. However, since UPS is mostly not a “retail” operation, its huge support for anti-family causes is mostly hidden from view, so the public rarely sees that side of the company.

“Pride Month” at UPS

During the celebration of Gay Pride Month a few years ago, James entered the UPS facility in Madison, Alabama. UPS was showing its support and dedication to the LGBT movement by broadcasting images on all its large hanging TV monitors in various workstations, on its social media sites, and on the employee training computers throughout the building. If employees wanted to check on their benefits, paycheck, retirement funds, and other HR related information, they had no choice but to navigate through the images promoting LGBT pride.

ALT TEXT 
When employees log into their UPS portal, they get the constant propaganda.

In addition:

  • The UPS website featured several stories about “transgender” UPS employees who had undergone their “transition” procedures, and the company was actively promoting that agenda.
    ALT TEXT 
  • "Transgenders" get celebrated at UPS for "authenticity."
  • UPS runs an in-house Pride Alliance Business Resource Group to elevate LGBT employees within the company and fund their participation in LGBT events across the country.
  • Over the past two years the UPS Foundation has donated $1.2 million to advance the LGBT movement globally, including huge donations to the staunchly anti-Christian LGBT Human Rights Campaign (HRC) and StartOut. UPS proudly brags that HRC names UPS as one of the “best places to work for LGBTQ+ equality.”
  • In 2022, UPSers volunteered nearly 10,000 hours to support the LGBTQ+ community.
  • UPS partners with the National LGBT Chamber of Commerce to fund and support “certified LGBTQ+ businesses” across America

But most disturbing, James told us, “I discovered a link to a company that UPS had partnered with and was promoting called GayPrideCalender.com. That site sold homosexual merchandise from a print-on-demand business site, Zazzle.com. On their website, they sold sickening, blasphemous items, including shirts that depicted Jesus Christ as a radical homosexual who seeks sex with men.”

ALT TEXT 
Shirt for sale to UPS employees.
ALT TEXT 
... and these magnets.
ALT TEXT 
Various fetish flags for UPS employees to order.

UPS support for other horrible causes

James started looking closely at UPS’s other activities, and things looked even worse.

UPS is heavily invested in “Diversity, Equity, and Inclusivity” (DEI) throughout the company. It has created an internal Equity, Justice & Action Task Force to deal with “unconscious bias” among employees. The company president commissioned an enterprise-wide salary review to support “pay equity” based on race and other factors.

UPS’s charitable arm has funded Planned Parenthood in several states, numerous far-left churches (including a “gay” Catholic group), Black Lives Matter, the ACLU, SIECUS (which pushes radical sex ed in public schools), and other anti-Christian and anti-American causes.

UPS is also a partner of the World Economic Forum and agrees with its “climate crisis” outlook.

All of this reveals UPS management’s orchestration of a frighteningly hostile climate of discrimination against Christians, conservative Americans, and white males in general that everyone (except James) was afraid to address.

UPS claims to support its employees’ civil rights

Interestingly, UPS has numerous company-wide policies that purport to protect its employees’ civil rights. But they’re basically just a smokescreen for doing the opposite.

For example, the company states that it supports the United Nations’ “Guiding Principles on Business and Human Rights,” which strictly guarantee “social and cultural freedom,” and the right to be treated “with dignity and without discrimination” regarding religion and sex.

There are also “Zero Tolerance” postings in UPS buildings which state: “Don’t display offensive language, symbols or images on your personal belongings or on company property ... If you experience discrimination, sexual or racial misconduct, use our Open Door Policy to raise issues with your management team.”

So James fights back!

The company was clearly breaking its own rules, particularly during “Pride Month.” Someone needed the guts to test UPS’s obvious hypocrisy. James had had enough. And he wasn’t afraid. He decided to formally complain and demand UPS follow its own rules – through whatever manner he could find.

1. Contacting officials. As James told us, “To bring resolution to this with no further unpleasantries, I first tried to use UPS’s Open Door Policy and contacted UPS’s CEO, Carol Tomé, along with local Teamsters 402 General President Sean O’Brien about these issues.” But nothing came of that.

2. Filing grievances through the union. Since he was represented by the Teamsters Union Local 402, he filed four separate grievances through them, as laid out in the company’s collective bargaining agreement, directly addressing various aspects of the problem.

Unfortunately (as many of us know), the Teamsters long ago embraced the LGBT agenda and other leftist, anti-American ideologies. When the formal hearing for James’s grievances took place – with a room full of representatives from the UPS and the union – James was shocked. Not only did the union not advocate for him, but they treated him with hostility, as did the UPS representatives there. One union rep nastily said to James at the hearing, “If working at UPS was so bad, why continue to work there?” James lashed back at him. As he told us:

It got ugly real quick. I told him that I had a right to work in a hostile-free environment just as much as their beloved homosexual employees did. I told him that I have a right to work there and that I want to work in a place that is free from this hatred towards Christian employees.

ALT TEXT 
Unfortunately, this is the face of the Teamsters Union these days.

Not surprisingly, James later received a letter from the union telling him that all of his grievances were denied.

But James really got their attention like no other employee had! He stood up and clearly presented his evidence for all the grievances, describing in detail what UPS was doing to its employees – to the stone faces of the union and company officials.

3. Formal NLRB complaint against the union.  A few days after receiving the letter from the union denying his grievances, James filed a formal complaint with the National Labor Relations Board against the Teamsters Union. He cited the hostility towards him by his union at the hearing, and their inappropriate behavior which clearly showed that he was not being fairly represented. The NLRB acknowledged receiving the complaint but ultimately took no action, though surely the union was made aware of it.

4. Formal complaint filed with federal EEOC. The day after James filed the NLRB complaint, James filed a discrimination complaint with the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission (EEOC). He cited Title VII of the Civil Rights Act of 1964 which bans religious discrimination in the workplace. He described how UPS is maintaining a hostile workplace by promoting the homosexual culture and images that mock the Christian faith – but denies equal time for Christian culture and imagery anywhere at the company. Similarly, the EEOC acknowledged receiving the complaint but took no action, though surely UPS was made aware of it.

Here’s the result …

Moving a massive worldwide corporation like UPS is too big a task for one man. But James did make a difference. The website link to the disgusting anti-Christian LGBT merchandise and pride event calendar was taken down and has not re-appeared.

And James has not suffered any retribution from anyone at the company, in any form. They obviously know that he means business and will never back down!

Final thoughts

A big reason why we all suffer from the corporate promotion of perversion is that too many employees are afraid to stand up for what’s right. America needs more men like James Earls!

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EX-CATHOLIC MIKE GENDRON: Discerning Deceitful Doctrines of Demons, January 31, 2024

You Will Be Shocked by the Twisted Teachings of Catholicism~April 7, 2023~Catholics submit to a different authority, believe in a distorted gospel and worship a false Christ.

EXPOSED: Biden’s Monstrous ‘Anti-Terror’ Plan to Censor Christians, Conservatives Before 2024 Election

AP Photo/Andrew Harnik
When they're not siccing the FBI on Catholic Churches or dragging upset fathers from school board meetings, there's a new and equally monstrous plan to shut up conservatives terrorists before the 2024 election. It is sponsored by your friendly Department of Homeland Security (DHS). Careful guys, don't trip on your jackboots. 

The Media Research Center (MRC) has uncovered a Biden Administration plot — yes, plot —  to silence conservatives before the 2024 election with a "media literacy" program that targets conservatives, Christians, gun owners, and the GOP in the name of fighting terrorism. The program uses federal taxpayer funds to pay people to write, blog, and podcast messages that are anti-American, anti-Christian, anti-Republican, and anti-anyone who ever thought Donald Trump wore nice ties.  

This goes beyond campaign bromides and slogans by crazed James Carville politicos; this program uses the force of government to smear anyone to the right of the organized left. We're in Joseph Goebbels territory here. Heil Biden!

Under President Trump, the "Targeted Violence and Terrorism Prevention Grant Program" was used to fight terrorists who wanted to blow up and kill Americans, but under Joe Biden, the program morphed into something completely different. Now you are the terrorists and the nation's school children are being activated to hate you

Phase one of the three-phase program pays people to write blogs and do podcasts that are anti-conservative. The first phase, which has already been concluded, tilled the ground to produce the rest of this poisonous harvest. 

MRC reports that the following is some of the material produced in "DHS-commissioned blog posts":

  • “We are all living in a darker, scarier, angrier, less hopeful country thanks to Mr. Trump’s influence. Are we on the verge of civil war?”
  • “Donald Trump was also adopting the shock-jock style that Rush Limbaugh built into a cultural phenomenon, including his misogynistic and racist comments, conspiracy theories, and grievances.”
  • “It won’t be easy, but we really have to reduce Trump’s influence” 
  • “[I]t's tempting and entertaining to tune into the circuses of the Marjorie Taylor Greenes, Louis Farrakans [sic], and MAGA supporters.”
  • “It turns out even Fox Media has limits on how much misogyny and racism it will tolerate from its stars – witness the canceling of Tucker Carlson’s show last week.”

Through Freedom of Information (FOIA) requests, the Media Research Center uncovered an extension of the program that had previously started under the State Department, which they had previously reported.

