A blonde superman-like individual, radiating light, lands in a helicopter near the Vatican. He strides through St. Peter's Square, and adoring crowds part to make way, just as the crowds made way for the “hero” in the movie Avatar after he dismounted from his red dragon.

+ Atheists and agnostics, Jews and Mormons are among the highest-scoring groups on a new survey of religious knowledge, outperforming evangelical Protestants, mainline Protestants and Catholics on questions about the core teachings, history and leading figures of major world religions.

+ Atheists and agnostics average 20.9 correct answers. Jews and Mormons do about as well, averaging 20.5 and 20.3 correct answers, respectively. Protestants as a whole average 16 correct answers; Catholics as a whole, 14.7. Atheists and agnostics, Jews and Mormons perform better than other groups on the survey even after controlling for differing levels of education.

+ On questions about Christianity – including a battery of questions about the Bible – Mormons (7.9 out of 12 right on average) and white evangelical Protestants (7.3 correct on average) show the highest levels of knowledge. Jews and atheists/agnostics stand out for their knowledge of other world religions, including Islam, Buddhism, Hinduism and Judaism; out of 11 such questions on the survey, Jews answer 7.9 correctly (nearly three better than the national average) and atheists/agnostics answer 7.5 correctly (2.5 better than the national average).

+ On the other hand, most Americans are able to correctly answer at least half of the survey's questions about the Bible. For example, roughly seven-in-ten (71%) know that, according to the Bible, Jesus was born in Bethlehem. More than six-in-ten (63%) correctly name Genesis as the first book of the Bible. And more than half know that the Golden Rule – “Do unto others as you would have them do unto you” – is not one of the Ten Commandments.

King John made England a papal fiefdom in 1213. When did this situation formally end? Was England a papal fiefdom until the Reformation?

King John’s surrender of his realm in 1213 was symbolised by his agreement to pay an annual tribute to the pope of 1,000 marks (£666) (2). This tribute was paid, albeit irregularly, into the 1290s.

However, kings Edward I and Edward II, John’s grandson and great-grandson, found themselves increasingly at odds with the papacy, partly over their rights to collect their own taxes from the English church and also over the pope’s partisan support for the kings of France. As a result, no tribute was paid in the 30 years before 1330. The last payment ever recorded was a token £1,000 from Edward III in 1333, in expectation of papal favours.

Thereafter, although papal requests were regularly transmitted for settlement, no money was forthcoming. In 1365 parliament debated the latest papal request and concluded that John’s original surrender of the realm had been invalid since it had lacked the assent of the bishops. This marked the formal end to English recognition of the pope’s sovereignty.

Bob and Lisa were told by their doctor to move out of their home within 48 hours because it was too dangerous for them to stay after they were diagnosed with drilling chemicals in their blood and organs.

Lisa was treated by eight different doctors over the course of a year. A source of the sickness was never determined. In June 2009, after exhausting everything he knew medically, her internal medical specialist suggested that something in the environment might be causing her various ailments.

In early fall 2009, she visited an environmental doctor who confirmed the presence of neurotoxins in her blood that matched chemicals used in natural gas production.

The stock offering saw the Brazilian government receive shares worth about $42.5 billion against the transfer of rights for up to 5 billion barrels of deep-sea pre-salt oil reserves (oil deposits located in the sea bed under thick layers of salt) to Petrobras. (1)

Petrobras has doubled output in the past 10 years and will surpass Exxon's current production by 2015 if it meets targets set in its current business plan.

Petrobras plans to boost production 7.8 percent this year, while Exxon is targeting an increase of 3 percent to 4 percent this year. Chevron plans to increase 1 percent a year for the next five years. (2)

They plan to urge the government to publicly confirm the incidents, stating that they were ordered never to discuss the events.

"We're talking about unidentified flying objects, as simple as that," Salas told FoxNews.com. "They're often known as UFOs, you could call them that," he added. Salas, a former U.S. Air Force nuclear missile launch officer, will host the event along with researcher Robert Hastings, author of "UFOs and Nukes: Extraordinary Encounters at Nuclear Weapons Sites.

The Pope’s visit to Britain came under fresh scrutiny last night after it was revealed that multi-millionaires funded a significant proportion of the trip and were granted a coveted private audience with the Pontiff.

