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New York Times News Service, 90/12/22©Jews from all over the
world are pouring into Israel at a record rate.
Jews from the Soviet Union are arriving at the rate of 3,000 to 3,500 per day.
The article reported that 20,000 Ethiopian Jews may arrive in Israel. The
Israel officials were "clearly elated by the surge of immigrants" and
predicted that, "when final numbers are tallied, 1990 may be a record or
near©record year for Jewish immigration."
The Jerusalem Post reported that in one weekend alone over 7,000 Soviet Jews
arrived in Israel and that "planes brought them hourly from East European
transit points, mainly Warsaw and Budapest."
15,000 JEWS ARRIVE IN 'PROMISED LAND'
The Israeli military censor ordered deletions from this report.
Aboard An Israeli Evacuation Plane (AP) © A two©day Israeli airlift has
plucked 15,000 Ethiopian Jews out of the besieged capital of Addis Ababa and
brought them home to their promised land.
Operation Solomon brought virtually all of Ethiopia's known Jews © © held to
be the descendants of one of the 10 lost tribes of Israel ©© to new lives in
the Jewish state.
The 40 flights, the largest such evacuation Israel has ever mounted, were
reminiscent of the biblical Exodus.
Ô h) 0*0*0*° ° ÔŒOne Boeing 747 carried 1,087 Ethiopian Jews, more than double
the normal capacity of a passenger jumbo jet. Eighteen people were jammed into
each row of 10 seats.
The airlift reflected the determination of the country, even after 43 years of
statehood, to bring Jews to their ancient homeland.
At Ben©Gurion International Airport and an adjacent military airfield, the
newcomers walked, hobbled or were carried down the gangways.
Many were clad in flowing robes, with only what humble possessions they could
carry. One old woman knelt and kissed the tarmac. Four babies were born aboard
the flights.
"This is a very moving experience," said one of the pilots, who could be
identified only as Avi. "It's not every day one gets to play a part in making
history."
The operation had been planned over several weeks with U>S> diplomatic
assistance. Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir told Israel television that
President George Bush was personally asked to intercede with the Ethiopian
government to win permission to bring the Ethiopian Jews to Israel.
"And he did not hesitate for a moment. He sent the letter and it did the
thing, "Shamire said. "Thank God, we succeeded."
The airlift was launched with swiftness and secrecy, triggered by fears that
the Ethiopian Jews could be trapped if Addis Ababa fell to advancing rebels.
The desperate haste was reflected in the packed conditions aboard the planes.
In Addis Ababa, Israeli soldiers in jeans, sneakers and purpleªand©orange
parkas ushered bewildered groups of Jews to the planes. The Ethiopians had
been quickly shuttled from the Israeli embassy in the capital, where some had
camped out.
"We did not even have time to eat," said Ambaye Mentesnot, a 55ªyear©old
farmer who left all he owned©©©150 kilograms (330 pounds) of wheat and other
grain and a small hut.
BLAME PLACED BACK ON ISRAEL FOR MID©EAST PROBLEMS
Despite their patience during the "scudding" of Tel Aviv, Israel is once again
being claimed for slowing the Mid©East peace process. The current American
administration, determined to lay the cornerstone of their New World Order,
are convinced that Israel is once again the stumbling block to peace©©despite
the fact that Palestinians living in Israel cheered during the Scud attacks.Ô
h) 0*0*0*° ° ÔŒ™Despite the fact that Baker had to literally twist now safe
Saudi Arabia's arm to get them just to send an observer to a peace conference.
Despite the fact that Libya is helping to rebuild Saddam's Iraq. Despite the
fact that human rights violations against Arabs in liberated Kuwait dwarf any
such repression in Israel. Despite that fact that Arabs are killing Arabs in
Israel in record numbers.
U.S. Secretary of State James Baker told a House Committee that "nothing has
made my job of trying to find Arab and Palestinian partners for Israel more
difficult that being greeted by a new settlement everytime I arrive" in
Israel. (Toronto Star, 91/05/06)
Likewise George Bush confirmed his secretary's report (91/05/24):'New
settlements do not enhance the prospects for peace," Bush said.
Bush said he fully supports Baker's stinging criticism of Israel's continued
settlement of occupied Arab territories and denied he had tried to soften
Baker's blow.
"Our policy...is well known and it would make a bit contribution to peace if
these settlements would stop. I am 100% for (Baker)."
U.N. ROLE IN MID©EAST CONFERENCE
One of the main obstruction to the convening of a Mid©East peace conference is
the question of what role the United Nations will play. It is little wonder
that Israel balks at a U.N. role.
When U.N. Secretary General Javier Perez de Cuellar was trying to stop the
conflict between the coalition and Iraq, he openly endorsed linking an Iraqi
withdrawal from Kuwait to an Israeli withdrawal from the "occupied"
territories.
Indeed, the U.N. has all too often been little more than a venue for the
automatic passage of excessive and discriminatory anti_Israeli declarations
like the infamous 1975 "Zionism is racism' resolution.
The U.N. has been strengthened by Gulf conflict. It can now use that muscle to
'gang up" on Israel at a conference and their record of injustice causes
justified concern. It is no coincidence that the U.N. building in Jerusalem
sits on the "Hill of Evil Council."
SHEVARDNADZE URGES SANCTIONS TO SPUR TALKS
WASHINGTON © Former Soviet foreign minister Eduard Shevardnadze proposed
international sanctions against parties to the Middle East conflict that
refuse to negotiate.
Ô h) 0*0*0*° ° ÔŒIn a wide©ranging speech to the Brookings Institution think
tank about the "new world order," he also warned that a U.S. decision on new
credits would determine the future of Soviet reforms.
Shevardnadze, on his first trip to the United States since resigning as
foreign minister last year, said it was imperative there be a rapid Middle
East settlement now that the gulf war has ended.
"There can be no justification for refusing to negotiate. It seems to me...it
would be worth discussing applying certain international sanctions against any
party to a conflict which refuses to engage in direct negotiations on any
point with respect to which there exists decisions on the U.N. Security
Council." Reuter, 91/05/07
WORLDWIDE SEARCH FOR RED HEIFER
Confirmation that Jewish leaders are planning the rebuilding of the Third
Temple is evidences by a worldwide search for the ceremonial red heifer. "Sephardi
Chief Rabbi Mordechai Eliahu recently visited G&G Ranch, near the (Israeli)
village of Bat Shlomo, in pursuit of the red heifer, whose ashes will purify
the people of Israel and enable them to rebuild the Temple," wrote the
Jerusalem Post. The heifer is required by God in Numbers 19:17 to purify a
person deemed unclean from contact with the dead.
The building of the third temple has great relevance to the fulfillment of the
end times prophecy. In II Thess. 2:4, the Apostle Paul writes that the "man of
sin (will) be revealed, the son of perdition; who opposeth and exalteth
himself above all that is called God, or that is worshiped; so that he as God
sitteth in the temple of God, showing himself that he is God."
Of course, this presupposes that a temple must be rebuilt. The last Jewish
temple was destroyed in A.D. 70 by the Romans. Rabbi Yisrael Ariel said it was
necessary for the Temple to be rebuild for the ceremony of the red heifer to
be instituted. But, he added, "if Jews were to rebuild the Temple, they would
first have to be purified."
Attempts have already been made to lay the cornerstone of the third temple by
the Temple Mount Faithful, an orthodox Jewish group. The group's appearance
near the Temple Mount last October sparked a riot which killed over 20
palestinian Moslems. C.I.B. Bulletin
ISRAEL SEEKS TALKS TO CURB MID©EAST ARMS RACE
Jerusalem (Reuter) © Israeli Defence Minister Moshe Arens wants an immediate
international conference on weapons buyers and suppliers to curb the Middle
East arms race. "That is the major source of instability and if, God forbid,
there's going to beÔ h) 0*0*0*° ° Ô another war that will be the reason," said
Arens, whose country is the main military power in a region bristling with
arms.