Phase two of the program uses seminars produced by the University of Rhode Island’s Media Education Lab that "train educators across the country on how to divert students away from conservative ideas and media sources skeptical of the administration’s agenda." American taxpayers gave an initial $700,000 to fund the project used to destroy your freedom of conscience. 

Related: We'd Like the 2020 Election Back: DOJ Admits It Lied About Hunter Biden's Laptop

The Eva Brauns who attend learn how to push schools "to put censorship tools from for-profit media ratings firms Ad Fontes and NewsGuard into American classrooms." Both are leftist organizations cloaking their censorship under "media literacy." MRC says that "the two organizations also have overlapping board members and staff [and] they essentially function as a single enterprise." 

MRC reported:

It is telling that before being allowed to participate in the DHS-funded seminars, educators must declare their political ideology. One teacher who declared herself “conservative” reported that she was confined to a breakout group controlled by the director of the Rhode Island Lab so as to limit her access to the most damning material.

And phase three of the plan grants $1,000 to the Biden Youth to demand action

Children "must create social media posts to increase demands for media literacy mandates"; that's censorship to you and me. It will not surprise you to learn that the program is patterned after a "German socialist model" in partnership with the State Department "which focuses on pushing teachers to turn children into 'media producers,'” otherwise known as state media propagandists. 

This anti-terror program was hijacked in 2019 by DHS apparatchiks who were self-avowed "resisters" in the Trump Administration. You'll recall that at the beginning of the Trump Administration, personnel at multiple agencies announced their #Resistance on social media. One even wrote an anonymous article in The New York Times entitled "I Am Part of the Resistance Inside the Trump Administration." 

The author was later outed as Miles Taylor, who, you will not be surprised to learn, turned anti-terrorism into this self-licking ice cream cone of a program we see today. He was helped along by the former acting head of DHS, Kevin McAleenan, who took the spot when the left curb-stomped Kirstjen Nielsen.

MRC reports how the anti-terror was switched in defiance of then-President Trump. 

This quiet resurrection of TVTP was conducted by then-Acting Secretary Kevin McAleenan after months of behind-the-scenes pressure by Miles Taylor. Taylor was the then-“Anonymous” author of the infamous New York Times opinion piece “I Am Part of the Resistance Inside the Trump Administration.” In that article and a follow-up book, Taylor — who had served as the Chief of Staff for the DHS — bragged about spending years “working diligently from within to frustrate” the mission and objectives of then-President Donald J. Trump. Taylor later told Politico he masterminded the TVTP revival and redesign against the direction of Trump’s White House, which was not “initially all that interested” in funding the program.

A mere five years after that article, the Rhode Island Lab is using the funds it received from the TVTP program Taylor helped design to erase the memory of what he did. [emphasis added]

The authoritarianism is strong in this one. 

Once again, Americans have to man the barricades to fight the battles to topple these giant authoritarians who believe they know better than you. 

Read the MRC story about this and then follow up on the recommendations. They suggest that you first check the local schools to determine if Ad Fontes and/or NewsGuard are in the classrooms. If they are, demand that they get rid of them because of their one-sided censorship programs. Call on your congressional reps and state attorneys general to investigate these one-sided censorship programs. Demand that Congress defund these censorship programs. 

PJ Media believes that knowing the truth is necessary for a Constitutional Republic. And that's why I've been green-lighted to bring you a regular dose of Hunter's laptop this year. This isn't about Hunter's debauched behavior but how it impacts his father's job. This is available only to our VIP and VIP GOLD Members, so that's why I want you to cowboy up and support the people telling you the truth by becoming a VIP Member.

Please use the promo code SAVEAMERICA for 50% off your VIP Membership. This gives you access to all our stories, even those behind our velvet rope. VIP Membership allows you to comment on all stories. Or consider becoming a VIP GOLD member, which gives you access to all the content at all the Townhall Media sites: PJ Media, Townhall, RedState, Twitchy, Bearing Arms, and HotAir.

Biden administration leaves Nigeria off religious freedom violator list despite Muslim genocide of Christians

SEE: https://www.jihadwatch.org/2024/01/biden-administration-leaves-nigeria-off-religious-freedom-violator-list-despite-muslim-genocide-of-christians#; republished below in full, unedited, for informational, educational, & research purposes:

It doesn’t matter to Joe Biden that a genocide is being waged by jihadists against Christians in Nigeria. Emeka Umeagbalasi, the director of the “Catholic-inspired think tank” Intersociety in Nigeria, recently accused the Nigerian government of “encouraging bloodshed” and “complicity in the killing of Christians by jihadist forces”; yet the Biden administration continues to turn a blind eye.

The Open Doors World Watch List, however, identifies Nigeria as sixth among the world’s worst countries for extreme Christian persecution.

“Religious freedom groups criticize Biden admin. for leaving Nigeria off violators list,” by Ryan Foley, Christian Post, January 8, 2024:

Religious freedom advocacy groups are criticizing the Biden administration for leaving Nigeria off the U.S. State Department list of the world’s worst violators of religious freedom despite constant attacks and violence impacting Christian communities.

The U.S. State Department released its annual list of Countries of Particular Concern Thursday, a label assigned to nations that have “engaged in or tolerated particularly severe violations of religious freedom.”

Nigeria was absent from the list for the third year in a row, although the Nigerian Islamic terrorist group Boko Haram was listed under the category of “Entities of Particular Concern.” In 2020, Nigeria was added to the CPC list by the Trump administration but was removed during the first year of the Biden administration….

Church of the Nazarene: Rick Power and Will Campbell: Following Doctrines of Demons

Manny Silva standfortruthministries@gmail.com

Jan 10, 2024, 6:07 PM (12 hours ago)

Republished below in full, unedited, for informational, educational, & research purposes:

 

Rick Power and Will Campbell: Following Doctrines of Demons“Now the Spirit expressly says that in latter times some will depart from the faith, giving heed to deceiving spirits and doctrines of demons (1 Timothy 4:1)Issues and concerns addressed in this article:

