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These Christians are bubbling over with the love of Jesus:

Ruben Israel, left, of Los Angeles, and Stephen James, right, of Somerset, Penn., heckle anti-war demonstrators as they march in Washington to protest the U.S. troops presence in Iraq.

Bush says God chose him to lead his nation

Book reveals how President's religious and political beliefs are entwined - and claims he did pray with Blair

Paul Harris in New York
Sunday November 2, 2003
The Observer

President George W. Bush stood before a cheering crowd at a Dallas Christian youth centre last week, and told them about being 'born again' as a Christian.

'If you change their heart, then they change their behaviour. I know,' he said, referring to his own conversion, which led to him giving up drinking.

Behind Bush were two banners. 'King of Kings', proclaimed one. 'Lord of Lords', said the other. The symbolism of how fervent Christianity has become deeply entwined with the most powerful man on the planet could not have been stronger.

Few US Presidents have been as openly religious as Bush. Now a new book has lifted the lid on how deep those Christian convictions run. It will stir up controversy at a time when the administration is keen to portray its 'war on terror' as non-religious.

The book, which depicts a President who prays each day and believes he is on a direct mission from God, will give ammunition to critics who claim Bush's administration is heavily influenced by extremist Christians.

Bush is already under fire for allowing the appointment of General William Boykin to head the hunt for Osama bin Laden. Boykin, who speaks at evangelical Christian meetings, once said the war on terror was a fight against Satan, and also told a Somali warlord that, 'My God was bigger than his. I knew that my God was a real God and his was an idol.'

Bush has also been accused of a 'creeping Christianisation' of federal government programmes. In September, the government made more than $60 billion available for religious charitable groups. Critics say the groups will be able to use the cash to promote their religion. One group that benefited from previous grants was an Iowa prison project that entitled inmates to televisions, private bathrooms and computers - in return for Christian counselling.

Now Bush is likely to face intense scrutiny. The book, The Faith of George W. Bush, was written by Christian author Stephen Mansfield. It details numerous incidents where Bush's faith has been shown to be at the centre of his political thinking.

Among Mansfield's revelations is his insistence that Bush and Tony Blair have prayed together at a private meeting at Camp David. Blair has previously denied this.

Mansfield, however, says that, while there were no witnesses, aides were left in little doubt as to what had happened. He told The Observer: 'There is no question they have shared scripture and prayed together.'

The book also shows that in the lead-up to announcing his candidacy for the presidency, Bush told a Texan evangelist that he had had a premonition of some form of national disaster happening.

Bush said to James Robinson: 'I feel like God wants me to run for President. I can't explain it, but I sense my country is going to need me. Something is going to happen... I know it won't be easy on me or my family, but God wants me to do it.'

In another incident, Mansfield recounts how, on Palm Sunday last year, Bush was flying back from El Salvador aboard the presidential jet Air Force One and seemed to be destined to miss church.

However, knowing that Bush hated to miss a service, some officials suggested they worship in the air. Bush agreed, and soon 40 officials were crammed into the plane's conference room. The service was led by National Security Adviser Condoleezza Rice, while the lesson was read by close Bush aide Karen Hughes.

Conservatives Back General in Fight Against Satan

Oct. 20, 2003
By LIBBY QUAID, Associated Press

WASHINGTON - Religious conservatives in Congress are defending a Pentagon general who referred to the war on terror as a Christian fight against Satan.

In remarks many consider demeaning to Islam, Army Lt. Gen. William G. Boykin has told church audiences his mission is "a battle with Satan." The struggle, Boykin said, is "because we're a Christian nation, because our foundation and our roots are Judeo-Christian ... and the enemy is a guy named Satan."

Rep. Todd Tiahrt, R-Kan., drafted a letter Monday asking Defense Secretary Donald H. Rumsfeld not to discipline Boykin, saying that elected officials and military leaders have talked about God and spiritual matters throughout U.S. history.

"As elected officials serving in the United States Congress, we recognize the vital importance our personal faiths play in helping us make decisions," Tiahrt wrote. "We ask that any actions taken in response to Lt. Gen. Boykin's remarks not, in any way, intimidate the free religious exercise of his faith."

Boykin, a three-star general, is deputy undersecretary of defense for intelligence. He's also told audiences that President Bush is in the White House "because God put him there for a time such as this," and he once said after a 1993 battle with a Muslim warlord in Somalia, "I knew that my God was bigger than his. I knew that my God was a real God, and his was an idol."

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Cardinal Law Rewarded for Sex Abuse Coverup by Vatican
April 28, 2004

ROME, May 27 - Cardinal Bernard F. Law, who was forced to resign as leader of the Roman Catholic Archdiocese of Boston after a long and painful sexual abuse scandal involving clergy members, was chosen by Pope John Paul II on Thursday to head a basilica in Rome.

A statement released in the Vatican's daily bulletin announced that Cardinal Law, who resigned in 2002, would become the archpriest of St. Mary Major Basilica, a church in a downtown neighborhood of Rome that is under direct Vatican jurisdiction.

The statement said that Cardinal Law, 72, would succeed the 82-year-old Italian Cardinal Carlo Furno, but it did not say when. It made no mention of Cardinal Law's new responsibilities, but a Vatican official said that "now he will be responsible for one of the four most important basilicas" in Rome. "He will be in charge of the administration of the priests and anything related to the basilica," the official said of Cardinal Law. He added that the post "is not a position of power."

The appointment angered the cardinal's critics and others who see it as a reward.

David G. Clohessy, the national director of Survivors Network of Those Abused by Priests, a nonprofit support group based in Chicago, chided church leaders in Rome for what he called insensitivity to abuse victims.

"Why can't the Vatican officials see that any position of honor afforded to Law will inevitably and needlessly cause more pain to hundreds who have been abused and have already suffered enough?" Mr. Clohessy said. He added, "It just rubs salt into already deep wounds for parishioners, victims and their families."

More Claims Seen in Boston Sex Abuse Cases
April 28, 2004

BOSTON - An attorney who represented dozens of people who claimed they were sexually abused by Roman Catholic priests says there are at least several dozen more with similar claims against the Boston Archdiocese.

Carmen Durso is among lawyers trying to determine the magnitude of the latest wave of claims stemming from the sex scandal that began to engulf the archdiocese in 2002.

Last year, the archdiocese reached an $85 million settlement with more than 550 people who said they were abused by priests. Durso represented 40 victims in that case.

Durso told The Associated Press on Sunday that the new claimants include people who had complained about sex abuse before, but "for one paperwork reason or other" missed a deadline to join the earlier settlement.

Archdiocese spokesman the Rev. Christopher Coyne said, "Whenever a claim is brought, we'll follow through with our policies and procedures and make sure we do everything we can to help victims and their families."

Durso noted the new wave of allegations also includes people who had been afraid to come forward previously. He said he had been in contact with several lawyers who represent 40 to 50 alleged victims, but those numbers could rise.

"People saw that it was really safe to come forward," Durso said. "You have to understand the level of fear and apprehension there is among people who've been through sex abuse."

Durso is representing 12 people who allege they were molested from the 1950s to the 1980s, the same period as the earlier group of plaintiffs.

When asked whether the church was inclined to settle the claims, Coyne replied: "That's been our pattern in the past and I haven't heard anything from anyone that would lead me to believe we're going to change how we're going to approach these cases."

Meanwhile, in Kentucky, the second-in-command official in the Roman Catholic Diocese of Covington has been placed on administrative leave amid claims he sexually abused a Lexington teenager in 1979.

Abuse Allegations Led to Priest's Murder Charge
April 26, 2004

TOLEDO, Ohio (AP) - A woman's allegations that Roman Catholic priests sexually abused her during bizarre rituals led police to re-examine the 1980 killing of a nun and later charge one of the priests with murder.

The woman's allegations were not substantiated but one priest she mentioned was the Rev. Gerald Robinson - a suspect in the nun's killing years ago.

