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The National Organization for Marriage is calling for a public response to an employee survey conducted internally by J.P. Morgan Chase Bank. Workers at the financial institution leaked information on the so-called confidential survey, which asked in part if they identified as LGBT and whether they were an ally of the LGBT community (see earlier story). Joe Grabowski, with the National Organization for Marriage, tells OneNewsNow that this survey was intrusive into the private beliefs of the employees. “It's a very invasive question,” he says. “And one could certainly imagine - especially in the wake of things like the forced...

Over the past five years, an underground movement has been burgeoning on evangelical Christian campuses. Although many of these colleges explicitly ban “homosexual behavior,” they are now home to dozens of LGBT-friendly student groups. The umbrella organization Safety Net, founded in December 2011, encompasses groups from approximately 75 different evangelical Christian colleges. Some of these groups are tiny, and many operate in near-secret. But over the past two weeks, an LGBT group at Gordon College has made itself impossible to ignore. When we, the authors, attended Gordon College over a decade ago, the vast majority of administrators, faculty, and students...

A new reality show called "Married at First Sight" is legally marrying two complete strangers as part of a "social experiment," all in the name of entertainment. The show debuted last week on the FYI channel and follows three couples who are thrown into a legal marriage the moment they meet. A sexologist, psychologist, sociologist and spiritual adviser use "scientific matchmaking" to pair up the couples, then watch to see what happens. According to the show's publicist, the marriages are indeed binding. But the couples can have their divorces paid for by the show within six months if they choose...

Yesterday the Messiah Most Miserable issued a dictatorial fiat executive order stating that no federal contractor can "discriminate" in its personnel practices based on employees' gender identity and/or sexual orientation.  Churches and related organizations are NOT exempted.  The USCCB pitched a fit.  My question is, "would this order of Obama's had been a blip on their radar screens if they had been exempted?"  Given prior behaviors, I must opine that had Obama exempted churches, they wouldn't have given a rat's rump regarding the matter. But since the USCCB and so many of the dioceses are officially on the federal...

(VIDEO-AT-LINK)Tuesday on MSNBC "Morning Joe," House Minority Leader Nancy Pelosi (D-CA) discussed the humanitarian crisis of tens of thousands of unaccompanied minors illegally flooding across the U.S.-Mexico border. The congressional leader dismissed the strain on our nations financial resources to care for all the children of the world in troubled areas, saying she believes the U.S. government should look at the children like "baby Jesus," who she added "was a refugee from violence." Pelosi said, "In Washington, I see an embrace of the idea that this is a humanitarian crisis by people who are not politicizing the issue. What we...

Full title: The Philosophers and the Jews: Black Eggs and White Cheese The Secret of Jewish Resilience. The Inner Story of The Three Weeks Note: only 40 min long and the rabbi translates everything, very little 'yeshivish' (annoying mix of English, Hebrew, and Yiddish) A beautiful explanation on polar opposite sides of the Jewish calendar-- the 3 weeks between the 17th of the Jewsish month of Tammuz (the day the walls of Jerusalem fell to Nebuchadnezzar) and the 9th of Av (the day of the destruction of both Holy Temples) AND the 3 weeks between Rosh Hashana and [the day...

GAZA (Reuters) - About 1,000 Palestinian Muslims fleeing Israeli shells devastating their Gaza neighborhood have found shelter in a building they otherwise would rarely if ever enter, the city's 12th-century Greek Orthodox Church. Despite its thick walls dating back to the Crusades, the Church of Saint Porphyrius was still not a very safe haven. Shortly after they arrived, Israeli aircraft bombed a nearby field, spraying shrapnel on the church and damaging graves. But children from the Shejaia district, where some 72 Palestinians - many of them women and children - were killed during fighting between Israeli forces and Hamas militants...

Conflict over excommunicated bishop may result in suspensions of seminary students and a loss of vocations China’s Catholic community reeled recently as news spread that Beijing’s seminarians had boycotted their graduation ceremony, scheduled for late June. The decision was made after the seminarians discovered that the illegitimate – and excommunicated – rector of the seminary, Bishop Ma Yinglin, was scheduled to offer the graduation Mass. When the students voiced their objection to assisting at a Mass celebrated by a bishop who is not in communion with the Pope, the seminary officials suggested replacing Bishop Ma with Bishop John Fang Xingyao,...

