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October 31, 2007
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“The only problem with a living sacrifice is it wants to crawl off the altar.”
The Christian’s sacrifice is to be a living, holy and acceptable sacrifice to God.
The apostle Paul wrote, “Therefore I urge you, brethren, by the mercies of God, to present your bodies a living and holy sacrifice, acceptable to God, which is your spiritual service of worship” (Romans 12:1).
Original post by mattpruett@faith-net.net (Faith Community Church of Canton NC) and software by Elliott Back
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Wed Oct 31, 2007 6:26 pm (GMT -5)
http://www.dailymail.co.uk/pages/live/articles/news/news.html?in_article_id=490925&in_page_id=1770&ct=5
Christmas should be ‘downgraded’ to help race relations says Labour think tank
By JAMES CHAPMAN Last updated at 22:46pm on 31st October 2007
Christmas should be downgraded in favour of festivals from other religions to improve race relations, says an explosive report.
National celebration: But could Christmas soon be ‘downgraded’?
Labour’s favourite think-tank says that because it would be hard to ‘expunge’ Christmas from the national calendar, ‘even-handedness’ means public organisations must start giving other religions equal footing.
The leaked findings of its investigation into identity, citizenship and community cohesion also propose:
• ‘Birth ceremonies’, at which state and parents agree to ‘work in partnership’ to bring up children
• Action to ‘ensure access’ for ethnic minorities to ‘largely white’ countryside
• An overhaul of Britain’s ‘imperial’ honours system
• Bishops being thrown out of the House of Lords
• An end to ’sectarian’ religious education
• Flying flags other than the Union Jack.
The report by the Institute for Public Policy Research was commissioned when Nick Pearce, now head of public policy at Downing Street, was its director.
IPPR has shaped many Labour policies, including ID cards, bin taxes and road pricing.
The report robustly defends multiculturalism - the idea that different communities should not be forced to integrate but should be allowed to maintain their own culture and identities.
And it says immigrants should be required to acquire some proficiency in English and other aspects of British culture ‘if - but only if - the settled population is willing to open up national institutions and practices to newcomers and give a more inclusive cast to national narratives and symbols’.
It adds: ‘Even-handedness dictates that we provide public recognition to minority cultures and traditions.
‘If we are going to continue as a nation to mark Christmas - and it would be very hard to expunge it from our national life even if we wanted to - then public organisations should mark other religious festivals too.
‘We can no longer define ourselves as a Christian nation, nor an especially religious one in any sense.
‘The empire is gone, church attendance is at historically low levels, and the Second World War is inexorably slipping from memory.’
The report, written by IPPR advisers Ben Rogers and Rick Muir, calls on Ministers to launch an ‘urgent and upfront campaign’ promoting a ‘multicultural understanding of Britishness’.
‘Multiculturalism can be shown to provide for a fairer and more liberal society and does not necessarily lead to social division and community conflict, as its critics have claimed,’ it says.
Councils must act to ‘ensure children mix and are able to form friendships with pupils from different backgrounds’.
The report adds: ‘Any liberal state should recast the civic oaths and national ceremonies, or institutions like Parliament and the monarchy, in a more multi-religious or secular form and make religious education less sectarian.’
The presence of bishops in the House of Lords, for instance, is condemned as an ‘anachronism’ that should be removed.
The system in which parents are required to register a new baby at a register office is dismissed as ‘purely bureaucratic’.
The occasion should be transformed into a ‘public rite’, using citizenship ceremonies for immigrants as a model, the report says.
‘Parents, their friends and family and the state [would] agree to work in partnership to support and bring up their child.’
Rural Britain, the report complains, ‘remains a largely white place’.
Much more needs to be done to ‘ensure access’ to the countryside for black and ethnic minority groups, disabled people and children from inner-city areas.
Sayeeda Warsi, the Conservative spokesman on community cohesion, said: ‘Their comments betray a breathtaking misunderstanding of what it is to be British. These proposals could actually damage cohesion.’
She added: ‘You don’t build community cohesion by throwing out our history and denying the fundamental contribution Christianity has played and does play to our nation.
‘As a British Muslim I can see that - so why others can’t just staggers me.’
And she attacked ceremonies to mark the registration of a baby.
‘The thought of Gordon Brown sharing responsibility with me for bringing up my children sends a shiver down my spine. I thought we got rid of communism?’
