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POPSLa Paz celebrates Day of the Skulls Earlier this month the Church called on the faithful to stop using human skulls at special mass celebrations. The Archbishop of La Paz, Edmundo Abastoflor, urged followers of the Andean rite to "let them rest in peace". Some inside the Church even link the practice to the occult. However, some priests believe they have no other choice than to let people pray Catholic prayers to their skulls, and even allow them to go to church with them. "I receive them and not as enemies of the Catholic faith," the cemetery's Roman Catholic priest, Father Jaime Fernandez, told the BBC after giving an informal blessing to thousands of skull-carrying devotees at the cemetery's chapel. "Officially the Catholic Church does not recognise such a thing," Father Fernandez adds. But, let's be honest, in the end, who am I to stop their uncontrollable faith?"
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POPSVatican Condemns Hallowe'en Last year a newspaper controlled by the Italian bishops, Avvenire, called for a boycott of Hallowe'en, calling it a "dangerous celebration of horror and the macabre" which could encourage "pitiless sects without scruples". Earlier this week the Catholic Church in Spain also condemned the growing popularity of Halloween, saying it threatened to overshadow the Christian festival of All Saints' Day. The Bishop of Siguenza-Guadalajara, Jose Sanchez, said there was a risk that Halloween could "replace Christian customs like devotion to saints and praying for the dead."
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POPSA Mother, a Sick Son and His Father, the Priest With little to lose, they are eager to tell their stories: the mother, a once-faithful Catholic who says the church protected a philandering priest and treated her as a legal adversary, and the son, about what it was like to grow up knowing his absentee father was a priest. “I’ve always called him Father Henry — never Father, never Dad,” said Nathan, at home between hospital visits. “I always felt he picked religion over me.” The relationship between Ms. Bond and the priest is hardly unique. While the recent scandals involving the Roman Catholic Church have focused on the sexual abuse of children, experts say that incidences of priests who have violated sexual and emotional boundaries with adult women are far more common.
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POPS'Virgin Mary' vision in Samoa St Christopher has been de-listed for traffic and so they have to do extra shifts. Shaped like a coke bottle - that is a sign of the times.
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POPSHouse Health Care Bill Gives Doctors Financial Incentive For End-Of-Life Counseling
"Patients may refuse without penalty, but many will bow to white-coated authority. Once they're in the meeting, the bill does permit 'formulation' of a plug-pulling order right then and there," Lane explains. "What's more, Section 1233 dictates, at some length, the content of the consultation," Lane continues. He points out the legislation says the doctor "shall" discuss "advanced care planning, including key questions and considerations, important steps, and suggested people to talk to"; "an explanation of . . . living wills and durable powers of attorney, and their uses" even though those are legal and not medical papers. The physician "shall" present "a list of national and State-specific resources to assist consumers and their families." “Admittedly, this script is vague and possibly unenforceable,” Lane writes. “What are “key questions”? Who belongs on ‘a list’ of helpful ‘resources?’ The Roman Catholic Church? Jack Kevorkian?”
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POPSUS Catholic women face showdown with Vatican next week Leadership Conference of Women Religious next week "could be the last major struggle over a way of understanding what it means to be Catholic" - "on women’s ordination, the primacy of Roman Catholicism and homosexuality," on retaining the Vatican II ethos or yielding to the hard-line views of the last two popes.
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POPSA valid concern about social media from the leader of the Roman Catholic Church in England It's hard to say for sure what the affects will be, but there is no doubt that the new form of "social" that we're becoming accustomed to is changing our habits and expectations in regards to relationships. I think the biggest positive is that people are becoming more open minded about who they interact with and are therefore exposed to more information, knowledge and perspectives than ever before.
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POPSBishop John Shelby Spong says: “this book rightly points out…” Everybody knows that Bishop Spong is the most prestigious authority in progressive Christianity; his opinion gives you a firm basis to understand that in this book “I am not attacking the Roman Catholic Church or any other denomination… What I want to do is give information to my readers. This book is not in the spirit of proselytizing, nor am I looking for adherents. This book is mostly informative with fifty years of historical perspective.”
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POPSPope gives the Nazi salute Didn't Jesus say 'Ask yourself not what you can do for world peace, love and fraternity, but what can you do to keep the Third Reich's gold safely locked away in Vatican bank accounts'? Or something like that.' The Pope is expected to make a speedy recovery from his injury, and will soon be not mentioning the war again, nor child abuse by priests, nor the Vatican bank storing Nazi gold, nor his voluntary membership of the Hitler Youth. Nor Jesus being Jewish, nor Jesus regarding the idea of a man being seen as divine as blasphemous, nor the first written Gospel not even mentioning any resurrection of any sort. Nor the fact that Jesus was married and survived his own crucifixion, nor the entire Christian religion being invented by a carpet seller from Syria.
