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Direction of Focus "Behold, as the eyes of servants look to the hand of their masters . . . , so our eyes look to the Lord our God . . ." —Psalm 123:2 This verse is a description of total reliance on God. Just as the eyes of a servant are riveted on his master, our eyes should be directed to and focused on God. This is how knowledge of His countenance is gained and how God reveals Himself to us (seeIsaiah 53:1 ). Our spiritual strength begins to be drained when we stop lifting our eyes to...

The Bearing Witness series of seminars created by the Anti-Defamation League is designed to teach educators about anti-Semitism and the history of the relationship between Jews and the church. [snip] "The very first time I attended, I'll be brutally honest, it was difficult for me to hear some of the things that were said, like how the Fourth Lateran Council demanded Jews wear identifying hats," said Father Alexei Smith of the Archdiocese of Los Angeles, which helps develop and promote the conference. "That's horrendous and a precursor to the Nazis' demanded armbands."

Cardinal Walter Kasper Vatican City, Nov 23, 2009 / 01:22 pm (CNA).- Cardinal Walter Kasper, president of the Pontifical Council for Christian Unity, explained last week that the entrance of  Anglicans into the Catholic Church is the fruit of authentic ecumenism inspired by the Second Vatican Council. On the eve of a scheduled meeting between Pope Benedict XVI and the leader of the Anglican Church, Archbishop Rowan Williams, Cardinal Kasper commented on the openness of the Catholic Church to Anglicans who asked to be admitted into full communion.Ecumenism is not an “option” that the Church can accept or reject...

via charlotteobserver.com Sarah Palin, the hottest name in the Republican Party, took a detour from her book-signing tour Sunday to dine with Billy Graham at his mountaintop home in Montreat. "He's followed her career and likes her strong stand on faith," said son Franklin Graham, who was present for the 2 1/2-hour get-together. "Daddy feels God was using her to wake America up." The former Alaska governor and 2008 GOP vice presidential candidate told Billy Graham about how she came to faith in God as a girl in Bible camp. She quizzed him on the presidents he's known and wanted...

“Why aren’t priests in this country doing more to help Arab Christian Palestinians?” As we sat down for dinner at the 2009 awards banquet sponsored by the Holy Land Christian Ecumenical Foundation, the question caught me by surprise. I had been invited by chance, but in all honesty I knew very little about the organization. Thanks to that question, however, I now know much more about why all Christians should be deeply concerned about today’s Christian Palestinians. There should always be a solidarity among Christians, regardless of where we live. As such, when one of us suffers, we all suffer....

The Distraction of Contempt "Have mercy on us, O Lord, have mercy on us! For we are exceedingly filled with contempt" —Psalm 123:3 What we must beware of is not damage to our belief in God but damage to our Christian disposition or state of mind. "Take heed to your spirit, that you do not deal treacherously" ( Malachi 2:16 ). Our state of mind is powerful in its effects. It can be the enemy that penetrates right into our soul and distracts our mind from God. There are certain attitudes we should never dare to indulge. If we...

As Barack Hussein ObamaHussein Obama, Marxist Muslim, continues to gather about him anti-Christian cohorts, particularly as czars in his shadow government, Christians do what Jesus told them to do.

Shallow and Profound "Whether you eat or drink, or whatever you do, do all to the glory of God" —1 Corinthians 10:31 Beware of allowing yourself to think that the shallow aspects of life are not ordained by God; they are ordained by Him equally as much as the profound. We sometimes refuse to be shallow, not out of our deep devotion to God but because we wish to impress other people with the fact that we are not shallow. This is a sure sign of spiritual pride. We must be careful, for this is how contempt for others...

THE Roman Catholic Church in England and Wales has taken the first steps towards receiving Anglican converts en masse. Archbishop Vincent Nichols, its leader, has appointed a panel of bishops to plan the recruitment of entire Church of England parishes. The move, effectively to “poach” Anglican congregations disenchanted with their church’s liberal drift, came as Rowan Williams, the Archbishop of Canterbury, held a meeting with Pope Benedict XVI in the Vatican. Speaking after their meeting, Williams denied that the Pope’s offer to allow members of the Church of England to convert while preserving many of their traditions was “a kind...