Original post by mattpruett@faith-net.net (Faith Community Church of Canton NC) and software by Elliott Back
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Wed Oct 31, 2007 3:42 pm (GMT -5)
http://www.behindthepinecurtain.com/wordpress/?cat=53
There is some graphic content here, so I’ll apologize in advance. I also don’t necessarily subscribe to the views of the author or the owner of the website, but the facts should speak for themselves regarding the depraved spiritual condition of this famous monastery.
I think I can say without any equivocation that the men who go here by the name Benedictines, live on spiritual capital they did not produce but work like a pernicious virus undermine it with impunity.
-O6
Oct 31, 2007 - St. JohnÂ’s Abbey Suffers Relapse [Richard Sipe]
Filed Under: Review Board, A.W. Richard Sipe, Celibacy, ISTI, John Klassen, Tom Andert, Timothy Kelly
On October 23, 2007 a priest spokesman for St. JohnÂ’s Abbey in Collegeville Minnesota issued, in part, the following statement to the St. Cloud Times:
“In 1994 third-party concerns were expressed about the friendship of Father Tom Andert, OSB, with a student. The concerns led to an intensive internal investigation. As part of the investigation the student was invited to the Abbey and, in an interview with Abbot Timothy Kelly, OSB, he categorically denied that any sexual misconduct had occurred. The investigation revealed no credible charges of sexual abuse.”
That is not at all the whole story that has occasioned abuse victimsÂ’ uproar after the Abbot John Klassen appointed Andert as a representative on the External Review Board overseeing misbehavior of monks and also Prior of the Abbey, that is, second-in-command of the institution celebrating its 150th anniversary of founding this year. The Abbot and lawyers created the External Review Board in 2002 as a protective mechanism to assure adequate oversight of behavior. It was a condition to an agreement when a raft of abuse cases were settled.
What I have to say about St. JohnÂ’s Benedictine monastery in Collegeville, Minnesota and the priests in this controversy is from my personal experience. That experience began in 1994 and continues to this day-with the young man I will call Ned, his parents, the family he lived with after the events, Abbot Kelly, and as background, with four monastic superiors who have been acknowledged being actively inappropriate with people inside and outside the abbey community. It is the story of men who profess to be celibate and present themselves and each other to be sexually safe. But they are not safe. In fact, many are dangerous, especially to the welfare of the young and the vulnerable.
My name is Richard Sipe. I served as the personnel director of St. JohnÂ’s Abbey from 1968-1970. I was also the elected Chair of the Board of the St. JohnÂ’s University Interfaith Sexual Trauma Institute from 1994 to 1996. I have been a consultant or expert witness in several hundred cases of sexual abuse of minors by clergy including cases in Boston and Los Angeles; and I have appeared as a trial witness in five states. I served as an advisor to the Attorney GeneralÂ’s office of the State of Massachusetts and the District AttorneyÂ’s Office of Philadelphia in preparation of grand jury investigations of sexual abuse of minors in their respective jurisdictions.
I have spoken to all the principles in this case, save Abbot Kelly, in the days of October 23 to 29, 2007 and reviewed my records. This is more than the story of one adolescent boy and his headmaster. It is the story of a miasmic institution-a whiff of a noxious atmosphere.
The story I am about to tell concerns a holy place where I discovered pollution.
Ned insisted last week that his story is not one of gayness, and he is absolutely correct. The story is one of betrayal of celibacy and power.
While I chaired ISTI a mother of two former Prep School students came to me with concerns over the behavior of Headmaster Fr. Thomas Andert. A Prep School student, Ned, was living with her family in St. Cloud for a semester of his senior year while his parents were located in another state.
The young man had made a suicidal gesture during his junior year as a boarder at St. John’s and spent several days in St. Cloud hospital for observation and psychiatric therapy. It was during this time that Fr. Andert first paid more attention to him, than was appropriate according to Ned’s recollection and his father’s latter estimation. Later when he was able to talk about the incident Ned told the woman he was living with, that Andert told him, “your problem is you are gay, but can’t accept it.” Much later when Ned was able to tell his father about the whole relationship he quoted Andert, “When are you going to be ready to tell me you’re gay?”