1. The immediate hiding of the video evidence of Will Campbell’s participation in a same sex wedding.2. A transcript of Hawaii District Superintendent Rick Power speaking at a Pastors’ meeting, stating that a retirement agreement has been made between him and General Superintendent Sarmiento.3. If the agreement as planned goes through, Power’s credentials will not be revoked, nor will he be removed from ministry and he can take any future assignments within the Church of the Nazarene. 3. In the Pastors’ meeting, Rick Power suggests that pastors can say a prayer or read a poem at same sex weddings, as long as they are not the “official” officiant.4. GS Sarmiento concluded that Will Campbell’s wife Rachel must be disciplined and be relieved of any official duties, because of her “official” involvement in a same sex wedding.  But…
5. According to Rick Power, General Superintendent Sarmiento then made the ruling that Will Campbell would not face any discipline for participating in a same sex wedding.6. If Rick Power’s agreement is finalized, it will open up the door for any pastor in the Church of the Nazarene to start blessing same sex weddings, just like Holland already is doing, without any repercussions.7. What do the General Superintendents know, when did they know it, and what should they do?
The Rev. Rick Power and the Rev. Will Campbell are following doctrines of demons.These two ordained elders in the Church of the Nazarene (one is a District Superintendent) are a perfect example of what Timothy warned about. Since they both promote and approve of same sex marriage and the normalization of homosexuality, they fit the description of “some will depart from the faith”. This has to be the logical and rational conclusion from a biblical view. Any pastor in the Church of the Nazarene or any other denomination who approves of and promotes same sex marriage, is by definition heeding deceiving spirits and doctrines of demons.Last month, I posted two articles. One article exposed the heretical ideas of Rick Power, District Superintendent of the Hawaii District. Power openly promotes same sex marriage and believes homosexuality is not a sin. The other article brings to light his son-in-law, Will Campbell, also an ordained elder. In January of 2019, Campbell officiated at a same sex wedding between his brother and another man. Campbell’s wife also was listed as the “official” officiant, although Campbell is still listed as the officiant at a wedding website for the two men. Will Campbell still is an ordained elder after five years and has not suffered any consequences for his heretical actions.They Hid The Incriminating Evidence, And Blocked My VideoAfter I posted my article about Will Campbell and provided a link to his brother’s wedding video, they made the video private. I then posted the video on my YouTube channel, and it was blocked at their request. Then I posted a short one minute summary of Will Campbell’s involvement in the wedding, and that was then blocked as well, again at the request of Will’s brother and the man he married.And so, a previously public same sex wedding video, proudly displayed for the world to see, has now been hidden, which conveniently keeps many Nazarenes from seeing part of the evidence of Will Campbell’s involvement with a same sex marriage. For purposes of critiquing the blatant violation of Scripture by an ordained elder in the Nazarene church, I have uploaded a one minute summary on Vimeo of Will Campbell and his participation in a same sex wedding, which is an abomination in the eyes of God. You can see that summary here, and I am also including screenshots from the wedding at the end, documenting Campbell’s involvement.What do the General Superintendents Know, And When Did They Know It?All of the six General Superintendents are aware of this scandal now. Rick Power himself has confirmed that since 2019, he has shared his unbiblical views about same sex marriage and homosexuality to every General Superintendent. Recently elected GS Sarmiento was informed by Power, so he knows. And Scott Daniels, the other new GS, should already know as well. The other four returning GS’s have been aware for five years of the same sex wedding and Rick Power’s heretical views. Also, there is evidence that one of the General Superintendents told Will Campbell that “as ministers of the gospel, when we are invited to pray or to read scripture, to perform a ministerial function, we do it.” This GS approved and recommended that Will Campbell participate at a same sex wedding! Which GS was that?  Will Campbell knows, and Rick Power knows. But Rick Power so far has not revealed who that GS is.What should the General Superintendents Do?Rick Power has shared his unbiblical views with all the General Superintendents. They know that he is in favor of same sex marriage.  They know that he believes that same sex marriage is good and should be welcomed by the church; that homosexuality is natural, normal and not a choice; that homosexuality is not a sin; that homosexuals are “brothers and sisters”; that homosexuals should participate in all church offices; that the “Spirit” is calling the church to accept these ideas; that “faithful love between same-sex partners should not be considered a violation of God’s will.” And they know that he openly suggests to his pastors in the district that as long as they are not the “official” officiant, they can participate in a same sex wedding.With all this information that the General Superintendents have, how can Rick Power be allowed to still retain his credentials in good standing in the church?  And note that he has come to an “agreement” with GS Sarmiento to retire, retain his credentials, and still be eligible to be assigned another position in the church. This fact is from his own testimony. Is this the new standard being used by the top leadership in the denomination?This is reminiscent of the Holland Nazarene District which has been blessing same sex unions for several years now, and nothing has been done! Does anyone care? Does a substantial number of pastors and church leaders care? How many Nazarenes have voiced their concern to the General Superintendents, if they know of this situation? How many Nazarenes actually are fully supportive of Rick Power’s ideas?The General Superintendents have received my articles directly to their email account. An ordained elder in the church wrote to the General Superintendents sometime in the Spring of 2023 with his concerns. At least one other pastor has communicated directly to a General Superintendent with his concerns. I am sure others have contacted them as well. They have all the information they need.  The question is: what will they do about it, especially now that this situation has been made more public? If Rick Power is following doctrines of demons, why would the church leadership allow him to keep his ordination credentials?Rick Power and Will Campbell are following doctrines of demons, having departed from the faith. The evidence is clear to anyone with any kind of biblical discernment. There are more questions remaining, including questions about the General Superintendents and their seeming lack of action. Should the Hawaii District be designated a district in crisis? There is more evidence coming out soon, that will describe the corruption in the Hawaii District that Rick Power and others have brought forth.May God help the Church of the Nazarene bring forward more leaders who will uphold His word fearlessly, and will not compromise with those who “heed to deceiving spirits and doctrines of demons”.------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Transcript of Pastors Meeting With Rick Power: (November 6, 2023)
(Text in bold is for emphasis)The main reason I've asked you to come together this evening is so that I could share a little bit more detail and background of the decision that I announced this week that I'll be retiring as DS come district assembly in April. I want to give you the basic information about why this decision was made and then talk a little bit about what you can expect going forward as we begin the transition process for the next DS, and then we'll see what questions you have. Several months ago, I was contacted by a fellow pastor on the district who wanted to talk to me about something disturbing he had heard.He had discovered that my daughter, Rachel, had conducted a gay wedding. This took place in January of 2019. The wedding was for the brother of Rachel's husband, Will Campbell. When Will's brother got engaged, he asked Will if Will would do the wedding. Will said, I'm sorry, I'm an ordained elder in the Church of the Nazareth. We cannot do same sex weddings. His brother was very disappointed. This created a lot of tension in the family and threatened a rift between the siblings. Rachel got the idea that she could offer to do the wedding. She went online, secured some credential, and she officiated the wedding. Will was there. He participated by reading a poem and by praying a prayer. When this pastor came to me with his concern about this, I explained the context just like I did for you just now and told him that I would not be taking any action against Rachel. Several weeks later, I heard from our General Superintendent, Dr. Christian Sarmiento, and he had received email communications expressing the same concern about the wedding and about some other issues, mostly related to my views and behavior toward LGBTQ people and issues.Several email exchanges [went] back and forth with the General Superintendent. After all the details were shared and he knew what Rachel's part had been and what Will's part had been, he said that Rachel was subject to discipline because she's a church member and she had violated her membership pledge to uphold the covenants of the Church of the Nazarene; and that I was wrong to allow her to be an employee of the district and to be on the ballot to be elected to district board or council. Rachel has resigned from those positions and will be working with her local pastor to deal with the local church issues that are implicated in this. That was the first thing. I should also say that as far as Will's participation, that was not a violation of his ordination vows and he is not subject to discipline in that regard.The second issue that Dr. Sarmiento wanted to talk to me about was a paper that I have written. It's a paper that I shared with very few people, but that I wrote so that I could be accountable to those in leadership over me. Since he's our new General Superintendent and I had not yet had a face-to-face meeting with him, I had not shared the paper with him.Since all this came up, I thought it was past time for him to know my views. I sent him the paper, and in doing so, I accidentally copied someone who was not an intended recipient of the paper. This confidential communication got shared and has been shared multiple times. It now is a public document. If it hadn't gone public, probably it wouldn't have come up at all, even though I would have shared it with Dr. Sarmiento. But because it expresses controversial views and I'm in a position of leadership as a district superintendent, this is disturbing to people to know that in my interior views, I do not align 100% with the stated position of the Church of the Nazareth on human sexuality. I make it clear in the paper that I do not believe the Church of the Nazarene should move toward LGBT inclusion. It would be too disruptive. I also make it clear that I have, in my conduct, never violated my ordination vows by performing a same sex wedding, teaching contrary to the statements of the manual, or advocating for LGBTQ inclusion. However, these two things; my failure to take action toward Rachel and the views I expressed in this paper, led Dr. Sarmiento to come to ask me if I would let this be my last year to serve as DS. So, in our relationship at this point, he has been following the manual, paragraph 604. Probably most of you have never paid much attention to the judicial section of the manual, but there's a lot of very interesting stuff there. Paragraph 604 just says that when there are allegations against someone in a position of leadership, whether that be a local pastor or a DS or whomever, that we should first try to resolve the matter by agreement. What that means is that it's not through formal charges or some judicial process, but it's simply by agreement. I have agreed with Dr. Sarmiento that I will retire at the time of our next assembly. I haven't been asked to surrender my credentials. I haven't been removed from ministry. I'm free to take any assignment that might come to me after this. I'm not being forced to retire. We've reached this decision by agreement. That's it in a nutshell. I think the most important thing I will say in this meeting is that I love this district just like you love your local church and you work hard for the strength and health of your local church.I am deeply sorry that my words or actions have caused this disruption in the life of our district that has created division between some of us. I'm so sorry and I apologize to all of you for that. Going forward, here's what will happen. At times like this, when there's a transition in district leadership, the district advisory council comes into play, and that's a larger group than the district advisory board. It's 10 people. It's the district advisory board, it's our district officers, our district secretary and district treasurer. Charles is already part of the advisory board, and then Sharon Santiago, our treasurer, the heads of our auxiliary organization, so that's Brad Kinoshita for NYI, Pua Kanealii for NDI, and Gayle Ragle for NMI. That's 10 people. As I was looking over that list, I was really pleased to see that there are five women and five men. There are five laypersons and five clergy. There are- I just figured four people from Oahu and six from the neighbor islands. That's a really good representative group for our district. They will meet with Dr. Sarmiento and with Stan Reader, who's our regional director. They'll meet with him for the first time on November 25th, and they'll start the process.---------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------------Addendum:Link to the audio of the Pastors’ Meeting: https://studio.youtube.com/video/BxMND93ntPQ/edit
Pictures of Will Campbell’s participation at the same sex wedding:

to Manny, bcc: me

Link to the wedding video summary:  https://vimeo.com/896932553?share=copy
(If this video also gets blocked, please email me and I will send you a copy)

Manny Silva
Stand For Truth Ministries

"The entirety of Your word is truth, And every one of Your righteous judgments endures forever." Psalm 119:160

Trump Stuns World with Prophetic Video Revealing He’s Been Chosen By God~Trump Messianic Video

Trump Messianic Video

UK Methodists Drop ‘Husband and Wife’ From Marriage Vows

AP Photo/The Idaho Statesman, Kyle Green
Earlier today, Kevin wrote a piece about his friends and fellow comedians who had banished him to the outer darkness over politics. These people will continue to support Biden or whoever takes his place, no matter how desperate things become. They would rather see the nation descend into a post-apocalyptic hellscape, complete with Mad Max-style car chases and cannibalistic, radioactive mutants lurking in underground bunkers than cast a vote for Donald Trump. Kevin titled the column, "Leftists Would Rather Send Their Kids to War Than Vote for 'Orange Man Bad.'"

As a former Leftist, I see today's progressivism, which is still managing to hold on despite the chaos and rubble the Biden administration is creating, like my first Ralph Lauren polo shirt. When I was a kid, we were never broke, although we did stray close to the poverty line a few times. And once, through a bit of luck, I found myself in possession of a genuine Ralph Lauren polo shirt. This was a big thing for someone whose family shopped in the bargain bins more often than not. I looked good, and I felt confident. After all, it was quite the step up. 