Insiders said the bulk of the £6.5 million raised so far by the Catholic Church to finance the visit came from businessmen including JCB boss Sir Anthony Bamford.

During the four-day visit, many of the donors met Benedict XVI at a series of gatherings, one of which took place just before Mass at Westminster Cathedral.

Costs for State events during the visit, including the Pope’s meeting with the Queen, were met by the taxpayer, but the Catholic Church was faced with a £10 million bill for staging religious events such as the Hyde Park prayer vigil.

The Church still needs to raise another £3.5 million to cover this bill and it is set to approach many of the donors again to see if they are prepared to make up the shortfall. (1)

- Most of the book pertains to the Northern Kingdom. However, God issued judgments against the surrounding gentile nations (1:3-2:3), and in exactly parallel form, pronounced judgment against the southern kingdom (2:4-2:5) and the northern kingdom (2:6-2:8).
- In 3:1, Amos prophesies “against the whole family which I brought up out of the land of Egypt” – thus making his warnings broad enough to cover all those who are, or consider themselves to be, part of the People of God.
- Amos confirms that evils are allowed by the Lord (3:6), and that he “does nothing without revealing his secret to his servants the prophets” (3:7).
- Only a few will be rescued from the coming devastation (3:12, 5:3)
- Most of the specific indictment pertains to oppression, injustice, and idolatry, which are pervasive.
- He warns that the “Day of the Lord” is “darkness, not light” – in other words, a Chastisement (5:18-20)
- Nevertheless, a remnant will be left, and they will enjoy peace and prosperity (9:11-15)

Mazlan Othman, the head of the UN's little-known Office for Outer Space Affairs (Unoosa), is to describe her potential new role next week at a scientific conference at the Royal Society’s Kavli conference centre in Buckinghamshire.

She is scheduled to tell delegates that the recent discovery of hundreds of planets around other stars has made the detection of extraterrestrial life more likely than ever before - and that means the UN must be ready to coordinate humanity’s response to any “first contact”.

During a talk Othman gave recently to fellow scientists, she said: “The continued search for extraterrestrial communication, by several entities, sustains the hope that some day humankind will receive signals from extraterrestrials.

Known as consecrated women, they are lay Catholics affiliated with a conservative religious order who dedicate their lives to the church, making promises of chastity, poverty and obedience similar to the vows taken by nuns.

But the cult-like conditions they endure so alarmed Pope Benedict XVI that in May he ordered an extremely rare full Vatican investigation of the obscure group, which operates in the U.S., Mexico, Spain, the Philippines and a dozen other countries. The inquiry is expected to begin in the coming weeks.

The alleged abuses came to light during an eight-month Vatican investigation into the Legionaries of Christ, a secretive religious order beloved by Pope John Paul II but now discredited because of revelations that its charismatic founder sexually abused seminarians and fathered at least three children.

The women belong to the order's lay wing, Regnum Christi, a global community of some 70,000 Catholics in more than 30 countries who have families and regular jobs yet participate in the mission of bringing people closer to Christ.

The home page for the Belmont, CA church, which offers the Divine Liturgy on-line, live, at 10:00 am Pacific Standard Time (PST) every Sunday.

 

 

For an alternative West Coast location, our correspondent found this church in Modesto, California. Their schedule for on-line, live services is here; the Liturgy is offered at 10am PST every Sunday, with Orthros (a preparatory service) at 9am PST:

 

Live Internet Broadcasts of Church Services — Greek Orthodox Archdiocese of America

[6] Whereupon I also have given you dullness of teeth in all your cities, and want of bread in all your places: yet you have not returned to me, saith the Lord. [7] I also have withholden the rain from you, when there were yet three months to the harvest: and I caused it to rain upon one city, and caused it not to rain upon another city: one piece was rained upon: and the piece whereupon I rained not, withered. [8] And two and three cities went to one city to drink water, and were not filled: yet you returned not to me, saith the Lord.

[9] I struck you with a burning wind, and with mildew, the palmerworm hath eaten up your many gardens, and your vineyards: your olive groves, and fig groves: yet you returned not to me, saith the Lord. [10] I sent death upon you in the way of Egypt, I slew your young men with the sword, even to the captivity of your horses: and I made the stench of your camp to come up into your nostrils: yet you returned not to me, saith the Lord.