Essentially what this new Executive Order does is amend the preexisting Equal Employment Opportunity Executive Orders No. 11478 (for federal gov’t) and No. 11246 (for federal Contractors and Subcontractors and federally-assisted Construction Contractors and Subcontractors). Where those previously Executive Orders once prohibited employment discrimination on the basis of “race, color, religion, sex, or national origin,” will now include “sexual orientation and gender identity.” While there is a just issue to be made as to why ‘voluntary’ behaviors would be added to federal non-discrimination law, or the addition of a new race/class/species of people of people (called LGBTQ) that scientists have...

ORLANDO – A federal judge has given a secular organization the green light to distribute more atheistic and anti-Christian materials to Florida public school students, in spite of the materials’ graphic content and offensive language. As previously reported, the Freedom From Religion Foundation (FFRF) learned last year that a Christian ministry had made Bibles available to Orlando high school students on “Religious Freedom Day.” To counter the Bible distribution, FFRF sought permission from the school district to give students a variety of atheistic and anti-Christian materials. According to reports, the Orange County School Board permitted FFRF to distribute several books...

Chaldean website ankawa.com says a university professor was killed after speaking out against anti-Christian persecution. Meanwhile, the Islamic State has set the jizyah at 450 dollars Christians leave Mosul He refused to keep silent about the violence agaist Mosul’s Christians  who are forced to choose between converting to the Muslim faith, paying the jizyah (the Islamic tax for non-Muslims) or fleeing. Professor Mahmoud Al ‘Asali, a law professor who lectures on pedagogy at the University of Mosul, had the courage to make a stand against this brutal duress which he believes go against the Muslim commandments. But he paid for...

WASHINGTON – The Internal Revenue Service (IRS) has reached a settlement with a prominent atheist organization, agreeing to crack down churches and religious groups for infringements of its prohibition against ‘electioneering.’ As previously reported, the Freedom from Religion Foundation (FFRF), headquartered in Madison, Wisconsin, sued the IRS in 2012, asserting that many non-profit religious organizations have been “blatantly and deliberately flaunting … electioneering restrictions,” but the government has not enforced its rules pertaining to the matter. According to the IRS website, “Under the Internal Revenue Code, all section 501(c)(3) organizations are absolutely prohibited from directly or indirectly participating in, or...

In the Hobby Lobby decision handed down last month, the Supreme Court was asked to strike a balance between women’s rights and religious freedom. But the major conflict that has erupted in the wake of that decision has been between religious freedom and gay rights. The resulting controversy has split gay-rights and faith groups on the left, with wide-ranging political fallout that some now fear could hurt both causes. One chapter of the controversy is set to close on Monday, when President Obama plans to sign a long-awaited executive order banning federal contractors from discriminating against gays and lesbians, according...

Islamic militants have seized a monastery in northern Iraq, kicking out its Christian monks as well as Christian residents of Mosul. Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL/ISIS) insurgents stormed the ancient Mar Benham monastery in the Christian town of Qaraqosh Sunday, near the northern Iraqi city of Mosul, which was overrun by ISIS on 10 June. Mar Benham is a 4th century monastery run by the Syriac Catholic church. A member of the Syriac clergy said the monks pleaded to be allowed to save some of the monasteryÂ’s relics but the ISIS fighters refused and ordered them...

President Barack Obama issued an executive order Monday prohibiting workplace discrimination based on sexual orientation or gender identity for federal contractors. What does this mean for Christian organizations that remain faithful to the biblical teaching on homosexual behavior? Here are two main points that those groups need to be aware of: First, the order only applies to government contractors and sub-contractors, it does not apply to groups that receive government grants. Most religious non-profits that provide services for the government do so through a government grant. They would not be affected. A grant recipient is awarded money for general purpose,...

(AINA) -- More than 200 Assyrian families fled in panic from Mosul on July 17 and 18 as the ISIS deadline for converting to Islam approached (AINA 2014-07-20). ISIS had issued a statement asking all Christians in Mosul to convert to Islam, pay the jizya, the poll tax on Christians, or face the sword. ISIS gave July 19 as the deadline to comply with its demands. Most Assyrians of Mosul responded by fleeing the city. ISIS setup checkpoints at the Araby and Shallalat neighborhoods (AlSada and Biawaizah) and robbed and plundered Assyrians who were fleeing the city. ISIS took money...