And so I wore it, and wore it, and wore it. I wore it until the navy blue was a sickly shade of gray. I wore it until there were holes in the armpits and the collar and sleeves were frayed. I wore it until the polo player resembled an obese, inebriated golfer. And I continued to wear it after that. Why? Because it was Ralph Lauren. The whole episode would have made for T.S. Eliot's poem: "The Wardrobe of J. Alfred Prufrock." Leftists today continue to wear the same threadbare, tattered, and moth-eaten garments of progressivism because the label is just too chic. 

Take churches, for example. Look at any mainline Protestant denomination. Chances are that on any given Sunday, you will see a small knot of people, many of them well along in years, mumbling prayers and rasping hymns among rainbow candles and a smattering of abortion pamphlets. Once-great church buildings are becoming mausoleums and charnel houses simply because the remnants of their congregations decided to don the trappings of progressivism. 

The UK, of course, is much further along the road to ruin than the U.S., having gained about a twenty-year headstart. But we in the States are doing our best to keep up. Back in my radio days, the Brits were issuing dire warnings to us that "as we are now, so shall you be."  

The latest development in progressive madness from across the pond comes from the Methodist Church of England. According to The Christian Institute, the leadership has told its ministers to avoid using the words "husband" and "wife." Not every marriage is between a husband and wife these days, you know. And who is to say that congregants or engaged couples even consider themselves to be men or women? 

Better to stick to inclusive language, lest someone, somewhere, become aggrieved and demand apologies amidst great wailing and gnashing of teeth. On the other hand, a person wailing in the nave because they have been misgendered would present a wonderful opportunity for virtue signaling, so perhaps the leadership has not thought this issue completely through. 

Instead of "husband" and "wife" or "brothers and sisters,"  the church suggests using words like  “parent,” “partner,” and “child.” From the article:

It added: “Language such as ‘brothers and sisters’, while intended to be inclusive and friendly, doesn’t take into account our non-binary friends”.

Members of the church are encouraged to share their own pronouns in conversations and to consult Stonewall or GLAAD if there are further questions.

The new set of instructions came in the latest edition of the church's "Inclusive Language Guide" which is updated every six months. Every six months? What minister, even in the most woke of congregations, would be able to keep up with those mandates? These poor pastors will spend all of their time rewriting sermons and their liturgies so they can successfully complete another round of the Gender Hokey Pokey. It's a veritable recipe for a church-wide mental breakdown among the ordinands. At this rate, church services will start to sound like meetings of the United Federation of Planets. 

On his Substack, Fr. Calvin Robinson noted that the latest genuflection to the Holy Gender Unicorn is another step toward Marxism:

Liberalism teaches that heteronormativity is an option among other options. Marxism, via the Critical Theories, teaches that heteronormativity must be destroyed. The phrase ‘smash heteronormativity’ is often used by proponents of Queer Theory, Gender Theory, and even Critical Race Theory.

When the Methodist Church says ministers should no longer use the terms husband and wife, it is showing support for Marxism by partaking in the smashing of heteronormativity. To replace God’s order with the devil’s disorder. At the very least, the Methodist Church is saying it is more afraid of the world than it is of God.

The problem is clear. It is not possible to be both a communist and a Christian.

Furthermore, God may love someone unconditionally, but that is not to say He will leave that person as He found them. The stories of Christ with the woman at the well and the woman accused of adultery bear that out. If God requires nothing of us and wishes to leave us as we are, then there is no need for a savior, and Christianity is no longer Christianity.

We may be witnessing some form of ecclesiastical Darwinism. The denominations that are set on maintaining the "approved narrative" as opposed to preaching the Gospel will become less and less relevant, and will eventually disappear. They value their social status above all else, and they find their tar pits comfortable, even as they sink up to their necks. And that may have been the point of the progressive movement all along

Italy: Catholic Church funds illegal migration, activists brag about not having to work due to Church donations

REPUBLISHED, SEE: https://www.jihadwatch.org/2023/12/italy-catholic-church-funds-illegal-migration-activists-brag-about-not-having-to-work-due-to-church-donations

The Catholic Church is funding the demise of what is left of Catholic Europe. Interesting times we live in.

“‘The Catholic Church is becoming our Soros’ – Growing scandal around Italian Catholic Church funding illegal immigration, pro-refugee activists brag about not having to work due to Church donations,” by Grzegorz Adamczyk, Remix News, December 18, 2023:

A significant scandal has recently shaken the Catholic Church in Italy, as reported by La Verita Italian paper. Investigations by the city of Ragusa prosecutor’s office have exposed the involvement of certain Italian dioceses in funding Mediterranea, an organization responsible for the illegal migration of African immigrants to Europe.

These dioceses have allegedly contributed at least €2 million, with some of the Church’s payments ending up in the personal accounts of pro-immigration activists, according to Polish newspaper wPolityce.

Key figures in this informal network of bishops include Cardinal Matteo Zuppi of Bologna, Archbishop Corrado Lorefice of Palermo and several others, with Cardinal Jean-Claude Hollerich of Luxembourg also implicated for donating €25,000.

The scandal’s central figure is Luca Casarini, a leftist activist known for his role in the 2001 G8 summit protests in Genoa. He later became involved in transporting illegal immigrants to Lampedusa. Casarini’s relationship with Pope Francis, beginning in December 2019, has raised eyebrows, especially after Francis invited Casarini to participate in the Vatican Synod of Bishops, despite his lack of active involvement in Church life….

The chaplain of the Mare Jonio, Fr. Mattia Ferrari, a priest known for working in pro-refugee circles, said with astonishment: “The Catholic Church is becoming our Soros,” in reference to the funding they were receiving.

Commentators are debating whether these bishops acted independently or under Pope Francis’ direction, with most leaning towards the former. Their actions, aimed at aligning with the pope’s perceived interests, might result in decreased donations from parishioners and damage the bishops’ credibility….

 

Pope: Priests May Bless Homosexual Couples, But Marriage Is Between Man And Woman

OAN’s Brooke Mallory
6:05 PM – Monday, December 18, 2023

REPUBLISHED, SEE: https://www.oann.com/newsroom/pope-priests-may-bless-homosexual-couples-but-marriage-is-between-man-and-woman/

In a new statement issued on Monday, Pope Francis formally endorsed the practice of priests blessing same-sex couples, stating that anyone seeking God’s love and compassion should not have to undergo a “moral analysis” in order to be granted it.

This marks a major departure in Vatican doctrine.

“One should not prevent or prohibit the Church’s closeness to people in every situation in which they might seek God’s help through a simple blessing,” said the document from the Vatican.

However, the shift in policy does not alter the church’s position on marriage.

It states unequivocally that such blessing requests from homosexual couples should not be turned down, and it also mentions how anyone pursuing a transcendent relationship with God and those seeking his compassion or mercy should not be subjected to “an exhaustive moral analysis” as a prerequisite for obtaining it, offering a comprehensive explanation of the term “blessing” in scripture.

“Ultimately, a blessing offers people a means to increase their trust in God,” the document reads. “The request for a blessing, thus, expresses and nurtures openness to the transcendence, mercy, and closeness to God in a thousand concrete circumstances of life, which is no small thing in the world in which we live.”

“It is a seed of the Holy Spirit that must be nurtured, not hindered,” the Pope added.

The Vatican also maintains that a marriage is an unbreakable bond “between a man and a woman.”

In 2021, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith at the Vatican said that “God cannot bless sin,” so the church was unable to approve of a marriage between two males or two females.

Even the progressive Pope Francis seemed taken aback by the uproar the statement had caused, despite the fact that he had given his formal approval for its release. He dismissed the official who had written it shortly after it was published and reportedly started to prepare for a reversal.

The Vatican stated in the updated document that the church must avoid engaging in “doctrinal or disciplinary schemes, especially when they lead to a narcissistic and authoritarian elitism whereby instead of evangelizing, one analyzes and classifies others, and instead of opening the door to grace, one exhausts his or her energies in inspecting and verifying.”

It emphasized that everyone involved in “irregular” couplings, homosexual or heterosexual, is living in sin. However, it also expressed that this fact should not rob them of God’s compassion or love.

“Thus, when people ask for a blessing, an exhaustive moral analysis should not be placed as a precondition for conferring it,” the document continues.

As a “huge step forward” and a “dramatic shift” from the Vatican’s 2021 stance, the new statement was highly praised by Rev. James Martin, a notable advocate for greater acceptance of LGBTQ+ Catholics.

The document “recognizes the deep desire in many Catholic same-sex couples for God’s presence and help in their committed relationships,” the Reverend said in an email. “Along with many Catholic priests, I will now be delighted to bless my friends in same-sex marriages.”

However, some Evangelical Christians and other social media users online have criticized the new stance, saying that the Pope is just trying to appease the progressive left and liberals. They have also accused him of overstepping his power and attempting to change Biblical doctrine.

Photo via: X (Twitter) @Franklin_Graham

Stay informed! Receive breaking news blasts directly to your inbox for free. Subscribe here. https://www.oann.com/alerts

________________________________________________________________________

Pope Francis Stirs Confusion Over Blessing Same Sex Couples

Pope Ignores Bible, Suggests Non-Sacramental Blessings for Same-Sex Unions

AP Photo/Andrew Medichini
Pope Francis has just reportedly encouraged non-sacramental blessings for homosexual “couples.” But what about the many Bible verses describing homosexuality as a grave evil meriting damnation unless there is repentance?

