Running Off At The Keyboard

LAURA KNIGHT-JADCZYK

Here, I suspect, is the material for any upcoming documentary Arkaduisz and Laura might plan to air.

The Wave Part XIII-b The Priory of Sion and The Shepherds of Arcadia

Here you will find Holy Blood, Holy Grail; Baigent, Lincoln, and Leigh, Rennes-le-Chateau.

Keep in mind as you look at this that these people have discussed the Golden Dawn, that magical fraternity of which Aleister Crowley was a member.

This starts to explain why the articles about a Bible rewrite were released on the same day as the twin towers were destroyed.

This material is part of what the authors deem the Cassiopaea n Experiment. There is a link on the left side of this website for "Cassiopaea FAQ" where these authors hint at the source of the material:

The Cassiopaean Experiment is essentially an experiment in superluminal (faster than light) communication. More details on this concept are discussed in the Introduction to the Site.

Who are "the Cassiopaeans"?

After thirty years of study and two years of dedicated experimentation, detailed in Laura's autobiography, Amazing Grace, the Cassiopaean communications began with a source identifying itself as "the Cassiopaeans." This source claimed to Laura that "We are you in the future"- or a "higher self" in popular parlance. The most probable explanation is: it was Laura talking to her subconscious mind, or communicating with what the psychologist and philosopher C.G. Jung called "collective unconscious"

What is important to note at the outset is this: the Cassiopaeans are NOT "aliens," nor are they "discarnate entities."

"We are you in the Future," they said. "We transmit 'through' the opening that is presented in the locator that you represent as Cassiopaea, due to the strong radio pulses aligned from Cassiopaea, which are due to a pulsar from a neutron star 300 light years behind it, as seen from your locator. This facilitates a clear channel transmission from 6th density to 3rd density."

This website that I linked yesterday indicates that channeling is the source of the information:

Because of the Jewish religion - monotheism - Christianity was "born" as the "new covenant" with the putative Jewish God.

Because of this Jewish God, claimed by Christianity, endless wars were fought in Europe, the Crusades took place, followed by the Inquisition. And then, of course, there are the endless deaths of entire cultures, due to the claims of the Christians and their "missionary" efforts.

So, in the end you could say that Yahweh/Jehovah has been the root cause of nearly all of the sufferings and deaths of humanity in the past four millennia.

Not a very good track record, and certainly, something to think about when pondering: "By their fruits, you shall know them."

[Note: we do not fortget that cruelty and brutal killings of civilians has occurred in other cultures as well, though not on the same scale. And so, according to some sources, in December 1937, in a single attack, known as "The rape of Nanjing", Japaneese soldiers killed nearly 200,000 civilians. These soldiers considered themselves to be heros, serving their "One God" - the Emperor.]

Human beings as a whole ought to reject this horrible God in ALL his forms and variations from his beginnings as the god of the Jews right down to his putative appearance to Mohammed. A more evil being has never - I think - appeared on the stage of history.

And so, the question is: why should anyone consider ANYTHING that is "channeled" as worthy of attention, much less a useful contribution to scientific research into the underlying nature of our reality?

If the claim is made that ALL channeling is "cultic" or "crap," what is the answer to that?

Ark comments:

I can't take such statements seriously.

Why?

I am a scientist. I look at things in a somewhat different way than other people. I am more critical. I am even more critical than most of my colleagues. So, when I see a statement like this "Any channeled information is crap. It is 100% disinformation" or "All channeling is disinformation" and "channeling is a satellite transmission," I get very suspicious.

Anti-Christian? Anti-Semitic? Chaos magick? You bet! In spades.

Our Lady of Fatima, pray for us!

ARKADIUSZ JADCZYK

The Slakdaddy.org video on the 9/11 Pentagon disaster which was linked below has a "website" button on the bottom right, approx. 39 sec. into the video. You have to be quick, but if you click it, it will take you to a website of Laura Knight-Jadczyk in which she advertises one of her books that has an introduction by Arkadiusz Jadczyk. Here is his CV.

The two of them share this website as well, where a link on the left--Ancient Science--will take you to this website which also advertises her book titled Ancient Science Anti-gravity, Alchemy, the Ark and the Holy Grail: A Radical Reassessment of Myth and History. Catharism is one of the topics included in this book according to the website.

Scroll down a little further to find this book:

The Occult Significance of 9-11 The destruction of the World Trade Center opened the final act of a show that has been thousands of years in the making...

Clicking the "more" button will get you to a review of the book where this appears:

Drawing from research of the historical origins of the Bible and the imposition of monotheism, ancient history, as well as events of the last one hundred years, Laura Knight-Jadczyk spins the thread that will permit you to penetrate deep into the heart of the Minotaur's labyrinth and discover the great truth which makes sense of these seeming unrelated events -- and the news of today. We are approaching the end af a Great Cycle, a cataclysm that will destroy the world as we know it. Those who orchestrated the events of 9-11 are well aware of this -- but they do not want you to find out...until it is too late. The Occult Significance of 9-11 takes the awful day in New York City as a focal point and traces the confluence of events in world history, religion and thought, compounded by manipulations in time, that have shoved us in to a new reality.

Go to the website to read the rest of the summary.

Another page in the Jadczyk's website, this one entitled "Boris Mouravieff and the Cassiopaeans or: The Way of Love" offers this comment:

Mouravieff talks about the degrading of women to "living merchandise" and how Jesus (as a Gnostic teacher) taught "reciprocal choice in love" which established the idea of "romance" between men and women.

Well, this seems to ring with some truth because of the Grail stories and their emphasis on romance - on "platonic love" and so on. If what Mouravieff is saying is true, then it makes sense because of the possible survival of the Cathar teachings in the Grail stories and the lays of the minstrels and Troubadours, etc.

Also, there is Fomenko's theory to consider - that much of the "history" of the Dark Ages in Europe is really the history of ancient Byzantium, the origin of the Grail stories, and the "path of transmission" of the ancient Gnostic traditions.

The page talks about "the Way" the "androgyne" and "Alpha and Omega" as well as other themes of Gnostic Christianity. There is also a reference to Mouravieff's book Gnosis: Studies and Commentary on the Esoteric Tradition of Eastern Orthodoxy. Book 1, Exoteric Cycle.

The link for "Signs of the Times" does not work.

According to this website Laura Knight-Jadczyk is Arkadiusz Jadczyk's wife. She studies channeling among other things:

As a consequence of Laura's scientific approach to researching the history and practical applications of psi phenomena and metaphysics, including her controlled experiment in channeling, the Cassiopaean Experiment, she was brought into contact with Ark.

And...

We sometimes ask ourselves if the Cassiopaeans are who they say they are, because we do not take anything as unquestionable truth. We take everything with a grain of salt, even if we consider that there is a good chance that it is truth. We are constantly analyzing this material as well as a great quantity of other material that comes to our attention from numerous fields of science and mysticism. We find it to be quite extraordinary that the Cassiopaean Material is so closely aligned with the teachings of the great Sufi master, Ibn Al-'Arabi, with the Fourth Way Teachings of Gurdjieff, Castaneda, with the Esoteric Christianity of Boris Mouravieff, and even ancient Altaic Shamanism. In this sense, the Cassiopaean Experiment is truly a Fourth Way work.

Here's another page in the Cassiopaean Experiment website where I found this:

Adolf und die Ubermen von der Golden Dawn

In the history of Hitlerism, or rather in certain aspects of this history, everything happens as if the whole conception on which it was based has baffled the ordinary historian so that, if we want to understand, we shall have to abandon our positive way of looking at things and try to enter a Universe where Cartesian reason and reality are no longer valid.

We have been concerned to describe these aspects of Hitlerism because, as M. Marcel Ray pointed out in I939, the war that Hitler imposed on the world was a "Manichaean war," or as the Bible says, "a struggle between gods." It is not, of course, a question of a struggle between Fascism and Democracy, or between a liberal and an authoritarian conception of society. ...

The Golden Dawn

This society was called the Golden Dawn, and its members included some of the most brilliant minds in the country. Arthur Machen was himself a member.

The Golden Dawn, founded in 1887, was an offshoot of the English Rosicrucian Society created twenty years earlier by Robert Wentworth Little, and consisted largely of leading Freemasons. The latter society had about 144 members, including Bulwer Lytton, author of The Last Days of Pompeii.

The Golden Dawn, with a smaller membership, was formed for the practice of ceremonial magic and the acquisition of initiatory knowledge and powers. Its leaders were Woodman, Mathers and Wynn Westcott (the "occultist" mentioned by Toulet in his letter of 1900).

Arkadiusz Jadczy has established an organization called The Quantium Future Group, which is based in California. They hold workshops in France.

Here is another website that seems to belong to the Jadczyks. The same books are advertised.

