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A Lutheran congregation in San Francisco will ordain an openly gay partnered minister Saturday as part of a drive to equalize LGBTs within the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America. Dawn Roginski's ordination at St. Francis Lutheran Church directly challenges the denomination's policy of requiring lifelong celibacy of its gay and lesbian clergy while imposing no such restrictions on its heterosexuals. The ceremony will mark the third such challenge to the policy in eight months. The ceremonies, which run outside the usual guidelines of Lutheran ordinations to certify the credentials of openly identified sexual minorities, are supported by the Lutheran...

In 1223, St. Francis of Assisi inaugurated a pious practice that in places today has become so common that many think that it always existed. This great saint, as he was traversing the rolling hills of central Italy one December to proclaim the Gospel, noticed that few of his countrymen were taking the mysteries of the faith seriously. Many were not preparing for Christmas at all. Of those who were getting ready to celebrate the Lord’s birth, they looked at it as an event tied exclusively to the past. The mysteries of the faith had become sterile. The central...

October 4, 2006 Memorial of Saint Francis of Assisi, religious Psalm: Wednesday 41 Reading 1Jb 9:1-12, 14-16 Job answered his friends and said: I know well that it is so;but how can a man be justified before God?Should one wish to contend with him,he could not answer him once in a thousand times.God is wise in heart and mighty in strength;who has withstood him and remained unscathed? He removes the mountains before they know it;he overturns them in his anger.He shakes the earth out of its place,and the pillars beneath it tremble.He commands the sun, and it rises not;he seals...

Assisi, Aug. 04, 2006 (CNA) - This Sunday Catholics can obtain the Portiuncula Indulgence by visiting any Franciscan parish or chapel around the world. In the summer of 1216 while praying in the Portiuncula chapel outside of Assisi, St. Francis was inspired to travel to Rome and ask the Pope for an unheard-of privilege: the granting of a plenary indulgence. Pope Honorius III granted the indulgence as a sign of the greatness of God’s love for humanity.  August 2nd was established as the date to receive the “Great Pardon of Assisi.”  Eventually, the Church modified the conditions and said the...

52 REASONS NOT TO MOW 37 WAYS TO HELP TREES Please download with 100% cotton, rice, recycled, or scrap paper Ron Howard, director of A Beautiful Mind and many other films,made his first film at age 8.. an anti mowing film which showed the nature of mowers' attacks on lawns. Art Buchwald: People shouldn't be judged by the length of their grass. In 2003 through now, the world has seen floods, famine, fire, mudslides, hurricanes, tornados and other disasters created by the unprecedented destruction of trees around the world. Trees are nature's weather stabilizers. We need trillions of trees.. new...

Rome (AsiaNews) – Hundreds of faithful in the Xian diocese, along with their friends and relatives, protested in the streets of the city yesterday to call for justice against a group of “thugs” who, on the night of November 23, brutally attacked 16 nuns of the Congregation of the Franciscan Sacred Heart Missionaries. These nuns have been admitted to hospital: one has lost her eyesight and another is also in serious condition. The nuns were attempting to prevent the demolition of a school that belongs to the diocese but that city authorities sold to a commercial company. The nuns had...

Author Reveals Its Origin and Meaning for St. Francis PADUA, Italy, JULY 22, 2005 (Zenit.org).- A major scholar on the Franciscans wrote a book on the meaning of the signature symbol of St. Francis of Assisi, the Tau. Order of Friars Minor Father Damien Vorreux, who died in 1998, explained in this posthumously published work that this letter, the last of the Hebrew alphabet, and the Omega in the Greek, was very well known at the time of St. Francis, and was already used by the Semites, Greeks and Latins. He heard, for example, Pope Innocent III open Lateran Council...