As a Catholic, I have found this pontificate very disturbing, as woke globalist Francis seems bent on encouraging people to commit Hell-meriting sins in the name of false “mercy” and “love.” Now, the pope is only infallible when he meets certain specific prerequisites in Canon Law, and he does not have the power to alter official doctrine anyway, but people who aren’t aware of these facts can be easily confused by Pope Francis’s silly letters and comments. That includes the latest reported nonsense, which is the pope’s approval for giving homosexual “couples” blessings.

Some people might say that, since the pope has apparently distinguished the sacrament of marriage from blessings given to homosexual couples, this really doesn’t represent an attack on biblical and Church teaching. They would be wrong. Considering how strong the language used about active homosexuality is in the Bible, how clearly it is stated that such a sin merits death, no Catholic priest should encourage a homosexual to think that his active and regular participation in such a sin is on any level justifiable. This is not cruel. It is not loving to encourage people to destructive behaviors. It is more loving to help them seek truth and forgiveness, for the sake of both their souls and their bodies (homosexuals are at a higher risk of STDs, for instance, and LGBTQ individuals have consistently been found with higher anxiety and depression, and a higher risk of suicidal thoughts.).

The new Vatican document builds on a former letter from Pope Francis indicating blessings of homosexual unions can be given in some circumstances. The Dallas Morning News reported:

The new document repeats that rationale and elaborates on it, reaffirming that marriage is a lifelong sacrament between a man and a woman. And it stresses that blessings should not be conferred at the same time as a civil union, using set rituals or even with the clothing and gestures that belong in a wedding.

But it says requests for such blessings should not be denied full stop. It offers an extensive definition of the term “blessing” in Scripture to insist that people seeking a transcendent relationship with God and looking for his love and mercy should not be subject to “an exhaustive moral analysis” as a precondition for receiving it.

The Dallas Morning News quoted the document: “Ultimately, a blessing offers people a means to increase their trust in God.” It continued, “The request for a blessing, thus, expresses and nurtures openness to the transcendence, mercy, and closeness to God in a thousand concrete circumstances of life, which is no small thing in the world in which we live.” The pope concluded, “It is a seed of the Holy Spirit that must be nurtured, not hindered.”

Presuming this translation is correct — and previous actions of the pope’s indicate this is quite possible — Francis has again issued a doctrinally flawed and misleading document. Blessings aren’t just a “means to increase … trust in God.” They are a mark of approval for a person’s actions, and an encouragement to continue those actions. Of course God loves everybody. But it is perfectly clear in Catholic teaching that we ourselves can make the choice either for heaven or hell (see Matt. 25). For Scripture says of the New Jerusalem that there “shall not enter into it any thing defiled, or that worketh abomination or maketh a lie, but they that are written in the book of life of the Lamb” (Rev. 21:27).

So what does the Bible, the inspired Word of God, say specifically about homosexuality? Let’s look at a few verses. From St. Paul:

Who changed the truth of God into a lie; and worshipped and served the creature rather than the Creator, who is blessed for ever. Amen. For this cause God delivered them up to shameful affections. For their women have changed the natural use into that use which is against nature. And, in like manner, the men also, leaving the natural use of the women, have burned in their lusts one towards another, men with men working that which is filthy, and receiving in themselves the recompense which was due to their error…Who, having known the justice of God, did not understand that they who do such things, are worthy of death; and not only they that do them, but they also that consent to them that do them. — Romans 1:25-27, 32

St. Paul also addresses homosexuality in the First Letter to the Corinthians. He explains that people who practice certain sins cannot be part of God’s kingdom:

Do not err: neither fornicators, nor idolaters, nor adulterers, nor the effeminate, nor liers with mankind, nor thieves, nor covetous, nor drunkards, nor railers, nor extortioners, shall possess the kingdom of God. —1 Corinthians 6:9-10

This translation is accurate but can be a little confusing. To be clearer, the original Greek word being translated here as “liers with mankind,” ἀρσενοκοῖται, means literally “men engaged in sexual activity with the same sex.” So it would be equally accurate to translate ἀρσενοκοῖται as “homosexuals.”

Homosexuality is addressed in the Old Testament too. Leviticus 18:22 says, “You shall not lie with a male as with a woman; it is an abomination.” But the most famous Bible story about homosexuality is that of Sodom and Gomorrah. In Genesis 19, two disguised angels visit Abraham’s nephew Lot, a resident of the town, to warn him that Sodom and Gomorrah will be destroyed for their sins. A mob of men shows up at Lot’s house (Genesis 19:5) to demand that he send out his male guests (the angels) “that we may know them.” To “know” someone is often used in the Old Testament to describe or refer to sexual relations (for instance, see Genesis 4:1).

Lot, who seems to be a good host but a highly questionable father, offers, “I have two daughters who as yet have not known man: I will bring them out to you, and abuse you them as it shall please you, so that you do no evil to these men” (Genesis 19:8). The Sodomites refuse Lot’s startling offer and instead become so importunate for the male guests that they almost break down the doors. The angels rescue Lot and blind the Sodomites.

Sodom and Gomorrah are subsequently destroyed with “brimstone and fire” by the Lord God (Genesis 19:24). The older name for homosexuality is “sodomy” because of this Bible story. In other words, it was always understood by Christians, until very recently indeed, that the ancient towns were wiped off the face of the earth for their active homosexuality!

Pope Francis: ‘Demasculinize the Church’~Is a masculine vitality in Christianity truly “a great sin”?

REPUBLISHED, SEE: https://www.frontpagemag.com/pope-francis-demasculinize-the-church/?


Controversial Pope Francis, whose left-wing leanings are alarming to more traditional and conservative Catholics, recently received members of the International Theological Commission (ITC) at the Vatican, where he sparked a new controversy by informing the gathered theologians that the Catholic Church is “female” and needs to be “demasculinized.”

The ITC was established by Pope Paul VI within the then-Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith in 1969 to assist the Vatican in examining crucial doctrinal issues. It consists at any given time of 30 theologians who serve a five-year term on the Commission. Women have served on the panel since 2004, but never more than two at a time until 2014 when Pope Francis named a record five women to the ITC. In the current membership of the Commission, five again are women.

Among the Pope’s comments to the theologians was a condemnation of the scarcity of women among them. “We must progress on this!” Francis passionately declared. “Women have a different capacity for theological reflection than we men. At the next meeting of the [Council of Cardinals], we will reflect on the female dimension of the Church.”

Fair enough so far. Women often do have a different capacity for theological reflection – reading the great female mystics in history from Hildegard von Bingen to Julian of Norwich to Teresa of Avila demonstrates that – and there is room for debate in the Church about the ministerial role of women. But then the Pope went off the rails. “The Church is female,” he stated, “and if we do not understand what a woman is, what the theology of a woman is, we will never understand what the Church is.”

I humbly submit that the Pope, who is considered by Catholics to be infallible when speaking ex cathedra on matters of doctrine, is wrong on this point. While the Church is believed to be referred to in the Bible as “the bride” of Jesus Christ, this is a theological metaphor about their relationship. It does not make the Church “female,” and certainly not in the way he went on to explicate.

“One of our great sins,” Francis continued, “has been masculinizing the Church. And this is not resolved through ministerial means, that’s another thing. It is resolved through the mystical, the real way.”

It’s unclear how the Church being vitalized with a masculine energy is a sin at all, much less a “great” one, although the West generally speaking is suffused with the assumption, cultivated through decades of relentless feminist messaging, that masculinity is “toxic” and that thousands of years of so-called “patriarchy” have prevented women from stepping up and fixing the mess men have purportedly made of the world. In his comments to the ITC, Pope Francis seems to be pandering to this childish idea.

(Speaking of which, Hollywood funnyman Will Ferrell unintentionally humiliated himself with a virtue-signaling display in his opening remarks for the recent Women in Entertainment Gala. “Isn’t it just time for women to run the planet?” the Saturday Night Live alumnus asked, which predictably drew vigorous applause. “[W]e men, we’ve been running the show since, what, 10,000 B.C., something like that? And we’re not doing so good. So please, can you guys just take over, can you? I think it’s time.” In reality, women increasingly are running the planet – and how’s that been working out for us? Our own epically incompetent Vice President Kamala Harris, Germany’s Angela Merkel, New Zealand’s Jacinda Ardern, the three Ivy League university presidents who recently refused before Congress to take a stand against campus antisemitism, to name just a few – has their sex, broadly speaking, shown any greater capability than men for visionary leadership, for “fixing” the world? We are all, men and women, subject to the same flaws and limitations of human nature.)

Back to the Pope: he concluded by pleading with the members of the International Theological Commission, “This is a task I ask of you, please: demasculinize the Church.”

Demasculinize the Church? How is this notion different in substance from Will Ferrell’s begging for women to take over running the planet? Both men seem to see masculinity as some kind of obstacle to human flourishing and excellence, and see simply replacing men with women as the solution.

Contrary to the Pope’s apparent fear, Catholicism today – and Christianity in general – does not exactly suffer from a surfeit of masculinity. The Church already has been demasculinized, and the result is a foundational institution of Western civilization being in dangerous, accelerating decline.

The New Emangelization Project, dedicated to inspiring Catholic men to greater involvement in the faith, warns that the Church has a significant “Man Crisis”:

About 11 million adult men in the U.S. were raised Catholic but left the faith and men are under-represented in the Church versus their share of the total population (46% of parishioners are male versus 49% of the population).

