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CNA STAFF, Feb 18, 2013 / 04:01 pm (CNA).- A priest who was conceived in rape when his mother was only 13 years old is sharing the story of how he met, forgave and heard the confession of his father, who is now living a life of faith. “I could have ended up in a trash can, but I was allowed to live,” said Father Luis Alfredo Leon Armijos of Loja, Ecuador. In a Feb. 6 telephone interview with CNA, Fr. Leon, who is pastor of St. Joseph Parish in Loja, said his mother, Maria Eugenia Armijos Romero, was working...

MOSCOW -- The artistic director of Russia's Bolshoi Ballet says he has forgiven the attacker who splashed acid in his face and has pledged to return to the stage.His head shaven and a bandage around his neck, Sergei Filin told a Russian television station from his hospital room that he was determined to return to work despite his injuries. Visit NBCNews.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy Filin, 42, suffered severe burns during the attack on his way home from the Bolshoi Theatre in Moscow late on Jan. 18. Doctors have performed two operations on each...

Scant days ago, in that chilly time after Christmas, I strolled into our local theatre in the expectation of being entertained by an established well-loved musical that had just been rendered to film. I had no idea I would emerge from the darkness three hours later a scarlet-eyed blubbering wreck. Having bargained for diversion, I instead reaped a bounty of cinematic moral lessons wherein intense human ugliness runs headlong into the arms of sublime beauty and breaks our aching hearts in a fair exchange. Welcome to the spectacle of Les Miserables. In retrospect, one could not ask for a more...

Les Misérables is the big-screen version of the world's longest-running stage musical (take that, Cats!). Since its 1985 debut, the show has been seen by more than 60 million people in 42 countries and in 21 languages. Mon Dieu! For this eagerly anticipated adaptation, the Oscar-winning director of The King's Speech, Tom Hooper, shifts his focus from stuttering British royalty to singing French paupers in the 19th century. Victor Hugo's epic tale follows fugitive Jean Valjean (Hugh Jackman) as he's hunted for decades by relentless Inspector Javert (Russell Crowe), through the Paris Uprising of 1832. Whether you're a Les Mis...

Les Misérables is the big-screen version of the world's longest-running stage musical (take that, Cats!). Since its 1985 debut, the show has been seen by more than 60 million people in 42 countries and in 21 languages. Mon Dieu! For this eagerly anticipated adaptation, the Oscar-winning director of The King's Speech, Tom Hooper, shifts his focus from stuttering British royalty to singing French paupers in the 19th century. Victor Hugo's epic tale follows fugitive Jean Valjean (Hugh Jackman) as he's hunted for decades by relentless Inspector Javert (Russell Crowe), through the Paris Uprising of 1832. Whether you're a Les Mis...

Beaten to a pile of broken bones, caged, starved and tortured, Eric Lomax was convinced he would never see Britain ever again. He had already experienced the lottery of death among the chain gangs on the Burma-Siam Railway. Now things were even worse. Accused of being a spy, he had been left to the mercies of the Japanese army’s secret police. Among their specialities was what is today known as ‘waterboarding’, when a prisoner undergoes near-drowning. It was surely only a matter of time before he would be put out of his misery.

The English language has a million words, but only one for the two kinds of forgiveness. This is a major failure. The two kinds may be similar at the molecular level but they are far removed in magnitude. Like a candle flame and a volcano, an April shower and a hurricane, a soft tremor beneath your feet and the great San Francisco earthquake. The first kind of forgiveness is the easy kind. Someone wounds you, and in time this offender comes to see what he has done. He returns to lay the crime at your feet. And when you reach...

Profound changes are about to come upon My Bride and body of Christ in a universal manner as never before . Worship shall ascend to a higher level "and must" to continue the work of the Gospel and to implement Kingdom Regime as My Father has intended it to be " on Earth as it IS in Heaven " for the Latter Rain is about to descend and ascend together "AS ONE" in places I ordain "as the Body of Christ " and it shall flow "AS ONE BODY" no matter where My Children reside and nothing I say "NOTHING"...

KALISPELL, Mont. (AP) — When Sara Weaver saw her father Randy struck in the shoulder by a government sniper's bullet in the Idaho wilderness in August 1992, she began to sprint back to the family's cabin on a mountaintop called Ruby Ridge. As the 16-year-old closed in, her mother, Vicki, opened the cabin door and stood behind it, holding Sara Weaver's 10-month-old sister in her arms. Just then, a sniper's bullet struck her mother in the head, killing her.