(Photo: Shoebat.com)An 1,800-year-old church being burnt to the ground in Mosul, Iraq. Members of the militant group Islamic State in Iraq and Syria (ISIS) reportedly torched a 1,800 year-old Catholic Church in Mosul, Iraq and have effectively left that city "empty of Christians" as believers fled the area in fear of their lives, according to Chaldean Catholic Patriarch Louis Sako.Sources told Shoebat that the ISIS group in Mosul called "Daash" completely burned the Syriac Catholic Diocese and its contents in Mosul. A Chaldean, Syriac and Assyrian Website released photos of the church in flames Saturday.Free Sign Up CP Newsletter! RelatedISIL Members...

Brethren: Peace be with you. I wanted to share with you this press release issued by the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops (USCCB): "'Freedom of conscience'? What's that?" WASHINGTON–The bishop-Chairmen of two USCCB Committees responded with great concern to President Obama’s July 21 executive order to prohibit federal government contractors from what the Administration deems “sexual orientation” and “gender identity” discrimination and to forbid “gender identity” discrimination in the employment of federal employees. The problems the bishops identify in the order relate both to the flaws in its core prohibitions, and to its lack of religious freedom protection. Two USCCB...

MANILA, Philippines (AP) — A Filipino construction worker kidnapped by militia men in Libya has been beheaded by his captors, becoming the first Filipino casualty in the renewed violence in the North African state, the Philippine government said. Department of Foreign Affairs spokesman Charles Jose said the Filipino worker was kidnapped on July 15. He was subsequently beheaded and his decomposed body was found Sunday in a hospital in Benghazi, Libya's second-largest city. "The vehicle he was riding in was stopped in a checkpoint. There were three of them - a Libyan a Pakistani and a Filipino and he was...

Rows of candles were set up last week at the home of Rabbi Zalman and Toba Grossbaum, co-directors of Chabad of Livingston, N.J., so community members and family could welcome in Shabbat and pray for the people of Israel.With the Sabbath approaching, Israel Defense Force troops are on the ground in Gaza, with Jews everywhere praying for their safety. Throughout the world came calls for prayer and good deeds on behalf of the Israeli soldiers, and all people threatened by ongoing missile attacks, with special emphasis on Jewish women and girls lighting Shabbat candles, and for families to join with...

It’s hard to tell if the near-constant stream of millennial-centric political think-pieces are perpetuating or reflecting growing curmudgeonly fears about the future of the country. Maybe it’s a little of both, and Fox is probably observing within its competency when it pegs more than a handful of us as “deluded narcissists” – but it appears there’s room for some political optimism among all the moral panic and the reign of the religious right. With millennial religious and political attitudes in flux compared to our predecessors, the upcoming years could be the Christian left’s big moment. Which isn’t to say the...

Conservative groups have denounced the recently signed executive order by President Barack Obama on LGBT employment discrimination, arguing that the measure does not offer sufficient religious liberty protection. Peter Sprigg, senior fellow for Policy Studies at the Family Research Council, said in a statement that with the executive order "Obama has ordered employers to put aside their principles, and practices in the name of political correctness." "This level of coercion is nothing less than viewpoint blackmail that bullies into silence every contractor and subcontractor who has moral objections to homosexual behavior," stated Sprigg. "This order gives activists a license to...

Pope Francis greets pilgrims in St. Peter's Square during the Wednesday general audience May 28, 2014. Credit: Daniel Ibáñez/CNA. Vatican City, Jul 21, 2014 / 05:55 am (CNA/EWTN News).- In his weekly Sunday Angelus address Pope Francis mourned the fleeing of the last Christians from the Iraqi city of Mosul, who were told by ISIS forces last week to either convert, pay the Jizya tax or leave. “They are persecuted; our brothers are persecuted, they are driven out, they have to leave their houses without having the possibility of taking anything with them,� Pope Francis voiced in his July 20...

Following an ultimatum from the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) to leave Mosul, convert to Islam, or be killed, the city’s remaining Christians left for other parts of Iraq. ISIL, the jihadist group that controls large sections of Syria and Iraq, confiscated the Christians’ possessions as they departed from Iraq’s 2nd-largest city. “The heinous crime of the Islamic State was carried out not just against Christians, but against humanity,” said Patriarch Louis Raphaël I Sako, the head of the Chaldean Catholic Church, as quoted by the Reuters news agency. In an urgent appeal, the Iraqi Patriarch reported...