[11] I destroyed some of you, as God destroyed Sodom and Gomorrha, and you were as a firebrand plucked out of the burning: yet you returned not to me, saith the Lord. [12] Therefore I will do these things to thee, O Israel: and after I shall have done these things to thee, be prepared to meet thy God, O Israel. [Amos 4]

How should Jews respond to an angry movement whose candidates include full-throated supporters of Israeli West Bank settlements; others who would end foreign aid, including to Israel; one who excoriates church-state separation as a Nazi invention, and others who urge setting aside such divisive social issues to focus on fiscal conservatism and radical government cutbacks?

The success of Tea Party candidates in Republican primary races has put the Jewish community on alert.

According to the most fully-developed version of the story, in 1815 a group of Russian employees of the Russian American Company and their Aleut seal and otter hunters, including Peter, was captured by Spanish soldiers, while hunting illicitly for seals near San Pedro.

According to the original account, the soldiers took them to Misión San Pedro y Pablo  for interrogation. One Russian source states that after being taken prisoner near modern Los Angeles, the captives were taken to Mission Dolores — that is, modern San Francisco. With threats of torture, the Roman Catholic priests attempted to force the Aleuts to deny their Orthodox faith and to convert to Roman Catholicism.

When the Aleuts refused, the priest had a toe severed from each of Peter's feet. Peter still refused to renounce his faith and the Spanish priest ordered a group of Native Americans, indigenous to California, to cut off each finger of Peter's hands, one joint at a time, finally removing both his hands.

They eventually disemboweled him, making him a martyr to the Eastern Orthodox faith. They were about to torture the next Aleut when orders were received to release them.

The coincidence set the stage for a "Super Harvest Moon" and a sky show of note to mark the change of seasons.

The action began at sunset on Sept 22nd, the last day of northern summer. As the sun sank in the west, bringing the season to a close, the full Harvest Moon rose in the east, heralding the start of fall.

The two sources of light mixed together to create a kind of 360-degree, summer-autumn twilight glow that is only seen on rare occasions.

The earliest oracular seeresses known as the sibyls of antiquity...  prophesied at certain holy sites, under the divine influence of a deity, originally — at Delphi and Pessinos — one of the chthonic earth-goddesses.

From the early Renaissance, the Sibyls were represented in publicly available art. Michelangelo fixed our image of the sibyls forever, in his powerful representations of them, seated, both aged and ageless, beyond mere femininity, in the frescos of the Sistine Chapel.

Five sibyls were painted on the Sistine Chapel ceiling by Michelangelo; the Delphic Sibyl, Libyan Sibyl, Persian Sibyl, Cumaean Sibyl and the Erythraean Sibyl. The library of Pope Julius II in the Vatican has images of sibyls and they are in the pavement of the Siena Cathedral.

Like prophets, Renaissance sibyls forecasting the advent of Christ appear in monuments: modelled by Giacomo della Porta in the Santa Casa at Loreto, painted by Raphael in Santa Maria della Pace, by Pinturicchio in the Borgia apartments of the Vatican, engraved by Baccio Baldini, a contemporary of Botticelli, and graffites by Matteo di Giovanni in the pavement of the Duomo of Siena.

The 19th century French historian Jules Michelet attributed the origins of European witchcraft to the religion of the sibyls. In his introduction to La Sorcière (1862), Michelet wrote:

A powerful, tenacious religion, as Greek paganism was, begins with the sibyl, ends with the witch. The former, a beautiful virgin, in the full light of day, rocked its cradle, gave it its charm and glory. Later, fallen, ill, in the darkness of the Middle Ages, on heaths and in forests, it was hidden by the witch...

(Now he was thirty years old when he stood before king Pharaoh) and he went round all the countries of Egypt.

Now it came to pass, when all the people were baptized, that Jesus also being baptized and praying, heaven was opened;  And the Holy Ghost descended in a bodily shape, as a dove upon him; and a voice came from heaven: Thou art my beloved Son; in thee I am well pleased. And Jesus himself was beginning about the age of thirty years; being (as it was supposed) the son of Joseph, who was of Heli, who was of Mathat,

And in that day you shall not ask me any thing. Amen, amen I say to you: if you ask the Father any thing in my name, he will give it you. Hitherto you have not asked any thing in my name. Ask, and you shall receive; that your joy may be full.   These things I have spoken to you in proverbs. The hour cometh, when I will no more speak to you in proverbs, but will shew you plainly of the Father.