The leader of a billion Roman Catholics meets the leader of 80 million Anglicans at a moment of historic crisis between the two Communions and they spend all of TWENTY MINUTES together. Here is the official communiqué from the Vatican: This morning His Holiness Pope Benedict XVI received in private audience His Grace Rowan Williams, Archbishop of Canterbury. In the course of the cordial discussions attention turned to the challenges facing all Christian communities at the beginning of this millennium, and to the need to promote forms of collaboration and shared witness in facing these challenges. The discussions also focused...

Now it's true that there's a lot more to Islam than you'll glean from the likes of bin Laden. But it's also true that there's a lot more to it than strictly individual, spiritual struggle. What UNC may be trying to tell students about Islam is "hey, there's no reason we can't all just get along." And if that's their message, they're not promoting understanding of Islam so much as they're whitewashing it. Don't get me wrong. I don't think the story of the Middle East is a simple tale of noble Americans and Israelis fighting evil Muslims who insanely...

Sign The Declaration! Christians, when they have lived up to the highest ideals of their faith, have defended the weak and vulnerable and worked tirelessly to protect and strengthen vital institutions of civil society, beginning with the family. We are Orthodox, Catholic, and evangelical Christians who have united at this hour to reaffirm fundamental truths about justice and the common good, and to call upon our fellow citizens, believers and non-believers alike, to join us in defending them. These truths are: --the sanctity of human life --the dignity of marriage as the conjugal union of husband and wife --the rights...

'It is Finished!' "I have finished the work which You have given Me to do" —John 17:4 The death of Jesus Christ is the fulfillment in history of the very mind and intent of God. There is no place for seeing Jesus Christ as a martyr. His death was not something that happened to Him— something that might have been prevented. His death was the very reason He came.Never build your case for forgiveness on the idea that God is our Father and He will forgive us because He loves us. That contradicts the revealed truth of God in...

Thanks to technical problems, I wasn’t able to comment on Rowan Williams (”Archbishop of Canterbury” in the Henrician usurpation tradition, as Gerald Warner calls him) lecturing the Vatican on the virtues of women priests. I’m glad he did, because it is high time that the Church of England stopped apologising for this innovation. Anglicans have women priests; Catholics and Orthodox don’t. End of story, so far as corporate reunion is concerned. “Oh, but the Roman Catholic Church will certainly ordain women one day,” Dr George Carey once told me. No it won’t. Why do Anglicans find this so hard to...

Fr Daniil Sysoyev, rector of the parish of the Holy Apostle Thomas in Kantemirovskaya, Candidate of Theology (a Kandidat (Candidate) degree is equivalent to a PhD, somewhat more rigorous: editor’s note) I think that one of the most important problems facing the Orthodox Church in Russia, and even beyond its borders, is the ideological rigor mortis of the Church. The Church is considered as a kind of dead body, it is thought to be frozen. According to some, nothing should be changed in it. It is understandable that we should not change dogmatics and Church Tradition, no one argues with...

The Archbishop of Canterbury yesterday made his most outspoken challenge to the Roman Catholic Church since the Pope invited disaffected Anglicans to switch to Rome. Speaking before he meets Benedict XVI tomorrow, Dr Rowan Williams told a conference in Rome that the Catholic Church’s refusal to ordain women was a bar to Christian unity. “For many Anglicans, not ordaining women has a possible unwelcome implication about the difference between baptised men and baptised women,” he said. The Anglican provinces that ordain women had retained rather than lost their Catholic holiness and sacramentalism, he said. Addressing an ecumenical conference at the...

www.catholicnewsagency.com Unprecedented coalition of religious leaders call Americans to stand for sanctity of life, marriage, and religious freedom Washington D.C., Nov 20, 2009 / 06:21 am (CNA).- An unprecedented coalition of prominent Christian clergy, ministry leaders, and scholars has crafted a 4,700-word declaration addressing the sanctity of life, traditional marriage, and religious liberty. The declaration issues “a clarion call” to Christians to adhere to their convictions and informs civil authorities that the signers will not “under any circumstance” abandon their Christian consciences. The statement,  called “the Manhattan Declaration,” has been signed by more than 125 Catholic, Evangelical Christian, and Orthodox...