I read at Il Giornale today that the prayer read by the Imam in the Vatican Gardens was indeed from the Sura 2, wherein Allah is asked to crush infidels (that’s us) and let Islam triumph over the whole world (that’s us, too). Vatican Radio, at the time, tried to give this an allegorical spin. It didn’t work very well. At a certain point it seems they also tried to edit out the troubling passage. Suffice to say that an Imam sang: “grant us victory over the heathen/disbelieving/infidel” (Sura 2: 286) in the Vatican Gardens, in front of the Pope,...

The news is chockful of bad news about the fate of Christians in Mosul. If you’re not careful, your eyes glaze over and you shake your head and move on to the next story–because after all, it’s not happening here. The burning of an 1800-year-old church is the latest in a series of burnings and desecrations by ISIS. A Chaldean, Syriac and Assyrian website released this photo of a church being destroyed.

Tony Palmer, the charismatic young preacher who enjoyed a friendship with Pope Francis, has apparently died in a motorcycle accident. Not a Catholic, Palmer was bishop in the Communion of Evangelical Episcopal Churches, a group that is inspired by the “middle way” of classical Anglicanism and considers itself part of the Convergence Movement. News is spotty at this point; but according to Archbishop Charles Hill, presiding prelate at Ambassadors for Christ Ministries of America (AFCMOA) in Atlanta, Palmer was in an accident while riding a motorcycle in the U.K. After hours of surgery, Bishop Palmer died on Sunday, July 20,...

Brethren, Peace be with you. For professional and personal reasons I've always cultivated an interest and a studied curiosity about foreign events, their drivers, and their meanings. The recent shooting down of the Malaysia Airlines commercial carrier over eastern Ukraine inmediately caught my attention, but I haven't said anything about it until now for two reasons: first, I wanted to wait for more facts to surface and, second, I didn't want to write out of shock and anger. However, writing this post is also due to a few precipitating factors: Russian President Vladimir Putin's call for "a moment of silence"...

One of the most exasperating bits of exegetical trendiness to afflict first-world Catholics for the past 30 years or so has been the endless recirculation, like a bad penny, of the “True Meaning of the Miracles of the Loaves and Fishes” homily. It goes like this: Jesus found himself in the wilderness with a crowd of 5,000 people who were two millennia less smart than we suburban Americans. When people started getting hungry, Jesus took five loaves and two fishes and gave them to a couple of people around him. Suddenly, inspired by a wave of warm fuzziness emanating from...

Guns and other weapons are officially unwelcome at Catholic churches, schools and other buildings owned, leased or operated by the Archdiocese of Atlanta and the Diocese of Savannah in Georgia. Atlanta Archbishop Wilton D. Gregory and Savannah Bishop Gregory J. Hartmayer issued a decree prohibiting guns and knives with blades longer than 5 inches from parishes, churches, schools, administrative offices and other buildings owned or used by the Catholic community effective July 1. In a statement, the bishops said Catholic places of worship are sanctuaries where “ways of peace and reconciliation” should be the rule. “This decree is rooted in...

BAGHDAD (Reuters) - The head of Iraq's largest church said on Sunday that Islamic State militants who drove Christians out of Mosul were worse than Mongol leader Genghis Khan and his grandson Hulagu who ransacked medieval Baghdad. Chaldean Catholic Patriarch Louis Raphael Sako led a wave of condemnation for the Sunni Islamists who demanded Christians either convert, submit to their radical rule and pay a religious levy or face death by the sword. At the Vatican, Pope Francis decried what he said was the persecution of Christians in the birthplace of their faith, while U.N. Secretary-General Ban Ki-moon said the...

Have you ever heard the claim "all smart people are atheists", or maybe its inverse: "people who believe in God are dumb"? It's quite a pervasive urban legend, and one which I've known is false for a long time, but I didn't realize just how false until the other day. I recently decided to do a quick cataloging of the ten highest IQ's on earth, and discovered that it's nearly the exact opposite of the truth! Before reading the list, however, I want to remind you of the caveat that IQ test results are not in any sense the measure...