If you click this link at the top of the website:

New! Pentagon Strike Flash Presentation by a QFS member

You will get the Pentagon 9/11 video that started this investigation, though it will not be at the slakdaddy web address.

E-MAIL FROM LEE PENN

Watch and pray.

- Welcome to the Tablet

Quote:

Putin "also made a thinly disguised attack on the West. “There are those who want to bite off a fat piece from the Russian territory and those who help them,” he growled. Putin hinted that those unnamed forces still consider Russia’s nuclear potential to be a factor to be reckoned with and they want to change this to weaken Russia even more. This last passage is said to have been inserted at the last moment at the insistence of the so called siloviki – “enforcers” in Russian – a hard-line faction in the Kremlin and the Government, which consists of ex-KGB officers. They are the ones reported to have been behind the arrest of the owner of the Yukos oil company, Mikhail Khodorkovsky, and to have been actively promoting a return to Soviet-era isolationism, anti-Western foreign policy and curtailing of liberties on the domestic front."

If Russia discovers (or "finds") evidence of Western involvement in Chechen separatism, the stuff may hit the fan.

Kyrie eleison.

Lee
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Putin’s dilemma: how to save Russia

Konstantin Eggert

In the wake of the Beslan atrocity, the President and the people face a stark choice: more authoritarianism or more modernisation?

IN NEARLY a decade of working for Russian newspapers in a previous life, I never saw a front page like it. Apart from a single giant photo of an anguished man holding in his arms a wounded girl of eight or nine, there was nothing else on the page but Izvestia, the newspaper’s masthead. That was the Russian daily’s wordless statement in its issue last Saturday, the day after more than 300 people, half of them children, were killed in a school in the North Ossetian town of Beslan.

On the following pages were horrifying reports from the scene of the hostage drama and questions, questions, questions. “How did the terrorists get unchecked and unseen to the school building?” “Why did the authorities try to minimise the estimated numbers of people held in the building?” “What led to the chaotic storming and why were Russia’s special forces unprepared for it?” “Are all terrorists accounted for or did some of them manage to escape?” And finally, after less than a fortnight since two aircraft were downed by suicide bombers, an explosion near the Moscow underground station that killed 10 and the Beslan tragedy: “Who will be held responsible for appalling security lapses? Will some top heads finally roll?”

On Monday, I came to the office to find a newsflash on my computer screen: Raf Shakirov, Izvestia’s editor, one of the most talented Russian newspapermen and a good acquaintance of more than 10 years, had resigned: officially, of his own will; semi-officially, because of the dramatic Saturday edition; unofficially, because he chose to have his own line on the whole issue of terror – a line that did not please the Kremlin. Billionaire Vladimir Potanin, the king of Russian nickel and the owner of Izvestia, seems to have decided the editor’s fate to ensure his own survival. So, the heads have started rolling…

I returned to Russia from a trip abroad the day after the mayhem in Beslan. Outwardly, little was different: more police presence on the underground was the only visible sign of tension. Travel agents report the cancellation of 20,000 trips to Russia by foreign tourists; my wife – along with, no doubt, tens of thousands of mothers across the country – decided not to take our elder daughter to a theatre performance, just as a precaution. Otherwise, in Moscow business goes on as usual. The country’s most prosperous and most cynical city has seen enough tragedies over the past 15 years to become almost resigned to its fate.

But the questions that Izvestia posed continue to be debated – in families, in offices, on newspaper pages. The only place where there is no discussion is on state television. On its screens, state bureaucrats busily help families of the victims; the Minister of Education promises to raze the old Beslan school and build a brand new one; one after another, men in epaulettes promise the nation to bring all terrorists to justice and ensure public safety. A string of pro-government politicians and commentators rail against the perfidious West, which “abets terrorists” and still demands a political solution in Chechnya. But there are no debates, no awkward questions. Newspapers are read by no more than 15 per cent of the adult population. Nearly 90 per cent of Russians get all their information from the TV.

In his televised address to the nation, President Vladimir Putin made no mention of Chechnya. He only talked about “international terrorism”, thus refuting any suggestion that his policy in the North Caucasus will change. After the election of a new Chechen President, Alu Alkhanov, who replaced the former president, Akhmad Kadyrov, killed in a bomb attack in May, Putin said the country faced two options – to give in or to unite and fight on. “In fact”, he said, “there is no choice: we have to fight terrorism.” The president has admitted that Russia’s law enforcement system is corrupt and incapable of facing the challenge. He promised new measures “to strengthen the unity of the country”, “to create an effective anti-crisis management system” and “to coordinate law enforcement in the North Caucasus”. But Putin has said all this before, and provided no specifics.

He also made a thinly disguised attack on the West. “There are those who want to bite off a fat piece from the Russian territory and those who help them,” he growled. Putin hinted that those unnamed forces still consider Russia’s nuclear potential to be a factor to be reckoned with and they want to change this to weaken Russia even more. This last passage is said to have been inserted at the last moment at the insistence of the so called siloviki – “enforcers” in Russian – a hard-line faction in the Kremlin and the Government, which consists of ex-KGB officers. They are the ones reported to have been behind the arrest of the owner of the Yukos oil company, Mikhail Khodorkovsky, and to have been actively promoting a return to Soviet-era isolationism, anti-Western foreign policy and curtailing of liberties on the domestic front.

Stanislav Belkovsky, one of the Kremlin’s PR consultants, told me: “Russia is ripe for a change of the national elite. We need to discard the Westernisation policies of the Nineties and go instead for the new national idea. It should be unashamedly imperial, based on the traditional values and Orthodox Christianity. The Russian people are ready to be united behind this ideal.”

The former foreign minister Andrei Kozyrev, a self-professed liberal and Westerniser, claims the opposite: “The country needs more freedom, not less. It needs to embrace the West as a natural ally in the war on terror. Democracy, respect for human rights and a market economy are the only way we can create a functioning, robust state which will effectively confront and defeat terror.”

Putin’s TV appearance fell short of a manifesto, proclaiming the new course, but it is clear that an intense struggle is being waged within the presidential entourage for the right to determine future policies.

The Duma is expected to pass laws which would severely curtail coverage of terrorist acts and increase the powers of the security services, which have already returned to their Soviet-era prominence and inscrutability. “Securitisation of politics and policy” has become the Moscow pundits’ favourite term. “Our special services are understaffed and underfinanced,” says MP Gennady Gudkov, a former state security officer. “We need to overturn the tendencies of the last decade, when these services were neglected.”

But the independent military analyst Pavel Felgenhauer disagrees. “In Beslan we’ve seen thousands of Russian special forces fight a 10-hour battle with what was reported to be a group of 30 terrorists. This is a defeat in itself,” he said. “Corruption, lack of professionalism, bureaucratic and political cowardice of the top brass are to blame.” But the problem is not just the personnel. Russian officials and politicians make frequent comparisons with Israel’s tactics to combat suicide bombers. Andrei Ryabov of the Moscow Carnegie Centre wrote in the Gazeta newspaper: “These comparisons are very superficial. First, it took Israel years to build its security system and it is still not perfect. Secondly – and more importantly – after every suicide bombing open public debate in Israel is re-ignited. Actually, it does not stop for a minute. And while here we discuss how many more policemen we need to deploy in the underground, in Israel the argument is about the essence of the government policy vis-à-vis the Palestinians.”

In Russia, where government policy in Chechnya is a taboo subject, no effective policy can be worked out, because the Kremlin does not want to listen to any critique, says Ryabov. Popular radio talk show host Yulia Latynina was even blunter – probably the bluntest of them all: “Terror in Beslan is the rebels’ response to the official propaganda lies which portray Chechnya as a peaceful place, where elections are held and harvests gathered,” she said. “As if ordinary Chechens were not killed, abducted for ransom and maimed by the federal army all these years. The monsters who took the children hostage in Beslan are the product of the central authorities’ policy. And President Putin, as the one who as Prime Minister launched the second war in Chechnya in 1999, cannot escape responsibility for this.”

And what about the ordinary people? Talking to friends, neighbours and taxi drivers provides a unanimous opinion: this is not the end; more acts of terror will follow. The Chechen conflict – fuelled by Muslim radicalism – will spill over into Russia’s other North Caucasian republics. But people’s feelings will remain confused: on the one hand, hatred of the Chechens and Muslims in general will be on the rise; on the other, distrust of the authorities will increase.

Society is torn between the idea of keeping Chechnya in Russia’s fold at any cost and a recognition that mutual hatred between the Russians and the Chechens makes it all but impossible to live together. Most people crave security and it is still unclear whether the horrible events of the last two weeks will provide a boost to those who say a fully fledged authoritarian regime is capable of curing Russia’s ills, or whether the people will remain ambivalent about the issue.