"It is essential that an international conference consisting of the countries
that supply weaponry to the Middle East and the Middle East countries that
acquire weaponry be called as soon as possible," he said in a speech, excerpts
of which were carried on Israel radio.
Arens, who shares his government's firm opposition to an international
conference on Middle East peach, said the quantity of arms in the area was a
threat both to Israel and to Arab nations. He said an international meeting
was needed "to deal with the Middle East arms race and to bring about a
slowing down or hopefully a cessation of this influx of weaponry into the
area."
A U.S. congressional report showed that Middle East countries have imported
more than $200 billion in military equipment over that last two decades.
Toronto Star, 91/05/28
SHAMIR GIVEN WARNING OVER PEACE MEETINGS
JERUSALEM (AP) © Four right©wing and religious parties threatened to topple
Prime Minister Yitzhak Shamir's coalition government if Israel makes
concessions on the number of proposed Middle East peace conference meetings.
The right©wing Tehiya, Tzomet and Moledet parties and the Orthodox National
Religious Party said they will leave the government if it agrees to more than
one meeting of a regional peace conference proposed by Israel. Toronto Star,
91/05/02
LIBYA REARMING SADDAM ?
WASHINGTON (REUTER©AP) © Libya is shipping heavy industrial equipment and
weapons to Iraq to help Saddam Hussein rebuild and rearm, it was reported.
"Sources in the Mid©East say there is firm evidence the Libyans are sending
the Iraqis everything from howitzers to military vehicle," U.S. News and World
Report said. It said Libya was airlifting the equipment to Jordan and Iran,
then trucking it to Baghdad.
In another report, the magazine said senior U.S. and Israeli officials are
privately distressed by indications Egypt is moving ahead with plans to build
its own version of Scud missiles.
It said Egypt made inquiries to the Soviet Union, North Korea and Argentina
over whether they would help Cairo's "request to develop facilities for making
the Soviet©designed ground©toªground missiles and their mobile launchers."
Toronto Sun, 91/05/06Ô h) 0*0*0*° ° ÔŒ™ASSAD CALLS FOR EXTRATERRESTRIAL POWER
During a four©hour conversation, his (assad) words on terrorism and regional
tensions were occasionally leavened by banter. At one point, in discussing
Soviet©U.S. relations, Assad suggested that only an extra©terrestrial power
could make peace between the superpowers. He then went on, unexpectedly, to
speak of his long©standing interest in UFOs or unidentified flying objects,
which he takes quite seriously. Excerpts from interview:
Q. Suppose, as we discussed earlier, there were an extraterrestrial power and
it tried to solve the Middle East's problems. What would you want it to do? A.
Certainly it would be a big power, and we would expect it to be unbiased. Q.
Would it make Israel disappear or shrink? A. It would neither enlarge nor
reduce Israel. It should offer advice to both sides, not deal with guns,
planes or billions of dollars, or, if it does, (it would do so) evenhandedly.
Why should the American taxpayer pay billions to Israel and not pay similar
amounts to the Arabs? Why should he like some people and dislike others? Time
magazine, 86/10/20
THEY SPEAK FOR THEMSELVES
Malachi Martin and "The keys of this Blood"
Malachi Martins's book title says it all: "The keys of This Blood: The
Struggle For World Dominion Between Pope John Paul II, Mikhail Gorbechev and
the Capitalist West." The 700 page book published by Simon and Schuster is
stunning because of its revelations of just how far the drive toward a New
World Order has come. It is also stunning because the book reveals this
emerging order from the Vatican's perspective. According to Martin, his
writings are approved by the Vatican itself. The Catholic priest and Vatican
observer reveals a wealth of information on many different topics. Below are
direct quotes from his book:
The New World Order
As to the time factor involved, those of us who are under seventy will see at
least the basic structures of the new world government installed. Those of us
under forty will surely live under its legislative, executive and judiciary
authority and control. Indeed, the three rivals themselves©©and many more
besides as time goes on©©speak about this new world order not as something
around a distant corner of time, but as something that is imminent. As a
system that will be introduced and installed in our midst by the end of this
final decade of the second millennium.
...our religious and our cultures; even the badges of our national identify,
which most of us have always taken forÔ h) 0*0*0*° ° Ô granted©©all will have
been powerfully and radically altered forever. No one can be exempted from its
effects. No sector of our lives will remain untouched.
The competition is all©out because, now that it has started, there is no way
it can be reversed or called off.
For the competition is about who will establish the first oneªworld system of
government that has ever existed in the society of nations.
Each one has in mind a particular grand design for one©world governance. They
all give speeches about an end to the nation system of our passing
civilization. Their geopolitical competition is about which of the three will
form, dominate and run the world system that will replace the decaying nation
system.
Television commentator Bill Moyers found out during a fifteenªday,
globe©spanning trip in the company of David Rockefeller that "just about a
dozen or fifteen individuals made day©by©day decisions that regulated the flow
of capital and goods throughout the entire would."
Vatican Desire To Be Key Player In New World Order
John Paul's own rule of behavior concerning the opening of his Church to "Man
in all his works and ambitions to build a secure home on this earth" was the
subject of his first encyclical letter, published at Easter 1979.
It is not too much to say, in fact, that the chosen purpose of John Paul's
pontificate©©the engine that drives his papal grand policy and that determines
his day©to©day, year©by©year strategies©©is to be the victor in that
competition, now well under way.
A new factor has been added to the presently accepted formula of international
contention. It is a Slavic Pope. The imbalance in our thinking has been
unobtrusively but decisively and, as it were, overnight corrected by the
emergence of John Paul. For his persona has refocused international attention
away from the two extremes, East and West,. and on the actual center of
change, Mitteleuropa, the central bloc of Europe's nations.
In John Paul's geopolitical analysis, Europe from the Atlantic to the Urals is
a giant seesaw of power. The Holy Father's battle was to control that center.
As it was, however©©well before globalism was even added to the lexicon of
high government officials and powerful corporate CEOs around the world; well
before the world was treated to the spectacle of Mikhail Gorbachev as supreme
public impresario of dazzling changes in the world's political landscape; well
beforeÔ h) 0*0*0*° ° Ô the globalist trends now taken for granted were
apparent to most of the world's leaders©©this Slavic Pope had a certain
leisure to scan the society of nations, with a new eye toward a purpose that
is as old as the papacy itself.
Indeed, the note that dominated and animated that encyclical document was John
Paul's insistence that the hard, intractable problems of the world©©hunger,
violation of human dignity and human rights, was and violence, economic
oppression, political persecution©©any and all of these can be solved only by
acceptance and implementation of the message of Christ's revelation announced
by the papacy and the Roman Catholic Church.
For, slowly but surely, as those innovations multiplied with his travels over
the decade of the 1980's, John Paul was building for himself as Pope an
unrivaled personal status as the most visible and well©known human being of
the twentieth century.
A new Europe now enjoyed a unity and a verve that the ancient Roman Empire,
even at its apogee, had never been able to create.
The centerpiece of it all was the man who sat on the throne of Simon Peter in
the Holy See of Rome. Among the major players at the Round Table of
international politics, no ruler could take command, no government could
govern, no commerce could function, without the spiritual blessing and the
imperial nod of the Roman Pope.