Robinson, 66, was charged Friday with killing Sister Margaret Ann Pahl, who was strangled and stabbed about 30 times on April 5, 1980. Her body was found in a hospital chapel, surrounded by lit candles with her arms folded across her chest.

Robinson and Pahl had worked together for several years at Mercy Hospital. Robinson, the hospital's chaplain, performed the funeral for Sister Pahl, 71.

Police detective Steve Forrester and Tom Ross, an investigator with the Lucas County Prosecutor's office, told The Blade of Toledo that the nun's killing was part of a "ceremony" in the chapel. They would not elaborate.

In December, authorities re-examined old evidence and concluded that the murder weapon, which they did not identify, was "in the control of the suspect."

Report: 11,000 Clergy Child Sex Abuse Claims Filed
Feb. 16, 2004

By RACHEL ZOLL, AP Religion Writer

NEW YORK - A draft of the upcoming national survey of sex abuse claims against Roman Catholic priests has been viewed by CNN, which reported Monday that 4,450 clergy have been accused of molesting minors since 1950.

The draft survey said 11,000 abuse claims have been filed against the U.S. churchmen during that period, CNN reported.

The survey is being overseen by the National Review Board, a lay watchdog panel the American bishops formed, and conducted by researchers from the John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York.

John Jay refused to comment on the CNN report, while board members contacted Monday by The Associated Press wouldn't say whether or not the latest statistics were accurate. They stressed the report is not finished, and that any numbers tallied so far could change before the study is released Feb. 27.

The figures are roughly in keeping with a trend the AP reported on last week.

The number of accused clergy is already much greater than the scope of abuse previously estimated by victims' groups and the media.

Robert S. Bennett, a prominent Washington attorney and another review board member, said survey drafts are circulating only among board members and John Jay researchers.

CNN reported that the draft survey said 78 percent of those abused were between the ages of 11 and 17, and that more than half the accused priests had a single allegation filed against them.

It said the report blames the sex abuse crisis on the bishops' failure to grasp the gravity of the problem, their misguided willingness to forgive and their emphasis on avoiding scandal, among other things.

Victim advocates say the survey ultimately will underestimate the number of cases because it is based on self-reporting by bishops.

AP: Priest Abuse Figures High Since 1950
Feb. 10, 2004
By RACHEL ZOLL, AP Religion Writer

The scope of sex abuse accusations against Roman Catholic clergy since 1950 appears to be much greater than previously estimated by victims' groups and the media, an Associated Press review of reports from dioceses has found.

The U.S. church will make an unprecedented, nationwide accounting of abuse claims and costs later this month, and some bishops already have started releasing local figures. The AP contacted dioceses across the country and found that 1,341 clergy members have been accused of molesting minors, with more than half the dioceses yet to report.

"What it's really doing is showing us in black and white that the problem is much worse than any of us thought," said Sue Archibald, president of The Linkup, a Kentucky-based victim advocacy group.

Statistics have yet to be released by some archdioceses that have faced hundreds of allegations, including Boston and Los Angeles.

A January 2003 review by The New York Times counted 1,205 accused priests nationwide over five decades. Survivors First, an advocacy group compiling its own list from media reports and lawsuits, has counted 1,800.

But Paul Baier of Survivors First said he compared the numbers his organization collected with reports from 41 dioceses and found the dioceses' local statistics were double what he had counted.

"If those trends continue across 195 dioceses, we can see the number that's self-reported by the bishops being twice as high as the names in our public database," Baier said.

The figures the AP compiled are part of a first-of-its-kind national survey the bishops commissioned from the John Jay College of Criminal Justice. By opening themselves up to greater scrutiny, the bishops hope to restore trust in their leadership following waves of scandal over abusive priests. The report is due out Feb. 27.

Even though bishops are revealing more than ever about molestation cases, advocates say the survey ultimately will underestimate the number of claims, because it is based on self-reporting by churchmen eager to minimize the rate of clergy abuse.

David Clohessy, national director of the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests, said the national figures are of secondary concern. He said it was more important to focus on whether bishops were now fully committed to protecting children.

"It's never been about how many priests, how many victims, how much money," he said. "It's always been about how bishops respond."

Experts Call Biblical Artifact a Fake
June 18, 2003

JERUSALEM - AP - An ancient burial box purported to have held the bones of Jesus' brother, James, is a fake, Israel's Antiquities Authority said Wednesday.

The ossuary, which bore the inscription "James, son of Joseph, brother of Jesus," had been touted by some scholars as the oldest archaeological link to New Testament figures.

But Israeli officials said its inscriptions "date from modernity" and called them "forgeries."

"The inscription appears new, written in modernity by someone attempting to reproduce ancient written characters," the officials said in a statement.

"The inscriptions, possibly inscribed in two separate stages, are not authentic," the statement read.

The officials reached their conclusions after intensive exams by several committees of experts.

Oded Golan, the Israeli owner of the "James ossuary," insists the item is authentic, but Uzi Dahari, a member of the committee that examined the stone box said Tuesday that Golan "spoke to us and didn't convince anyone."

Golan said he had problems with the committee, which he said had "preconceived notions."

The officials also declared the "Yoash inscription," another item tied to Golan, as a forgery on Wednesday.

That item was a shoebox-sized tablet inscribed with fifteen lines of ancient Hebrew with instructions for maintaining the Jewish Temple in Jerusalem.

The Israel Antiquities Authority and the Jerusalem police launched separate investigations into the two items after Golan offered one for sale.

When first disclosed two years ago, the Yoash inscription caused a stir in the archaeological world, with some experts dating the stone to the 9th century B.C. and calling it a rare confirmation of biblical narrative.

The existence of the James ossuary was revealed last November at a news conference in Washington by the Biblical Archaeology Review. At the time, the editor of the magazine, Hershel Shanks, said the owner insisted on not being identified.

The inscription on the limestone box reads "James, son of Joseph, brother of Jesus," leading some scholars to believe it contained the remains of James, the brother of Jesus of Nazareth. Other experts have said the item might be a forgery, or that it might have been the burial box of a different James, unrelated to Jesus.

Golan insists that the box is authentic. "With regard to the ossuary, I am 100 percent certain," he said Tuesday.

Golan said he bought the James ossuary in the mid-1970s from an antiquities dealer in the Old City of Jerusalem for about $200, but he said he couldn't remember the dealer's name.

However, antiquities inspectors, who have questioned several Old City dealers, were also checking suspicions Golan bought the ossuary only a few months ago. In such a case, those involved in the sale could be prosecuted for dealing in stolen goods.

The police investigation into how the box was acquired will continue regardless of the committee's findings.

Robert Eisenman, who wrote a book on Jesus' brother, studied the box and said the writing on the box, written in two different hands, along with the artifact's sudden appearance, made its authenticity questionable.

"I always considered the timing of the James ossuary very odd and worrisome. There was a spate of books on James and his importance in 1997 and 1998, then the box appeared," he said.

UPDATE

Dealer Charged With Jesus Forgeries
July 22, 2003 Associated Press

JERUSALEM - Police have arrested an Israeli antiquities dealer suspected of creating two forgeries that shook the religious and archaeological world, including a burial box purported to be that of Jesus's brother James.

Odad Golan also is suspected in connection with a shoebox-sized tablet inscribed with forged instructions for caring for the Jewish Temple.

Golan appeared in a Jerusalem court Tuesday, one day after police arrested him at his home in Tel Aviv on suspicion of forging and dealing in fake antiquities.

In court, police unveiled forgery equipment they said was found in Golan's home, including stencils, stones and partially completed forgeries. The dealer was being detained by police.

Golan last year told a French collector about the two disputed artifacts, which raised questions from the start. After exhaustive studies, the Israel Antiquities Authority declared that they were forgeries last month.