Last Monday I was traveling to Tampa, Florida for a week long retreat with other Catholic priests who were once Anglican priests. In the airport I got an email with the news that the new Apostolic Constitution Anglicanorum coetibus had been published. Suddenly the rest of the week’s program was decided. My brother priests and I spent time studying the document and discussing its implications. The wider implications of Pope Benedict’s invitation to Anglicans to come into full communion are genuinely historic. It impacts discussions not only with Anglicans, but with all of the churches derived from the Protestant Reformation....

The Forgiveness of God "In Him we have . . . the forgiveness of sins . . ." —Ephesians 1:7 Beware of the pleasant view of the fatherhood of God: God is so kind and loving that of course He will forgive us. That thought, based solely on emotion, cannot be found anywhere in the New Testament. The only basis on which God can forgive us is the tremendous tragedy of the Cross of Christ. To base our forgiveness on any other ground is unconscious blasphemy. The only ground on which God can forgive our sin and reinstate us...

The archbishop of Canterbury today pleaded with Roman Catholics to set aside their differences with Anglicans over the issue of female bishops, insisting there was more uniting the denominations than dividing them. Rowan Williams was giving a lecture in Rome before Sunday's meeting with the pope, their first encounter since the Vatican's surprise announcement of a special institution for traditionalist Anglicans wanting to convert to Catholicism. In his address at the Gregorian University, Williams said the Anglican communion was proof that churches could stay together in spite of their differences. The communion has teetered on the edge of schism for...

ROME, November 18, 2009 – Cardinal Walter Kasper has admitted it: "There has been a bit of confusion." He himself contributed to some of the confusion, involuntarily. When on October 20 Cardinal William J. Levada, prefect of the congregation for the doctrine of the faith, announced the imminent publication of an apostolic constitution that would regulate the admission of groups from the Anglican Communion into the Catholic Church, he, Kasper, president of the pontifical council for Christian unity and therefore absolutely entitled to be involved, was not in Rome, but in Cyprus, busy with completely unrelated matters. From this, some...

Just in the nick of time we see some real leadership from the Archbishop of Canterbury. No no, he isn't doing anything crazy to save the Anglican communion like embracing orthodoxy or anything. Canterbury leads us in a different direction, off a cliff. Rowan Williams has come out strongly in favor of the doctrine of higher taxes. Further, he gives us the source of this divinely inspired revelation, Big Brother 11. [Telegraph]Dr Rowan Williams said that taxation should not be seen as a way of stifling business or redistributing wealth but helping to make the world a better place in...

The Archbishop of Westminster has blamed Church of England bishops for keeping their leader in the dark about the Pope’s attempts to entice Anglicans to Rome. As the Archbishop of Canterbury prepared to visit Pope Benedict XVI for the first time since plans to admit Anglican opponents of women priests into the Catholic faith were published, the Most Rev Vincent Nichols, head of the Roman Catholic Church in England and Wales, deepened the row. Archbishop Nicholls said that it had been the “duty” of the Anglicans involved in the talks to keep their primate informed about the Pope’s plans. The...

"When He Has Come" "When He has come, He will convict the world of sin . . ." —John 16:8 Very few of us know anything about conviction of sin. We know the experience of being disturbed because we have done wrong things. But conviction of sin by the Holy Spirit blots out every relationship on earth and makes us aware of only one— "Against You, You only, have I sinned . . ." ( Psalm 51:4 ). When a person is convicted of sin in this way, he knows with every bit of his conscience that God would...

Winning into Freedom "If the Son makes you free, you shall be free indeed" —John 8:36 If there is even a trace of individual self-satisfaction left in us, it always says, "I can’t surrender," or "I can’t be free." But the spiritual part of our being never says "I can’t"; it simply soaks up everything around it. Our spirit hungers for more and more. It is the way we are built. We are designed with a great capacity for God, but sin, our own individuality, and wrong thinking keep us from getting to Him. God delivers us from sin—...

The Eternal Goal "By Myself I have sworn, says the Lord, because you have done this thing . . . I will bless you . . ." —Genesis 22:16-17 Abraham, at this point, has reached where he is in touch with the very nature of God. He now understands the reality of God. My goal is God Himself . . . At any cost, dear Lord, by any road. "At any cost . . . by any road" means submitting to God’s way of bringing us to the goal.There is no possibility of questioning God when He speaks, if...