After his return to school the headmaster paid a great deal of attention to Ned for the rest of the semester. Andert took him to the Twin Cities and treated him to dinner and wine at an expensive restaurant (Ruth Chris) and cruised two gay bars with him. (According to one account given closer the time of the incident, his house mother recalled that Ned said they briefly entered one bar). The priest reassured Ned that it is “OK to be gay” and that he (Andert) was gay. At times Andert gave Ned liquor (scotch) in his private quarters, wrote him letters (that I have read) that affirmed his love. Were there affectionate touches-neck rubs, back rubs, hands on thighs? Yes. More? That is Ned’s story alone to tell.
Ned’s parents were oblivious of any improper dimension to the relationship and were grateful to Andert for the attention he gave their son during his trying semester. In gratitude they invited Andert to take a trip with them. In one hotel the parents shared a room and their son shared a room with Andert down the hall. According to the father’s account: about one or two o’clock in the morning Ned “was beating furiously on the door” and burst into their room. They, not knowing anything about any sexual tension or conflict, tried to convince the boy to return to his room with the priest. The father told me that the boy refused to go back to the room and “cried uncontrollably” in his arms for several hours; Ned spent the rest of the night with his parents. Ned admits to some kind of trigger-or “vibe,” in Ned’s terms-for his panic reaction. The day following this incident Andert, Ned, and his father went white water rafting. Ned’s father was embarrassed by Ned’s “rudeness” to Andert and took him aside and scolded him for his behavior, still completely oblivious to the sinister dimensions to the relationship with his son.
During the first semester of his senior year his housemother, also unaware of any trouble at school, noticed Ned became distraught and tense. She was supportive and listened to his concerns. With great difficulty, but over time Ned finally told her much of the story-the trips, the liquor, and intimate approaches. He complained to her that Andert was E-mailing him in spite of NedÂ’s requests to stop.
Both ‘foster’ parents personally reported the behavior to Abbot Timothy Kelly. They felt (and were) dismissed.
They were frustrated but the only advocates Ned had, since he would not yet share his concerns with his parents. They appealed to me to speak with Abbot Timothy once they heard my connection with the SJU Institute to combat abuse problems. I did. His response to me was glib, “Oh, he (Andert) may have a bit of a drinking problem.”
Ned became more anxious during the second semester of his senior year and moved to his grandmother’s home in the same area; his mother came from her home in another state to be with Ned to support him while he finished his final year at SJP. It is important to remember that all of these families were “Johnnies” of several generations standing and substantial supporters of St. John’s.
But Ned was finally able to share his concerns with his parents. Once Ned’s parents heard his story they went to see Abbot Timothy. Their experience is still fresh and distasteful. Whether from information at this interview or from other sources, Abbot Timothy agreed to remove Andert from the prep school. As he assured the parents, he “patted” Ned’s mother on the head and said, “Don’t worry, everything will be OK.” She still shutters at the memory and finds the meeting “condescending.” Ned and his parents felt intimidated and humiliated.
Ned’s dad, an ardent long-time supporter of St. John’s, was a class ahead of Andert when they were in Prep School. In hope’s of smoothing the edges of the conflict of the demotion from headmaster, Ned’s dad and his wife invited Andert to supper at Pirate’s Cove, an up scale restaurant in the area. Andert had a great deal to drink and told the parents that his new assignment was his “perfect dream job.” And it was…”to be a prefect in a college dorm; have his desk across from the door of the showers where (he) could watch the young tight white asses of the boys going in and out.”
The Abbot appointed Andert prefect in the freshman college dorm. Ned’s father met again with Kelly and told him: “From what I have seen this man is a threat to students.” He meant even college students. Kelly said, “What do you expect me to do?” Kelly in turn chided Ned’s father for talking to me about the situation and continuing concern.
After KellyÂ’s indifference, his transfer of Andert simply to an older group of potential victims plus the lack of any response to several reports from other parents and even monks who turned to me for the same assistance I felt tremendous pressure. I had talked about all of it to Kelly in private. (Every private report was ignored and put down, even those later acknowledged and settled by the Abbey. No investigation.)
Here I was Chair of a project set up to protect children and help eliminate dangers, first and foremost at St. John’s, and the head of the institution turned a deaf and defiant ear to the information that I was relaying to him. I polled the Executive Committee of the ISTI board for advice. They seemed supportive of my determination to speak with Kelly openly in an Executive Board meeting on September 18, 1995. The reaction of Abbot Timothy Kelly can only be described as verbally violent and rejecting. “I will not be manipulated,” are some of his words I remember.