The burial box, or ossuary, bore the inscription, "James, the brother of Jesus," leading to speculation that it referred to the brother of Jesus of Nazareth.

The inscription was deemed a fake, but the artifact had been valued at $1 million to $2 million based on the claimed link with Jesus.

The "Joash inscription" tablet, because of its wording, was purported to offer rare physical evidence backing up the biblical narrative.

Uzi Dahari, a member of the committee that studied the "James ossuary," called the inscription "a contamination of the archaeological science."

As Rabbis Face Facts, Bible Tales Are Wilting
New York Times; March 9, 2002.

By MICHAEL MASSING

Abraham, the Jewish patriarch, probably never existed. Nor did Moses. The entire Exodus story as recounted in the Bible probably never occurred. The same is true of the tumbling of the walls of Jericho. And David, far from being the fearless king who built Jerusalem into a mighty capital, was more likely a provincial leader whose reputation was later magnified to provide a rallying point for a fledgling nation.

Such startling propositions - the product of findings by archaeologists digging in Israel and its environs over the last 25 years - have gained wide acceptance among non-Orthodox rabbis. But there has been no attempt to disseminate these ideas or to discuss them with the laity - until now.

The United Synagogue of Conservative Judaism, which represents the 1.5 million Conservative Jews in the United States, has just issued a new Torah and commentary, the first for Conservatives in more than 60 years. Called "Etz Hayim" ("Tree of Life" in Hebrew), it offers an interpretation that incorporates the latest findings from archaeology, philology, anthropology and the study of ancient cultures. To the editors who worked on the book, it represents one of the boldest efforts ever to introduce into the religious mainstream a view of the Bible as a human rather than divine document.

"When I grew up in Brooklyn, congregants were not sophisticated about anything," said Rabbi Harold Kushner, the author of "When Bad Things Happen to Good People" and a co-editor of the new book. "Today, they are very sophisticated and well read about psychology, literature and history, but they are locked in a childish version of the Bible."

"Etz Hayim," compiled by David Lieber of the University of Judaism in Los Angeles, seeks to change that. It offers the standard Hebrew text, a parallel English translation (edited by Chaim Potok, best known as the author of "The Chosen"), a page-by-page exegesis, periodic commentaries on Jewish practice and, at the end, 41 essays by prominent rabbis and scholars on topics ranging from the Torah scroll and dietary laws to ecology and eschatology.

These essays, perused during uninspired sermons or Torah readings at Sabbath services, will no doubt surprise many congregants. For instance, an essay on Ancient Near Eastern Mythology," by Robert Wexler, president of the University of Judaism in Los Angeles, states that on the basis of modern scholarship, it seems unlikely that the story of Genesis originated in Palestine. More likely, Mr. Wexler says, it arose in Mesopotamia, the influence of which is most apparent in the story of the Flood, which probably grew out of the periodic overflowing of the Tigris and Euphrates rivers. The story of Noah, Mr. Wexler adds, was probably borrowed from the Mesopotamian epic Gilgamesh.

Equally striking for many readers will be the essay "Biblical Archaeology," by Lee I. Levine, a professor at the Hebrew University in Jerusalem. "There is no reference in Egyptian sources to Israel's sojourn in that country," he writes, "and the evidence that does exist is negligible and indirect." The few indirect pieces of evidence, like the use of Egyptian names, he adds, "are far from adequate to corroborate the historicity of the biblical account."

Similarly ambiguous, Mr. Levine writes, is the evidence of the conquest and settlement of Canaan, the ancient name for the area including Israel. Excavations showing that Jericho was unwalled and uninhabited, he says, "clearly seem to contradict the violent and complete conquest portrayed in the Book of Joshua." What's more, he says, there is an "almost total absence of archaeological evidence" backing up the Bible's grand descriptions of the Jerusalem of David and Solomon.

The notion that the Bible is not literally true "is more or less settled and understood among most Conservative rabbis," observed David Wolpe, a rabbi at Sinai Temple in Los Angeles and a contributor to "Etz Hayim." But some congregants, he said, "may not like the stark airing of it." Last Passover, in a sermon to 2,200 congregants at his synagogue, Rabbi Wolpe frankly said that "virtually every modern archaeologist" agrees "that the way the Bible describes the Exodus is not the way that it happened, if it happened at all." The rabbi offered what he called a "litany of disillusion" about the narrative, including contradictions, improbabilities, chronological lapses and the absence of corroborating evidence. In fact, he said, archaeologists digging in the Sinai have "found no trace of the tribes of Israel - not one shard of pottery."

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The Catholic Church should be honest about the rampant scourge of child molestation by priests and declare a new Holy Day, the Feast of the Ejaculate. It's already the most popular ritual among priests!

No wonder so many priests turn to little boys for the sacrement of the Feast of the Ejaculate, the "church fathers" hated women and feared women. The catholic church is based on misogyny, guilt and self loathing more than it is based on Jesus. There is no proof that Jesus even lived, but there is proof of the utter cluelessness of those oafish "church fathers"

"Women should not be enlightened or educated in any way. They should, in fact, be segregated as they are the cause of hideous and involuntary erections in holy men."
[St. Augustine]

"Adam was deceived by Eve, not Eve by Adam.....it is right that he whom that woman induced to sin should assume the role of guide lest he fall again through feminine instability."
[St. Ambrose, Bishop of Milan, letter 63, 396]

"As regards the individual nature, woman is defective and misbegotten, for the active power of the male seed tends to the production of a perfect likeness in the masculine sex; while the production of a woman comes from defect in the active power...."
[Thomas Aquinas, Summa Theologica,Q92, art. 1, Reply Obj. 1

"Any woman who does not give birth to as many children as she is capable is guilty of murder."
[St. Augustine]

"Every woman should be filled with shame by the thought that she is a woman."
[St. Clement of Alexandria from The Tutor, as quoted in "The Natural Inferiority" of Women compiled by Tama Starr (New York: Poseidon Press, 1991) p. 45.]

"And do you not know that you are an Eve? The sentence of God on this sex of yours lives in this age: the guilt must of necessity live too. You are the devil's gateway: you are the unsealer of that forbidden tree: you are the first deserter of the divine law: you are she who persuaded him whom the devil was not valiant enough to attack. You destroyed so easily God's image, man. On account of your desert that is, death even the Son of God had to die."
[Tertullian, De Culta Feminarum 1.1, on women, quoted in Joan Smith, Misogynies: Reflections on Myths and Malice (New York: Fawcett Columbine, 1989) p. 66]

"Woman is a temple built over a sewer, the gateway to the devil. Women are the gate to hell."
[Tertullian, the "founder of western theology"]

Vatican told bishops to cover up sex abuse

Expulsion threat in secret documents

Read the 1962 Vatican document (PDF file)

Antony Barnett, public affairs editor
Sunday August 17, 2003
The Observer

The Vatican instructed Catholic bishops around the world to cover up cases of sexual abuse or risk being thrown out of the Church.

The Observer has obtained a 40-year-old confidential document from the secret Vatican archive which lawyers are calling a 'blueprint for deception and concealment'. One British lawyer acting for Church child abuse victims has described it as 'explosive'.

The 69-page Latin document bearing the seal of Pope John XXIII was sent to every bishop in the world. The instructions outline a policy of 'strictest' secrecy in dealing with allegations of sexual abuse and threatens those who speak out with excommunication.

They also call for the victim to take an oath of secrecy at the time of making a complaint to Church officials. It states that the instructions are to 'be diligently stored in the secret archives of the Curia [Vatican] as strictly confidential. Nor is it to be published nor added to with any commentaries.'

The document, which has been confirmed as genuine by the Roman Catholic Church in England and Wales, is called 'Crimine solicitationies', which translates as 'instruction on proceeding in cases of solicitation'.