Archbishop Hilarion Alfeyev, the Russian Orthodox Church’s top official for relations with other churches, has been busy this past week putting his revived church’s stamp on the world Christian scene. Over the weekend, he urged Catholics and Orthodox to join forces to defend their traditional version of Christianity. His comments, made during a visit to Paris to inaugurate his Church’s first seminary outside of Russia, come only days after positive remarks he made last week about how the Vatican and Moscow were slowly moving towards a meeting between Moscow’s Patriarch Kirill and Pope Benedict. Also last week, Hilarion indicated the...

EATON TWP. — Holy Love Ministries, the Eaton Township site where Maureen Sweeney Kyle and her husband, Don Kyle, operate an ecumenical ministry and pilgrimage site, has received a harsh rebuke from the Catholic Diocese of Cleveland. Bishop Richard Lennon, in a letter and decree released Nov. 11, declared Sweeney Kyle’s visions to be “not supernatural,” banned clergy from performing sacraments at the 83-acre site, banned Holy Love Ministries from using the name “Catholic” or declaring itself a Catholic group, and discouraged practicing Catholics from going to the site. In a statement Sunday, Don Kyle said, “We at Holy Love...

Still Human! ". . . whatever you do, do all to the glory of God" —1 Corinthians 10:31 In the Scriptures, the great miracle of the incarnation slips into the ordinary life of a child; the great miracle of the transfiguration fades into the demon-possessed valley below; the glory of the resurrection descends into a breakfast on the seashore. This is not an anticlimax, but a great revelation of God.We have a tendency to look for wonder in our experience, and we mistake heroic actions for real heroes. It’s one thing to go through a crisis grandly, yet quite...

The Left opposes the Catholic Church's opposition to abortion provisions in healthcare reform. So why doesn't it oppose the YWCA, United Methodist Church, and the Central Conference of American Rabbis for favoring abortion? Getting Nancy Pelosi to accept a health care bill that bans federal funds for abortion was the greatest victory scored by U.S. bishops in a generation. It also unleashed an unprecedented attempt to censor them. Their latest enemy is Geoffrey Stone writing in the Huffington Post. Stone finds it troubling that the bishops are so vocal. He yearns for a time when JFK was president, a time...

Conservative Anglo-Catholics, your time is up. As my colleague Jonathan Wynne-Jones reports, the General Synod committee charged with looking after opponents of women bishops has ruled out the idea of dedicated male bishops to safeguard traditionalists.The logic of the decision makes perfect sense to me. The C of E has the legal authority to decide whether to ordain women priests and bishops. Having acquired that authority, it voted to ordain women priests in 1992 and will now take the obvious step of raising women to the episcopate. Anglo-Catholics lost the battle to stop this happening 18 years ago; for a...

"What Is That to You?" "Peter . . . said to Jesus, ’But Lord, what about this man?’ Jesus said to him, ’. . . what is that to you? You follow Me’ " —John 21:21-22 One of the hardest lessons to learn comes from our stubborn refusal to refrain from interfering in other people’s lives. It takes a long time to realize the danger of being an amateur providence, that is, interfering with God’s plan for others. You see someone suffering and say, "He will not suffer, and I will make sure that he doesn’t." You put your...

Discovering Divine Design "As for me, being on the way, the Lord led me . . ." —Genesis 24:27 We should be so one with God that we don’t need to ask continually for guidance. Sanctification means that we are made the children of God. A child’s life is normally obedient, until he chooses disobedience. But as soon as he chooses to disobey, an inherent inner conflict is produced. On the spiritual level, inner conflict is the warning of the Spirit of God. When He warns us in this way, we must stop at once and be renewed in...

Faith or Experience? ". . . the Son of God, who loved me and gave Himself for me" —Galatians 2:20 We should battle through our moods, feelings, and emotions into absolute devotion to the Lord Jesus. We must break out of our own little world of experience into abandoned devotion to Him. Think who the New Testament says Jesus Christ is, and then think of the despicable meagerness of the miserable faith we exhibit by saying, "I haven’t had this experience or that experience"! Think what faith in Jesus Christ claims and provides— He can present us faultless before...