Europe At Center Of New World Order
Questions such as the integration of Eastern Europe, and even of some parts of
the Soviet Union itself, into the new European power equation supposedly are
to take shape from 1992 onward.
Every move Gorbachev made underlined for John Paul the Soviet leader's
complete understanding of European power as the first spring©board of his
geopolitical vision; his understanding that such power lay in a Europe that
would run from the Atlantic to the Urals; and his understanding that the hinge
of that power lies, as it always has, in the area of Central Europe from the
Adriatic to the Baltic seas.
Gorbachev's greatest triumph can only be described as a phenomenal victory in
the opening phase of the millennium endgame. For, by the early days of 1990,
not only scholars and commentators but virtually every political and
entrepreneurial leader of the West, on both sides of the Atlantic, was not
only contemplating but talking and planning about Mikhail Gorbachev's proposal
for a new "European" community, comprising some 800 million people and
stretching westward from the train yards of Vladivostok to the sun©drenches
beaches of California.
{Globalist} express that framework in terms of three concentric spheres of
international unity: the European Economic Community;Ô h) 0*0*0*° ° Ô Greater
Europe, composed of the Western European states, the former Eastern satellites
of the Soviet Union and the USSR itself; and finally, both of those welded
geopolitically with the United States.
"Europe," Moscow had heard John Paul say, "which, despite its present and
long©lasting divisions and regimes, ideologies, economic and political
systems, cannot cease to seek its fundamental unity, must turn to
Christianity....Despite the different traditions that exist in the territory
of Europe between the eastern and western parts, there lives in each the same
Christianity. Christianity must commit itself anew to the formation of the
spiritual unity of Europe."
A Council Of Kings To Lead Way Toward New Order
The fact of the matter is, however, that any geopolitical structure worthy of
the name would necessitate an entirely different regime and rights and duties.
In a truly one©world order, it would not be possible to regulate an election
of high officials in the same manner as democratic egalitarianism requires.
General referenda would also be impossible. So obvious has that difficulty
been©©and for far longer than Mr. Fukuyama has been on the scene©©that warning
scenarios have long since been prepared in the democratic capitalist camp
itself. Scenarios that show in considerable detail just how and shy, kin the
transition to a world order, the various processes of democracy would have to
be shouldered by select groups, themselves picked by other select groups.
Among the primary contenders dominating the economic and political moves to
form and control the new world order, Pope John Paul stands apart...
In Mazur's scenario, "Finally the large number of governmental bureaus that
will have their orbits in the atmosphere of our planet cannot be allowed the
freedom to compete and collide with one another. So, in order to control the
diverse bureaucracies required, a politburo will develop, and over this group
organization there is likely to arise the final and single Ô ‰ ? @
Ôarbiter©©the master of the order, the total dictator."Ã ÃÄ Ä
Role of Fatima In the Vatican's New World Order
Given the fact that the attempt to murder him was itself a badge of his
geopolitical success, there was no earthly reason to expect John Paul to
change his vision of the new world order or his agenda to influence it. It was
not lost on him, however, that the attempt on his life had taken place on May
13. Or that a series of very curious supernatural events©©events of intimate
interest to the papacy©©had began on May 13, 1917, in the obscure Portuguese
hamlet of Fatima, and had ended there on October 13 of the same year with a
miracle centered on the Virgin Mary and her apparent power to control the sun
in spectacular ways. Nor,Ô h) 0*0*0*° ° Ô finally, was it lost on him, that,
but for the picture of the Virgin of Fatima pinned to the blouse of a little
girl, his skull would have been shattered by the first bullets out of Ali
Agca's gun.
Given such circumstances, it would have been a stony papal heart indeed that
could have refused to reexamine the compelling events that had taken place at
Fatima over five months, from spring to fall, in 1917.
After nothing less than a personal communication from Heaven during his long
convalescence©©John Paul was all but forced to face the full meaning of Stefan
Cardinal Wyszynski's familiar maxim that "certain events are willed by the
Lord of History, and they shall take place."
Fatima became for John Paul something like the famed Heavenly mandate and
guarantee of success proffered to Constantine on the eve of his battle at the
Milvian Bridge. Suddenly, Constantine had seen the Sign of the Cross appear in
the sky, accompanied by the Latin words, In hoc signo vinces. "In this sign
you will conquer."
True, Pope John Paul was not a sword©toting conqueror; and at Fatima, Mary
hadn't exactly said, "In this sign you will conquer." But she had given a
mandate that was every bit as clear.
Practically considered, the success of his papal participation in the endgame
depends on an event whose timing and occasion he is powerless to determine,
and the nature of which he cannot in anyway influence or fashion. Without that
event, he will be impotent just at the height of the endgame. Backed up by
that event, he cannot but emerge as the most powerful man alive in his time.
Apart from the incidental fact that he received that vision while convalescing
in the Policlinico, the most noteworthy trait of the vision was that it came
as an exact repetition of a miraculous happening recorded sixty©four years
before at the hamlet of Fatima in Portugal. It was just as if he had been
present at Fatima around midday, October 13, 1917.
He is waiting, rather, for an event that will fission human history, splitting
the immediate past from the oncoming future. It will be an event on public
view in the skies, in the oceans, and on the continental landmasses of this
planet. It will particularly involve our human sun, which every day lights up
and shines upon the valleys, the mountains and the plains of this earth for
our eyes. But on the day of this event, it will not appear merely as the
master star of our so©called solar system. Rather, it will be seen as the
circumambient glory of the Woman whom the apostle describes as "clothed with
the sun" and givingÔ (
0*0*0*° ° Ô birth to "a child who will rule the nations with a scepter of
iron."
Fissioning it will be an event, in John Paul's conviction of faith, for will
immediately nullify all the grand designs the nations are now forming and will
introduce the Grand Design of man's Maker. John Paul's waiting and watching
time will then be over. His ministry as the Servant of the Grand Design will
then begin.
Like his Master, for this he was born and came into the world.
This is why John Paul is waiting. God must first intervene, before John Paul's
major ministry to all men can start.
He has to admit that he, like everybody else, is in the dark as to when it
will occur, although he does know some of the horrific details of that
worldwide catastrophe. He knows also that it will not come without prior
warning, but that only those already renewed in heart©©and that would probably
be a minority©©will recognize it for what it is and make preparations for the
tribulations that will follow.
He also knows that these will start unexpectedly and be accompanied by overall
confusion of minds and darkening of human understanding, and will result in
the shattering of any plans for a "greater European space" and the mega©market
plans for "greater Europe" and the "Pacific Rim." It will be the death and
entombment of Leninist Marxism and the effective liquidation of the
long©centuries©long©©war that the forces of this civilized world have waged
against the Church Christ founded and the religious belief of that Church. The
battle between the Gospel and the anti©Gospel will be over. The other two
major contenders in the millennium endgame will be eliminated.
From all the indications he has, John Paul expects the beginning of this
Fatima event to start where the millennium endgame started: in the area of
Central and Eastern Europe.
John Paul knows only that his function will be as its Servant; that his years
of preparation as one of the world's leaders, as a voice and a figure that
have received international recognition, will culminate in the apostolic
ministrations he must perform in a very different world from the world of the
millennium endgame, and among nations that no longer rely on themselves to
build on earth a City of Man.
Role Of "Mary" In The New World Order
This pope desires to commit the Church in a special way to Mary in whom the
stupendous and total victory of good over evil, of love and hate, of grace
over sin, is achieved..."
Ô h) 0*0*0*° ° ÔŒThis Pope commits himself to her [Mary], and to all those
whom he serves, and all those who serve him. He commits the Roman Church to
her as the token and principle of all the churches in the world in their
universal unity.