It focuses on sexual abuse initiated as part of the confessional relationship between a priest and a member of his congregation. But the instructions also cover what it calls the 'worst crime', described as an obscene act perpetrated by a cleric with 'youths of either sex or with brute animals (bestiality)'.

Bishops are instructed to pursue these cases 'in the most secretive way... restrained by a perpetual silence... and everyone... is to observe the strictest secret which is commonly regarded as a secret of the Holy Office... under the penalty of excommunication'.

Texan lawyer Daniel Shea uncovered the document as part of his work for victims of abuse from Catholic priests in the US. He has handed it over to US authorities, urging them to launch a federal investigation into the clergy's alleged cover-up of sexual abuse.

He said: 'These instructions went out to every bishop around the globe and would certainly have applied in Britain. It proves there was an international conspiracy by the Church to hush up sexual abuse issues. It is a devious attempt to conceal criminal conduct and is a blueprint for deception and concealment.'

British lawyer Richard Scorer, who acts for children abused by Catholic priests in the UK, echoes this view and has described the document as 'explosive'.

He said: 'We always suspected that the Catholic Church systematically covered up abuse and tried to silence victims. This document appears to prove it. Threatening excommunication to anybody who speaks out shows the lengths the most senior figures in the Vatican were prepared to go to prevent the information getting out to the public domain.'

Scorer pointed out that as the documents dates back to 1962 it rides roughshod over the Catholic Church's claim that the issue of sexual abuse was a modern phenomenon.

He claims the discovery of the document will raise fresh questions about the actions of Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O'Connor, the head of the Roman Catholic Church in England and Wales.

Murphy-O'Connor has been accused of covering up allegations of child abuse when he was Bishop of Arundel and Brighton. Instead of reporting to the police allegations of abuse against Michael Hill, a priest in his charge, he moved him to another position where he was later convicted for abusing nine children.

Although Murphy-O'Connor has apologised publicly for his mistake, Scorer claims the secret Vatican document raises the question about whether his failure to report Hill was due to him following this instruction from Rome.

Scorer, who acts for some of Hill's victims, said: 'I want to know whether Murphy-O'Connor knew of these Vatican instructions and, if so, did he apply it. If not, can he tell us why not?'

Larry Drivon, a lawyer who represents alleged victims of sexual abuse, called the document "a blueprint for deception."

"It's an instruction manual on how to deceive and how to protect pedophiles," Drivon said.

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Catholic priests have been raping little boys for 1500 years:

The Emotional Life of Nations
by Lloyd deMause

Chapter 8----The Evolution of Childrearing

But placing boys as oblates into monasteries only made them available for rape by monks, who could not keep their hands off them. One abbott wrote about an infant boy brought to the monastery by his father:

...the man turned the child over to me altogether, and I received the baby with pleasure and joy and a clean heart. [But] when the boy got older and had reached the age of about ten...I was tortured and overwhelmed by an obscene desire, and the beast of impure lust and a desire for pleasure burned in my soul...I wanted to have sex with the boy...1

Sex with boys was the central obsession of monks beginning with the early anchorites who went to the desert; Macarius saw so many monks having sex with boys in the desert that he strongly advised monks not to take them in.2 But the need was too strong, and even rules such as those requiring boys to have escorts when going to the lavatory did not prevent monks from routinely using their oblates sexually.3 So many monks raped their novices that there was a common saying, "With wine and boys around, the monks have no need of the Devil to tempt them."4 Priests also commonly used confessions to solicit sex with boys, but early Christian penitentials assessed penances only for the boys, since they were blamed for their own rape. Peter Damian said in the eleventh century that sex with boys in monasteries "rages like a bloodthirsty beast in the midst of the sheepfold of Christ with bold freedom" and suggested both the man and boy be punished as accomplices for a "sin against nature."5

1. John Boswell, Same-Sex Unions in Premodern Europe. New York: Villard Books, 1994, p. 247.

2. Aline Rousselle, Porneia, p. 148.

3. Patricia A. Quinn, Better Than The Sons of Kings: Boys and Monks in the Early Middle Ages. New York: Peter Lang, 1988, p. 165.

4. Elizabeth Abbott, A History of Celibacy, p. 101.

5. Peter Damian, Book of Gomorrah. Waterloo: Wilfred Laurier University Press, 1982, pp. 27, 42.

"Who would not shudder if he were given the choice of eternal death or life again as a child? Who would not choose to die?"
St. Augustine

Navy Punishes Chaplains for Sexual Abuse
Associated Press July 4, 2003

"Navy chaplains, in fact, create a disproportionate number of problem cases,"

WASHINGTON - The Navy has punished more than 40 chaplains over the last decade for offenses ranging from sexual abuse to fraud - a misconduct rate much higher than for other officers, according to documents that detail the Navy's alarm at the problem.

"Navy chaplains, in fact, create a disproportionate number of problem cases," Navy Chaplain Corps official Bradford E. Ableson wrote in a 1999 memo that is among several documents obtained by The Associated Press.

The previously undisclosed documents detail offenses that included adultery, spousal assault and sexual harassment that were so pervasive that in 1999, then-Navy Secretary Richard Danzig ordered a new training and oversight program to ensure the Navy's nearly 870 chaplains met high moral standards. Ableson, the deputy executive assistant to the chief of Navy chaplains, wrote the memo to give his boss details on the extent of the problem.

The chaplain corps implemented that retraining program but hasn't tracked how many chaplains have been punished since then, said Lt. Jon Spiers, a chaplain corps spokesman.

Court records and news stories show that since 1999 at least one chaplain has been convicted of indecent acts and a recently retired chaplain was charged with murder.

In 2001, Catholic chaplain Cmdr. Robert Milewski was convicted of fondling a sailor during a massage the year before and fined $48,000.

Ableson's memo questioned whether the chaplain corps fostered a tolerance for misbehavior.

"Too many officers with integrity problems are nurtured by the CHC (chaplain corps) culture and advanced by the CHC system," he concluded.

The system rallied to the defense of some convicted chaplains, according to Navy records.

Catholic chaplain Lt. Robert Hrdlicka pleaded guilty to molesting boys in 1993. Before his sentencing, six other Catholic Navy chaplains and the church's archbishop for the military services urged authorities to send Hrdlicka to a church-run treatment center.

"It is my fervent hope and prayer that he will be able to return to the active ministry as soon as possible," wrote then-Cmdr. Robert L. Kincl.

Instead, Hrdlicka went to prison.

The 1999 memos also show some chaplains were given light punishment for serious offenses.

Two Catholic chaplains had promotions deferred; one for sodomy and another for "homosexual acts/assault," according to a 1999 list of disciplined chaplains. Such offenses are felonies under military law.

Other criminal chaplains have been allowed to leave the Navy rather than face further punishment, including a Catholic chaplain permitted to quit in 1993 after he admitted molesting an altar boy at the Marine base in Twentynine Palms, Calif.

Catholic Church Child Sexual Abuse Report

Sat Mar 16, 2002

BOSTON (AP) - Members of a task force formed by Cardinal Bernard Law pledged at their first meeting Saturday to produce a public report on ways to protect children from sexual abuse by Catholic priests.

Law announced the panel Jan. 24, the same day he established a "zero tolerance" policy on sexual abuse bt priests.

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Priest-Sex Scandal Expands to N.H.

Sat Feb 16, 2002

MANCHESTER, N.H. (AP) - An expanding scandal in the Roman Catholic Church has spread to New Hampshire, where 14 priests accused of sexual misconduct with children over a 25-year span are being investigated for possible prosecution.

The Diocese of Manchester, which covers New Hampshire, gave prosecutors the names of the priests Friday. Attorney General Philip McLaughlin said it will be up to individual county attorneys to decide whether to prosecute.

"We're not at the end of the road here. We are at the beginning of the road," McLaughlin said.

Bishop John B. McCormack acknowledged that some of the 14 were returned to duty over the years after doctors deemed them fit, a practice he acknowledged Friday was wrong.