But feelings of fear and cynicism dominate; even if such a regime is introduced, people will hardly oppose it. There is no organised political opposition and no leaders of a nationwide stature to stand in the way of greater authoritarianism. All politics in Russia are concentrated in the few corridors inside the Kremlin. The question that is haunting the political agenda in Russia after Beslan is this: will Putin want to openly go for the hard-line option or will he continue his uneasy balancing act between modernisation and authoritarianism?

Konstantin Eggert writes for The Tablet from Moscow.

OPINIONS ANYONE ?

A website has come to my attention. I'm not sure what to make of it and would be interested in knowing what the rest of you think.


UPDATE

The language is German, I think, which is why it's difficult to understand. Is that Hitler speaking, does anyone know?

A short way into the video there is a link in the bottom righthand corner which goes to this website.

There you will find a book for sale:

Ancient Science: Anti-gravity, Alchemy, the Ark and the Holy Grail: A Radical Reassessment of Myth and History

It seems to be written by the wife of the website owner.

This is not the first time I've seen such topics associated with 9/11. On the day of the tragedy three news sources ran a story on the supposed upcoming Bible changes. The one I've linked even referenced the work of Baigent and Leigh, authors of "Holy Blood, Holy Grail." It appeared at The Times website as the article indicates at the above link, but is no longer available at The Times. The other two sources were the UK Guardian, and Dawn.

A link offered on the lefthand side (Links) will take you to a website that allows you to link to Quantum Future Physics which seems to be a website of one of the authors of the group that put together the original video. This man claims to have expertise, but I don't see any university degrees, accredited organizations, indications of peer review at the website. Mainly, it appears to be one man's opinion on an esoteric subject that most would not be able to discern.

If you go to the bottom and click the "home page" link, you will come to Arkadiusz Jadczyk's homepage which is written in English and, I believe, Polish. This site appears to sustain his claims of expertise. I note also that he quotes Gurdjieff.

HURRICANE IVAN

The most detailed account I've found on the condition of Grenada after the storm is this one, and the following comment was the most poignant in the report:

An opposition MP, Kenrick Fullerton, who walked two miles through debris to reach the bodies of four constituents, said many people had ignored warnings to get ready for the storm because they had been put on alert so many times before.

"It was a case of the child that cried ‘wolf’ too many times," he said. "I kept telling them, ‘This one is bad, this one will come’, but they ignored me."

Human beings can even become jaded to the imminent warning of death. When we think we've heard it all before, we refuse to respond.

Terrorism, too, will reach this saturation point when the world community will harden their hearts in a turn to more interesting news. And then those who want attention will need to find another more shocking method to get it.

The spiritual side of our lives can also deteriorate in this way. We are told to pray and repent, but we've heard the message before and nothing terrible happened. Life went on, and we come to think that life will go on. Then one day God issues a moment of reckoning. He says, in a sense, "I am sovereign. You will attend to Me."

Is that what is happening in the Carribean and in Florida? Are these storms wake-up calls?

The article on Ivan ends this way:

Ivan’s track was last night leading it directly towards Jamaica as a Category 5 hurricane, the most extreme level on the Saffir-Sampson scale. The prime minister, PJ Patterson, warned his people they were in "imminent danger" and urged them to pray.

Ultimately our buildings cannot shield us. Our possessions are dust in the wind. Our very lives are not our own. God will get our attention. We will turn to Him either the easy way or the hard way. And as the prime minister has indicated, ultimately there is no other refuge for man.

BLACK LEADERS SUPPORT CATHOLIC UNIVERSITY OF AMERICA'S REJECTION OF NAACP CHAPTER

MANASSAS, VA – African-American leaders of pro-life organizations and Black Catholic ministries have signed a statement supporting the Catholic University of America’s refusal to officially recognize and support a student chapter of the NAACP. The statement was circulated by the Cardinal Newman Society, a national organization that advocates a strong religious identity at Catholic colleges and universities.

Last spring, the university rejected a NAACP chapter partly because of the NAACP’s official position in support of abortion rights, which conflicts with Catholic teaching. In April, the NAACP helped organize and support the pro-abortion “March for Women’s Lives” in Washington, D.C., partnering with the National Organization for Women (NOW), the Feminist Majority, NARAL Pro-Choice America and Planned Parenthood. For the first time in its 95-year history, the NAACP National Board of Directors unanimously endorsed “the principle that women have the right to equal access to family planning materials, information and choice.”

The NAACP’s national leaders have taken other positions offensive to faithful Catholics, including opposition to federal funding for religious organizations that lawfully “discriminate” based on religion when hiring employees—a key element of President George W. Bush’s “faith-based initiative”. In February, NAACP chairman Julian Bond joined African-American gay and lesbian activists in support of homosexual “marriage.” The NAACP website links to radical organizations including the National Gay & Lesbian Task Force, NOW and People for the American Way.

“The NAACP is falsely labeling the Catholic University of America—and by extension all faithful Catholics and pro-lifers—as ‘racist’ because we won’t compromise our faith,’”said Patrick Reilly, President of the Cardinal Newman Society. “It would be hypocritical for a Catholic institution to host and support a chapter of a national organization that declares the willful destruction of human life to be a ‘civil right.’”

Following a June meeting with University president Very Rev. David O’Connell, C.M., NAACP president Kweisi Mfume threatened a lawsuit against the school. O’Connell agreed only to meet with concerned students this month. Media reports have suggested a possible compromise allowing a student chapter of the NAACP that does not share the national organization’s support for abortion rights.

But the African-American leaders’ statement supporting Catholic University of America rejects any compromise allowing a chapter “that claims neutrality on abortion while affiliating with a national organization that advocates abortion rights”. Regardless of the chapter’s position, affiliation with a national pro-abortion organization is inappropriate for a Catholic university.

Signers include Day Gardner, director of Black Americans for Life and a former Miss America Pageant finalist; Gloria Purvis, spokesperson for Black Catholics for Life; Deacon Harold Burke-Sivers, founder and director of the Christian evangelization and apologetics program Aurem Cordis; and leaders of diocesan ministries to African Americans in eight states.

The NAACP’s pro-abortion position has not been popular with many African-Americans. A poll of Black Enterprise Magazine readers in April and May found 59 percent opposed the NAACP taking any stance on abortion. During the NAACP’s national convention in July, national leaders refused to allow Macon, Georgia chapter of the NAACP to bring the issue to the floor for debate and a vote. Rev. Clenard Childress, director of the Life Education and Resource Network (LEARN)—the nation’s largest African-American pro-life organization—declared the NAACP’s action “nothing less than censorship”.

“[T]he recent decision of the national leadership of the NAACP to endorse abortion rights policies represents an abandonment and a betrayal of this organization’s commitment to fighting for equal rights for all,” read the Macon chapter’s resolution. The resolution noted that 14 million African-American children had been killed by abortion since it was legalized in 1973, and the issue of abortion rights “is still extremely controversial among rank and file African-Americans and by no means a decided issue.”

Dolores Grier, former vice chancellor of the Archdiocese of New York and founder of the Association of Black Catholics Against Abortion, told the National Catholic Register in July that the Catholic University of America should reject ties to the NAACP “because they are not in accord with the teachings of the Catholic Church on abortion.” Grier turned down an honor as “woman of the year” by the NAACP’s New York City chapter because of her pro-life convictions.

THE ANSWER

A couple of days ago I asked the question, "Can theater do what bishops cannot?" in reference to a one-act play scheduled to be performed at St. Gertrude's Catholic Parish in Chicago. The play, titled THE ANSWER, concerns a politician under fire for supporting pro-abortion legislation, who subsequently discovers that his daughter had an abortion while in college which he knew nothing about.

Here's a link to the press release which explains the plot in more detail.

Delle Chatman, the writer-director of the play, has a story of her own to tell. She was profiled on the Jerry Lewis MDA Telethon over the Labor Day Weekend. She is a victim of ovarian cancer and the autoimmune disease dermatomyositis, and fought her way back from being too week to feed herself in 2002. This play is her celebration of recovery.

But back to the original question..."Can theater do what bishops cannot?"

I was pleasantly surprised to discover email from Chatman in my mailbox today. She liked the question and wanted to answer it, and she has given me permission to blog her answer. Here it is:

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I am so happy to be able to respond, Ms. Tomko, as writer and director of "THE ANSWER" now thigh-deep in rehearsals and on a march toward an opening three weeks from now in Chicago, "Yes, theater *can* do what bishops can not!"

Theater can make up a story based on events and inspired by real life situations and individuals, and then take its characters down all sorts of turns to the left, right, up, down, and sideways, exploring the possibilities, the whatifs, the maybes, the heartaches. And maybe a play can nudge its way into fresh territory the priests and pundits haven't explored with much relish because of their agendas and the constraints of their position.