It is widely known that the main personal emphasis in Karol Wojtyla's life has
always been and still is on his relationship with Mary, the mother of Jesus.
For the general mind and, particularly, for the minds of other world leaders,
it is an arresting©©if not somewhat disconcertingª©thought that this intensely
active man in all he does is consciously and expressly seeking to implement a
mandate given him as Pope by a person he venerates as the mother of the God he
adores.
A World Religion
On March 8, he received a delegation of thirty Shintoists, together with their
High Priest, a man called Nizo, from the famous Ise Shrine in Japen.
Then, too, there was the curious fact that, as John Paul ranged over more
widely throughout the world, he was obviously throwing a far wider net than
was needed for his Roman Catholics. He spoke not only with them and not only
with Christians.
Paul VI's emphasis on human interest became the basis for discarding sacrifice
and prayer and faith and the Sacraments of the Church as the watchwords of
hope in this world. They were replaced by human solidarity, which became the
aim and the centerpiece of Catholic striving.
Ecumenism was no longer an attempt to heal the heretical and schismatic rifts
that over the centuries had split the one Church Christ had founded on the
Rock of Simon Peter's central office. Ecumenism was a means not of genuine
healing but of leveling differences of whatever kind between all Christian
believers and nonbelievers. That fit nicely with the new central air of human
solidarity as the hope of mankind.
Nevertheless, it is not too much to ask in the sweet name of universal reason
that all national., religious and cultural groups modify their traits so that
everyone©©every nation, every religion and every culture©© can be accommodated
as a division or subdivision of the future one©world community that is both
the aim and the justification of each of these three groups.
For such globalist community builders as these, there is no earthly use in
perpetuating any elements that has historically divided human society into
distinct, separate and sometimes warring parts, or that might do so in the
future.
The Vatican's Unique Relation With The "Kings Of This Earth"Ô h) 0*0*0*° ° ÔŒ™Therein
lay the importance of the institutions of John Paul's Church: and therein lay
the importance of the superforce control over those institutions. For the
Church was very nearly unique in the true universality of its own borderless
systems and institutions. It was unique as a georeligious and a geopolitical
force.
True, his Church had something in excess of 907 million nominal
adherents©©about 18 percent of the present world population.
Most of the 116 full©fledged embassies on Vatican Hill are, in the
internationally recognized formula, accredited to the "Holy See."
Hardly a day passes in that political world without some incident, large or
small, that underscores the constant and intimate intertwining of the
georeligion John Pall came to head with the geoploitical nature of the world
arena. And each such incident, large or small, links the Roman Pontiff himself
to the international life and political activity in what has come to be
regarded as the secular world.
Whether that story is accurate in all or any of its details, it points up a
great deal about the power that was later placed in John Paul's hands when he
accepted the papacy. Any world leader who discounts the eternal revelation on
which papal power claims to be based flirts with problems. But, at the same
time, any world leader who takes the Roman Pontiff as possessing only the
spiritual weapons of the unseen world and the afterlife with which to deal in
practical, this©worldly matters is making a strategic error of great
proportions.
Karol Wojtyla was one man who came to the papacy with a full understanding and
a sophisticated appreciation of the geopolitical power of the holy see.
What captures the unwavering attention of the secular leaders of the world in
this remarkable network of the Roman Catholic Church is precisely the fact
that it places at the personal disposal of the Pope a supranational,
supracontinental, supra©trade©bloc structure that is so build and oriented
that if tomorrow or next week by a sudden miracle, a one©world government were
established, the Church would not have to undergo any essential structural
change in order to retain its dominant position and to further its global
aims.
There is a tacit agreement among the great international political and
financial leaders that the very attributes that give the Holy See its
georeligious power and capability provide it. as well, with everything
essential for the same power and capability on the political plane.
The context of these conversations, of course, is never a pie©inªthe©sky
exchange of religious or philosophical views. Whether in meeting with
President Ronald Reagan in Miami in September 1988,Ô h) 0*0*0*° ° Ô or with
Captain Blaise Campaore, dictator of Burkina Faso, in the capital,
Ouagadougou, In January l990, or with President Hissen Habre of Chad on the
following day in the capital, N'©Djamena, or in any of the scores of other
such encounters, the context is always the growing interdependence of modern
nations.
At the close of two thousand years since Paul expressed the worldview of a
genuine georeligion, the 264th successor to the obscure Great Fisherman reigns
and governs in Rome as the titular head of that georeligion housed in a
genuinely geopolitical structure. For John Paul II is not only the spiritual
head of a worldwide corpus of believers but also the chief executive of a
sovereign state that is a recognized member of our lateªtwentieth©century
society of states. With a political goal and structure.
One of the eye©opening factors enhancing John Paul II as a prime world leader
has been precisely the striking appearance of a genuinely political capability
on the part of his Holy See, hitherto©©and for some hundreds of years.
And, always, a part of those preparations was the explication of what this vow
implied for Poland and Poles as a nation, for the Soviet Union with its
nineteenth©century Leninist©Marxist mythologies, for Europe as a common home
for all Europeans, for the society of nations as a whole, and for the Roman
papacy as precisely what Cardinal Hlond had called it so many decades before:
"the builder of the world" and "the guardian of nations ... structuring the
relationship between temporal progress and the supernatural cultivation of the
human soul."
BEGINNING OF SORROWS
Disease Plagues Baghdad
The was is still going on in Iraq, where innocent civilians suffer from lack
of food and medicine and must live in squalor, says a canadian doctor who just
spent 10 days in Baghdad.
Dr. Eric Hoskins says he was most affected by the plight of the children, who
are getting sick because they are forced to live in filth. The most horrible
memories of his tour came from a visit to Saddam Hospital in Baghdad. He
witnessed raw sewage flowing out into the street and "backed up" in the
basement of the hospital.
Lisa Wright for the Toronto Star, 91/03/21
BANGLADESH PLAGUED BY CHOLERA
DHAKA (AP) © Rough weather slowed efforts to get emergency aid to 9 millions
of survivors of last week's devastating cyclone, who now face new dangers from
hunger, disease and poisonous snakes.Ô h) 0*0*0*° ° ÔŒ™As the official death
toll rose above 125,000, aid officials reported that people are dying from
snake bites and cholera, and warned of epidemics in overcrowded relief camps,
where water, food and medicine are scarce.
John Mohrbacher of the aid agency CARE Ã ÃÄ ÄInternational said, "We don't see
how they can avoid one of the biggest cholera epidemics in the century."
Associated Press, 91/05/05
CHOLERA THREATENS LATIN AMERICA
GENEVA (AP) © Latin America's cholera epidemic threatens up to 120 million
people in the region.
The epidemic, which appeared on Peru's northern coast in January, has spread
to neighboring Ecuador, Colombia, Chile and Brazil.
Associated Press, 91/04/26
EPIDEMICS CIRCLE THE GLOBE
Epidemic©©the word is circling the globe as world health authorities struggle
with outbreaks of disease affecting tens of thousands of people.
Cholera is sweeping South America, Zambia and Indonesia in one of the worst
outbreaks this century. Bubonic plague is reported to be on the increase in
China.
There's a virulent strain of group A streptococcus that has been present in
North America for several years, and can be fatal. And there's fear of
cholera, meningitis and typhoid sweeping Iraq, where Kurdish refugees are
camped out in appalling conditions.
According to the World Health Organization, there were 4,500 cases (of bubonic
plague) reported between 1980 and 1986 in 17
countries.