[…]

Only about 1/3 of Catholic men (36%) say they attend Mass on a weekly basis. One third of Catholic men (32%) are not formally members of a parish. A large portion (42%) of Catholic men attend Mass “a few times per year” or “seldom or never.” Almost half of Catholic men do not engage in a routine of prayer; praying only “occasionally or sometimes” or “seldom or never.”

[…]

The “face” of the Church is feminine; men are underrepresented in the pews (only 37% of regular mass attendees are men). Further, a Notre Dame study shows that 70-90% of catechesis, service, bible study activities are led by women, causing the authors to suggest that “young males…assume that serious religious studies are a women’s business,” resulting in greater numbers of younger men being disengaged.

Christianity, which has always been burdened by the perception that it is a feminized religion – is today in desperate need of exactly the opposite of what Pope Francis called for: it urgently needs courageous, bold, manly leadership to steer the faith away from its ongoing capitulation to our neo-pagan pop culture, away from the degrading influence of “prosperity gospel” hucksters and hipster pastors in skinny jeans, and away from subversion by gender ideologues who are determined to “queer” the faith and replace God the Father with “God is Trans.”

Francis’ feminist position comes as no surprise. After all, he is the Progressive, globalist, open-borders pope who berates Western countries to overcome their “fear” of “foreigners” and take in ever more “refugees” from cultures incompatible with Western values; he denounces capitalism, nationalism, and populism while promoting the big-government Green economy scam; he has taken measures to restrict celebration of the traditional Latin Mass; he insists on whitewashing jihad and has even been praised as a “defender of Islam” by the Grand Imam of Al Azhar University; and he has opened the door for greater acceptance of the LGBTQ agenda. Now he calls for his own already-flaccid Church to emasculate itself, driving Christianity even further into cultural obsolescence, especially in contrast to the perceived hypermasculinity of Islam, which is the world’s fastest-growing religion at least in part because it offers men an alternative that affirms, albeit to a misogynistic extreme, their masculine nature.

Francis’ call to “demasculinize” the Church is, at best, a foolish and irresponsible position for a Pope to take at this critical point in its decline; at worst, it is a deliberate subversion of the spiritual institution that powered our glorious civilization, an institution rendered increasingly impotent in a post-Christian West.

The ‘Religious’ Feminist Attack on Christianity

Subverting the rules, perverting liturgies.

 by 

A few years ago, I stood outside Philadelphia’s Cathedral Basilica of Saints Peter and Paul, talking to Regina Bannan of the Southeastern Pennsylvania Women’s Ordination Conference (SPWOC).

A steady rain has just ended, so the fifteen or so (mostly) female protestors who celebrate their version of the Mass (think major liturgical innovation) outside the cathedral every Holy Thursday and Ordination Day (when the Archdiocese of Philadelphia ordained men to the priesthood) are huddled near the entrance of a coffee shop comparing notes.

Some of the participants are wearing collapsible rain hats that somehow remind me of old Katherine Hepburn movies.

The small turnout was a public embarrassment, enough to make me feel a little sorry for the protesters. I felt this despite the fact that whenever women ascend to great heights in Protestant denominations, the denomination in question soon became reflective of the secular culture in terms of equity and all things progressive.

We’ve seen this in the Episcopal Church with its growing stable of women priests and bishops that usually comes gift-wrapped with the “obligatory” baggage of theological innovation and political progressivism.

This baggage is essentially the reversal of centuries-old orthodoxies.

For some reason, the infusion of the feminine into places of power in Christianity almost always heralds change, innovation, and a turn towards the radical.

This is manifested in many ways, be it BLM banners draped over church doors or around altars, or language purges directed at sacred scripture that give us gender neutral forms of address, such as phrases like Mother God or Goddess. It also comes with the belief that ‘the patriarchy’ is evil because it has caused women nothing but pain over the centuries.  

This tendency to deconstruct, innovate and radicalize has become a hallmark of women's feminist clergy.  

The Association of Roman Catholic Women Priests (ARCWP), to which Bannan belongs, has been “ordaining” Catholic women to the “priesthood” since 2020 – when 7 women were “ordained” to the priesthood by a rogue (anonymous) Roman Catholic bishop.

In their liturgies—or “Masses”—which can be viewed on YouTube, one can see the reshaping of prayers and the rewriting of traditional rituals that may involve holding hands in a circle (invoking a WICCA-like atmosphere), as well as the incorporation of peace and social justice litanies that could have been written by the DNC.

A photograph of a famous 2012 case involving a 92-year old Jesuit priest who celebrated “Mass” with a woman “priest” in Georgia shows an altar table draped in a white sheet littered with slogans like “Lay Empowerment,” “End Racism,” and “Open Communion.” This is the modus operandi of feminist clergy: social justice as a form of religious dogma as well as looking to non-Christian traditions to formulate a new (feminist) theology.

According to Bannan, counting the number of people who showed up in the rain to support ARCWP as indicative of the lack of support for women priests would be a misnomer since at least two thirds of Catholics believe that women should be ordained.

Two-thirds seems to be a hefty majority, so much so that I wondered why some of the hundreds of people packed inside the cathedral celebrating the traditional ordination of six men weren’t out supporting the protesters.  

I asked Bannan about this apparent disconnect.

“I think it’s because of the condemnations from the Vatican,” she said.

“If you are going to be somebody out in your parish supporting women’s ordination, you may engender some difficulty. This happened in the distant past when a choir director was laid off partially because she was a very active member of our group.”

Yet opposition in the Church to women’s ordination is significant despite the two-thirds vote of confidence from the faithful.

Writing in The New Oxford Review, Anne Barbeau Gardiner argues that,

“While some feminists have argued that Jesus was conforming to cultural expectations in choosing only men as His Apostles. On the contrary, Jesus’ way of acting did not conform to the religious and cultural norms of first century Judaism. He taught women openly, had them in his company and disregarded ritual-purity laws. Therefore, he could have chosen women, but freely chose not to.”

Additionally, Metropolitan Hilareon Alfeyev, a theologian and bishop in the Russian Orthodox Church, explains,

“…If the priesthood for women had been possible it would have been introduced at the earliest stage of the Church’s existence. But this did not happen. Up to the present day the Church has maintained the same order as was set by the Apostles.

“The fact that women became equal to men in many spheres of human life, including politics, has nothing to do with the church order. In order to introduce female priesthood we need a new Revelation as powerful as the Revelation of the New Testament, and the creation of a New Testament Church. Since such a Revelation has not happened, we cannot make any radical changes to the established church order.”

At some point during the ARCWP demonstration, Bannan handed me a red pamphlet containing the words from the casual table liturgy that was just celebrated by a woman.

These words stood out:  “We re-commit ourselves to proclaim your Gospel of Liberation and Equality, for we are all created in your most amazing image.”

This is certainly not a prayer I would hear in my Russian Orthodox parish of Saint Michael the Archangel in Northern Liberties, despite the fact that feminist, progressive ideology has even made inroads into Orthodoxy in the form of feminist-led church councils, a popular blog called Public Orthodoxy, a Facebook group called Progressive Orthodoxy, as well as in the work of progressive Orthodox theologians connected with (the Jesuit) Fordham University in New York.

In Orthodoxy, the work of the French Orthodox theologian Elisabeth Behr-Sigel (1907– 2005) has become a reference for affirming women in the priesthood. Since 2005, a number of (now deceased) male Orthodox theologians have registered their support for Behr-Siegel’s position, including Metropolitan Anthony Bloom, Kallistos Ware and John Zizioulas.

Orthodoxy, then, with this fresh injection of feminist thought, is merely a couple of light years behind the Roman Catholic Church. The future will reveal whether the Orthodox Church– the Church that prides itself on being the bedrock of unchanging tradition– will change in order to meet the demands of the secular world.

Feminism in the Orthodox Church is clearly seen in the call for women deacons, even though this is based on the mistaken notion that there were deacons in early Eastern Christianity. While there were women who were sometimes referred to as “deaconesses” in the Eastern Church, they did not serve at the Liturgy and had no liturgical function whatsoever, but rather concentrated on women’s modesty issues during Baptism rituals.

Yet today’s Orthodox feminists like to pretend that the so-called deaconesses of old participated in liturgical rites.

Bannan envisions a future Catholic Church in which every manner of liturgy, traditional, innovative, feminist or Novus Ordo, would be given its due under the Big Tent of Universal Catholicism.

The phrase, “the big tent of universal Catholicism” falls flat on its face when one considers the anti-Traditional politics of the present papal administration.

Consider ARCWP’s newsletter, EqualwRites, which is billed as a Catholic Feminist newsletter for women and men.

The overall tone of EqualwRites tends to be strident and political. A few years ago, one could find many hostile references to former President Trump within its pages.

A column written after the worst of the pandemic by a female priest activist, Eileen Difranco, described a visit to the Philadelphia Archdiocesan administration building.  

“The clerics even go without masks in the administration building. Two members of SEPAWOC were shocked when they were received at the archdiocesan office by a maskless Archbishop (Archbishop Nelson Perez) and his maskless secretary. In late January, the Archbishop removed the Jesuit pastor of Old St. Joseph’s Parish for having the common sense and loving kindness to refuse to open his church during a pandemic which has killed over 450,000 post-natal souls.”