 In that day you shall ask in my name; and I say not to you, that I will ask the Father for you:  For the Father himself loveth you, because you have loved me, and have believed that I came out from God. I came forth from the Father, and am come into the world: again I leave the world, and I go to the Father. [John 16: 23-28]

Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger (b. 1927), German professor of theology, is one of the most authoritative voices in the Vatican. Under his supervision, the Vatican opened its archives in 1998 to enable researchers to investigate judicial errors against Galileo and other medieval scientists. The name was proposed by the first discoverer.

In an unprecedented move, a judge freezes €23m (~ 30 million US dollars) held in an account at financial institution with close church links.

The head of the Vatican bank has formally been placed under investigation in an inquiry into a suspected violation of Italy's money-laundering laws, judicial sources said today.

At the same time, a judge in Rome ordered a freeze on €23m (~ 30 million US dollars) held in an account opened by the Vatican bank, the Institute for the Works of Religion (IOR), at another financial institution in the Italian capital. It was thought to be the first time such action had been authorised against the IOR in Italy.

In addition..... (2) Gotti Tedeschi was Pope Benedicts's choice to lead the Vatican's Istituto per le Opere di Religione ("Institute for Religious Works," commonly known as the Vatican bank).  Also under investigation is Gotti Tedeschi's "number two," the bank's director general, Paolo Cipriani.

Gotti Tedeschi, a devout Catholic and a member of the Prelature of Opus Dei, has taught financial ethics at the Catholic University of Milan. He is a close adviser to Italy's Treasury Minister, Giulio Tremonti.

Not every one that saith to me, Lord, Lord, shall enter into the kingdom of heaven: but he that doth the will of my Father who is in heaven, he shall enter into the kingdom of heaven. [Matthew 7:21]

So shall the last be first, and the first last. For many are called, but few chosen. [Matthew 20:16]

I will arise, and will go to my father, and say to him: Father, I have sinned against heaven, and before thee:  I am not worthy to be called thy son: make me as one of thy hired servants.  And rising up he came to his father. [Luke 15: 18-20]

On the same day, the Pope claims the church’s “top priority” is to help victims heal but he promotes yet another callous bishop who conceals clergy sex crimes against children.

Just a few months ago, our group “outed” two predator priests in Bishop Sartain’s Joliet diocese. He knew of the allegations for at least five months but kept kids at risk by staying silent.

Sartain violated the official US bishops abuse policy which mandates that credibly accused predator priests be suspended promptly.

A brave victim reported the crimes to Sartain’s top staffers in January 2010. Five months later, however, neither Sartain nor his staff took action against the two predator priests. The worried and frustrated victim contacted us and we disclosed the allegations. Finally, Sartain temporarily suspended the child molesting clerics.

As my message of October 18 has not be complied with and has not been made known to the world, I am advising you that this is the last one. Before, the cup was filling up. Now it is flowing over. Many cardinals, many bishops and many priests are on the road to perdition and are taking many souls with them. Less and less importance is being given to the Eucharist. You should turn the wrath of God away from yourselves by your efforts. If you ask His forgiveness with sincere hearts, He will pardon you. I, your mother, through the intercession (intervention) of St. Michael the Archangel , ask you to amend your lives. You are now receiving the last warnings. I love you very much and do not want your condemnation. Pray to Us with sincerity and We will grant your requests. You should make more sacrifices. Think about the passion of Jesus.

(a) In each case the Apostles ask Jesus something like: Why speakest Thou to them in parables?
(b) In each case Jesus responds something like: I speak to them in parables: because seeing they see not, and hearing they hear not, neither do they understand.
(c) In each case Jesus must explain the parable in detail to his disciples because, obviously, they did not get it either. In one of the Gospels Jesus was clear about this: Are you ignorant of this parable? and how shall you know all parables?
(d) Although He has explained the reason why some do not understand: For the heart of this people is grown gross, and with their ears they have been dull of hearing, and their eyes they have shut: lest at any time they should see with their eyes, and hear with their ears, and understand with their heart, and be converted, and I should heal them.