St. Francis and the Eucharist Gordon Plumb, Tertiary from the Lincoln Area examines the centrality of the Eucharist for us. The Eucharist At the end of his life Francis dictated a document that has remained a primary expression of his Gospel vision. He says in what has become known as The Testament: …the Lord gave me, and gives me still, such faith in priests who live according to the rite of the holy Roman Church because of their orders that, were they to persecute me, I would still want to have recourse to them…..And I act in this way because,...

How St. Francis preached to the Moslems It is a little known fact that St. Francis journeyed to the Middle East and witnessed to Islamic leaders. He was willing to undergo martyrdom, and even sought it, in order to preach Christianity to the Moslems. Contemporary and early source documents indicate he probably traveled to Egypt or Syria, visited the Holy Land, and also attempted to reach Morocco, and possibly other Moslem countries. Passages from three ancient sources are presented here, plus an excerpt from Butler’s Lives. Brother Thomas of Celano wrote the first biography of St. Francis, and was his...

October 4, 2004 Memorial of Saint Francis of Assisi, religious Psalm: Monday 43 Reading I Responsorial Psalm Gospel Reading IGal 1:6-12 Brothers and sisters: I am amazed that you are so quickly forsaking the one who called you by the grace of Christ for a different gospel (not that there is another). But there are some who are disturbing you and wish to pervert the Gospel of Christ. But even if we or an angel from heaven should preach to you a gospel other than the one that we preached to you, let that one be accursed! As we...

Franciscan friars have asked Mel Gibson to make his next film about their founder, St Francis of Assisi. Impressed by Gibson's film on the last 12 hours of Jesus, The Passion of the Christ, the American friars and sisters have published an open letter and petition on their website. Calling the controversial film "an extraordinary work of sacred art", they ask the actor/director to "produce a sequel which would show the world what happens when a person totally and unequivocally responds to the Passion of the Christ". St Francis (1182-1226) is the patron saint of animals and the environment. However,...

October 4, 2003Memorial of Saint Francis of Assisi, religious Psalm: Saturday 42 Reading I Responsorial Psalm Gospel Reading IBar 4:5-12, 27-29 Fear not, my people!Remember, Israel,You were sold to the nationsnot for your destruction;It was because you angered Godthat you were handed over to your foes.For you provoked your Makerwith sacrifices to demons, to no-gods;You forsook the Eternal God who nourished you,and you grieved Jerusalem who fostered you.She indeed saw coming upon youthe anger of God; and she said: "Hear, you neighbors of Zion!God has brought great mourning upon me,For I have seen the captivitythat the Eternal God has broughtupon...

April 2, 2003Wednesday of the Fourth Week of Lent Psalm: Wednesday Week 16 Reading I Responsorial Psalm Gospel Reading I Is 49:8-15 Thus says the Lord:In a time of favor I answer you,on the day of salvation I help you;and I have kept you and given you as a covenant to the people,To restore the landand allot the desolate heritages,Saying to the prisoners: Come out!To those in darkness: Show yourselves!Along the ways they shall find pasture,on every bare height shall their pastures be.They shall not hunger or thirst,nor shall the scorching wind or the sun strike them;For he who pities...

Sioux Falls Dogs in Church? Email story to a friend For some man's best friend can be like another member of the family. Some of you take your dogs everywhere, from walks around town to family vacations across the state. But have you ever thought about bringing Fido to church? We found a place where he's more than welcome. Sioux Falls has a skyline scattered with steeples, and as winter approaches, this religious community wants to make sure no one, or nothing rather, is left in a religious freeze. It's pretty cold for an outdoor service, but the parishioners...

Nine Days of PrayerFrom the Ascension to Pentecost the Apostles followed the Lord Jesus' command to pray for nine days waiting for the promised Holy Spirit.  We continue to pray these novenas at various points in life.  In common with the first novena, we pray fervently and unceasingly, and we wait on the Holy Spirit to be released to renew the face of the earth. This Novena begins at sunset and concludes at sunset on the ninth day. Centered on the life and ministry of St. Francis, this novena may be undertaken at any time or when there is special...