12 November 2009, 12:23Meeting possible between Pope, Patriarch Kirill - Archbishop Hilarion Moscow, November 12, Interfax - Relations between the Russian Orthodox and Roman Catholic Churches are improving and a meeting between Pope Benedict XVI and the Patriarch Kirill of Moscow and All Russia, may be on the cards, a Russian Orthodox bishop said. "Today it can be said that we are moving to a moment when it becomes possible to prepare a meeting between the Pope and the Patriarch of Moscow," Archbishop Hilarion of Volokolamsk, the head of the Department for External Church Relations, told reporters in Moscow. "There...

The Archbishop of Canterbury has admitted that the future of Anglicanism is “chaotic and uncertain”. One can’t help asking: And whose fault would that be, Your Grace? Of course, many of the problems of the Anglican Communion are insoluble, by Dr Rowan Williams or anyone else. But his attempts to run with the hare and hunt with the hounds – firmly backing women bishops while pleading with opponents to stay; privately expressing support for gay unions while disciplining churches that bless them – don’t help at all. Dr Williams was preaching at All Saints, Margaret Street; the sermon, which you...

The Changed Life "If anyone is in Christ, he is a new creation; old things have passed away; behold, all things have become new" —2 Corinthians 5:17 What understanding do you have of the salvation of your soul? The work of salvation means that in your real life things are dramatically changed. You no longer look at things in the same way. Your desires are new and the old things have lost their power to attract you. One of the tests for determining if the work of salvation in your life is genuine is— has God changed the things...

EVIDENCE FOR THE RESURRECTION OF CHRIST A Challenge for Skeptics [ NOTE: For a response to the book The Empty Tomb: Jesus Beyond the Grave (Prometheus, 2005) by Lowder / Price see the free 500+ page E-book This Joyful Eastertide: A Critical Review of The Empty Tomb  (PDF) by Steve Hays, et al (c) 2006 ] A reasonable challenge to the skeptic is this: If it can be proved that Jesus really rose from the dead, will you believe in him? For if he really rose, that validates his claim to be divine and not merely human, for resurrection from...

The Supreme Climb "He said, ’Take now your son . . .’ " —Genesis 22:2 God’s command is, "Take now," not later. It is incredible how we debate! We know something is right, but we try to find excuses for not doing it immediately. If we are to climb to the height God reveals, it can never be done later— it must be done now. And the sacrifice must be worked through our will before we actually perform it."So Abraham rose early in the morning . . . and went to the place of which God had told him"...

APOSTOLIC CONSTITUTION ANGLICANORUM COETIBUSPROVIDING FOR PERSONAL ORDINARIATES FOR ANGLICANS ENTERING INTO FULL COMMUNION WITH THE CATHOLIC CHURCH In recent times the Holy Spirit has moved groups of Anglicans to petition repeatedly and insistently to be received into full Catholic communion individually as well as corporately. The Apostolic See has responded favorably to such petitions. Indeed, the successor of Peter, mandated by the Lord Jesus to guarantee the unity of the episcopate and to preside over and safeguard the universal communion of all the Churches,[1] could not fail to make available the means necessary to bring this holy desire to realization....

Fellowship in the Gospel ". . . fellow laborer in the gospel of Christ . . ." —1 Thessalonians 3:2 After sanctification, it is difficult to state what your purpose in life is, because God has moved you into His purpose through the Holy Spirit. He is using you now for His purposes throughout the world as He used His Son for the purpose of our salvation. If you seek great things for yourself, thinking, "God has called me for this and for that," you barricade God from using you. As long as you maintain your own personal interests...