WASHINGTON (Reuters) - More middle-class Americans will be able to work out their debts to the U.S. Internal Revenue Service because of changes in a tax payment forgiveness program, the agency announced on Monday. The "Offer in Compromise" program lets taxpayers negotiate agreements with the IRS to pay less than the full tax owed. The announced changes make the program more flexible for taxpayers, with some people able to pay off their debts faster, according to the IRS. The IRS announcement focused on the financial analysis used to determine which taxpayers qualify for an Offer in Compromise. Additionally, the program...

We need to start taking student loan debt seriously, both as a troubling moral issue and as a ticking economic time bomb. By some reports, student loan debt will exceed 1 trillion dollars this year, more than the credit card debt of all Americans. A whole generation of young Americans is at risk in this excessive borrowing. They fall further and further behind in “servicing their debt” because they have no way to keep up with the payments as many of them are unemployed or underemployed. They will delay starting marriage and families; they dare not take the risk of...

When I was 12 years old, I used to play tennis at a certain public park in the Bronx. One day it got back to me that a black fellow at the courts, whose name I forget, said, "Selwyn doesn't like black people." This raised my eyebrows. You see, I had never really thought about the man one way or the other. And what occupied my mind were forehands, backhands, topspin, and volleys, not race. So the only thing I could figure was that I was probably in a funk one day and didn't hear and acknowledge a greeting he...

LAST SUPPERI am Catholic, and along with other Christians, this weekend we are celebrating the Holiest of days. Unlike the so-called "religion of peace," which has filled the world with unspeakable violence and misery, we have a sense of humor and are actually not threatened. If something like this was done about the ROP, there would be car bombings, suicide bombings, carnage, and mass death. That is their worthless and bankrupt culture. To Christians everywhere, may you have a blessed Easter.

Bishop T.D. Jakes, pastor of The Potter's House in Dallas, Texas, has taken to national television to promote his new book, Let It Go, and to express his views regarding the Trayvon Martin case, which has attracted worldwide attention since details of the Florida teen's shooting death were made public. The minister, whose book deals with forgiveness, says, in light of such cases, "Forgiveness does not exonerate the perpetrator." In Let It Go: Forgive So You Can Be Forgiven, The Potter's House senior pastor speaks on the importance of forgiveness in living a full, happy life. Naturally, correspondents questioned Jakes...

A Manhattan charity worker who was nearly killed by a shopping cart pushed over a garage railing by teenage punks in October spoke publicly for the first time today -- expressing compassion for the pranksters who dropped the cart on her head. Marion Hedges, during a walk outside her Upper East Side apartment, said she hasn’t received an apology from the evil-doers. “I haven’t heard from them, but I wish them well,” Hedges said. “I do, because I feel very sorry for them.” “I don’t know that my son would do something like that or that his friends would do...

It has been nearly five years since I bade farewell to El Fasher, the provincial capital of North Darfur... There is, I have been told, an Eastern Orthodox tradition that glorifies the ascetic and contemplative serenity that is found in the wilderness in general and the desert in particular. When I reflect on the sand-swept austerity of Darfur and the spiritual wealth that abounded there, I begin to comprehend that wisdom.... (in a talk with a peacekeeper from Rwanda, the author is told) “Our horror started through hate and indifference. It has ended with love and forgiveness. That is a...

As no one has yet done so, it seemed right to post a thread for the virtual version of the exchange of forgiveness at the end of Forgiveness Vespers. If anyone who has the Orthodox ping list ventures onto the thread, ping the others. Wishing all a blessed and holy Great Lent. Struggle well!

Newt Gingrich’s standing ovation Thursday night, when he attacked CNN moderator John King for asking about allegations that Gingrich wanted an “open marriage” with his second wife, told us little about South Carolina but much about human nature. The query, for which King has been exhaustively critiqued, was both necessary and inevitable. Forget the elephant in the living room; it was the herd in the powder room. SNIP In a nutshell: The more you pick on a person for human failings with which all can identify, the more likely you will create sympathy rather than antipathy, especially if that individual...

Former Mississippi Gov. Haley Barbour said Friday he's "very comfortable" with his decision to grant pardons or other clemency to more than 200 people, including convicted killers, in his last days in office, telling Fox News that Mississippi is predominantly Christian and believes in forgiveness. The pardons have set off outrage among some victims' families and prompted a judge to block the release of some of the pardoned inmates out of concern that proper notification rules were not followed. Barbour told Fox News that any problem with paperwork was an accident on the part of corrections officials, who needed to...

You are my children of light , you are my children of light , you are my children of light , and in this season of lights , let MY Light shine through you , for MY SEASON NEVER ENDS ! Truly this is a season of lights , but we are to be lights for Christ Jesus in an open season and heaven for him ! Isaiah 60 The Gentiles Bless Zion 1 Arise, shine; For your light has come! And the glory of the LORD is risen upon you. 2 For behold, the darkness shall cover the earth,...