Ned insists that his situation is not a question of homosexuality. He is correct. The crisis of Andert and St. JohnÂ’s is an ongoing crisis of power and betrayal. It is a crisis of celibacy-advertised-but-not-lived. It is a crisis of men in positions of power that betray their responsibility to students and others and refuse to be accountable.
There was neither an intensive internal investigation conducted in NedÂ’s case as Fr. Skudlarek claims-my records show a great deal of intimidation-nor was there an adequate investigation in several other cases I presented to Abbot Kelly; even those where the Abbey admitted culpability in the end.
Father Thomas AndertÂ’s behavior is not a matter of hearsay. Neither was the reported inappropriate behavior of more than 45 other monks hearsay. Nor is it misleading, unverified, or false that AndertÂ’s appointment as the second in command of the monastery follows in a long tradition of superiors of the monastery who were non-celibately active. I have had the painful task of interviewing a number of people who suffered inappropriate friendships with Abbot John Eidenschink and novice master, Cosmas Dahlheimer. Michael Blecker, former Rector of the Seminary and President of the College was a guest in my home after he became HIV positive; my wife and I visited him when he was in hospice. I reviewed his death certificate and spoke with the funeral director who embalmed him. At Halloween St. JohnÂ’s Abbey does not have to don scary costumes; it has plenty of frightful skeletons that can give the unwary the creeps.
There is a much longer historical account to be written. There are records. Suffice it to say that St. JohnÂ’s Abbey has not yet come to grips with the vapors from problems that still slither along its halls and endanger others as well as its own wellbeing.
October 30, 2007
A.W.Richard Sipe
La Jolla, CA 92037
www.richardsipe.com
Go Back
Note: This document is provided solely for educational purposes. Should any reader wish to quote or reproduce these documents for sale, the original publisher should be contacted and permission requested. The behindthepinecurtain.com web site makes no claim regarding the accuracy of any document we post.
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nemo se tradere tenetur
Original post by mattpruett@faith-net.net (Faith Community Church of Canton NC) and software by Elliott Back
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About losing fear, conquering greedEconomic Times, India - 41 minutes agoI have talked about spirituality and religion earlier. Spirituality is about liberation, whereas religion, as it is understood and practiced, …
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Wed Oct 31, 2007 12:37 pm (GMT -5)
Pro-Life Rep Asks Bush to More Aggressively Oppose China Forced Abortions
by Steven Ertelt
LifeNews.com Editor
October 30, 2007
Washington, DC (LifeNews.com) — At a meeting of the House Foreign Affairs Committee last week, a leading pro-life Congressman asked Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice if the Bush administration would more aggressively oppose forced abortions in China. Rice confirmed the president would continue to oppose the Asian nation’s brutal policy.
China established a coercive one-child family planning policy in the 1970s that prohibits families there from having more than one child.
Violators are frequently forced to have abortions or sterilized and often see their human rights abrogated as they lose jobs, face persecution and are imprisoned.
Rep. Chris Smith, a New Jersey Republican who is the co-chairman of the Pro-Life Caucus, used his first question for Rice at the hearing to ask the Bush administration to be more vocal against the one-child policy.
“Since 1979, China’s one child per couple policy—with its heavy reliance on forced abortion—has actually murdered more children than all the mass killings of Joseph Stalin and Mao Tse-tung," Smith said in a statement given to LifeNews.com.
"The one child per couple policy has made brothers and sisters illegal, is being used today as genocide against the people of Tibet and the Uyghurs and has resulted in little girls being targeted for extermination and killed by the tens of millions," Smith added.
Patrick Creamer, Smith’s communications director, told LifeNews.com that Rice told the committee "that the [Bush] administration has always voiced their concerns about ChinaÂ’s one-child per couple policy, but there is always a question as to when to raise the issue."
"The Secretary said she would certainly be willing to have a dialogue with Rep. Smith about this issue," Creamer added.
Smith introduced a House resolution in September condemning the policy and the human rights violations resulting from it.
He told LifeNews.com he would "continue to push the Bush administration at every opportunity to step up their pressure on the international community to hold the Chinese Government accountable for this egregious human rights abuse."