I have created a character who is Catholic, Democrat, running for re-election in a state where his bishop has personally denied him Communion sending his campaign into an unforeseen crisis. This senator does not personally believe in abortion, but he legislatively he has supported a woman's right to choose. However, I further complicated his life by having a reporter reveal that the senator's own daughter had an abortion when she was in college, an abortion her father knew nothing about. Then the young woman died a few years afterward in a car accident, leaving her powerful parents childless.

So, his advocacy of pro-choice legislation has come home to roost so to speak, at great cost now to his political career (even among his supporters). What's worse, the revelation destroys the comfort zone of his marriage, for his wife counselled the daughter while dear old dad . . .

And all this grief comes to the fore just a month before Election Day.

As a playwright, I can do what a bishop can not: I can explore that marriage, that family. I can create a relationship between the senator and his atheist movie star brother and his chain-smoking, I-had-an abortion-too campaign manager. I can even bring the dead girl back across the barrier between this world and the next and ask her if she has any regrets . . .

In other words, theater can allow us all to use make-believe to explore our convictions with feeling, with depth, but without the sense of righteousness or condemnation and fear that immediately descends on folks the instant they start talking about abortion as an issue or a sin or a political football.

As we rehearse in church where the play will be performed -- for that is where the senator is hiding out for an hour between campaign appearances -- I'm struck again and again by how beautifully consoling the house of God is and how powerful the sacraments are to those of us who believe in them as conduits for grace.

With the play's blend of sacred music and gospel, God's mercy is rendered ever so slightly more accessible, too. That feels sweet . . . and it may be just a bit past the bishops' reach right this moment.

Theater was re-born in the morality plays and passion plays of the Middle Ages. The Mass is one of the greatest plays ever scripted, re-enacting one of the greatest stories ever told about one of the Greatest Storytellers Who Ever Lived.

So, occasionally it can happen that theater might be able to best a bishop when it comes to breaking open the Bread of Life *and* serving it up for people to handle, taste, and consume.

It is my prayer and hope that October 1 - 3, audiences at St. Gertrude's Parish in Chicago step into church to see a play . . . and leave having had a sacred experience.

Thank you for posing such a thought-provoking question in your blog?

Peace and Power in Christ Jesus,

Delle Chatman

Writer-Director/THE ANSWER
The play that asks the most provocative question of
any political campaign: Can a vote be a sin?
http://www.theanswerin2004.com

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Apart from the subject matter of the play, one of the reasons it caught my attention is that the play is performed inside a Catholic church. This is problematic.

To begin with, the document from the Congregation for the Sacraments and Divine Worship titled *Dance in the Liturgy*would seem to apply here. Plays...theater...in Western culture can be and usually are profane. We do not have a tradition here in America of offering morality or mystery plays in a religious setting. A play is not liturgy, and Catholic churches are about sacred ritual. They are more than gathering spaces. They are the house of God reserved for His interaction with His people. God, not man, is the center of attention in a Catholic Church.

While this play has a moral that I presume is Catholic, though I haven't seen it, it is still a secular activity, just as dance is secular. Therefore the prohibition spelled out by the Congregation would apply. In other words, a place needs to be found for the performance "which [is] not strictly liturgical."

I wish Delle Chatman much success with this endeavor. Anything that will reach Americans at an emotional level where the reality of abortion can be experienced vicariously is positive. But I also hope that in the future she will reconsider the venue and the possibility of choosing a more appropriate one.

CHESTERTON WAS ONCE A UNITARIAN

A reader sent in a link to a Christian History website where Adam Schwartz describes G. K. Chesterton's transformation from atheist into Roman Catholic. Get this: He found it easier to fulfill that vow by the summer of 1920, as he contemplated the declarations of the Anglican Church's Lambeth Conference. At Lambeth, the Anglican bishops showed willingness to bend doctrines in the name of Christian unity and offered only tepid condemnation of such quasi-Christian movements as spiritualism, Christian Science, and theosophy. [emphasis mine] Chesterton detected the taint of Modernism throughout.

As he elaborated a few years later, in the Toronto Daily Star, "the Church of England does not speak strongly. It has no united action. I have no use for a Church which is not a Church militant, which cannot order battle and fall in line and march in the same direction." Only in Rome, where rebellion against modernity was the rule, did unequivocal orthodoxy prevail.

The poor man must be having apoplexy in Heaven if he has taken note of the present state of the Roman Catholic Church!

FROM THE MAILBOX

A reader sent in this Press Release...

FOR IMMEDIATE RELEASE TO THE PRESS

Release Date: September 8, 2004
Contact: Mark Adams 318-794-1170

BISHOPS CONFERENCE WITHDRAWS PRESIDENTIAL QUESTIONNAIRE

In a letter released to the US Bishops on Friday, the US Conference of Catholic Bishops' Office of Government Liaison announced they have withdrawn the Presidential Questionnaire which had been delivered weeks ago to the Bush and Kerry campaigns. At this moment the press office of the USCCB has no statement prepared but we are told by diocesan sources that at least one of the campaigns did not return the questionnaire by deadline. "We have been critical of the Presidential Questionnaire because it improperly equates doctrinal issues like abortion with judgment calls like the minimum wage," said Austin Ruse, President of the Culture of Life Foundation. "We also welcome the fact that candidate Kerry will not be able to use the questionnaire to claim he is a faithful Catholic when we know he actively opposes Church teaching on fundamental issues."

THE MARXIST - FEMINIST FABLE

At the AmericanDaily website, commentator Carey Roberts links the feminist agenda to the Marxist agenda, and offers some arguments for the fallicy of the oppression of women, and the consequences for civilization of pursuing this thinking. Needless to say, I found it intriguing.

ANOTHER CATHOLIC PRESIDENTIAL CANDIDATE

From The Miami Herald:

A maverick former DFLer who's running for president under the banner of his self-styled "Christian Freedom Party" says he knows he can't win.

Thomas Harens, a public-relations entrepreneur and self-described "flake," will be on the presidential ballot only in Minnesota. He said he doesn't know whether he will get just a few votes or enough to affect who gets Minnesota's 10 electoral votes.

Harens acknowledged that his new party's name might draw votes from President Bush, the Republican who has strong support among conservative evangelical Christians.

But he said his party is pitching its appeal to liberal or "progressive Christians," who oppose the war in Iraq and favor social justice and stronger environmental protections.

Harens, a former DFL legislator from St. Paul who describes himself as a "forever-practicing Catholic," says he will appeal to religious voters who feel that Democrats don't care about them and that Republicans are misrepresenting true Christian values.

ABORTION PROMOTING NUNS

U.S. Newswire has picked up the story on the Catholic nuns (Immaculate Heart of Mary) who contributed to the coffers of an organization that supports women politicians who support abortion:

Sister Mary Katherine Hamilton told the Detroit Free Press that her order was not trying to make a "political statement" about abortion with their donation. However, the group's actions are in clear contradiction to the teachings of the Church and have sent a message that marginalizes the inherent evil in the mission of Emily's List. "There is no confusion about the fact that the goal of Emily's List is to continue to force abortion on our society through the election of pro-abortion women to public office," said Starrs. "There is absolutely no reason for any Catholics, especially an order of Catholic sisters, to support such a group. The bottom line is, you can't be Catholic and pro- abortion."

The Archdiocese of Detroit is responsible for disciplining this congregation, according to the article.

ISLAM

Over at Envoy Encore there is a blog about the Russian School titled "They Knifed Babies, They Raped Girls". Take a look at the comments. A poster signing "FA" who says "I am a Middle Eastern, Iraq is only a few hundred kilometres from where I live(actually I came to a western country to finish off my studies a month ago....and no it is not America). " posts some quotes from the Koran, saying that it justifies all types of killing.

The poster makes another interesting comment..."I would like to add that all these problems would go away if only our Pope consecrates Russia. Its as simple as that."

Meanwhile the Pope puts his faith in Assisi events.

Our Lady of Fatima, pray for us!

REPORT FROM ROME--POPE IN COMMAND

Pittsburgh's Bishop Donald Wuerl says the Pope is alert:

Wuerl says his conversation with the Pope so far shows that he's -- quote -- clearly in command of the audience -- end quote.

Wuerl says it takes John Paul longer to formulate words, but says the Pope has asked him questions -- even though he was told beforehand that the Pope found it so difficult to speak that he wouldn't be questioning the bishops.

RING AROUND THE ROS...UMM...ALTAR

Novus Ordo Watch has these pictures linked. I presume it's some sort of children's costume party in Germany. If any of you can read German, maybe you could clear that up?

In any case, I find the witch doing the readings rather outrageous. And that hand-clasped arrangement around a table in front of the altar...? Lord's Prayer?

