Friday, February 28, 2003
A reader emailed to ask for the Malachi Martin interview website. So now that I've found it again, maybe someone else would be interested as well. Here it is. CarrieTomko@aol.com
Mark Shea has a brief blog on attitudes toward the end times, plus a link to a Rod Dreher article on Islamic Eschatology. Since it's on the mind of bloggers, I thought you might like to know what State Farm has to say on the subject: ARMAGEDDON IS NOT COVERED BY AUTO INSURANCE POLICY Kathy M. Kristof Los Angeles Times Friday, February 28, 2003 With the United States on the brink of war in Iraq and North Korea test-firing missiles, State Farm Insurance Cos. is issuing a timely, if chilling, notice to customers: It will not cover auto damage caused by nuclear blasts or radioactive fallout. "No insurance company could withstand the financial impact of insuring a nuclear accident," Bill Sirola, a spokesman for the largest U.S. automobile insurer, said Wednesday. Never mind that filing an auto insurance claim may be the least of people's worries should a nuclear strike occur. Since the terrorist attacks on the United States on Sept. 11, 2001, most insurance companies have been reassessing their exposure to potential losses from terrorism, including the possibility of an attack using a nuclear device or radioactive materials. Nuclear exclusions have been an insurance industry standard since the end of World War II, when the Soviet Union and the United States found themselves locked in a nuclear standoff, said Pete Moraga, spokesman for the Insurance Information Network of California. Seems clear to me that we need to dig a fall-out shelter for the car out in the backyard. Next problem: Where is the gasoline going to come from after the nuclear attack? :) CarrieTomko@aol.com
I've been rereading Windswept House. This time through, a lot more of it makes sense and unfortunately sounds like a lot of the research I've been doing over the last 5+ years. Martin even mentions an installation ceremony in the Grand Lodge of Israel. It's clear now that he believed Freemasonry had invaded the Vatican. Maybe that was clear in the first reading. I don't remember. But back than (1996) I didn't know what the OTO is, knew nothing about Grail Quests, or the philosophy of Freemasonry. So it's a different read this time. And an even more sobering read. Martin's last interview is online (unfortunately I don't have the link handy). He indicated that the editor nixed the original ending he had written for the book. Apparently it was supposed to be the material of a follow-up story, one Martin was never able to write. Too bad. It would have been a humdinger of a tale! CarrieTomko@aol.com
One more try to get the webring link entered correctly. CarrieTomko@aol.com
Wednesday, February 26, 2003
I need a class in computer programming! Getting the link for St. Blog's Parish onto this Blog is a real challenge when you don't have the foggiest idea what you are doing! %-) CarrieTomko@aol.com
CATHOLIC COMMISSION HIGHLIGHTS WAR CRIMES WARNING FOR AUSTRALIA Melbourne's Catholic Commission for Justice Development and Peace has amplified the warning of 42 eminent international law experts who signed a statement declaring that an invasion of Iraq may constitute a war crime and crimes against humanity. The opinion was sent yesterday to all Federal Parliamentarians, and appeared in The Age and the Sydney Morning Herald. The legal experts state that estimates of civilian deaths in Iraq suggest that up to quarter of a million people may die as a result of an attack using conventional weapons, and many more will suffer homelessness, malnutrition and other serious health and environmental consequences in its aftermath. We have diminished international support for war with Iraq. Now I'm trying to consider what it would be like to have our president put on trial by the War Crimes Tribunal of the United Nations. It's almost impossible to fathom it. Would that be sufficient to destroy our world leadership position? I have to conclude that it would. Certainly any enemies that we have in the world would be delighted with such an outcome. Would it also please the EU? I believe they would be poised to step into the gap. It might even help to cement the alliance. CarrieTomko@aol.com
THE MADNESS OF THE ANIMAL RIGHTS MOVEMENT Social workers in Scotland recently rescued a pet monkey from the filthy, drug-infested apartment of a couple of heroin addicts. Contacting an animal welfare group, the social workers took great pains to make sure the animal was removed from the squalid cesspool of a home. But the social workers neglected to do anything about the little girl living with the couple. The 5-year-old's fingernails had not been cut for more than a year, she was covered in bed sores, lying in human waste and wearing a plaster cast on her broken leg that should have been removed 10 months earlier. When doctors eventually removed the cast from the girl, whose leg has been permanently scarred, they found spoons, a fork, and a pen she had used to try to scratch her ulcers. A judge rebuked the social workers, noting incredulously that they had visited the couple's house 18 times and had gone inside four times, but had failed to take note of or do anything about the poor girl's plight. CarrieTomko@aol.com
Tuesday, February 25, 2003
This website is devoted to the developing scandal in the Roman Catholic Diocese of Altoona-Johnstown, Pennsylvania. CarrieTomko@aol.com