[Cross removed this week from dome of Syriac Orthodox Cathedral, Mosul, Iraq] For two thousand years, our dearest brethren saw it all from Mosul: Romanized Greeks, Hellenized Persians, Hellenized Romans from all origins later called "Byzantines", Armenians, Arabs from the desert with a religion of the sword, Egyptians, Crusaders, Mongols, Turks, French and British, "Independence"... Then the clumsiest Empire in history, an Empire unwanted by most voters, unwarranted by the Republic's own Constitution, led by bellicose hawks motivated by God knows what, justifying their actions on untruths, arrived, upsetting a balance that was not the best, but was best...

Washington D.C., Jul 19, 2014 / 06:49 am (CNA/EWTN News).- Americans must be free to practice their faith in the public square – including business decisions – without being viewed as discriminatory, urged four U.S. bishops. “Churches, businesses, and individuals should not be punished in any way for living by their religious and moral convictions concerning sexual activity,” the bishops wrote in a July 17 blog post for the U.S. bishops’ conference. “Eliminating truly unjust discrimination – based on personal characteristics, not sexual behavior – and protecting religious freedom are goals that we all should share,” the bishops emphasized. “The...

Bill Donohue comments on remarks recently made by Pope Francis on the immigration crisis facing the United States: There are those on the right and the left who have misrepresented what the pope has said about the immigration crisis. Understandably, those on both sides of this issue are unhappy with the pope’s comments, but that is no excuse for distorting them. It may not please those on the right to learn that the pope implores Americans to care for children who have crossed the border seeking help. But that is exactly what Catholics are expected to do: to tend to...

The thuggish pastor of a small Southern California church and two of his parishioners tortured a 13-year-old boy who lived at a church-run group home, savagely beating him, grinding salt into his raw wounds and forcing him to dig his own grave. The pastor, Lonny Remmers, 56, and his two goons even tortured the teen during a group Bible study session, forcing him to sit in front of the others while they twisted his nipples with pliers, court documents show, according to the Los Angeles Times.

Jewish communities around the world are not letting terrorist attacks from Hamas deter them from relocating to Israel. This week, hundreds of French Jews arrived in Israel to settle in the towns of Ashdod and Ashkelon, while incidents of anti-Semitism continue to rise in France itself. On Thursday, as the Israeli government announced a ground offensive against Hamas in Gaza, 430 Jewish immigrants from France arrived in Israel with the intention of permanently relocating. Of these, many came as entire families, with 195 children and 18 infants on the flights in. The numbers from France are to be expected-- polls...

Worried about global warming, a growing number of churches and other faith groups are divesting their holdings in fossil-fuel companies, which release large amounts of carbon dioxide and other greenhouse gases into the atmosphere. “The warning in Scripture that ‘the wages of sin is death’ could not be more literally true than it is in the case of fossil fuels,” said Serene Jones, president of New York’s Union Theological Seminary, whose board voted in June to divest its $108.4 million endowment of holdings in fossil-fuel companies. “While we realize that our endowment alone will hardly cause the fossil-fuel giants to...

Gaza City, Jul 18, 2014 / 11:32 am (CNA/EWTN News).- Though fighting has escalated between Israel and Palestinian militants based in the Gaza Strip, a Catholic Relief Services spokeswoman has stressed that the agency still aims to advance peace in the region. “This conflict has dimmed the prospects for peace among Israelis and Palestinians, but as a Catholic organization, we are called to be peacemakers,� Liz O’Neill, Catholic Relief Services’ communications officer for the Middle East region, told CNA July 17. “We continually advocate for our leaders in Washington to take concrete steps to promote a peaceful resolution to the...

Palestinian soldier stands guard during Pope Francis' May 25, 2014 Mass in Bethlehem's Manger Square. Credit: Lauren Cater/CNA. Vatican City, Jul 18, 2014 / 08:04 am (CNA/EWTN News).- In wake of the rising death toll in Gaza due to increased tensions between Israel and Palestine, Pope Francis made a personal call to both presidents in order to ask for peace. “Following last Sunday’s heartfelt appeal for continued prayer for peace in the Holy Land, this morning the Holy Father Francis personally telephoned President Shimon Peres and President Mahmoud Abbas,� a July 18 statement from the Vatican read. During the calls,...