“Given in Rome, at St. Peter’s, on November 4, 2009, the Memorial of St. Charles Borromeo.” These words appear just before the signature of Pope Benedict XVI on the historic Apostolic Constitution entitled Anglicanorum Coetibus. The name of the Apostolic Constitution, as with many magisterial documents, is taken from the first words of the Latin text. It means "Groups of Anglicans". The dates when magisterial documents of this kind of significance are dated - and then released - are significant. Nothing of this magnitude is ever done haphazardly by the Holy See. The dates of promulgation and release underscore the...

e-mail this to a friend printable version » 11/09/2009 17:38VATICANAn ‘Ordinariate’ for Anglican priests, even married, and faithful who become Catholic, Pope saysBenedict XVI’s apostolic constitution ‘Anglicanorum coetibus’ is published today. It will provide for full communion and preservation of Anglican rites and traditions. In no way does the apostolic constitution contradict the “ecumenical an endeavour of the Catholic Church, Fr Federico Lombardi says. Vatican City (AsiaNews) – Anglican priests, even if they are married, as well as the faithful, individually and as communities, can retain, under certain conditions, their rites and traditions if they decide to enter into...

London, England, Nov 6, 2009 / 12:24 am (CNA).- Members of The Traditional Anglican Church in Great Britain have announced that they will enter into communion with the Vatican under Pope Benedict XVI's Apostolic Constitution for Anglicans. According to the group's website, members met on October 29 for their October 2009 Assembly. They scrapped their initial itinerary for the meeting following the Vatican's Oct. 20 announcement that an Apostolic Constitution was being prepared in response to requests from groups of Anglican clergy and faithful wanting to enter into full communion with the Church. Instead, the assembly focused on what the...

A Roman Catholic deacon whose cure from a crippling spinal disease after praying to a Victorian cardinal was approved as a miracle by the Vatican is in London at the start of a six-day visit to Britain. Jack Sullivan, from the US diocese of Boston, will visit London, Birmingham and Oxford accompanied by his wife Carol. Mr Sullivan will act as deacon and preach at a Mass in Westminster Cathedral, the mother church of Catholics in England and Wales. Mr Sullivan, 70, prayed for the help of the Ven John Henry Newman - a revered 19th century clergyman who famously...

ANGLICANORUM COETIBUS AND COMPLEMENTARY NORMS VATICAN CITY, 9 NOV 2009 (VIS) - The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith today published the Apostolic Constitution "Anglicanorum coetibus", which provides for personal ordinariates for Anglicans entering into full communion with the Catholic Church, and some Complementary Norms for the same Apostolic Constitution. Both documents are dated 4 November, feast of St. Charles Borromeo, and are signed by Cardinal William Joseph Levada and Archbishop Luis F. Ladaria S.J., respectively prefect and secretary of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. An English-language communique released by the congregation recalls how on 20...

The Vatican today held the line on priestly celibacy as it published the document which opens the door for hundreds of thousands of disaffected Anglicans to become Roman Catholics. Pope Benedict XVI has made it as easy as possible for traditional and “continuing” Anglicans to convert to Catholicism while retaining key elements of their ecclesiastical heritage, observers commented. The Apostolic Constitution even allows for married Anglican bishops to be granted the status of retired Catholic bishops, to become members of the local Catholic bishops’ conference and to be granted permission to use the “insignia” of episcopal office, such as the...

Sacred Service "I now rejoice in my sufferings for you, and fill up in my flesh what is lacking in the afflictions of Christ . . ." —Colossians 1:24 The Christian worker has to be a sacred "go-between." He must be so closely identified with his Lord and the reality of His redemption that Christ can continually bring His creating life through him. I am not referring to the strength of one individual’s personality being superimposed on another, but the real presence of Christ coming through every aspect of the worker’s life. When we preach the historical facts of...

Foreword The action of the General Assembly of the Presbyterian Church in the United States of America, meeting at San Francisco, in adopting the Report of the Special Committee to visit Princeton Theological Seminary, has raised an issue upon which the entire future character of the institution depends. In treating of this issue, I shall not deal with the personal attack that has been made upon me. My real sorrow has been due not to the personal indignity that I have suffered by the actions of the last two General Assemblies, but to the fact that I have been the...

The Unrivaled Power of Prayer "We do not know what we should pray for as we ought, but the Spirit Himself makes intercession for us with groanings which cannot be uttered" —Romans 8:26 We realize that we are energized by the Holy Spirit for prayer; and we know what it is to pray in accordance with the Spirit; but we don’t often realize that the Holy Spirit Himself prays prayers in us which we cannot utter ourselves. When we are born again of God and are indwelt by the Spirit of God, He expresses for us the unutterable."He," the...