Miguel, it is wonderful to return to work!

I did not think I would ever return to working again after becoming afflicted with chronic fatigue syndrome/fibromyalgia (CFS).  After working as an overnight delivery/trucker for about 6 years on a fourteen hour a day schedule, my stamina and endurance was completely gone.

When I first started that line of work in ’03 I had normal endurance and ability like most people.  After the long hours of labor and sleep deprivation began to take their toll, I became a screaming maniac beseeching God every single night to please rescue me from this nightmare of overwork and torture.  So I held on hoping something better would be just around the corner.  The end came in ’09 when I checked myself into a hospital with the symptoms of complete exhaustion along with chest pains.

The hospital found nothing wrong. The doctors were scratching their heads and when I asked about the possibility of some metabolic disorder they were still puzzled.  They wanted me to do a follow up at their offices after discharge but because of lack of medical coverage I didn't.  Fortunately and I'm sure as an answer to my many prayers, I found information on the internet about my symptoms – information which showed that I was not crazy or imagining things. A wonderful woman, Nadine Saubers (1), an RN who suffered 20 years from CFS, actually wrote and told me that if I did not stop working long hours overnight not to expect any possibility of recuperation.

So with a leap of faith in God, I left my job and tried to live on social security and came close to actually losing my house by foreclosure.  I really couldn't work at that time – my endurance was so poor that the simplest of tasks would completely exhaust me.

After learning of supplements that would help my condition, I tried them. The D-Ribose especially made a miraculous difference. 

Meanwhile after being out of work for over a year, close to bankruptcy, I had asked God for knowledge of His Will and that I would accept whatever happened while I tried to do the best I could with what I had. When I mentioned my plight to a former fellow truck driver, he mentioned a contractor who was looking for a driver.

Although his point of departure was one hour away from my house, I said to God – “all right God, if it be Your Will Ill do the foot work”.

After many anxious weeks of filling out the paper work and getting the necessary approval from the principal company, along with background checks and physical exams, I started a week of training with my new boss.  Because of the way I had left work with the primary company, I didn't believe getting back under them was at all a possibility.

Nonetheless, the new boss gave me a route and he agreed to end my day by 8:30 – 9 pm! The starting time would be roughly at 11 am – I was very happy.  But it got even better. He told me that he had acquired another trailer route of 232 miles into a nearby state and back (a one stop turn without even handling the freight). I hoped it would be worthwhile for him.

Well to my astonishment, he gave me that route!  Headquarters of the contract-dispensing company demanded that I work into the overnight hours. My boss told them to leave me alone and that we had an understanding that I would not work later than 8:30 pm! He even told them he'd take his trucks elsewhere if they pushed the issue and would go to the National Labor Relations Board.

I've been praising and thanking God daily for this job, a job that I can do and not suffer ill effects.  If I pace myself, and don't exceed a certain threshold, I feel normal.

My boss is meticulous about the tractor's condition (unlike the previous contractor); everything in it works including the air conditioning and filtering system which, in 90 degrees weather, is a true Blessing.

I get the route done efficiently and my boss says I'm making money for him and he's happy with that.

Now I'm starting to get out of debt and am hoping for a mortgage modification to occur.

Again I leave it up to The Lord and will go with whatever direction He takes me.  I even have time to rest during my route to stop and offer prayers – praise The Lord !

IW

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(1) How to recover from CFS : Mitochondria, CFS, and the Healing Lifestyle

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(1) The Letter


Did you know that..... the main concern of the Belgian Catholic Church is having to foot a legal bill comparable to the one in the US? (1)

In Belgium, the X-Files refer not to the U.S. television series but to a series of horrific witness accounts of an alleged pedophile network.

The five women and the male transvestite who testified anonymously in Belgium under the code-name "X" described an underworld of snuff movies and sadomasochist torture that was almost impossible to believe. And they said that politicians and other highly placed members of society were involved.

The conventional wisdom is that the witnesses were either deranged or were recounting fantasies. It was, in the jargon of psychiatrists, a bad case of false-memory syndrome.