Did you think tuberculosis was dead? Not so. About 2,000 cases a year have
been reported in Canada for each of the past four years. Toronto Star,
91/04/21
SIX MILLION AFRICANS INFECTED WITH AIDS, HEALTH GROUP SAYS
GENEVA © Nearly 6 million Africans are believed infected with the HIV virus
which causes AIDS, the World Health Organization said.
By early 1991, more than 1 million men, women and children living in countries
south of the sahara were estimated to have contracted the fatal disease
produced by the virus, the organization's analysis of the health situation in
Africa said.
Ô Ø' 0*0*0*° ° ÔŒ"In the coming decade, more than 10 million HIV©infected
children will be born and a further 10 million are likely to be orphaned as
their mothers, or both parents, die of AIDS," it said.
AIDS cases officially reported to the organization by African governments
totalled 85,728 by the end of April, but the health body says many countries
under=report cases or are slow to notify them. Reuter, 91/05/01
AND WHEN YOU SEE THESE THINGS BEGIN TO COME TO PASS...
Bangladesh needs bailing out©©again. The cyclone that tore into the
southeastern coast last week was the worst storm to hit the nation in two
decades. Winds up to 145 MPH drove a 20©foot©high tidal wall of water over a
dozen low©lying islands and onto the mainland. When the waters receded, more
than 125,000 people were dead and some 9 million left homeless. No one had
seen destruction on such a terrifying scale since the 1970 cyclone, and the
famine that followed, which killed between 300,000 and 1 million people.
Disaster is never far away in the Third World.
But it was rare for it to strike three separate region at once. (Emphasis
added) Concern for the fate of Bangladesh competed with fears for the 1,5
million Kurdish refugees displaced in the aftermath of the Persian Golf war.
And both submerged an even deeper dilemma: The plight of sub©Saharan Africa,
where 29 million people face death from starvation and civil was in what Save
the Children, a relief agency, calls "the worst famine in Africa in living
memory."
Drought and civil and was in Sudan, Ethiopia, Mozambique, Liberia and Somalia
have created dire food shortages for more than 19 million people, most of them
peasants.
Up to 300,000 people will die of starvation in Sudan this year, say aid
officials in Khartoum. Newsweek, 91/05/03
16% OF SOVIET UNION CALLED "DISASTER AREA"
BRUSSELS © Between 40 and 50 million Soviet citizens live in an ecological
disaster area and the nation's cancer rate is rising by 2% a year, according
to a leading Soviet environmentalist.
"16% of the surface of the Soviet Union is listed as disaster area, "said
professor Alexei Yablokov, deputy head of the Soviet parliament's ecology
committee.
"Forty to 50 million people live there. In some of these regions people have a
life expectancy of 55 to 60 years, which is 10 to 15 years less than normal, "Yablokov
told the Belgian daily, De Morgen. "The number of deaths caused by cancer
rises 2% each year in the Soviet Union."Ô h) 0*0*0*° ° ÔŒ™He said the Soviet
Union is plagued by emissions of toxic heavy metals from the metal industry
and unlimited use of pesticides in the farm sector. Several parts of Moscow
are affected by serious radioactive pollution and Soviet woods are
disappearing as fast as the Brazilian rain forest, he said. Half the country's
farmland is in a miserable state due to exaggerated irrigation or erosion.
Reuter, 91/03/21
LANDSLIDES IN UZBEKISTAN MOSCOW © A landslide buried eight houses and killed
at least 50 people in the Soviet Central Asian republic of Uzbekistan. Fearing
more landslides, authorities evacuated 400 nearby residents after the
disaster. Associated Press, 91/05/06
EARTHQUAKE IN COSTA RICA
SAN JOSE © International aid began pouring in for victims of an earthquake
that killed at least 74 people, injured more than 800 and left thousands
homeless in Costa Rica and Panama. Canadian Press, 91/04/24
FURTHER FAMINE IN ETHIOPIA
LONDON © More than 1 million people in Ethiopia have only 10 days of food left
and if supplies don't reach them soon, the death toll will overtake that of
the 1984 famine, Oxfam director Frank Judd said. Reuter, 91/05/03
NEW REPORT SAYS B.C. HEADED FOR MAJOR EARTHQUAKES
The biggest earthquake ever recorded is almost certain to strike the West
Coast some time in the next century. At 9.5 on the Richter scale, it would
equal the intensity of the Chilean earthquake of 1960. Some say it could be
even bigger.
That theory gained some stature this month when two geophysicists from the
U>S> Geological Survey in Menlo Park, Calif, published findings of a
seven©year study in Science, the journal of the American Association for the
Advancement of Science.
Using portable lasers and reflectors, Dr. James Savage, a former instructor at
the University of British Columbia, and Dr. Michael Lisowski, a former UBC
graduate student, measured the distance between mountain peaks on Washington's
Olympic peninsula across the Strait of Juan de fuca from Vancouver Island.
They discovered the peaks are being squeezed together at a rate of two
millimeters to three millimeters every year. Their figures confirm earlier
studies that identified similar, but smaller, squeezed of peaks in the Mount
Washington region of Central Vancouver Island.
The readings suggest terrific geological stress is building up beneath the
ocean floor along the entire Pacific coastline fromÔ ( 0*0*0*° ° Ô B>C> to
northern California. Scientists believe such stress can only be relieved
through a massive earthquake.
From what evidence they have, it appears the last such quake took place some
300 years ago. It may be another century or two before the "big one" hits
again, giving politicians and planners time to prepare. On the other hand, the
conditions are right for a large©scale earthquake any day now. Western Report,
91/04/22
SIGNS OF THE TIMES
THE FOURTH KINGDOM © A PROFESSING CHRISTIAN ENTITY
As we have mentioned in the past, the fourth kingdom of Nebuchadnezzar's
vision will be comprised of democracy and professing Christianity (the feet of
iron and clay). This fourth kingdom, or the Revived Roman Empire, we see
taking shape today is indeed emerging as a professing Christian entity;
mainly, Catholicism.
However, with the recent collapse of Communism in Eastern Europe,
the economics of the nations involved still remain on new and
shaky ground. And furthermore, the Catholic Church for years has
expressed a mistrust in the democratic, economic policies of the
West. Recently, however, Pope John Paul II expressed an
enthusiasm for the Revived Roman Empire to embrace democracy,
with the Pope's blessing so to speak:
"As he prayed he might, Pope John Paul II has lived to see the
collapse of Communism in Eastern Europe. But what political economy should
take its place? Until now, the Polish pope©ªechoing his predecessors over the
last 100 years©©has been deeply suspicious of Western capitalism. But in his
latest social encyclical, "Centesimus Annus" ("The Hundredth Year"), published
last week, John Paul embraces market economics with enthusiasm that, despite
important qualifications and nagging moral doubts, marks a new departure in
papal teachings.
"Although the 25,000©word encyclical is addressed to all societies, it is
manifestly aimed at those who have lately thrown off the yoke of Communism.
The pope's fear is that East Europeans will replace Marxist exploitation with
another based on unchecked consumerism." NEWSWEEK, 91/05/13
ALBANIA LIFTS 46©YEAR©OLD BAN ON RELIGION
SHKODRA, Albania © Some 50,000 people showed up as Father Simon Jubani©©newly
released after 26 years in one of Albania's most notorious prisons©©illegally
celebrated the first public mass in Albania since religion was banned in 1967.
In the five months since that first mass, authorities have returned Shkodra's
cathedral and revoked the ban on religion.
Ô h) 0*0*0*° ° ÔŒIt is one of many concessions make by Albania's Communist
leaders in the past few months as they attempt to defuse popular discontent
and open to the outside world after 46 years closed off behind barbed wire in
an Orwellian time capsule.