Two things stand out here:

1. For better or worse, a church needs to be open during a pandemic, not closed.
2. Archbishop Perez is to be commended for his dismissal as pastor of Old Saint Joseph’s.

As for the columnist’s shock that unmasked clerics in the Cathedral of SS Peter and Paul were “telling people to remove their masks as they approach the altar to receive communion,” I’ve only one thing to say: If you want Dixie cups, go to Rita’s Water Ice stand.

Another edition of EqualwRites condemns a number of male Catholic saints such as Padre Pio, Jerome, John Vianney, John Paul II and Augustine.

But the special feminist vindictive is reserved for Augustine.

“…A man who used and abused many women for sex until he got religion and discovered that women were even too revolting for that. That man was Augustine and the myth was original sin, a made-up sin so pernicious that it permeated all of humanity and spread through the sexual relations he once could not live without. He, the great Augustine, could not be responsible for his sex addiction. It was those darn women who caused men, who were otherwise holy, to sin through lust.”

And here’s this same female priest on abortion:

“The language of suffering has been written into the language of the anti abortion movement with the help of churchmen.”

Bannan told me she was optimistic about the future of women’s ordination.

“I think there are many people in the Church who believe in women’s equality, and I believe that some change is inevitable. It may not happen in my lifetime, but it might. But this is definitely the correct movement inspired by the Holy Spirit, I believe, so I think it will happen.

Bannan, at least, said “Holy Spirit” whereas most feminists including those who call themselves Christians tend to say “Spirit,” which of course can refer to any spirit—the spirit of Baphomet, Bael, Beelzebub, Aleister Crowley, or those strange WICCA circles where the women priests hold hands and sing “Kumbaya.”

During the first sessions of the Roman Catholic Synod on Synodalty, liberal nuns wholeheartedly embraced the cause of a female diaconate, with some even seeking the elimination of titles reserved for clergy, such as “your eminence” or “your excellency,” which they saw as promoting clericalism and patriarchy.

As for Pope Francis, he wants more female theologians and recently made his views known regarding this when addressing a theological conference in Rome.

“There is something I don’t like about you, if you excuse my honesty,” he said to the 30-plus theologians in the room where there were also only five women.

“We need to move forward on this! "Women have a way of reflecting on theology that is different from us men,” he added.

Mother Goddess’ is certainly different. And so is a Pachamama thrown in for good measure.

Transgender people can be baptized Catholic, serve as godparents, Vatican says

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The Vatican Says Transgender Catholics Can Be Baptized, Following Years Of Critical Statements

Vatican Says Transgender Adults & Children Can Be Baptized

Pope's lunch with transgender women cements unlikely friendship in the changing church

VATICAN CITY, Nov 8 (Reuters) - Transgender people can be godparents at Roman Catholic baptisms, witnesses at religious weddings, and receive baptism themselves, the Vatican's doctrinal office said on Wednesday, responding to questions from a bishop.

The department, known as the Dicastery of the Doctrine of the Faith, was vague however, in response to a question of whether a same-sex couple could have a Church baptism for an adopted child or one obtained through a surrogate mother.

Bishop Jose Negri of Santo Amaro in Brazil sent the doctrinal office six questions in July regarding LGBT people and their participation in the sacraments of baptism and matrimony.

The three pages of questions and answers were signed by the department's head, Argentine Cardinal Víctor Manuel Fernández, and approved by Pope Francis on Oct. 31. They were posted on the department's website on Wednesday using the Italian word for "transsexuals".

Francis, 86, has tried to make the Church more welcoming to the LGBT community without changing Church teachings, including one saying that same-sex attraction is not sinful but same-sex acts are.

In response to a question of whether transgender people can be baptized, the doctrinal office said they could with some conditions and as long as there is "no risk of causing a public scandal or disorientation among the faithful".

It said transgender people could be godparents at a baptism at the discretion of the local priest as well as a witness at a Church wedding, but the local priest should exercise "pastoral prudence" in his decision.

Pope Francis holds a weekly audience at the Vatican

Pope Francis leads the weekly general audience in Saint Peter's Square, at the Vatican, November 8, 2023. REUTERS/Guglielmo Mangiapane/file photo Acquire Licensing Rights

"This is an important step forward in the Church seeing transgender people not only as people (in a Church where some say they don't really exist) but as Catholics," Father James Martin, a prominent Jesuit priest and supporter of LGBT rights in the Church said on X, formerly known as Twitter.

Francis has met with transgender people and in July, he told a transgender person: "Even if we are sinners, he (God) draws near to help us. The Lord loves us as we are, this is God's crazy love."

The document said a person in a same-sex relationship could also be a witness at a Catholic wedding, the office said, citing current Church canonical legislation which contained no prohibition against it.

The response was less clear regarding persons in same-sex relationships and their role in baptism, which is the initiation into the Church for infants, children, or adults.

The Brazilian bishop sought guidance on whether a same-sex couple who had adopted a child or obtained it from a surrogate mother could have that child baptized in a Catholic ceremony.

The response said that for the child of a same-sex couple to be baptized, there had to be "a well-founded hope that it would be educated in the Catholic religion".

There was a similarly nuanced response to the question of whether a person in a same-sex relationship could be a godparent at a Church baptism. It said the person had to "lead a life that conforms to the faith".

Reporting by Philip Pullella; Editing by David Gregorio

Video: Islam’s War on the West and Christians

YouTube/Trykkefrihedsselskabet af 2004

I recently spoke at The Free Press Society in Copenhagen, Denmark. The event description and video follow:

On November 13th, 2023, The Free Press Society invited American historian, author, and columnist Raymond Ibrahim - who has an Egyptian/Coptic Christian family background - to tell about his ongoing studies of the persecution of Christians, especially in Muslim countries. This is the first part of the event with Raymond Ibrahim presenting his findings. The second part - Q&As - will be published soon.

Related: Is 'Islamophobia' Irrational?

Pope Francis’ Silence On Hamas

SEE: https://www.jihadwatch.org/2023/11/pope-francis-silence-on-hamas;

Republished below in full unedited for informational, educational, & research purposes.

Pope Francis, terminally naïve about Islam, believes he has a true understanding of the faith-based partly on the reassurances given to him by his new friend, the Grand Imam of Al-Azhar, Sheikh Ahmed al-Tayeb. “War is deceit,” says Muhammad in a famous hadith, and Al-Tayeb has been cheerfully deceiving the Pope every chance he gets. Pope Francis has learned a lot from Al-Tayeb. He insists in his new book, Non-Sei Solo: Sfide, Risposte, Speranze (You Are Not Alone: Challenges, Answers, Hopes), that “either you are a terrorist or you are a Muslim.” A “true” Muslim, he thinks, cannot be a terrorist. No one has pointed out to the Pope that Muhammad himself says in another hadith that “I have been made victorious through terror.” (Bukhari 4:52.220) And Muhammad is the Perfect Man and the Model of Conduct, whose behavior is to be emulated by Muslims.

Islam talks about peace, all right — the peace that will prevail once Islam everywhere dominates, and Muslims rule, everywhere. Until then war must be made on the Infidels, who when conquered must be either killed, or made to convert to Islam, or to accept the inferior status of dhimmis, enduring a host of social, political, and economic disabilities, including payment of the extortionate jizyah tax. In his infinite wisdom, the Pope has declared on many occasions, and in his latest book, too, that “Islam, in truth, is a religion of peace and the majority of its members are peaceful.” He’s wrong, of course. He need only look around the world at the Muslim terror groups that have been waging war against Infidels, and even against less fanatical Muslims, in recent years: the Islamic State, Al Qaeda, Hamas, Hezbollah, Palestinian Islamic Jihad, Sipah-e-Sahaba, Boko Haram, Al-Shebaab, and so many more. Muslims have committed more than 44,000 terror attacks around the world since 9/11. The Qur’an is filled with verses about violence and waging war on Infidels. The Believers are instructed to “kill them [the Infidels] wherever you find them” (Qur’an 2:191, 4:89, cf. 9:5). But one has a distinct impression that the Pope has never read the Qur’an. Why should he bother to do so, when such authoritative experts on Islam like Sheikh Ahmed al-Tayyeb assure him that Islam is all about peace?

Given the Pope’s affection for Islam, it is not surprising that he has been circumspect in his remarks on the atrocities carried out by Hamas on October 7. More on his failure to forthrightly condemn those attacks, which is risking the Vatican’s relations with the Jewish world, can be found here: “The Vatican is risking its relationship with the Jewish world,” by Vittorio Mascarini, JNS, November 16, 2023:

Relations between Israel and the Vatican have become tense in recent weeks.

In the immediate aftermath of the Oct. 7 Hamas massacre, the Patriarchs and Heads of the Churches in Jerusalem, an ecumenical group of Christian leaders that includes the Latin Patriarch of Jerusalem, Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa, issued a joint statement in which they made no explicit mention of the Hamas atrocities. They included only a vague condemnation of any act that targets civilians.

The Israeli embassy to the Holy See criticized the statement’s “immoral linguistic ambiguity,” which failed to be clear about “what happened, who were the aggressors and who the victims. … It is especially unbelievable that such a sterile document was signed by people of faith.”