Then there is the cross in this set of pictures. Click it for a better view. Christ in a dress and obviously not nailed to the cross. A risen image of sorts? It's hard to even tell who is represented here.

Or how about this cross? NOW calls it a "junk cross." Pretty good description. More German language on this website, too. Might help explain why European churches tend to be empty.

This altar looks an awful lot like the block of stone in the UN Meditation Room. Servicable for any and all faiths.

This one has to be seen to be believed! Looks like it belongs on the set of Star Wars. Come to think of it, "Luke" is even in there! The traffic light can be seen in the "group of pictures."

DEBUNKING THE "CODE"

William H. Kennedy debunks two arguments presented by Dan Brown in his infamous book at the Daily Catholic website.

POPE'S MESSAGE TO SANT'EGIDIO MEETING

Zenit carries two articles on this speech. One is titled "Pope's Message for 'Men and Religious' Meeting 'To Withstand the Logic of Violence, Revenge and Hatred".

The other is titled "Violence Won't Halt Terrorism, Says Pope". Both articles appear on the 2004-09-08 listing of Latest News.

A reader who is disturbed by the message in the first article listed above highlights the following statements:

"Religions and Cultures: the Courage to Forge a New Spiritual Humanism." For me it is a joy and a consolation to see that the pilgrimage of peace I started in Assisi in October 1986 did not stop. On the contrary, it continues to grow in terms of participants and fruits. ...

Our world needs this spirit. It needs convictions and behaviors that secure a solid peace to flow from this spirit, to reinforce international institutions and promote reconciliation. The "spirit of Assisi" urges religions to give their contribution to the new humanism today's world needs so badly. ...

I was convinced of this in October 1986 in Assisi, when I asked people belonging to all religions to gather side by side to invoke God for peace. I am even more convinced of it today: as the body grows weak, I feel the power of prayer grow. ...

Meeting generates in itself a new humanism, a new way of looking at one another, of understanding each another, of envisioning the world and of working for peace. At the Meeting there are people capable of staying next to one another, who discover how friendship enables them to perceive the extreme dignity of every man and every woman and the richness that is often rooted in diversity.

Dialogue releases the courage for a new spiritual humanism, ...

He talks like this just days after Beslan?? He talks of "spiritual humanism"?? And Assisi??

Is he delusional? The style of writing doesn't even sound like him. Where is the Papal "We"? Who wrote this thing?

This is the "New Springtime"? Winter never looked so good!

The Pope is not in Rome. The Pope had to be reminded to consecrate at the Mass in Lourdes, or so I was told. The Pope is too feeble to come back to Rome until the end of September.

Is the Pope in exile? Are his statements being made for him? By whom?

The article mentions Walter Kasper.

Our Lady of Fatima, pray for us!

THE POPE ON TERRORISM

and pacifism is a topic of duscussion at Bettnet. Comments are interesting. No one over there seems to be siding with the Pope, including Dom.

In order for there to be meaningful dialogue, both sides must have something to gain. If one side in the dialogue wants something that opposes what the other side knows God expects of them, what's the use of dialogue?

THEY SHOOT CHILDREN, DON'T THEY ?

A reader sent in this story from Jewish World Review. From the website:

These are some of the atrocities being committed by Muslims in different parts of the world today. It is, of course, only a minority of Muslims that engages in such horrors, but it is only Muslims who are doing all these things. Christians aren't — even among Palestinians, there are no Christian terrorists. Jews aren't — and when one Jew did deliberately kill innocent Palestinians in 1994, the rest of the Jewish world was horrified and demonstrated its revulsion in word and deed. Buddhists aren't — despite the destruction of Tibet by the Chinese Communists, no Buddhists have murdered innocent Chinese, let alone non-Chinese who deal with China.

With the psychopathic cruelty at a Russian elementary school, have we reached the point where people of goodwill can ask serious questions about Muslims and Islam? Or are any challenging questions still to be dismissed as "Muslim bashing" or, even more absurdly, "racist," as if religion were a race?

The truth is that everyone with a conscience has questions about Muslims and Islam. But the most powerful religion in America, the religion of tolerance, has rendered it almost impossible to ask any such questions. Most people are so afraid of being branded intolerant that the most natural and goodhearted questions are only posed by the handful who have the courage to do so (usually conservative Christians).

DABBLING IN THE OCCULT

Michael Brown has an essay up on the Spirit Daily website titled "Proximity to the Occult Brings with it Anguish, Bad 'Luck,' and Actual Spirits." If you or anyone you know is considering delving into the occult, it's worth reading.

He may sound like he is over-reacting, but there is a reason why I won't read rituals. This stuff is dangerous.

BLOGGING FRUSTRATION

For some reason Blogger has not been working all day. I'm still not sure if the problem was in my computer or not. Anyway, at the moment it seems to be working, so it's time to be thankful for small graces, I guess.

THE RUSSIAN SCHOOL...

Interesting theories emerging from this tragedy!

1. What if the leader of Russia fostered a terrorist plot via his secret police as a form of chaos magick?

2. The town that suffered was an Orthodox Christian town in the midst of Muslim territory.

3. We are led to believe it was a Muslim, and not a Russian, attack.

4. The Vatican newspaper and the Pope, himself, withholds comments for too long to maintain their credibility in the face of this tragedy.

5. But the one that is most horrifying is that the war of worldviews has descended into being a war on children. Does this 5th point reflect an extension of the war on babies through abortion...a practice that has taught us to reject childhood in every manifestation?

A reader sent in the Chiesa editorial on Beslan. It pulls no punches where the Vatican is concerned.

Some excerpts:

John Paul II remained silent for five days before dedicating passionate words to the "many defenseless little ones of Beslan, in Ossetia, the tragically massacred victims of a barbarous hostage situation," and praying for the children, "the treasure of humanity," who suffer and die throughout the world. He made the remarks during his general audience Wednesday, September 8.

As for the official organs of the Holy See, in their reaction there was an unusual obfuscation of the enemy - Islamist terrorism - and a disarming silence about the religious faith of those killed.

In the region of the Russian Caucuses, which are Muslim, Ossetia is the only Christian enclave; its 700,000 inhabitants are almost all of the Orthodox faith. And it is there that the Islamist terrorists deliberately carried out the slaughter of women, men, and even more so of children. ...

Blondet's vision of the world is known. He has exhaustively exposed it in books and commentaries, for example in those compiled at www.effedieffe.com/interventi.html. He has written that George Bush invaded Iraq for the sole purpose of "eliminating a regime that threatened Israel"; that the White House "is in the hands of the neo-cons, who are almost all Zionists"; that one of the authors of the bloodbath in Madrid on March 11, 2004 "seems to have been a Jew" and that the "Islamic" network to which he belonged "had been infiltrated by Mossad," the Israeli secret service.

The article quotes sheikh Yassim:

Israel does not negotiate, because it considers itself the Messiah, and in Talmudic doctrine, the messianic times 'are [a time] of conquest, not of negotiation and concession.' Israel uses other human beings like flesh to be gnawed upon, because that's what its religion teaches: non-Jews 'have no place in the world to come,' if not that of servants and human fodder to be endlessly oppressed.

Messianism. How much of what we are seeing in both the world and the Church is brought about by Messianic belief? Does the current position of the Vatican with regard to the "elder brother" status of the Jews embolden Israel to pursue aggressive goals? Being the Chosen People does not exempt Israel from sin.

While the Pope was silent, the Orthodox bishop of Stavropol and Vladikavkaz in Ossetia spoke out:

"I closed the eyes of children shot in the back by the terrorists, I carried them in my arms. Can anyone who carries out such acts be called a liberator? One does not fight for liberty by killing children. There is a lesson hear for all of humanity: terrorism is an evil that can strike anywhere, in New York, in Madrid, on a bus. And humanity has no other choice than to unite against terrorism. This struggle comes first of all; afterward we can clarify our political differences."

Once again, the Pope is being accused of an inability to identify with wounded children. Shades of the sexual abuse crisis loom in the background of this silence. Why does he come off looking like he has a hardened heart?

The article implies that this is the thinking in the Vatican:

In effect, concern for protecting the Christian minorities in Islamic countries pressures Church authorities to defend the stability of the authoritarian regimes in those countries, and to adopt very permissive forms of dialogue with Muslim representatives.

In the face of the global challenge of Islamist terrorism, their illusion is that by denying the very existence of that challenge – for example, by the continual, ritual deprecation and denial of the "clash of civilizations" – they remove the Church from the list of possible targets.

The Pope apologized for the Crusades which were launched to defend Christianity from agressive Islam. Just recently the pope told the world's Catholics to prepare for martyrdom. In the face of this tragedy, it would appear that he is telling the Muslims that we will not defend ourselves...we will not defend our children... As he and the Church have not defended the children who were sexually abused?