Ironically, Albania's Catholic minority had seized the opportunity with far
greater vigor than the Muslim majority. Catholics account for only 11% of the
country's 3.3 million people. The communist were returned to power in last
month's elections. Both they and the opposition Democratic party want aid and
loans from the outside world to bring the country into the 20th century.
The Catholics play an important role in establishing those ties with Europe
and the West. The fate of Catholics is seen in many ways as a litmus test of
Albania's human rights record and is being carefully monitored by the Vatican
and concerned Catholic communities. Last month, the first Vatican
representative in 47 years paid a visit to Shkodra to assess the situation of
Catholics. Jubani also traveled to the Vatican and met the pope.
"We are the only real Europeans in Albania, with religious and cultural ties
to Europe," Jubani said. TORONTO STAR, 91/04/21
U.N. SEEKS ITS OWN SPY SATELLITE
BORDEAUX, France (Reuter) ©© The United Nations should have its own spy
satellite to pinpoint troublespots around the would before violence erupts,
U>N> Secretary © General Javier Perez de Cuellar said.
An independent U>N> observation satellite would have been able to show Iraq's
threatening behavior toward Kuwait before it invaded the emirate in August, he
told a news conference. Perez de Cuellar, who spoke after accepting an
honorary doctorate from the University of Bordeaux, said the U>N> Security
Council needs "independent and objective real©time information." REUTER,
91/04/23
IMAGING SUCCESS
How do you SEE yourself as a wrestler? Do you picture yourself as a winner, or
a loser? Or do you not imagine anything about your wrestling performance?
Just imagine yourself wrestling your archrival in a tournament final. The
match has gone into sudden death overtime. Do you see yourself scoring the
winning takedown?
It really does matter how you picture yourself in your mind. This is called
imagery by sport psychologists, and is an important training method for
champion athletes.
Ô ( 0*0*0*° ° ÔŒImagery can make you a better wrestler because your mind
cannot tell the difference between what you imagine and what you actually
experience.
Go through an entire match,,and feel the move as you visualize it. Make the
images as clear and vivid as possible; you should actually be able to hear the
crowd or feel the mat. It is a skill which you can put to use every day of
your life. If you can see it in your mind, you can achieve it in your life.
USA WRESTLER, MAY 1991.
MORE TRACKING DEVICES
Their secret weapon is the new Beacon Arrow Tracking System.
Beacon can make anyone a better hunter. It improves your recovery rate by
leading you straight to your arrow©©every time!
Just insert the tiny transmitters into your arrow shafts. Screw in your
broadheads. And your ready to hunt. After a shot, Beacon't handheld receiver
zeros in on the location of your arrow ©© even if it's up to 30 yards away.
Bowhunting World (special issue equipment '91, VOL. 40#4
"SPIRITUAL" LEADER TELLS HIGH SCHOOL STUDENTS ABOUT HEALING THE PLANET
Art Solomon is 77 years old, wears a thin pigtail down his back, walks slowly,
speaks softly and attracts an enormous following. A revered spiritual leader
in North America's native community, he has travelled around the globe in the
last two decades, often with the World Council of Churches, expressing an
aboriginal vision of spirituality.
Solomon had spent the week in Toronto as an honored guest at Earth Day
ceremonies, at Lester B. Pearson high school in Agincourt speaking to two
packed assemblies, at an Assembly of First Nations conference, and at Project
Indigenous Restoration, an environmental/cultural event that brought 50 native
leaders from North and South American to talk about healing the planet.
One of his first experiences with native spirituality was at a sweat lodge in
Michigan where he smoked the sacred pipe. Slowly, travelling around, he picked
up bits and pieces of the rituals, encountered "spirit people" and was given
"spirit manifestations" from time to time "in the form of light."
One of the most powerful messages he received came on his was home from
Nairobi, where he had attended a World Council of Churches conference. "I
became convinced the earth is not going to be destroyed. I've never been so
certain and so affirmed in my life. We're involved in a new paradigm without
knowing it, we're in vast transition." This conviction came to him as "a
thought put into my mind." JUDY STEED FOR THE TORONTO STAR, 91/05/05Ô h)
0*0*0*° ° ÔŒ™NEW WORLD ORDER STILL POSSIBLE
If the brave "new world order" idea that U.S. President George Bush once liked
to talk about is ever to be realized, an effective U.N. is essential.
Today, the U.N.'s stature is more uncertain that it's been in a long time.
On the one hand, following Iraq's invasion of Kuwait last August, the U.N.
became a center of global decision © making in a way it hasn't been since, its
early, postwar years. The world's response to that aggression was framed by a
series of U.N. resolutions, at first demanding that Iraq withdraw, then
imposing sanctions and an embargo (the most stringent in history), and finally
approving the use of force.
But as soon as the guns began firing, the U.N. was pushed to the margins. The
terms of the cease©fire were decided exclusively by the U.S.©led coalition.
The issue remains: If there ever is to be a new world order, the U.N. has to
be able to write a large part of its script rather than be trundled on to the
global stage only when it suits the big powers. One test will come in the
choice of a new secretaryªgeneral.
By far the most interesting name among those being mentioned is that of former
Soviet foreign minister Edurd Shevardnadze. A secretary©general of
Shevardnadze's caliber would command global authority, for himself and the
U.N.
French President Francois Mitterrand has gone further. He is urging that a
"duty of intervention" be added to the U.N. Charter. This is a very bold idea.
It is also a high©risk one. U>N> Peace©keeping have never gone anywhere except
with the approval of the local governments. The sovereignty of member states
is the foundation stone of the entire U.N. structure.
U.N. intervention in Iraq could be used to justify demands that it intervene
in Tibet, Ethiopia, the Sudan, Lebanon, even Israel's Occupied Terriroties.
The U.N. has now slipped back to the global margin. But it's not so far
out©©all those resolutions about Kuwait did matter©©that it couldn't be
brought back to the center by a secretary©general of the stature of
Shevardnadze. Which is why, and hence the fascination, It's still premature to
give up (even though Bush has) on a new world order. RICHARD GWYN FOR THE
TORONTO STAR, 91/05/03
ANTI©SEMITIC VIDEO GAMES
Ô ( 0*0*0*° ° ÔŒLOS ANGELES © Underground video games circulating among
Austrian and German students test the ability to manage a Nazi death camp and
to distinguish between Aryans and Jews, says Simon Wisenthal Center in Los
Angeles, which obtained eight copies of the home computer programs.
In one program, the player must sell gold fillings, lampshades and labor to
earn enough money to buy gas and add gas chambers.
ASSOCIATED PRESS, 91/05/01
NUCLEAR ARMS STILL KEY FOR NATO
ROME © The new World Order will include nuclear weapons, says the
secretary©general of North Atlantic Treaty organization.
"I have no doubt that we will need a nuclear element to prevent wars," Manfred
Woerner told a news conference here.
Woerner dismissed suggestions that NATO is no longer necessary because the
Cold War is over and the Soviets are no longer poised on the German border.
The Gulf Was proved there are new, more complicated threats, and a strong NATO
defense is necessary, he said.
Defense now means coping with "unspecified risks"©©for example, turmoil that
could spill into NATO countries should civil war break out in Yugoslavia, or
in the Soviet Union itself, he said. The Golf War showed that Europe needs
North American involvement, because "the United States is more that ever the
only power that can uphold international order," Woerner said. TORONTO STAR,
91/05/03
GORBACHEV WARNS AGAINST NEW COLD WAR
MOSCOW, May 6 © President Mikhail S. Gorbachev has warned Washington that a
new cold war could emerge if the Bush Administration continues to pursue
political and economic steps that appear to undermine the Soviet government,
the official press agency Tass reported today.