The Archdiocese of Boston has identified 80 priests in Massachusetts in recent weeks as having abused children over the past 40 years.

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Cardinal Egan of New York

left 'Unfinished Work' on Child Sex Abuse bt Priests, Victims Say

The New York Times, June 16, 2000

By DIANA JEAN SCHEMO with DAVID M. HERSZENHORN

BRIDGEPORT, Conn., June 14 -- The Roman Catholic Church had been struggling with a barrage of accusations across the country of priests molesting children when the dam burst here in 1993, in the diocese led by the man who is to succeed Cardinal John O'Connor as archbishop of New York.

That was the year Jon Fleetwood, Sharon See and Brian Freibott -- along with dozens of other Roman Catholics in Fairfield County who said their parish priests had molested them as children -- sued the Bridgeport diocese. They contended the diocese had a deliberate policy of ignoring abuse by reassigning problem priests to new parishes, where they continued to prey on children.

Brief History ofCases, Sex Abuse by Prietst: 1999

December 13, 1999:
Court orders that Bishop Egan must answer questions about the sexual misconduct of the seven John Doe priests. However, pursuant to the request of the Bishop’s lawyers, the deposition is to be taken under seal.

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The problem of child molesting Catholic priests is a world-wide plague:

Thursday January 31

Church Offers Payout for Sex Abuse

DUBLIN, Ireland (AP) - The Roman Catholic Church in Ireland has agreed to a landmark $110 million payment to Irish children sexually abused by its clergy over decades. Sex abuse campaigners and opposition lawmakers brand the offer as inadequate.

The deal late Wednesday was designed to conclude a 10-year struggle by the church in this predominantly Catholic nation to overcome sex scandals going back to the 1940s. More than 20 priests, brothers and nuns have already been convicted of molesting children, with much of the abuse taking place in state-funded, church-run schools.

The stream of accusations also has exposed both the government and church to potentially gargantuan legal bills from victims' lawsuits.

``The church has gotten away very cheaply,'' said John Kelly, spokesman for a lobbying group called Survivors of Child Abuse. ``The taxpayer should not pick up the bill for abuse committed by members of the religious orders.''

Education Minister Michael Woods, who oversaw negotiations with church authorities, said successive governments must share the blame for allowing cases of individual or systematic sexual abuse in certain Catholic-run schools to go unpunished for decades.

In 1994, one Irish government collapsed over allegations that it suppressed the extradition of a priest, Brendan Smyth, to neighboring Northern Ireland to face charges of molesting and raping former altar boys.

The court cases are cited as one factor fueling a steady decline in Mass attendance in this country of 3.8 million people, more than 90 percent of whom are baptized Catholics.

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Sex Scandals Bare Church's Sordid Secrets

San Francisco Chronicle 14th August 1999

The scandal that has rocked the Diocese of Santa Rosa for a decade offers a rare public glimpse at the culture of sexual secrecy within the Roman Catholic priesthood and some clues about what went wrong at a string of shattered parishes across Northern California. This month, San Francisco Archbishop William Levada begins the difficult task of rebuilding trust in a diocese torn by charges of child molestation, embezzlement and extortion, and clergy sex scandals. Over the past decade, at least five diocesan priests have been accused of child molestation. One sits in state prison, another killed himself, and a third fled to Mexico. Pope John Paul II put Levada in charge after the man brought in to clean up the unwieldy diocese, Bishop G. Patrick Ziemann, resigned last month. Ziemann's resignation came days after a priest, the Rev. Jorge Hume Salas, filed a lawsuit accusing the bishop of sexual abuse. Ziemann admitted a sexual relationship with the priest, but he says it was consensual. Ziemann nows stand accused of using church power to extort sexual favors from a priest -- a clergyman who admits stealing money from a Ukiah parish. This latest episode has parishioners wondering if the Diocese of Santa Rosa has more sexual abuse problems than elsewhere, or if it is just that they have been thrust into the public spotlight.

Richard Sipe, a retired priest who has done extensive research on the secret sex life of Catholic clergy, said the situation in Santa Rosa ``is not all that uncommon.'' ``It's all part of a system that fosters sexual duplicity, not sexual openness,'' he said. Sipe, who left the priesthood to marry, is the author of three books on the uses and abuses of priestly celibacy, including ``Sex, Priests and Power: Anatomy of a Crisis.'' Sipe is not surprised by the charges of extortion and blackmail in the dispute between the priest and the bishop, or by evidence that Ziemann ordained Salas despite warnings about his background. ``Blackmail and extortion are the way things are kept quiet in the church,'' Sipe said. ``They are a way to build trust. It's `I know this about you, and you know this about me, so I'll take you along with me.' People go through stages in their lives. They may no longer be sexually active, but they have a sexual history, and have to deal with people from their past.''

At least five U.S. bishops and archbishops have resigned amid sexual scandals in the 1990s -- two involving affairs with women, two involving allegations of past child molestations, and now Ziemann's affair with a priest. In Sipe's view, the never-ending series of scandals about child molestation and other sexual misconduct show that the old system of sexual secrecy is finally breaking down. ``The bishops have no idea where this is going,'' Sipe said.

Economus, who said he was sexually abused as a teenager at a Catholic school in South Dakota, agreed with Sipe that the church has a ``systemic'' sexual problem.

Thomas Plante, an associate professor of psychology at Santa Clara University who counsels priests with sex problems, has his own explanation for the Santa Rosa scandals. ``Bad apples attract more bad apples,'' he said. ``I have secrets about you; you have secrets about me. I won't fink on you; you won't fink on me.'' Plante estimates that 50 percent of Catholic clergy are gay, even though ``they're not all acting on it.'' He said there is no evidence that gay clergy engage in higher rates of child molestation and teen sex than heterosexual priests, ministers and rabbis. Plante said pedophilia is only a small part of the overall problem of sexual misconduct among priests. ``The vast majority of sexual involvement with clergy is with consenting adults and adolescents,'' said Plante. ``About 85 to 90 percent of the encounters with minors are with adolescent boys, age 13 and up.'

Porno Film Strips Church of Holiness
Sept. 12, 2003

ROME (Reuters) - A church in central Italy may need reconsecrating after police discovered it had been the location for a pornographic film, Italian media reported Thursday.

The church of San Vicenzo's seedy past came to light when a local -- watching "Il Confessionale" ("The Confessional Box") -- recognized the spot. He called in the police who, on closer study of the movie, confirmed his suspicions.

The local priest said the film crew told him they were shooting a wedding scene in the church. But actually, a man dressed as a priest was filmed having sex with a woman playing the bride. The priest of nearby Gioia dei Marsi said that under canon (church) law the Bishop of Marsi, Lucio Renna, would have to re-bless all services held in San Vicenzo, east of Rome, since the film was shot in 1998.

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Mohel Rabbi Yosef David Weisburg
The Jerusalem Post Magazine, Nov. 5, 1976, p. 14

"The baby cried, blood flowed on to his penis and - as the rabbi had predicted - Graham [the godfather] did not faint. The rabbi then bent over the baby and sucked the wound. I know this sounds awful, but it is part of the Jewish tradition. It's supposed to help the healing." Jack Shamash. "My Son on the Cutting Edge." Independent (London), no. 3,797 (Thursday, December 17, 1998): p. R8.

"And what of the practice of sucking the bleeding penis? While condemning the procedure, some physicians contend that it was used to stop bleeding.47 Not only is there little evidence for this theory, but it was also a largely ineffective method. Furthermore, even in antiquity, surgeons had better methods to stop bleeding, such as pressure, instruments, and medication.48 According to Dr. H. Speert (1953), Maimonides 'staunchly supported this procedure [sucking the bleeding penis] as a prophylactic measure against inflammation.'"49 Edward Wallerstein. Circumcision: An American Health Fallacy. New York: Springer Publishing Company. 1980. p. 160.