The result is that, frequently, dialogue undertaken by the authorities of the Catholic Church together with Muslim proponents is inconclusive, or, even worse, counterproductive.

Does a time come when showing that you are willing to die in the name of peace guarantee that is exactly what you will have to do? The only way for evil to triumph is for goodness to do nothing.

Unqualified forgiveness, repeated 70 times 7, with no expectation of repentence or a change of direction, enables evil to flourish. When all the good are dead in the name of peace, evil will have won.

Consecrate Russia as requested.

Our Lady of Fatima, pray for us!

MORE ON THE BESLAN SCHOOL

A reader sent in these articles discussing what lies behind the atrocity in Russia. First from the Guardian Unlimited:

The detainee, identified by a lawyer as Nur-Pashi Kulayev, said on both state-run channels that he and other members of the group were told the goal of the raid was "to unleash a war on the whole of the Caucasus" - the same thing Mr Putin had said was the attackers' aim.

Another from the Guardian claiming a link between Putin and the Moscow apartment blast in 2002.

From MosNews.com:

Akhmed Zakayev, a special envoy to Chechen separatist leader Aslan Maskhadov has said that “a third force that brought Russian President Vladimir Putin to power” is behind all the terrorist attacks committed in Russia over the past two weeks. London-based Zakayev said this in an exclusive interview with the Caucasus Times newspaper, printed in Prague, Czech Republic.

Finally from Jihad Unspun, an article making similar claims.

Chaos magick? Create situations of anarchy in order to justify destroying freedom?

Politicians who will stop at nothing in the quest for increased power?

Our Lady of Fatima, pray for us!

HOMEOPATHY

is practiced by Catholic women religious. This article at Spirituality & Health: The Soul/Body Connection describes them and their activities. "Catholic Sisters and Holistic Pioneers" tells us:

Sisters have been on the forefront of caring for the sick for 1,600 years, says Sister Schugart, a former hospital administrator, who founded the Heartland Center because she had experienced the current health care system as more of a “sickness system.” Today, the ministry of the Dominican Sisters of Great Bend offers massage and homeopathy, among other therapies, as well as workshops.

That is just one community of Catholic nuns mentioned in the article.

But the sisters are not the only ones who are talking like New Age practitioners. There are the Spermo-Gnostics as well.

Peter R. Koenig has a certain stature in Gnostic circles as an expert in the field. A reader sent in this link to his website and a discussion of Spermo-Gnostics from which the following is taken:

The term I have introduced above, the concept of "homeopathy" surprisingly is used as a method often with the ascetic way of Gnostic life. Homeopathy surprisingly has a lot in common with Gnosticism itself. (4*)
Homeopathy and Gnosticism both regard the material plane as the most unimportant to man. Both concepts seek a bringing back of man/humanity in/to a primitive/archaic state of health/salvation. This state manifests itself on the highest spiritual/divine plane. Both, homeopathy and Gnosticism teach that healing and/or salvation happens from Above to Below and from Inside to Outside (which reminds us of Hermes Trismegistos' Emerald Table of the Rosicrucians and the Freemasons). But while Gnosticism offers salvation/health either via "Optimum through Maximum" or "Optimum through Minimum", homeopathy follows the middle path of balance.

There is quite a lot more in the website--some of it unfit to quoe in this blog. The upper degrees of the OTO are described near the bottom. There is also a passage that taken independently might almost make you think you were in a Catholic website--though a Catholic one with some mighty strange ideas:

The "Caliphate"-"Gnostic Church" also parodies the Roman Catholic traditions in introducing offices like "Patriarch", "Archbishop", "Bishop", (Novitiate) "Priest"/"Priestess" and "Deacon" (Priest and Deacon already appear in Reuss/Crowley's Gnostic Mass of the 1910s) (21*). Nowadays, they offer services like: Baptism Ceremony for a Child, Baptism Ceremony for an Adult, Confirmation Ceremony, Ceremony for Ordination of a Deacon, A Wedding Ceremony, A Ceremony for a Greater Feast for Death, A Basic Exorcism Rite (there seems to be a growing emphasis on exorcism), A Ceremony for Visitation and Administration of the Virtues to the Sick; they have a Saintship (no woman appears on this list) and Animal Benefictions [once at http://www.scarletwoman.org/soter/beastb.htm].(43*) Christian prayers are attached also to the "Caliphate"-V*-ritual: "The Litany of the Holy Name of Jesus", "The Litany of St. Joseph" and "The Litany of the Blessed Virgin Mary". This is to be taken as reference to the Aeonic Magus of the LAST Aeon, as a reminder that these Great Cycles build each upon the others ... also that the True Master was not at all the political hatchet job made of Him by Paulism. These prayers (that is, the initiation rituals) are accompanied by music of Mozart, Holst, Strauss, Mahler and the like. (44*) Obviously unaware of the traditional meaning of the expression "Wandering Bishops", some of their "bishops" call themselves "Landed Bishops".

Christ, the Paulist hatchet job. What will they come up with next? Maybe we should ask Dan Brown? Or perhaps a trendy nun if we are unfortunate enough to run into one.

GNOSTIC ROSARY

Fr. Bryce has this Gnostic Rosary website linked at Saintly Salmagundi. I don't remember seeing this version before.

He has also linked the North American College of Gnostic Bishops. Interesting list of rites.

FROM THE MAILBOX...

Dear Catholic Blogger,

My name is Chris Christensen, and I am one of the Co-presidents of the Association of Students at Catholic Colleges (ASCC). ASCC is ready to release its newest project, Faith Essentials for the Catholic College Student, a free(!!), monthly online publication aimed at Catholic college students. The purpose of my email is to ask you to help ASCC get the word out by blogging a short post about Faith Essentials. Each issue contains 2 articles relating to the Catholic Church in some way by a Catholic scholar (all faithful to the Church!). Our first issue features an article by Mr. Dale Ahlquist, President of the American Chesterton Society, called "The Perils of Being a Complete Thinker" as well as an artcile by Rev. Brian Daley, SJ, of the University of Notre Dame, called "Mary, Sign of Salvation." Future contributors include Dr. Peter Kreeft, Bishop Thomas Welsh, Dr. John Cuddeback, and Mr. Mark Shea. Although Faith Essentials is aimed mainly towards college students, the articles can be helpful for Catholics of any age and even for curious non-Catholics. To subscribe, all you have to do is visit our website - www.catholiccollegestudents.org/faithessentials.html. When Faith Essentials comes out every month, subscribers will receive an email announcing the new issue, the full text of which will be on our website and linked to in the email. I would greatly appreciate your assistance in helping ASCC reach as many people as possible. If you do decide to blog about Faith Essentials, I would ask that you please do it today or tomorrow, because our first issue comes out this Friday (10 Sept)!! Thank you very much, and may God bless you and Mary keep you!

Sincerely,
Chris Christensen
Co-President, ASCC
http://www.catholiccollegestudents.org/

=================================================

Since I haven't seen it, I can't comment on it. - ct

THE COURAGE TO SAY IT...

A reader sent in this New York Times Op-Ed by David Brooks, titled "Cult of Death". From the website:

We should by now have become used to the death cult that is thriving at the fringes of the Muslim world. This is the cult of people who are proud to declare, "You love life, but we love death." This is the cult that sent waves of defenseless children to be mowed down on the battlefields of the Iran-Iraq war, that trains kindergartners to become bombs, that fetishizes death, that sends people off joyfully to commit mass murder.

This cult attaches itself to a political cause but parasitically strangles it. The death cult has strangled the dream of a Palestinian state. The suicide bombers have not brought peace to Palestine; they've brought reprisals. The car bombers are not pushing the U.S. out of Iraq; they're forcing us to stay longer. The death cult is now strangling the Chechen cause, and will bring not independence but blood.

But that's the idea. Because the death cult is not really about the cause it purports to serve. It's about the sheer pleasure of killing and dying.

It's about massacring people while in a state of spiritual loftiness. It's about experiencing the total freedom of barbarism - freedom even from human nature, which says, Love children, and Love life. It's about the joy of sadism and suicide.

GEORGE SOROS

Envoy Encore has a link to the Focus on the Family/Citizen Magazine website, titled "Furious George."

He's been called everything from "the world's angriest billionaire" to "New Age messiah." He's also-among other things-the mastermind behind efforts to bring down President Bush and overthrow traditional morality. And he's willing to spend whatever it takes to do it.

The 74-year-old billionaire is perhaps best known for contributing millions of dollars to forces on the far left such as MoveOn.org, the group that gained notoriety for posting a Web ad comparing President Bush to Adolf Hitler.