Mr. Gorbachev also denied reports in the Western press that he was retreating
from far©reaching programs of political and economic change that he initiated
when he came to power six years ago. He asked foreign countries to refrain
from drawing "hasty conclusions about a 'change of course'" by the Soviet
leadership.
The government has been criticized lately, both at home and abroad for
yielding to pressure from orthodox forces like the army, the KGB and Communist
Party bureaucrats. Mr. Gorbachev expressed hope that a summit meeting with Mr.
Bush would take place as planned this spring in Moscow. "If what has been
gained at the end of the term of the previous Administration and under
President George Bush is undermined," he warned, "the world will again plunge
into a 'cold' or 'semicold' war, into an atmosphereÔ h) 0*0*0*° ° Ô of
political dampness that will negatively affect the health of international
life as a whole." NEW YORK TIMES, 91/05/07
ANTI©SEMITISM IN RUSSIA'S CULTURE OF ENVY
The Russians are a long©suffering people who can bear the pain of their
misery, so long as they see that others are sharing it. The collective
jealousy can be fierce against those who rise above the crowd.
Traveling around the country, I came to see the great mass of Soviets as
protagonists in what I call the culture of envy. In this culture, corrosive
animosity took root under the czars in the deep©seated collectivism in Russian
life and then was cultivated by Leninist ideology. Now is has turned rancid
under the misery of everyday living.
Finally, the extremist wing of Russian nationalism, on the far right, stands
against Gorbachev. It is reactionary, bent on imposing strong authoritarian
order, and on finding villains and scapegoats for the present Soviet crisis.
Extremist Russian nationalism veers into anti©Semitism and toward fascism.
For Gorbachev, the most serious political treat in Russian nationalism has
been that, with the steady loss of popular faith in Communism, Russian
nationalism might become a rallying cry for political hardliners of all
stripes. At a time of economic disintegration and political confusion,
nationalism is a simple ideology capable of sweeping up millions of ordinary
Russians in its undertow.
Right©wing Russian nationalists are obsessed as their writings and
conversations testify, with what they see as the excessive influence of Jews
in Soviet society.
Hedrick Smith, (former Moscow bureau chief for the New York Times) in The New
Russians.
YELTSIN AGREES TO ESTABLISH RUSSIAN KGB
MOSCOW (REUTER) © Russian leader Boris Yeltsin agreed with the Soviet KGB
chairman to create a separate Russian security service, part of Yeltsin's bid
to set up state structures for his giant republic.
The Soviet official news agency Tass said the Russian parliament's leadership
had appointed career KGB officer Maj©Gen. Viktor Ivanenko as acting chief of
the new service. Ivanenko said the new body's main tasks will be restoring
order, combating organized crime and halting what he called "anti©constitutional
activity" in the Russian Federation. TORONTO STAR, 91/05/06
"YOU HAVE A DATE FOR YOUR MIRACULOUS VISITATION"
Ô h) 0*0*0*° ° ÔŒOral Roberts says, "It's time to meet for miracles!," in
promotional material for the 6th annual conference of the international
Charismatic Bible Ministries. ICBM executive officers include Oral Roberts,
Kenneth Copeland, Marilyn Hickey, Rommy Reid and others.
The promotional material tells readers to "come expecting an unprecedented
release of SIGNS and WONDERS...a miraculous opening into financial
resources...healings and revelations."
"CHARISMA, MAY 1991
OFFICE ON YOUR WRIST
You are your office. When you hear that pitch, you'll know the future has
arrived.
Twenty©nine years from now you may still be working, but you won't be chained
to a 10©by©12 foot office in a tower deep downtown. You'll be free to work
where you want, at least part of the time,. because where you are is where
your work is.
An NEC, Tandy or Matsushita wrisband contains the most crucial elements of
2020's portable office. Embedded within the one©andªa©half©inch©wide band is a
positional sensor by which AT&T's navigational network keeps track of you.
Sensors constantly read
data from the navigational satellites, updating your communication and data
services. After all, if they don't know where you are, they can't call you.
And voice mail hits your wrist first. Messages are relayed to your region,
they to you, aimed by the navnet, for final storage in the nonvolatile memory
that's woven into the band's fabric. "Play messages" brings forth a stream of
digitized voices reminding you about a dinner date, offering information, or
asking that you call back.
You can work in any room. You can work from an airliner to the bullet train.,
You can work anywhere. Communications networks blanket the world; data
services, electronic mail, and cellular phones connect you to your office at
the speed of light.
OMNI, JUN 1991
FORMER CHIEF RABBI REFUSES PAPAL AUDIENCE
ROME © Rabbi Shlomo Goren, the former Ashkenazic chief rabbi of Israel who is
attending an ecumenical conference here, refused to join the conference's
other participants at an audience with Pope John Paul II because the Vatican
is has not extended diplomatic recognition to Israel.
Goren came to a conference on "Peace Among Religions, Peace in Society"
organized by the San Egidio Community, a Catholic group involved in charity
and promotion of interfaith dialogue.Ô h) 0*0*0*° ° ÔŒ™The theme of the
conference was the substance of the Pope's remarks to his guests.Peace among
religions is a prerequisite for peace among people as a whole, the pontiff
said. "If there is not loving peace among the religions, how can one find
harmony in society?"
According to the Israeli rabbi, "the cardinal problem" is whether "religion is
a unifying factor that radiates love, brotherhood and peace among nations and
human beings, or if, perhaps, instead, religion is the cause of separations
and nourished hatreds, conflicts and dissension among peoples of different
faiths.
"If I must judge, basing my judgement on the relations between the Jewish
people and the world in the past," Goren said, "I would have to arrive at the
sad conclusion that most persecutions, organized massacres and projects of
genocide against the Jewish people were designed and carried out in the name
of religion and with its encouragement." Jewish Press, 91/05/10
SHAMANISM AND ROCK 'N ROLL
To those discerning pop music aficionados worried that somewhere along the
line someone took the spirit out of rock 'n roll, don't fret.
The Calgary bank, "Redline," is determined to put it back. But the wailing
fivesome may have a different spirit in mind: their lead singer is a shaman.
"We're sick of the pablum that poses as rock 'n roll these days," complains
"Redline" founder Rick Boychuk, paint technician by day, screaming banshee by
night.
"We want to go back to the roots," adds the group's paganish, Willow Brocke,
who teaches dance and shamanism when she's not helping her bandmates cut their
first album, due later this year.
Ms. Brocke, who learned the ancient art of shamanism from her American Indian
father, insists there is a strong parallel between rock 'n roll and her
arcance craft, which she describes as the art of spiritual healing.
"Both require back©to©the©basics approach, and rely heavily on movement, tone
and rhythm," she says. "Modern©day shamans have a lot in common with rock 'n
rollers. They both create energy and hand it over to their audience." Western
Report, 91/04/22
INCREASED SIGHTINGS OF JESUS AND MARY
Vital visions: an increased number of "sightings" of Jesus Christ and Mary
around the world is giving impetus to a conference on such apparitions in July
in Pittsburgh. Visionaries and mysticsÔ h) 0*0*0*° ° Ô from Switzerland, the
Soviet Union, Nicaragua and Ireland will join the gathering on "Apparitions of
the Mother of God and Her Divine Son." Press©Telegram, 91/03/19
GUESS WHO'S COMING TO SUNDAY DINNER
On june 2, precisely 20 years after he redefined television with "All in the
Family" and 13 years after he abandoned it to "stretch our creative muscles,"
Norman Lear will unveil a new sitcom. Fittingly, CBS is giving "Sunday Dinner"
the Bunker's old Sunday©at©8 slot.