"..... whether it is prudent in modern times to permit direct contact between the mohel's mouth and the baby's sex organ."

Haaretz, Wed., March 23, 2005

Freedom of circumcision v. health hazard

By Nathan Guttman

WASHINGTON - The tragic death of an infant in New York's Haredi ultra-Orthodox community has put brit milah (Jewish ritual circumcision) in the spotlight over the past few weeks. The debate, which includes rabbis, mohels (ritual circumcisers) and American health authority representatives, centers on the question of how the mohel should draw blood after performing a circumcision, and whether it is prudent in modern times to permit direct contact between the mohel's mouth and the baby's sex organ. Beyond the issue of this practice itself, the discussion has extended to questions of freedom of religion versus the intervention of authorities and the sanctity of ancient practices versus scientific innovations.

The tragedy in question occurred last year in the Haredi community of Monsey, New York. The mohel, Rabbi Yitzchok Fischer, circumcised twins in a double ceremony. The circumcision was performed in the traditional manner accepted among many Haredim, and consists of three stages - incision of the foreskin, its retraction and removal, and drawing of blood. According to ultra-Orthodox practice, this is done directly, with the mohel's mouth on the site of the incision.

Ten days after the brit, one of the babies died, and an examination revealed that the cause of death was herpes. The second twin also tested positive for herpes, and after New York City health authorities opened an investigation, they discovered the virus in another baby who had been circumcised by Fischer.

The public health department's initial conclusion was that there was a reasonable suspicion that all three babies had been infected by Fischer when he drew blood with his mouth. The authorities immediately forbade Fischer from performing any more oral procedures, ordered him to work only while wearing sterile gloves, and filed a complaint against him at the New York Supreme Court in Manhattan, demanding that he cooperate with the investigation and refrain from drawing blood orally until the matter is resolved.

A dangerous custom

Fischer was to report to the courthouse for a hearing on the matter yesterday, but even before it can receive full legal attention, all of the parties already are raising their claims. Fischer's lawyers, attorney Mark Kurzmann and his son Hillel Kurzmann, say that their client has been fully cooperating with the investigation, so any legal action against him is superfluous.

"The city apparently has a much broader agenda, beyond the actual investigation," says Mark Kurzmann, noting that according to his understanding, the debate is not over the medical question concerning the transmission of herpes, but the broader issue of freedom of religion. To prove his point, Kurzmann notes that even before completion of the investigation, the New York health commissioner declared that the oral drawing of blood "constitutes a threat to the public health."

Fischer, who declined to be interviewed for this article on his lawyers' advice, underwent a series of medical tests to detect the herpes virus, and is continuing to perform circumcisions in New York, for the time being without oral suction. Even before the current incident made headlines, Fischer would use a glass tube if the baby's parents requested it.

The Jewish community is divided on the question of the continued practice of direct oral contact during the brit. While many in the Haredi and Orthodox community believe direct contact between the mohel's mouth and the site of the cut foreskin is necessary, many others have adopted the more modern approach in which the blood is drawn through a small, sterilized glass tube that ensures no direct oral contact in order to avoid the risk of infection.

The Rabbinical Council of America (RCA), America's largest Orthodox rabbinical organization, issued a statement supporting the use of the glass tube two weeks ago.

"The requirement [of drawing blood] is fulfilled completely and unambiguously by the use of oral suctioning through a tube," declared the RCA, adding, "One absolutely fulfills the precept whilst placing the infant and mohel at no additional risk."

Executive VP of the RCA, Rabbi Dr. Basil Herring, who initiated the declaration, says the organization felt the need, in light of the current debate, to clarify that from a halakhic (Jewish legal) and health perspective, and for the sake of appearances, it is preferable to use the tube rather than the direct oral contact method.

This approach is also in line with a study conducted and published by the Pediatrics medical magazine last year. The 12 researchers who prepared the report concluded that oral contact with the baby constitutes a risk of the transmission of herpes from the mohel to the baby. The researchers reached this conclusion after examining eight cases in which babies contracted herpes two weeks after their brit. Among the signatories of the report is Rabbi Dr. Moshe Tendler, who teaches biology at New York's Yeshiva University.

Tendler stressed in interviews granted to the U.S. Jewish media that herpes is much more common than many people think, and direct oral suction of blood is certainly a dangerous custom. Tendler added that even after this fact became well known, and after studies were published proscribing that adherence to the custom of oral suction needlessly endangers a baby, some parents still insist that the mohel follow the custom, and there are mohels who still continue with this hazardous practice.

Not everyone accepts this approach, even when it is presented by an Orthodox authority.

"For tens of thousands of believing Jews in the New York area, this practice is an integral part of the fulfillment of the circumcision commandment; to them it is not optional," Kurzmann says, noting that only part of the Jewish community has adopted the changes instituted in the suction method in the past 150 years.

No one has data on the proportion of circumcisions that use direct oral suction, but Orthodox community sources estimate that thousands are performed annually.

Furthermore, certain circles that had displayed lenience toward the use of the glass tube are now returning to direct oral suction and have banned the tube.

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UNHOLY ALLIANCE
Brutal Genocidal Dictators
and the American Christian Right

"Rios Montt has been supported by Pat Robertson (Christian Broadcasting Network), Jerry Falwell (Moral Majority, Thomas Road Baptist Church, Liberty Federation), and Loren Cunningham (Youth with a Mission). They have worked with the Florida Cuban community. . "

Human Rights Groups Criticize Guatemala
Wed Apr 9, 2003 Associated Press

GUATEMALA CITY - Activists have accused the Guatemalan government of being behind a string of burglaries and attacks aimed at intimidating human rights organizations in the country.

In a written statement Tuesday, an alliance of social groups said the alleged campaign has left many activists terrified they will be the target of violence. One activist leader said he believed the crimes were related to creation of a state commission to investigate civil rights abuses.

On Monday, thieves raided the Guatemala City home of Mario Polanco, one of the directors of the Mutual Support Group, an organization for relatives of victims who died or disappeared during the country's 1960-1996 civil war.

That attack came hours after an assailants broke into the offices of the country's human rights ombudsman in Puerto Barrios, 150 miles northeast of the capital.

On Friday, kidnappers abducted Diego Xon, a Mayan priest who was an active member of the Mutual Support Group in the central, largely Indian province of Quiche.

Xon was well known nationally for his strong-worded condemnations of a plan to compensate Guatemalan peasants who joined paramilitary forces and helped the government carry out ruthless anti-insurgency campaigns at the height of the war. Some 200,000 people, mostly Mayan Indians, were killed before peace accords ended the fighting.

Amnesty International Campaign Against Guatemalan Intelligence Agency
June 11, 2003

Jim Lobe,OneWorld U.S.

WASHINGTON, D.C., June 11 (OneWorld) - Amnesty International has launched a new campaign to press the Guatemalan government to dissolve a notorious military intelligence unit that has acted as a death squad in the past and is suspected of masterminding recent attacks against human rights lawyers, judges, and church groups investigating abuses committed during the country's civil war.

The campaign features Amnesty's first Internet "flash" animation movie that depicts the history of the Estado Mayor Presidencial (Presidential High Command), or EMP, as the intelligence unit is called. Under the 1996 peace accords, the EMP was supposed to have been dismantled, but, despite promises by President Alfonso Portillo to do so, the EMP's budget has actually increased during his term.

"Amnesty International is prepared to wield all tools at our disposal to get rid of the travesty known as the EMP," said William Schulz, executive director of the U.S. section of Amnesty International (AIUSA).

"As their budget increases, so the human rights community must respond with increased scrutiny and resources--including using the power of the Internet--in order to prevent the EMP from further terrorizing Guatemalan citizens. We also must make sure that the Portillo administration really cleans the intelligence-gathering house and doesn't just sweep this one unit under the rug."