But that's not all: For the past few years, Soros also has been quietly sinking millions upon millions of dollars into campaigns for homosexual rights, abortion rights and "medical" marijuana. One foundation expert, for example, said in the past five years alone Soros' foundation has provided $31 million to pro-abortion programs and organizations. Joseph Califano, former secretary of health, education and welfare in the Carter administration, has called Soros the "Daddy Warbucks of drug legalization."A Hungarian immigrant and self-proclaimed atheist, Soros once described himself as a kind of trinity—financier, philanthropist and philosopher.

TUESDAY

There doesn't seem to be much happening in Catholic news at the moment. Weather, however, is on everyone's mind as we watch the pictures of devastation coming to us from Florida. Here is northeast Ohio the skies are gray. Frances is expected to dump up to 7 inches of rain on us in the next few days.

Thinking about destructive weather leads to thinking about ways it could be controlled. Experiments with cloud seeding have been going on for some time.

Nicola Tesla thought he had discovered a way to cause earthquakes.

AC current, the invention that made Westinghouse possible, was discovered by Nicola Tesla. His invention lit the 1893 Chicago fair, where the first Parliament of the World's Religions took place.

In 1931, Tesla had a new idea. He wanted to end war, and invented the "death beam" to create an "invisible Chinese wall" around countries that could bring down aircraft. This was the first charged particle beam weapon. Russia was paying attention, as PBS reports:

Of all the countries to receive Tesla's proposal, the greatest interest came from the Soviet Union. In 1937 Tesla presented a plan to the Amtorg Trading Corporation, an alleged Soviet arms front in New York City. Two years later, in 1939, one stage of the plan was tested in the USSR and Tesla received a check for $25,000.

Another of his inventions:

He also conceived the science of telegeodynamics, now known as seismology, and explained that a long sequence of small explosions could be used to find ore underground and could create earthquakes large enough to destroy the Earth. He did not experiment with this as he felt there would not be "a desirable outcome".

Were Tesla's ideas used to cause the massive power grid failure that left New York City in the dark not long ago? At least some believe it was a military test:

Very few people showed up to the public comment meeting in Cleveland, Ohio on December 4th, prompting Rep. Dennis Kucinich and four other members of Congress to accuse the D.O.E. of failing to adequately notify the public, according to the Akron Beacon Journal

. The first point Michael made was that the Task Force Interim Report failed to address the possibility of Electro Magnetic Pulses causing the blackout. He noted that it is known HAARP was turned on at 4pm on August 14th, just 11 minutes before the blackout occurred. He stated the Air Force should be contacted and required to turn over all documentation pertaining to what HAARP was used for on that day.

Something is afoot, prompting Dennis Kucinich to introduce HR2977, the Space Preservation Act of 2001. If the last passage in that bill--

(C) The term `exotic weapons systems' includes weapons designed to damage space or natural ecosystems (such as the ionosphere and upper atmosphere) or climate, weather, and tectonic systems with the purpose of inducing damage or destruction upon a target population or region on earth or in space.

--doesn't raise your fear factor a notch or two, it should. Imagine the chaos if the power grid were shut down in the midst of a "natural" disaster such as Florida is experiencing, or an earthquake, or a series of tornadoes. Most people stay in communication via transistor radios. Vital information can be broadcast from a station that still has power, and people make decisions to evacuate, where to get life-sustaining essentials, where shelters are located, via those transmissions. Imagine the panic if that vital information were not available. Imagine how that panic could work to the advantage of an enemy government that brought it about.

And when you're done imagining, read the Book of Revelation.

Our Lady of Fatima, pray for us!

THE RUSSIAN SCHOOL

If you haven't seen this story linked by Rod Dreher in Amy's blog, which describes the horror inside the Russian school during the hostage crisis, you might want to read it.

It brings to mind Soloviev's book "War, Progress, and the End of History" which described similar evil.

At the Tech Central Station website Stephen Schwartz evaluates the political situation in Russia this way:

So at least 350 children, parents, and teachers dead in Beslan, with more than 200 unaccounted for, is, finally, business as usual for the Russian state. It would seem to be high time for the West to recognize this. Russia and Putin are no more reliable partners in the global war on terror than the kingdom of Saudi Arabia, which also engages in lying on a cosmic scale.

Of course, Putin, as a veteran of the Soviet secret police, has adopted the Stalin method for dealing with responsibility in such events. When the Soviet state proved unable to satisfy the exaggerated promises it had made to its citizens in the 1930s, under the Five Year Plans, of plentiful consumption and prosperity, first the Bolshevik old guard and then the top leaders of the military were massacred to give the people a sense that "those to blame would be dealt with." Today, Russian TV, under Putin's control, accuses "generals and the military and civilians" for the terrible outcome in North Ossetia.

Some startling details of the Beslan massacre deserve further investigation, but since Russia, like Saudi Arabia, feels no need to account for its state actions to its people or to the world, it is doubtful they will be the subject of serious inquiry.

First, many Russians, experts on Russia, residents of the borderland states in Central Asia, and experts on Islamist extremism believe there is some kind of hidden link between the terrorists involved in attacks on schools and other such targets, and the Russian secret police. The logic is simple: Russian leaders always need an enemy, preferably one both inside and outside the country, to unite their discontented masses behind them. In the past the enemy was the Catholic Church, then the Jews. But stoking hatred of Catholicism causes problems with Poles, Lithuanians, and Ukrainians, who fight with much better weapons than suicide bombs, namely, financial power and access to Western media. And incitement against the Jews brings on an instant and negative response in the U.S. and Western Europe. In this context, the Russian and Caucasian Muslims are the obvious best choice as a chosen, cultivated threat with which to terrify the ordinary populace. Putin needs the terrorists as much as they need him; they are engaged in a dance of death, where each justifies the actions of the other.

Our Lady of Fatima, pray for us!

PAX CHRISTI LABYRINTH

Sun Newspapers reports on a Sept. 2 Pax Christi presentation titled "The Labyrinth: Joyful Journey, Path of Peace":

Lisa Gidlow Moriarty, a certified labyrinth facilitator, will lead the presentation. The designer of the Pax Christi labyrinth, she will discuss the history and practices of labyrinths.

Moriarty is Chair of the Gathering 2004, a working group of the Labyrinth Society. Click the picture on the website for an enlargement. Moriarty is in the center of the front row.

This quote comes from the "Energy Keepers" link in the website:

As requests come in, Energy Keepers imagine the individual or situation in the center of the labyrinth envisioning him or her returning to his/her sacred center to connect to the Source of All that Is. This is followed by using individual preferred methods of energetic healing including Reiki, prayers, meditation, or surrounding the situation in Light as well as walking or finger walking labyrinths with the individual in mind. This is done in the Energy Keeper’s own time. There are no requirements but the Energy Keeper’s willingness to serve, and the inner knowing that the highest solution is already in place for each situation.

All this imagining...Starhawk (see below) would be right at home here. What prompted Pax Christi to think Catholics would be right at home here as well?

Moriarty didn't use any of her earth energy lingo for the Pax Christi website. Just inter-religious dialogue jargon here. But it is hardly a secret that Goddess worship and labyrinths go together.

An Insight Magazine article titled "Wicca Infiltrates the Churches" documents the spread of goddess worship in Christian churches and ties the labyrinth to Wiccan ceremony:

At the PCUSA-owned Ghost Ranch retreat center in New Mexico last fall, women were invited to "celebrate the sacred feminine goddess in the land of enchantment with art, movement, ritual and song. Honor the goddess within each woman. Tell your Herstory with art, voice, dance ritual. Walk a Hopi labyrinth. Create art with your symbolic Goddess language. ... Dance at the temple of the Living Goddess. Connect us with a sacred circle with very special women for mutual transformation. Share the Magic!"

We are slowly becoming a Pagan faith.

Our Lady of Fatima, pray for us!

STARHAWK

updates us on the activities of RANT at the Republican Convention:

They pulled me up to my feet, pulled my arms behind my back, and put plastic handcuffs on my wrists. I visualized my wrists being twice as fat as they are, and sure enough got cuffed loosely enough that I was confident I could slip them off. Then they hauled me up into the paddy wagon, which was rapidly filled with some of my dearest friends in the world. The door slammed. We were going to jail.

If she can imagine fat wrists and slip the cuffs, can I imagine her conversion to Catholicism and accomplish it? Hmmmm.

FLAT TAX

Since communist backing, abortion and gay marriage positions have eliminated Kerry from consideration as far as I'm concerned, I'm now looking at Bush to determine whether a vote for him can be cast in good conscience.

He's got one strike against him with Lee's indication that he supports United Religions Initiative. This morning an article in the paper mentioned his support of a flat tax.