This controversy is only the latest in the fraught history of Israel-Vatican relations, which were officially established in Dec. 1993. Besides the Catholic Church’s historical antisemitism, the Vatican was long reluctant to formally recognize Israel for several reasons: Israel did not have internationally recognized borders, the status of Jerusalem and access to its holy sites had not been internationally guaranteed, and Catholics and their institutions were, the Church claimed, not adequately protected under Israeli law.

In addition, the Vatican had concerns about the treatment of Palestinians in the disputed territories and feared that relations with Israel could have negative repercussions for Catholics in Islamic countries.

This may explain why, to date, Pope Francis has not labeled Hamas a terrorist organization and has not met with families of Israeli hostages. The latter has not gone unnoticed, especially because the families were received by many leading national figures, including Italian Prime Minister Giorgia Meloni.

According to the Catholic news site Cruxnow, the pontiff’s behavior can be explained as “positioning the Vatican potentially to play a mediating and peace-making role.” In addition, “The bulk of the Christian population in the Holy Land is Arab and Palestinian, so Middle Eastern bishops and clergy tend to be strong supporters of the Palestinian cause.”

Given the deplorable treatment of Israel by the Vatican — of which the failure to condemn Hamas is just the latest example, it is doubtful that Jerusalem would accept the Vatican as a mediator between the Jewish state and those who would destroy it.

Moreover, Cruxnow sees a historic shift underway in terms of the Vatican’s interfaith priorities: “Since the Second Vatican Council in the mid-1960s, Judaism has been the Church’s primordial relationship, unquestionably the highest priority in inter-religious dialogue. Under history’s first pope from the developing world, that’s no longer necessarily the case, as other relationships, especially the dialogue with Islam, have become at least an equally compelling perceived priority.”

Given this, it is not surprising that, since war broke out, Pope Francis has spoken with numerous world leaders, including U.S. President Joe Biden, but there are no reports that Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu has been among them.

Wouldn’t you think that after the worst attack on Jews since the Holocaust, the Pope would have wanted to speak with the leader of the Jewish state, if only to express his solidarity and understanding? But though the Pope has spoken with many world leaders about the ongoing war in Gaza, he has apparently snubbed the Israeli President. How does he hope to ever be a mediator if he will not talk to the Israeli prime minister?

The larger Catholic world has shown equal ambivalence towards the war. Among Eastern Catholic leaders, the Latin Catholic and Eastern churches in communion with Rome have issued what Israel deems a lukewarm and insufficient condemnation of Hamas. Their first communiqué, issued on Oct. 8, contained a generic statement “against any acts that target civilians, regardless of their nationality.” The next, on Oct. 13, decried the humanitarian situation in Gaza and called for de-escalation. It singled out only Israel in connection with humanitarian issues….

Instead of deploring the Hamas atrocities, the Eastern Catholic leaders uttered a generic condemnation “against any acts that target civilians.” They were afraid of the Muslim reaction if they singled out Hamas — as they should have — which would, however, make the lives of Catholics in the Arab countries more difficult. And just like Pope Francis, they did not mention the 240 hostages held by Hamas, or call for their release.

The Pope has to understand that the Jews of Israel now deserve his unambiguous support as they fight to destroy a murderous enemy that has pledged not only to destroy the single Jewish state and replace it with a twenty-third Arab one, but to kill Jews everywhere. No moral equivalency should be allowed. And he must also denounce, as he has not yet done so, the tidal wave of antisemitism, prompted in part by the war in Gaza, that threatens to engulf much of the world. He needs first to unambiguously denounce Hamas and all those who support the terror group. But will he? The signs from this Pope, who believes “Islam is all about peace,” are not good.

So far, Pope Francis has been weighed and found wanting.

Al-Azhar fatwa committee top dog: ‘Rejoice in the demise of the descendants of the pigs’

SEE: https://www.jihadwatch.org/2023/11/al-azhar-fatwa-committee-top-dog-rejoice-in-the-demise-of-the-descendants-of-the-pigs;

Republished below in full unedited for informational, educational, & research purposes.

Pope Francis and Al-Azhar Grand Sheikh Ahmed al-Tayeb signed an agreement a few years back about how violence in the name of religion is a perversion of religion. Is the pope naive, or evil?

“Virulent Incitement By Al-Azhar: Praise For Palestinian Jihad Fighters; Israel Is Destined To Perish; U.S. Is The Greatest Satan; Jews Are Descendants Of Apes And Pigs,” MEMRI, November 10, 2023:

In recent weeks, the Cairo-based Al-Azhar institution, the leading center of religious learning and supreme source of religious authority in the Sunni Muslim world, and senior members of this institution have been voicing support for Hamas and for terrorism and inciting against the U.S. and Israel, while using virulently antisemitic rhetoric….

Al-Azhar Fatwa:  The Occupying Entity Will Perish And The Lives Of The Martyrs Will Be Longer Than Those Of Their Murderers

On October 18, 2023,  Al-Azhar’s “Global Center for Online Fatwas” posted a fatwa on its Facebook page which predicted Israel’s demise….

“…In its steadfastness, resistance, and persistent adherence to its land, the Palestinian people continue to present a model of heroism, despite the danger of the arbitrary Zionist bombardment. It [also] places the world – which remains silent, neglects, or [even] encourages these crimes – in a great human and moral predicament, removing the fake mask of humaneness from its ugly face.

“The term ‘civilian’ does not apply to the Zionist settlers of the occupied land. Rather, they are occupiers of the land who usurp rights, disregard the ways of the prophets, and attack the holy sites in historic Jerusalem and the [sites of] Islamic and Christian heritage there…

“The world deliberately ignores the fact that the occupying Zionist entity is a cancer in the heart of the Islamic and Arab nation. According to international conventions and laws, occupying forces have no right to the land, the resources and the holy sites [they are occupying], and their aggression must necessarily be met with resistance against their usurpation, oppression and tyranny….

Faculty Dean At Al-Al-Azhar University: May Allah Bring Perdition Upon The “Cursed,” “Treacherous” Jews, “The Descendants Of Apes And Pigs”

Addressing Hamas’ October 7 attack on Israel in a series of posts on his personal Facebook account, Muhammad Omar Al-Qady, dean of the Faculty for Islamic and Arabic Studies at Al-Azhar University, made virulently antisemitic remarks, glorified the jihad in Palestine and wished perdition upon the Jews….

“It brought the Palestinian issue back to the center of global attention, after it had almost disappeared and been forgotten… It managed to shatter the false myth about the might of the Israeli army and prove that it is weak and exhausted… It proved that the entire West – with the exception of the peoples – is a single community, especially the governments of the greatest Satan, America, and of the European countries, who follow the orders of the Zionist lobby that is part of [the camp of] our treacherous enemy… It managed to eliminate, if only for a while, the vast enterprise of [Israel’s] normalization with many Arab and Islamic countries, which was making large and rapid strides… [The resistance] also made additional achievements, which will be discussed in the future. I ask Allah to strengthen His soldiers and his camp and grant our brothers in Gaza, Palestine and in the rest of the Muslim countries victory over their enemy and ours, the enemy of Allah and humanity, the cursed descendants of apes and pigs [i.e., the Jews].”[5]

In another post Al-Qady wrote: “Allah, bring perdition upon the cursed and treacherous [Jews], the murderers of prophets, of rulers and of decent people, and on whoever helped them and agreed to their deeds…”[6]

Abbas Shuman, Inspector General Of Al-Azhar’s Fatwa Committees: “Rejoice In The Demise Of The Descendants Of Pigs”; The Zionists Are Worse Than Rabid Dogs

Abbas Shuman, formerly the deputy of Sheikh Al-Azhar and currently the inspector general of Al-Azhar’s Fatwa committees, likewise slammed Israel and expressed support for Hamas’ terror attack, gloating over the suffering caused to Israel. For example, on October 7, the day of the attack, he shared a post in which he praised it, writing, “Allahu Akbar, long live the noble Palestinian people. Allah will inflict defeat on the oppressive occupation and shame and disgrace on the Zionists and their supporters.”[8]

Additional posts over the following days were equally vitriolic and even antisemitic. For instance, on October 17, 2023, Shuman wrote, “I knew that the Zionists had no morals, but I didn’t imagine that they were filthier and more despicable than rabid dogs…”[9]

On October 18 he posted, “…The situation has reached the point of bombing hospitals, after the murder of children and even of fetuses, and [has reached the point where] the great satans [i.e. the world leaders] have come to Palestine to publicly support the Zionists. Rejoice in the demise of the descendants of the pigs.”[10]

Lecturer At Al-Azhar University: The Jews Of The World Can Be Resettled In Southeast Russia; Aiding Palestine Is A Religious Duty Of Every Muslim

In an October 19, 2023 article in the Egyptian daily Al-Usbu’, Dr. Ahmad Karima, a lecturer on Islamic law and comparative jurisprudence at Al-Azhar University,  stated that “aiding Palestine is a religious duty of all Muslims, a national duty of the Arabs, both Muslim and non-Muslim, and a moral obligation,” which must be carried out by the Muslim armies, according to their ability and the assessments of the rulers, by the wealthy Muslims, according to their financial ability, and by the clerics and experts, according to their rhetorical ability. Later he described his own efforts in supporting the Palestinian cause, including by publishing books and studies on Palestine and Jerusalem, as well as books on jihad….

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