The campaign's launch comes at a sensitive moment in Guatemala due to the race to succeed Portillo in general elections scheduled for November. The ruling party, the Guatemalan Republican Front (FRG), last month nominated former President Gen. Efrain Rios Montt as its candidate, despite the fact that as president in the early 1980s he directed a "scorched earth" counter-insurgency campaign in which 200,000 thousand indigenous Mayan people were killed and hundreds of their villages razed.

Although Rios Montt was hailed by former U.S. President Ronald Reagan as an ally against "communist subversion" in Central America at the time, Washington has since had a change of heart. In an unusual statement, the State Department warned last month that the U.S. would find it "difficult" to maintain good relations with Guatemala if the former military strongman were elected.

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Gospel Outreach gained notoriety when one of its elders, Gen. Rios Montt, became president of Guatemala during the 1982 military coup.

In Latin America, cultural transformation has been effected through the introduction of charismatic sects and, when necessary, terrorist operations. Please note in La Mafia Sects that “numerous agents of U.S.A.I.D.” who learned the techniques of psychological warfare in Vietnam, were responsible for the success of Latin American operations:

“They [the sects] are all made in the U.S.A. and are financed from the outside; they are the vehicles for inculcating an Anglo-Saxon cultural ideology, leading to adopting an American middle class model . . .

"… [T]he experience acquired in Vietnam, thanks to the work done in population control, was exported to Latin America, and particularly to Guatemala, by numerous agents of A.I.D., and of other U.S. services. Certain sects were created by psychological warfare specialists and entrusted with control of the political forum and control of conscience." ---George Orwell could never have imagined anything more effective than this! . .

“It is a fact that the foremost evangelical and charismatic sects have played a structural role in the dictatorships of Latin America. Sects such as The Church of the Word in Guatemala, or the Divine Universal Church, in Argentina, are directly linked to North American structures, such as the 700 Club (the real "seminary" for the formation of gurus, directed by the CIA), P.T.L. Television, founded by Pat Robertson in Virginia, Billy Graham Evangelist Association, World Vision International (all part of the sects’ money stream).” 26.

Which brings us to our next link between the Jesus Revolution and Latin America -- Gospel Outreach, a California-based sect that originated in the Jesus Movement. Gospel Outreach planted so many “El Verbo” churches [Church of the Word] in Latin America that a website devoted to Remembering the Jesus Movement classifies Gospel Outreach as a denomination, along with Calvary Chapel and the Vineyard.  “With 100 affiliated churches worldwide the Gospel Outreach network is one of three denominational legacies of the Jesus People Movement.” 27.

Gospel Outreach gained notoriety when one of its elders, Gen. Rios Montt, became president of Guatemala during the 1982 military coup.

By 1982, the U.S. Central Intelligence Agency was well-entrenched in Guatemala. In 1954, the CIA had joined with the United Fruit Company, wealthy plantation owners and the military to overthrow the freely-elected president of Guatemala, Jacobo Arbenz.  A protracted civil war ensued in this country through the 1970s, which took a turn for the worse in the early 1980's, at which time the Guatemalan army, backed by the CIA, began a campaign of genocide against the Maya peoples. Several hundred Indian villages were obliterated and their inhabitants were either killed or forced into exile in Mexico. 28.  Altogether, the Guatemalan war claimed over 200,000 lives, mostly Mayan civilians. According to a recent U.N report, at least 626 massacres took place during the country's 36-year war and, in recent years, 125 massacre sites have been exhumed. Most of the victims were Maya Indians.  Only two court trials have been conducted in which state prosecutors filed criminal charges and only one of these cases led to convictions. In 1998, three former members of an army-trained civilian patrol were sentenced to death for their role in a 1982 massacre of 130 civilians outside the town of Rio Negro. 29.

The rise of El Verbo Church elder, Rios Montt, to President of Guatemala in 1982, the terrorist operations of his regime and his support among leading U.S. evangelical ministers are documented in the Public Information Research Database file on Gospel Outreach:

"Gospel Outreach is an evangelical Pentecostal church with headquarters in Eureka, California and Guatemala. It grew out of the 'Jesus People' movement of the 1960s in the United States. . After the 1976 earthquake, 28 Gospel Outreach evangelicals from California arrived in Guatemala to help rebuild the country and establish El Verbo church.

"An early convert was General Efrain Rios Montt, who became president after a military coup in March 1982.

"According to the Latin American Institute of Transnational Studies, 'Within the first nine months of Rios Montt's administration, 12 evangelical pastors were assassinated; 69 were kidnapped; 45 disappeared; 15 were jailed; 11 foreign missionaries were expelled; 88 evangelical temples were destroyed; and 50 more were occupied by the Army.' By 1986, Verbo Ministries reported 250 congregations. Verbo Ministries also runs a Leadership Training School with over 1000 members directed by Rios Montt himself. . .

"Rios Montt has been supported by Pat Robertson (Christian Broadcasting Network), Jerry Falwell (Moral Majority, Thomas Road Baptist Church, Liberty Federation), and Loren Cunningham (Youth with a Mission). They have worked with the Florida Cuban community. . . Jimmy Swaggart Ministries has provided financial support for the schools of El Verbo in Guatemala. This is done under the ‘Programa Ayuda Infantile,’ a branch of the Swaggart ministry.” 30.

Pat Robertson's organization funded Gospel Outreach to help Rios Montt build ‘model villages’ for the Guatemalan peasants. These model villages were, like the Jesus Movement, “based on ‘communitarianism,’ a system of church-centered community ownership of property that vaguely would include private ownership of homes and land.” 31.  Gospel Outreach’s fundraising arm in the U.S., International Love Lift, was able to raise $1.5 million for Rios Montt’s program.  The authors of Thy Will Be Done: The Conquest of the Amazon: Nelson Rockefeller and Evangelism in the Age of Oil, describe the fruit of Gospel Outreach – which turned out not to be model villages, but a genocidal campaign that was perpetuated largely because of Evangelical funding and petitions to President Reagan:

“The irony of [Gospel Outreach’s] name was outranked only by the name of its fund-raising arm in the United States, which was endorsed by TV evangelist Pat Robertson: International Love Lift. . .

“Love was beginning to take on a strange look . . .

“Within three months of Rios Montt’s self-declaratoin as ‘God’s choice,’ in June 1982, Amnesty International would issue a special report, Massive Extrajudicial Executions in Rural Areas Under the Government of General Efrain Rios Montt. Its ‘partial listing of massacres,’ totaling more than sixty, included one village where survivors witnessed soldiers beheading men, battering children’s heads against rocks, and raping women. More than 500 Indian people were killed in three villages in the departments of Quiche and Huehuetenango on March 23. In addition, 100 people were slaughtered in three villages in Alta Verapaz between March 24 and March 27; 250 people, in three villages in Chimaltenango the first two weeks of April; 100, in the village of Nangal alone in Quiche on April 5; 193, in Rio Negro on April 15; 54, in Macalbaj on April 18; and 100, in Josefinos on April 20.

“Machine guns, grenades, and machetes were used with sadistic abandon. Most of the victims were women and children.  In Alta Alta Verapaz, home of the Kekchi Indians, more than 1,000 of the 2,500 communities in the province were abandoned or destroyed. Those communities that remained were decimated by losses. In one municipality, Santa Cristobal Verapaz, up to 10,000 of the 28,000 residents were believed by local authorities to have died. . .

“ . . .after meeting Rios Montt in Honduras later that month, President Reagan insisted that the regime was ‘getting a bad deal’ from the accusations of massacres and deserved renewed military aid from the United States (which he granted the following month).  Had not the White House received a flood of letters calling for renewed arms sales to Guatemala after Pat Robertson appealed to his 700 Culb television show for prayers and money for the regime?” 32.

The Covert Action Information Bulletin reported in 1987 that the State of Israel, Guatemala's principle backer between 1977 and 1986, not only sponsored espionage and torture of Guatemalans, but employed members of Gospel Outreach’s Verbo Church to assist their agents.