Roman Catholic Faithful exposes a Byzantine homosexual priest to the world's viewing pleasure. Warning, this one is x-rated. The Byzantines act swiftly it seems. CHURCH LEADERS BAR PRIEST OVER SEX ADS By EILEEN ZAFFIRO Staff Writer Last updated: Feb 21, 11:23 PM ORMOND BEACH -- At Holy Dormition Byzantine Catholic Church, he's called Father Gera and wears black suits with the signature priest collars. On gay Web sites featuring graphic nude photos, Francis T. Gera isn't wearing a stitch of clothing and he's known as Poppa Bear and Big Poppa, according to allegations by a Catholic watchdog group. Gera was banned indefinitely Friday by a bishop of the Byzantine rite diocese and by a bishop of the Roman rite diocese in Central Florida from celebrating Masses and performing sacraments, pending investigation of the allegations. "Father Gera was relieved of his assignment Thursday," said New Jersey attorney Tom Devita, who is representing Bishop Andrew Pataki of the Byzantine rite diocese. Confirmation of his removal comes from this article: << Tuesday, February 25, 2003 CATHOLIC PRIEST REMOVED AFTER POSTING PERSONAL AD ON GAY WEBSITE A Catholic priest from Ormond Beach, Fla. was removed from his post on February 20 after church officials found he had created a personal ad--which featured a naked photo of himself--on a gay Web site, according to www.thesmokinggun.com. CarrieTomko@aol.com
Monday, February 24, 2003
The Diocese Report (http://www.diocesereport.com/) At the above website link for the Diocese Report there are several articles linked describing the abuse cover-up in the Pennsylvania Diocese of Altoona-Johnstown. I can't help but reflect on the fact that it wasn't long ago when the same diocese was making headlines by having Sr. Jose Hobday speak at a diocesan event, making me wonder yet again if strong dissent from Catholic doctrine and sexual abuse of minors go hand in hand. CarrieTomko@aol.com
http://www.catholicreform.org/eministers.html Thomas E. Woods, Jr. has written an article titled "Tridentine Mass, Eucharistic Ministers", about the downside of using EMs and its effect of reduced enthusiasm for vocations. In the article he says: The spirit of innovation of the past forty years has dulled the sensibilities of many churchmen to the seriousness and gravity of their almost routine ruptures with tradition. If it is pointed out to them that some innovation would obviously have been detested by the entire assembly of saints, they either do not care (an attitude that at one time would have been unthinkable for a Catholic) or they actually claim that we have made "progress" since their time. Such is the level of our spiritual idiocy that an age as spiritually and aesthetically impoverished as our own can describe itself as "progress," and interpret the saints' presumed displeasure at our novelties as a sign of their backwardness rather than of our immaturity.As a convert, I have always found the use of "Eucharistic ministers" one of the most disturbing of the postconciliar innovations. I wondered: if Catholics really believe what they say about the Holy Eucharist, and if they really believe what they say about the holy priesthood, why on earth undermine both by the introduction of laymen into so sacred an area of the Church's life - and one into which laymen had never asked or desired admission? After all, St. Thomas Aquinas made an explicit connection between the ordination of the priest and his distribution of Holy Communion, and Pope John Paul II once pointed out the relationship between the consecration of the priest's hands and his inestimable privilege of distributing consecrated Hosts to the faithful. I believe he makes a valid point. The role of the clergy has become difficult to define since the laity has been clericalized, and it looks as though the erosion of our Sacrament of Ordination will continue as dioceses make arrangements to overcome the priest shortage. What is the liklihood that these changes once made will ever be dispensed with if and when we again have vocations to the priesthood? Will the laity willingly give up the privileges they have come to assume is their right? CarrieTomko@aol.com
Sunday, February 23, 2003
The traditional family is under attack once more in a Supreme Court Case: Families on Precipice in Supreme Court Case on TX Sodomy Law 'Watershed' Case Critical to Homosexual Lobby, Attorney Say By Allie Martin and Jody Brown February 20, 2003 (AgapePress) - A Christian attorney says the U.S. Supreme Court is expected to rule this year on a case from Texas that could have broad ramifications for the family. He says it could re-define marriage across the nation. The highest court in the nation is reviewing Texas' sodomy law, which criminalizes homosexual sex. The case arises from the 1998 arrest of two homosexual men arrested by police for committing sodomy. Law enforcement had been summoned to the apartment of one of the men by what was later discovered to be a false claim that there was an armed intruder in the apartment. Steve Crampton is chief counsel for the American Family Association Center for Law & Policy (CLP), which will be filing a legal brief in support of the Texas law. Crampton says there is a lot at stake. "The ramifications to a determination by the Supreme Court that that law is unconstitutional may reach so far as to jeopardize the laws all over the nation that protect marriage as being between one man and one woman," Crampton explains. "So the stakes probably could not be higher." In an interview with AFA Journal, Crampton said Lawrence v. Texas may very well be the biggest legal decision in history on homosexual rights."This will be a watershed case in the history of the battle between those who hold to traditional views of human sexuality, marriage, and family, and those who support the radical homosexual agenda," he told AFA Journal. "I'm telling you -- we need prayer. This case is big, and the repercussions from the Supreme Court's decision will be felt for generations to come."According to Crampton, the homosexual lobby has wanted to get the case before the Supreme Court for a long time.>> CarrieTomko@aol.com