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POPSState of Disgrace
declares Gropewind. “I mean, it was absolutely perfect – a position of trust where you’d be above suspicion, lots of legitimate contact with the young and vulnerable and, best of all, the guarantee of a cover-up if things went pear-shaped! All you had to do was confess your supposed sins and say a few Hail Marys and you were away. The worst that could happen was that you’d be quietly shunted of to some remote parish in Wales, which is marginally preferable to jail.” With the introduction of more stringent criminal record checks, other traditional career paths for perverts and paedophiles – such as teaching and child care – have long since become unviable. “That was the beauty of the priesthood- they’d ordain anybody, no questions asked. All you had to do was say you believed in God, Mary was a virgin and that you didn’t want to get married,” he explains. “It’s getting to the stage where the only suitable jobs still open to us will be running ice cream vans or Punch and Judy shows.” Acc
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POPSSpanish Priest Killed in Cuba, 2nd in 5 Months There was no mention of the priest's death in state media, which generally doesn't report crime news. Authorities are still investigating the death of another Spanish priest, the Rev. Eduardo de la Fuente Serrano, whose body was found in a remote, sparsely populated area just outside the capital in mid-February.
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POPSPalm Oil: It profits a man nothing to give his soul The play recounts the story of Henry VIII and his succession of wives in his search for one who could give him a male heir. When the Catholic Church would not dissolve his "present" marriage in order to legitimize the next union, Henry pulled his country out of the Roman Church and made himself the head of the Church of England, a condition that exists today.
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POPSWhy do Christians Insist that Hitler was an Atheist? 4. Regarding atheism, Hitler specifically opposed it in a 1933 speech in Berlin: “We were convinced that the people need and require this faith. We have therefore undertaken the fight against the atheistic movement, and that not merely with a few theoretical declarations: we have stamped it out.” prussian 5. By order of the Führer (Hitler), Nazi Germany’s soldiers (Wehrmacht) wore belt buckles inscribed “Gott mit uns” (”God is with us”). An atheist would never demand this. With just these five facts out of many others, why would they still insist that Adolf Hitler was an atheist? Only total ignorance would support such misguided statements
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POPS"How I (and other 'pro-life' leaders) contributed to Dr. Tiller's murder"
Hyperbole from the pulpit from religious leaders…is par for the course. But once in a while someone "does something" about it and then everyone says that they were only speaking metaphorically or "spiritually" when they called for violence or for the overthrow the state or when they said things like "God damn America!" or that "abortionists are murderers like Hitler!" …When evangelicals on the right call President Obama a socialist, a racist, anti-American, an abortionist, not a real American, and, echoing the former Vice President, someone who is weakening America's defenses and making us less safe, the logical conclusion is violence. If you take these words literally you might pull the trigger… The same hate machine I was part of is still attacking all abortionists as "murderers." And today once again the "pro-life" leaders are busy ducking their personal responsibility for people acting on their words. The people who stir up the fringe never take responsibility.
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POPSFrolicking Father Cutie quits Roman Catholics to join Episcopalians Four times as many priests involve themselves sexually with adult women than with children, says A.W. Richard Sipe. Sipe, a former Benedictine monk and author of Sex, Priests, and Power: Anatomy of a Crisis, has studied celibacy and sexuality within the priesthood for more than 30 years. At any time, he says, 20 percent of priests in good standing are involved in sexual relationships with women. Moreover, he estimates only 2 percent of those vowed to celibacy achieve it. Some Catholics expressed sympathy for Cutie and said it was time to end the celibacy rule. Others said that, given the recent scandals involving U.S. priests sexually abusing young boys, and Irish priests raping, flogging and enslaving children in Catholic schools, they were relieved that Cutie had merely become involved with an adult woman.
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POPSTears by Brendan O'Connor http://www.rte.ie/player/#v=1048409
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POPSChristian Love? While not applicable to to all Christians this report does cast an accusatory finger to the Catholic Church and its well known predisposition of cover-ups and lies to protect their own. IMO, another damning pronouncement of religion in its many guises.
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POPSA THINKING MIND WOULD LIKE TO KNOW! 
WHY ARE RELIGIONS SO HELL BENT ON FORCING OTHERS TO OBEY THEIR MYTHICAL LAWS AND DOGMA? Especially, on the right to choose to have a legal (or illegal if some religions were to have their way) abortion? I don't even want to think about the RELIGIOUS STANCE against medical or any other scientific research that would better educate us on understanding our existence. Why do religions want to keep the intelligent and inquisitive human brain in the dark? Are they afraid that enlightenment would cause their numbers to shrink? If that's the case then they are fighting a losing battle. Because no matter how hard, this one track mindset, will try to keep knowledge under wraps; it WILL escape and wrap its beautiful arms around all. Then, all mankind will be awarded the magnificent beauty to “THINK” to Infinity and Beyond! ATTENTION ALL RELIGIONS: THIS IS ONE THINKING MIND WHO WOULD LIKE TO KNOW! Sorry for all the clichés and the buoyant language. :-D http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=8MQnjebDlZk
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