But a new [in 1999] book by three crime reporters, "The X-Files: What Belgium Was Not Supposed to Know About the Dutroux Affair," published in French and Dutch in November, asserts that the X-witnesses were more credible than the conventional wisdom suggests.

The impacts are bright enough to see through backyard telescopes on Earth. Indeed, amateur astronomers were the first to detect them, recording two fireballs in 2010 alone - one on June 3rd and another on August 20th.

NASA indicates that the impacts are one-fifth to one-tenth the size of the Tunguska meteorite that devastated a remote part of Siberia in 1908. As such, these impacts are the equivalent of a hydrogen bomb explosion in the 1-megaton to 3-megaton range – a blast large enough to destroy a city.

From (Mr.) BP @ Canada

[Note from The M+G+R Foundation: The following may look like "just another cute message" that keeps circulating in the Internet, but it is not. It contains probably the key reason for the many miseries in this world. We will add a final comment at the end of the text.]

I dreamt that I went to Heaven and an angel was showing me around. We walked side-by-side inside a large workroom filled with angels. My angel guide stopped in front of the first section and said, ' This is the Receiving Section. Here, all petitions to God said in prayer are received. 

I looked around in this area, and it was terribly busy with so many angels sorting out petitions written on voluminous paper sheets and scraps from people all over the world.  Then we moved on down a long corridor until we reached the second section. 

The angel then said to me, "This is the Packaging and Delivery Section. Here, the graces and blessings the people asked for are processed and delivered to the living persons who asked for them." I noticed again how busy it was there. There were many angels working hard at that station, since so many blessings had been requested and were being packaged for delivery to Earth. 

Finally at the farthest end of the long corridor we stopped at the door of a very small station. To my great surprise, only one angel was seated there, idly doing nothing. "This is the Acknowledgment Section, my angel friend quietly admitted to me. He seemed embarrassed."  'How is it that there is no work going on here? ' I asked. 

"So sad," the angel sighed.  "After people receive the blessings that they asked for, very few send back
acknowledgments" 

"How does one acknowledge God's blessings?" I asked.. 

"Simple," the angel answered. Just say, "Thank you, Lord. "

"What blessings should they acknowledge?"  I asked. 

a. "If you have food in the refrigerator, clothes on your back, a roof overhead and a place to sleep you are richer than 75% of this world. If you have money in the bank, in your wallet, and spare change in a dish, you are among the top 8% of the world's wealthy. " 

b. "And if you get this on your own computer, you are part of the 1% in the world who has that opportunity." 

c. "If you woke up this morning with more health than illness ... You are more blessed than the many who will not even survive this day. " 

d. "If you have never experienced the fear in battle, the loneliness of imprisonment, the agony of torture, or the pangs of starvation ... You are ahead of 700 million people in the world."

e. "If you can attend a church without the fear of harassment, arrest, torture or death you are envied by, and more blessed than, three billion people in the world."

f. "If your parents are still alive and still married ...you are very rare." 

g. "If you can hold your head up and smile, you are not the norm, you're unique to all those in doubt and despair......."

"Ok, what now?  How can I start?", I asked the angel guide.

"After sharing this message with many who have never thought of it", the angel responded, "unceasingly Thank God for the many Graces that you just realized you have and seldom acknowledge, and the many more that you are not even aware of."

BP


A.  Once again, invoking the master key of our understanding of God: God created man to his own image: to the image of God he created him: male and female he created them. [Gen. 1:27]  we ask you: How many humans would keep sending gifts to another human who does not acknowledge them or is completely indifferent to the gifts... and may even complain about them? Probably none.

So does God! Remember, we were created in His image!

"What? You say that God is Merciful and would never do that?" Think again.... while you are still able to do so!

He allowed (not "caused" nor "did") the bloodiest war of human history - World War II - because His clearly given instructions (1) on how to prevent it were not followed by a handful of clerics at the Vatican.

Let us wake up and smell the coffee before we lose the olfactory nerve!
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(1) Clearly given instructions

Do you know what..... to do if a nuclear disaster is imminent?

Please Note: We are neither promoting the goods that the original site is selling nor are we endorsing all they suggest. Our idea is to give our readers some "Food for thought" regarding this issue. Ultimately, it should be the Holy Spirit Who will guide your every action.... if you have prepared the way for Him to do so.