But the most salubrious timing belongs to the show's creator. Never in memory
have the networks hungered more desperately for a hit. Not only does Lear make
big ones, he makes them by taking even greater risks. And what, pray tell,
could be riskier than a situation comedy about spirituality?
Ben Benedict is a mid©fiftyish patriarch who becomes engaged to a 30©year©old
lawyer (Lear, now 68, is married to a woman 25 years his junior) and quickly
discovers that his three children were also unenthusiastic about his
May©December match).
Now for the tie that really binds. Ben's fiance harbors an intense spiritual
bent, which only sharpens the hostility of his two daughters, son and
grandchild©©respectively, a devout atheist, a New Age faddist, a grasping
materialist and an apprentice agnostic.
"After so many years of moving in a totally secular direction, there's a
hunger in America resulting from our neglect of the spirit," says Lear, who
researched "Sunday Dinner" by consulting dozens of religious scholars. "That
will be the subject of this decade and the subtext of this series."
The otherworldly young female (Teri Hatcher) periodically talks to God, whom
she refers to as "Him" "Her," "the Ultimate Whatever" and most often, "Chief."
This sort of thing invariably draws droll barbs from the cynics in her
vicinity. They include her worshipful fiance (Robert Logia) who, like Lear, is
initially skeptical of the spiritual but come to the light. "Why don't you
talk to Martians the was normal people do?" he cracks.
None of that, though, has deterred Lear from continuing to support People for
the American Way, the organization he founded a decade ago to combat the
political influence of the religious right. Newsweek, 91/05/20
*******************************
Environmental Media Association, a group founded by television producer
Norman Lear (whose new "religious" program, "Sunday Dinner." promoting his New
Age/Secular Humanist religion, willÔ ( 0*0*0*° ° Ô soon begin on CBS), says
that what people see on television does influence them.
Lear's Environmental Media Association said "Films, television programs and
music have a unique ability to infuse popular culture with a particular
message." Human Events, 91/03/16
RELIGION IN THE NEW AGE
Unitarian Universalism may be known as a haven for starchy humanists and
well©heeled liberals, but growing numbers of baby boomers are changing the
church's profile, And, alongside these new families filling the pews are
rising numbers of gays, lesbians, Buddhists and neo©pagans.
Unlike other predominantly white, liberal religions©©the Disciples of Christ,
the Episcopal Church, the United Church of Christ©©which are losing members,
the Unitarian Universalist Association has posted modest gains among adult
members and strong gains with children for the past eight years.
A new survey by researchers at the City University of New York Graduate School
estimates that 500,000 Americans identify as Unitarians.
What the movement does represent is best described in broad strokes©©religious
freedom, tolerance, social justice, spiritual seeking, democracy, world peace,
the interdependence of all creation.
Rev. Forrester Church (from All Souls in New York City), who is considered a
conservative in Unitarian circles, says he is a liberal Christian with a
Bible©centered theology. Christian Unitarians represent 10% of the
denomination.
It's more likely for church members to say that Christianity is one of the
many traditions they draw upon. For these churchgoers, God can be the creative
urge in the universe, a force in nature, or an outmoded concept. The Baltimore
Sun, 91/05/12
MEN SHALL BE FORNICATORS
It's not only the flaunting of excessive homosexual behavior that's under
attack at the University of Lethbridge (U of L). The annual fall event on
campus, the U of L ski club's "Loose Ladies" cabaret, (is) seen by many as the
social event of the year.
The cabaret, held last November, began 16 years ago. The women dressed as
prostitutes, the men as pimps and the liquor flowed. Through this sleazy theme
has been downplayed, there are still formally attired men, provocately clad
women and the liquor stillÔ ( 0*0*0*° ° Ô flows. Posters advertising the
cabaret promise "a night to remember, but no one will. (Burp)."
The evening's festivities begin with women admitted at 7 P.M. They receive a
free champagne from shirtless (except for a bow tie) male waiters and a
condom. By 9 P.M., with many of the "ladies" well on the way to enebriation,
the male patrons, who pay two dollars more for tickets than the women, arrive.
According to one student, the parties last all weekend and "you meet a lot of
new people." Western Report, 91/04/22
MORE THAN ONE MEDIATOR?
(From the "Glories of Mary" by St. Alphonsus Liguori)
O, how many blessed souls are now in Heaven who would never have been there
had not Mary, by her powerful intercession, led them thither...
Cardinal Hugo, in his commentary on the above test of Ecclesiastics,
says..."There are many saints in heaven through Her intercession, who would
never have been there but through Her."...
Blosius also, addressing out Blessed Lady, says, "To Thee, O Lady, are
committed the keys and the treasures of the Kingdom of Heaven."
And therefore we ought constantly to pray to Her, in the words of St. Ambrose,
"Open to us, O Mary, the gates of paradise, since Thou hast its keys."...
For the same reason, finally, is she called by St. Fulgentius, "the heavenly
ladder." "For," says the saint, "by Mary, God descended from Heaven into the
world, that by Her men might ascend from earth to Heaven."...
"Blessed are they who know Thee, O Mother of God," says St. Bonaventure; for
the knowledge of Thee is the high road to everlasting life, and the
publication of Thy virtues is the was of eternal salvation."...
Rupert says, "That by right She possesses the whole kingdom of Her Son."...
St. James, a doctor of the Greek Church, says "that God destined Mary as a
bridge of salvation." The Fatima Crusader, Summer 1990
***************************
"For there is one God, and one mediator
between God and men, the man Jesus Christ."
I Timothy 2:5
"Neither is there salvation in any other:
for there is none other name under heaven givenÔ h) 0*0*0*° ° ÔŒ among men,
whereby we must be saved." Acts 4:12
TOLERANCE AND UNDERSTANDING IN THE NEW AGE
George Mason University has put its Sigma Chi fraternity and Gamma Phi Beta
sorority on probation for staging a show in which a white male dressed as a
black women appears. His costume included black face and a pillow strapped to
his buttocks. And a Family Court judge in Fairfax, Va., dismissed on free
speech a case against a youth charged with burning a cross at his high school.
Newsweek, 91/04/29
IT SHALL BE AS IN THE DAYS OF LOT AND NOE
For the University of Lethbridge students, the libertarian (the campus
newspaper, Meliorist) turned libertine in the March 28 issue when an explicit
article, "Gay Men's Guide to Erotic Safer Sex," appeared in the paper. The
article originated in the Valentine's Day issue of Memorial University of
Newfoundland's (MUN) student newspaper, The Muse. Written by two homosexual
activists in St. John's "to educate people about sex in a socially
conservative society," according to editor Dawn Mitchell, it was by 15 other
student papers, including Dalhousie, McGill, Winnipeg, Simon Fraser, B.C. and,
of course, Lethbridge.
The sex guide begins with a warning: "This article uses explicit language; if
you can't cope with reality, don't read on." Most people did. The authors take
the "Don't worry, be happy" attitude to AIDS. They suggest there's "no reason
to decrease the amount of sex you have or the number of partners you have..."
Written in the first person, the chronicle travels through narration of anal
intercourse with a condom, mutual masturbation and fellatio without a condom.
The reader discovers how to choose a condom and how to use dental dams when
performing cunnilingus. For assessing the risks of HIV transmission, the
authors reflect upon the relative merits of sex toys, eating excrement,
drinking urine and both oral and anal sex. Western Report, 91/05/13
INIQUITY SHALL ABOUND
Straight men need to be emasculated. I'm sorry, They all need to be slapped
around. Women have been kept down for too long. Every straight guy should have
a man's tongue in his mouth at least once. Madonna, quoted in Newsweek,
90/05/13
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