There is little doubt that our tax system is a mess. Past attempts to clean it up have only made it more unreasonable. Loopholes abound. If I were going to fix it, I would change the standard dediction to reflect what is considered a living income, a number placed at least as high as the poverty level. Surely that would bring about some improvement in the situation.

Bush has other ideas. On the surface his flat tax idea sounds interesting, but we don't know how exactly this would work. So are we voting for a dressed up tax increase here? Would it truly reflect the need to address the poverty level so as to stop taking the grocery money from the poor?

BRINGING FAITH ALONG TO WORK

A concept that has gotten negative publicity in recent years, is being given a positive spin in Columbus, Ohio, with a program called Forum For Faith In The Workplace.

The Forum was formed in 1998, is Christian interdenominational, and has some high-powered executive and educators from Ohio State.

I didn't find any Catholics in the group, but an Akron area Catholic priest, together with an Akron attorney, is promoting the concept here, and referenced this website in an article in today's paper.

MATTHEW FOX PROMOTES ERNEST HOLMES

in an essay on his Creation Spirituality website titled "Ernest Holmes as a Creation Spirituality Mystic."

By the third paragraph he is already spouting Pantheism:

The objective universe is the Body of God. That body includes our physical being.” (p. 4.) The universe is how we name the divine in the human for “Every man becomes a unique manifestation of the Whole, a microcosm within the Macrocosm; rooted in the Infinite, he personifies it….God incarnate in man.” (p.31) Not only humans manifest Divinity but “everything that exists is a manifestation of the Divine Mind; but the Divine Mind, being inexhaustible and limitless, is never caught in any form; It is merely expressed by that Form. The manifest universe, then, is the Body of God.” (p.87)

You know, just in case you forgot that you are God.

Fox could have upgraded his presentation by quoting Rudolf Steiner instead of Holmes. Steiner says just about the same thing, but there is actually a rather well established organization called Anthroposophy to make Fox and his Friends feel right at home. To the best of my knowledge, though, Steiner never promoted original blessing. Maybe I've forgotten, or missed it, but I don't think he did. Apparently Holmes is more congenial to Fox's thought processes.

I see that in item 6 he mentions the Upanishads. Maybe he'd like to have my "Gather" hymnal (see below)? He'd probably like it a lot better than I will.

A picture of Ernest Holmes. While you're in the website, take a good look at the links on the left. Then there is this page in the same website. Sort of lays out what the folks who admire Ernest Holmes also like. Some of the Catholic women religious would be right at home.

Our Lady of Fatima, pray for us!

MULTI-CULTURAL MASS AND HYMNBOOKS

For years I've been hearing about the "Gather" hymn book, mostly in negative terms, especially among conservative Catholics on the web. All I knew was what I read since my parish used "Glory and Praise." My ignorance is about to be corrected. We have new hymnals in the pews as of today, and you guessed it..."Gather." Courtesy of some children's group or other. If it's as bad as I currently have the impression it is, I can learn not to sing. I've learned a whole bevy of other sparkling new lessons since Vatican II.

Like the idea that God prefers Mass in the vernacular and so Latin must go. Well, ok, I've learned to like Mass in the vernacular. But a reader sends in a link to The Curt Jester's blog where one of the songs in "Gather" is discussed.

The Upanishads. Well, that means that at least one of the songs in some "Gather" hymnal or other breaks the First Commandment.

So...do I stay home and break the Church's commandment to attend Mass, or do I go to Mass and break God's First Commandment? Either way I'm failing to keep the Sabbath holy. Attending a Mass at which a hymn based on strange Gods is being used is unholy.

In any case, there were a couple of songs used today that just rubbed me the wrong way, and I didn't sing. Never liked to sing in church all that much anyway. I can do more of that not singing I guess.

The reader who sent the above link also mentioned in her e-mail that she attended a church where each Sunday a language of choice is selected and the congregation is taught to make the responses in this foreign language, all in the interests of multi-culturalism, you understand.

Heck, if I want to use a language I don't understand, Latin is a good choice. I guess along with not singing Hindu songs, I can not respond in Swahili, too. Is attending Mass in a state of all-consuming anger still going to keep the Sabbath holy? Somehow I don't quite think so.

ON THE CAMPAIGN TRAIL IN PICTURES

sent in by a reader:

"It's not just Bush, it's capitalism."

Communist Manifesto

"Keep your laws out of my draws."

? ? ? ?

Sex Workers for Choice

"Liberate Women - Smash Marriage"

E-MAIL FROM DR. BOND

Dear Friends,

In the quotation below from the latest Scranton Times article on the federal lawsuit filed against Bishop James Timlin, the Diocese of Scranton, the Society of St. John, Fr. Carlos Urrutigoity, Fr. Eric Ensey, the Fraternity of St. Peter, and St. Gregory's Academy (http://www.scrantontimes.com/site/news.cfm?newsid=12804301&BRD=2185&PAG=461&dept_id=415898&rfi=8), attorney Joseph Leeson shows his true colors:

Bethlehem attorney Joseph Leeson, who represents St. Gregory's and the Priestly Fraternity of St. Peter, the order that runs the school, was one of the few who would comment.

Aside from the John Doe complaint, there have been no specific allegations of improper activity that in any way involved the school, he said.

"Nothing happened at the school and we question whether anything happened at all," he said. "This is the only student at the school, as far as we know, who ever made this allegation."

In response to Leeson's absurd comments, let me set forth just a few of the many specific allegations of improper activity involving the Fraternity of St. Peter (FSSP), the Society of St. John (SSJ) priests, and the boys at St. Gregory's Academy (SGA):

(1) Urrutigoity has admitted under oath that he slept in bed with SGA dorm father, Fred Fraser.

(2) Stephen Fitzpatrick has admitted under oath that he himself slept in bed with Urrutigoity when his SGA class took an overnight trip to New York City. Fitzpatrick has also testified that he saw another SGA boy in bed with Urrutigoity.

(3) Patrick McLaughlin has testified under oath that he, while a student at St. Gregory's Academy, witnessed another SGA boy, Nicholas Sauve, sharing a bed with Urrutigoity.

(4) Mr. Paul Hornak, a former SGA teacher, has testified under oath that Urrutigoity shared a sleeping bag with two SGA boys, Eric Kopec and Sean Farrell, on a SGA camping trip.

(5) Mr. Hornak has also testified under oath that he informed Fr. Arnaud Devillers, the superior general of the FSSP, that Urrutigoity had engaged SGA boys in "near-homosexual activity."

(6) Fr. Daniel Oppenheimer has testified under oath that he did indeed write the following statement: "Father Urrutigoity's taste for boys was known at the FSSP headquarters and yet nothing was done, in true FSSP style, to rectify the situation other than covering it up."

(7) Mr. Joseph Sciambra, a former postulant with the SSJ, testified under oath that Fr. Oppenheimer admitted to him that there were sexual problems involving SGA boys and the SSJ priests in residence at St. Gregory's Academy.

(8) Mr. Sciambra has also testified under oath that Urrutigoity shared a sleeping bag with a SGA boy who was part of a group of SGA boys who spent the night camping on the SSJ property in Shohola.

(9) Alan Hicks, former SGA headmaster, has admitted under oath that he allowed SGA boys to travel to Canada with a man whose wife had informed Hicks that her husband collected homosexual pornography.

(10) Fr. Gabriel of the Servants Minor of St. Francis has testified under oath that, while he was in residence at St. Gregory's Academy, he witnessed numerous improper acts between Urrutigoity and SGA boys: Urrutigoity and a SGA boy alone in a room drinking and smoking together after curfew; Urrutigoity encouraging upperclassmen to haze and act violently toward underclassmen; Urrutigoity providing alcohol and tobacco to SGA boys; Urrutigoity setting up his bedroom in a bathroom at St. Gregory's Academy; and SGA boys appearing in their bedclothes in the SSJ wing of St. Gregory's Academy.

Leeson is well aware of the above testimony, and much more. How, then, can Leeson claim that, aside from the John Doe complaint, "there have been no specific allegations of improper activity that in any way involved the school"?

While it is true that John Doe is the only SGA student to file a lawsuit for sexual abuse and negligence, we know that many SGA boys and dorm fathers slept with SSJ priests, as well as two graduates of St. Gregory's Academy who have, under oath, accused Urrutigoity of luring them into his bed.

Perhaps Leeson, like former SGA headmaster Alan Hicks, is only concerned about "completed sexual acts." Does Leeson not consider it "improper" for priests to sleep with boys? Certainly it would be good to know if this is also the position of Leeson's client, the Fraternity of St. Peter, which continues to present itself as an orthodox order of Catholic priests, and seems to have no qualms about being represented by an attorney like Leeson.

Pax vobiscum,

Dr. Jeffrey M. Bond