Christians in Mosul, Iraq, have been told that they must leave, convert to Islam or accept dhimmitude, or die. A communique from the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIL) gave Christians a deadline of June 19, saying that if they do not leave or accept Islamic rule, "their destiny is the sword." The Aleteia web site, citing local sources, said that this message was being broadcast on loudspeakers by mosques in Mosul. Bishop Saad Sirop, an auxiliary of the Chaldean Catholic patriarchate in Baghdad, told Aid to the Church in Need: "In the last hours, the jihadists of...

Islamic State sets new rules, raising possibility of martyrdomChaldean Auxiliary Bishop Saad Sirop of Baghdad has confirmed a troubling report from Mosul that the Islamic State is now presenting Christians in that city with a final ultimatum of conversion, subservience or death. According to sources known to Aleteia, but kept anonymous due to security concerns, a number of mosques in the city of Mosul, and through loudspeakers, called on Christians Friday to leave the city. They said in their appeals that the reason was due to the rejection of the bishops to meet elements of the Islamic State to dictate...

Sergiyev Posad, July 18, Interfax - The precepts of St. Sergius of Radonezh is a key to understanding Russia, Russian President Vladimir Putin said at a gala concert on the occasion of the 700th birthday anniversary of St. Sergius of Radonezh. "The precepts of St. Sergius of Radonezh are key to understanding Russia, to learning its foundamental principles - its historical traditions, unity and togetherness. It is in this unity, in truth and justice, in our centuries-long traditions in which lie the strength of Russia, its great past, present and future," Putin said. St. Sergius played a truly seminal role...

Jews, Catholics and evangelical Christians are viewed warmly by the American public. When asked to rate each group on a “feeling thermometer” ranging from 0 to 100 – where 0 reflects the coldest, most negative possible rating and 100 the warmest, most positive rating – all three groups receive an average rating of 60 or higher (63 for Jews, 62 for Catholics and 61 for evangelical Christians). And 44% of the public rates all three groups in the warmest part of the scale (67 or higher).Buddhists, Hindus and Mormons receive neutral ratings on average, ranging from 48 for Mormons to...

SAN DIEGO – Cornerstone Church in San Diego, California is the largest congregation led by a Latino pastor in the city's history. But the pastor, Sergio de la Mora, a second generation Mexican-American, says it is the church's message, not demographic, that attracts people to the church's several campuses throughout Southern California and Mexico. "Because God is raising us second generation Latinos, He's breaking rules by using people like us. I believe that God is saying to America, 'give me permission to use people who you wouldn't think I can use," de la Mora, who leads the multicultural Cornerstone church,...

The UN’s Committee on Human Rights has condemned Ireland’s ban on abortion as “unacceptable cruelty,” and demanded liberalization of the law. Following testimony by several pro-abortion organizations, the UN committee pressed Irish justice minister Frances Fitzgerald to defend the country’s law, with one member claiming, inaccurately, that under existing international law, legal access to abortion is “an absolute right.”

After 7 7 7: Heaven's Answer?! Thank you for participating in 7 7 7: An Urgent Call to Prayer. The following picture was taken on Day 8 of 7 7 7 by a woman who prayer-walked the White House, Capitol, and the Supreme Court, using our prayers as a guide. Since the rainbow was given as a sign of God's covenant to Noah underscoring that never again would the world be destroyed by a flood, could it be that God has sent it as a sign that He has heard our prayers, will forgive our sin, and heal our land?...

The assault on religious liberty lost today as the Senate failed to achieve the 60 votes necessary to advance this bill. While the outcome is welcome, the fact that a majority of Senators, almost all Democrats, are still bent on eviscerating the religious liberty rights of Americans is very disturbing. It seems they will stop at nothing to trample on our First Amendment freedoms. The vote is being widely misreported by the media as a vote on contraception. It was not. The issue is abortion, not contraception. All four of the procedures that plaintiffs for Hobby Lobby cited in their...

Catholic News Service photo Bishop Elias Zaidan visits Portland the weekend of July 19-20. Catholic Sentinel photo by Ed Langlois Abouna Jonathan Decker and Monk Anthony Joseph Alles at the Maronite monastery in Beaverton in 2011. Ed LangloisOf the Catholic Sentinel The variety of Catholic tradition and the plight of Christians in the Middle East will be at the forefront this weekend in Portland. The leader of Maronite Catholics in the western U.S. is visiting to ordain a Portland monk on the path to priesthood. Bishop Elias Zaidan of the St. Louis-based Maronite Eparchy of Our Lady of Lebanon...