Smith said he would follow up with Secretary Rice’s offer to talk more about what can be done to speak out on Chinese forced abortion
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Original post by mattpruett@faith-net.net (Faith Community Church of Canton NC) and software by Elliott Back
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Wed Oct 31, 2007 12:44 pm (GMT -5)
yahoo news 
Russia schools ban "cult of death" Halloween
Wed Oct 31, 7:50 AM ET
MOSCOW (Reuters) - Moscow schools have been ordered to ban students from celebrating the cult of the dead, better known as Halloween, despite the widespread popularity of the imported festival to Russia.
Halloween is being forced underground because it "includes religious elements, the cult of death, the mockery of death," a spokesman for the city’s education department Alexander Gavrilov said on Wednesday.
"It’s not an attempt to block the celebration of this holiday completely, just in schools and colleges," he added.
Pumpkins and images of witches are widespread across Russia, with many bars organizing special fancy dress parties, despite the efforts of the Kremlin and especially the Russian Orthodox Church to curb enthusiasm for non-native festivities.
"This is destructive for the minds and the spiritual and moral health of pupils," said Gavrilov, saying the ban had been recommended by psychiatrists.
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The Year of Living BiblicallyTheCelebrityCafe.com, NY - 1 hour agoThough now a religious person, Jacobs’ dormant spirituality is given the test as he decides the best way to truly understand religion is to immerse himself …
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Tue Oct 30, 2007 7:13 pm (GMT -5)
Cardinal Marc Ouellet
Lapsed Catholics at root of diversity debate: cardinal
Kevin Dougherty, The Gazette
Published: 1 hour ago
QUEBEC - Quebecers’ malaise over the reasonable accommodation of religious minorities is rooted in their abandoning the Catholic faith, Cardinal Marc Ouellet told public hearings on the issue yesterday.
Ouellet, who heads the Roman Catholic church for all of Canada, blamed “secular fundamentalists” for leading Quebecers astray.
Until the Quiet Revolution of the 1960s, the vast majority of French Quebecers were devout Catholics. Now, while most identify with their Catholic heritage, few practise actively.
“I think the major problem is the malaise of the Catholic majority which needs to find a religious reference point, which needs to renew with its spiritual values,” Ouellet told reporters.
“The distress of youth, the sharp drop in marriages, the weak birth rate and the frightening number of abortions and suicides, to name some of the consequences, add to the precarious conditions of seniors and of public health.
“Quebec is ripe for a new profound evangilization,” he added.
In his brief, Ouellet said this crisis of values has “serious repercussions on public health,” arguing it explains the runaway cost spiral in Quebec’s health system.
“What affects our soul also affects our body,” he said. “I believe Quebecers really need to rediscover their religious identity.”
The cardinal said if Quebecers went back to their Catholic symbols and observance, they would be more open to foreigners.
“Because Catholicism, the Bible and the gospel insist a lot on loving your neighbour, welcoming strangers, the good Samaritian,” he said.
“If we practised that we would not have problems with the handful of Muslims who are on our streets, or with the Jews who live in our neighbourhood,” Ouellet said. “On the contrary we would establish harmonious relations, welcoming relations, sharing, not only tolerance but respect toward all cultural communities.”
In English he added, “We have lost contact with the regular preaching of the gospel on Sunday, you know, the gathering around the eucharist which was key to the identity of the Quebec people.
“The day you take distance from this source of grace and blessing, you will find down the road social consequences.”
Commission co-chair Charles Taylor said Ouellet’s presentation was “very interesting,” but questioned him on his opposition to new religion courses in Quebec’s public schools, drawing on the teachings of seven major faiths.
Ouellet said he is opposed to the approach, because it is imposed and said the option of Sunday school for Catholics is not in Quebec’s traditions.
Max Gros-Louis, grand chief of the Huron-Wendat nation, which has a reserve within the limits of Quebec City, told the commission “the Jesuits did a good job with us. Most Hurons are Catholics.”
But Gros-Louis deplored that the first nations have been forgotten in the current debate, and suggested his people may have been too welcoming when Europeans arrived in the 16th and 17th centuries.
“We believed that the land is for everybody,” he said. “But we didn’t know that we were going to be pushed and pushed and pushed into a little Indian reserve where we don’t have any rights and where we don’t have any autonomy.
“Can you see all the Quebecers on a reserve?” he asked. “No, I can’t see that.”
kdougherty@thegazette.canwest.com
áL The Gazette (Montreal) 2007
Video in french
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Original post by mattpruett@faith-net.net (Faith Community Church of Canton NC) and software by Elliott Back
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