"Israel also installed computer surveillance equipment in Guatemala and, under the pretext of providing agricultural assistance, helped devise Rios Montt's 'beans and bullets strategic hamlets, modeled after the CIA's Operation Phoenix. . . [ed. note: ‘beans and bullets’ refers to Rios Montt’s policy, ‘If you are with us, we’ll feed you; if not we’ll kill you.’]

[Richard Paradise of Gospel Outreach] says he works under the auspices of the World Zionist Organization as a liaison with U.S. evangelicals, with the assigned role of working against anti-Semitism within the U.S. . . According to a special report entitled 'Sectas y Religiosidad en American Latina' published in October 1984 by the Chile-based Instituto Latinoamericano de Estudios Transnacionales, during Rios Montt's rule, members of Gospel Outreach's Verbo church took jobs in espionage and torture and accompanied Israeli and Argentinean experts during interrogation sessions." 33.

Israel’s role was confirmed by a member of Israel’s Knesset according to CIABASE files on Death Squads: “Guatemala, 1981-89. Israeli Knesset member General Peled said in Central America Israel is 'dirty work' contractor for U.S. Helped Guatemala regime when Congress blocked Reagan administration. Israeli firm Tadiran (then partly U.S.-owned) supplied Guatemalan military with computerized intelligence system to track potential subversives. Those on computer list had an excellent chance of being ‘disappeared.’”

The following CIABASE records describe the CIA operation in Guatemala, courtesy of Reuters and The Nation:

Guatemala, 1954-95. U.S. Undercover agents have worked for decades inside a Guatemalan army unit that has tortured and killed thousands of Guatemalan citizens, per the Nation weekly magazine. "working out of the U.S. Embassy and living in safe houses and hotels, agents work through an elite group of Guatemalan officers who are secretly paid by CIA and implicated personally in numerous political crimes and assassinations ''unit known as G-2 and its secret collaboration with CIA were described by U.S. and Guatemalan operatives and confirmed by three former Guatemalan heads of state. Colonel Julio Roberto Alpirez, Guatemalan officer implicated in murders of guerrilla leader Efrain Bamaca Velasquez -- husband of an American lawyer -- and rancher Michael Devine discussed in an interview how intelligence agency advises and helps run G-2. He said agents came to Central American country often to train G-2 men and he described attending CIA sessions at G-2 bases on "contra-subversion'' tactics and "how to manage factors of power'' to "fortify democracy'' the Nation quoted U.S. and Guatemalan intelligence sources as saying at least three recent G-2 chiefs have been on CIA payroll -- General Edgar Godoy Gatan, Colonel Otto Perez Molina and General Francisco Ortega Menaldo. `It would be embarrassing if you ever had a roll call of everybody in Guatemalan army who ever collected a CIA paycheck,'' report quoted Colonel George Hooker, U.S. DIA chief in Guatemala from 1985 to 1989, as saying. Human rights group Amnesty International has said Guatemalan army killed more than 110,000 civilians since 1978 with G-2 and another unit called Archivo known as main death squads. Reuters, 3/30/1995

Guatemala, 1960-90. Human rights groups say at least 40,000 Guatemalans "disappeared" in last 3 decades. Most were poor Indians. Anthropologists, led by Clyde Snow, dug away at a village site. Maria Lopez had a husband and a son in one grave. She said on morning of Valentine's Day 1982, members of anti-guerrilla militia took her husband and others. They had refused to join militias known as civil self-defense patrols and were killed. Six unknown clandestine graves in San Jose Pacho. Human rights groups blame most disappearances on army-run civil self-defense patrols set up under presidencies of General Lucas Garcia and Brig. Gen. Rios Montt. There are hundreds of clandestine graves filled with victims of the militias, right-wing death squads and brutal counterinsurgency campaigns. Washington Times, 8/5/1992, p. A9
 

Another case of New Right leaders using their influence to support Latin American dictators was the promotion by Pat Robertson [CNP Pres. 1985-6] and Jerry Falwell of General Efrain Rios Montt, who became president of Guatemala after a bloody coup in 1982. Rios Montt, a convert of Gospel Outreach Verbo Ministries [which originated in the Jesus Movement, a CIA operation] expected to turn the Verbo Churches into a new political movement which would "moralize national life from the top down."

"Gospel Outreach is an evangelical Pentecostal church with headquarters in Eureka, California and Guatemala. It grew out of the 'Jesus People' movement of the 1960s in the United States. . .After the 1976 earthquake, 28 Gospel Outreach evangelicals from California arrived in Guatemala to help rebuild the country and establish El Verbo church. . .An early convert was General Efrain Rios Montt, who became president after a military coup in March 1982.

"According to the Latin American Institute of Transnational Studies, 'Within the first nine months of Rios Montt's administration, 12 evangelical pastors were assassinated; 69 were kidnapped; 45 disappeared; 5 were jailed; 11 foreign missionaries were expelled; 88 evangelical temples were destroyed; and 50 more were occupied by the Army." By 1986, Verbo Ministries reported 250 congregations. Verbo Ministries also runs a Leadership Training School with over 1000 members directed by Rios Montt himself.

"Rios Montt has been supported by Pat Robertson (Christian Broadcasting Network), Jerry Falwell (Moral Majority, Thomas Road Baptist Church, Liberty Federation), and Loren Cunningham (Youth with a Mission). . .Jimmy Swaggart Ministries has provided financial support for the schools of El Verbo in Guatemala. This is done under the "Programa Ayuda Infantile," a branch of the Swaggart ministry." 18.

Waiting for the Full Truth About Guatemala

CIA reluctantly begins to lift the curtain on the full extent of its involvement in Guatemala, including the murder of U.S. citizens

Bitter Legacy
Throughout the Cold War, U.S. authorities sponsored a series of undercover operations whose central purpose was to contain the spread of communism in the Western Hemisphere. One such example of this was in Cuba, when during the Kennedy presidency the CIA offered the Mafia $150,000 to arrange for Castro's assassination. Covert operations, including kidnappings, tortures and political murders were an integral part of a interventionist policy which profoundly undermined Guatemala's possibilities of creating authentic democratic institutions during this period. Penetration and control of key figures in the Guatemalan army during this period was crucial to Washington's successful implementation of its game plan. During this epoch, not only did the CIA pay and train scores of major human rights abusers, but actually conspired in the creation of lists of civilian political targets to be later gunned down.

Council On Hemispheric Affairs

Founded in 1975, the Council on Hemispheric Affairs (COHA), a nonprofit, tax-exempt independent research and information organization, was established to promote the common interests of the hemisphere, raise the visibility of regional affairs and increase the importance of the inter-American relationship, as well as encourage the formulation of rational and constructive U.S. policies towards Latin America.

COHA subscribes to no specific political credo nor does it maintain partisan allegiances. It supports open and democratic political processes just as it consistently has condemned authoritarian regimes of any stripe that fail to provide their populations with even minimal standards of political freedoms, economic and social justice, personal security and civic guarantees.

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Pat Robertson has a peculiar fondness for genocidal tyrants:

Christian Coalition founder Robertson defends Liberian president

By Alan Cooperman
THE WASHINGTON POST July 10 — Charles Taylor, the Liberian president who has been indicted by an international court for crimes against humanity, has few remaining supporters in the United States. But one prominent American who has stuck with the West African leader is religious broadcaster and Christian Coalition founder Pat Robertson.

IN RECENT BROADCASTS of his cable TV show “The 700 Club,” watched by an estimated 1 million households, Robertson has defended Taylor as a fellow Baptist and Liberia’s “freely elected” leader. The “horrible bloodbath” taking place in Liberia, he has repeatedly said, is the fault of the State Department. “So we’re undermining a Christian, Baptist president to bring in Muslim rebels to take over the country. And how dare the president of the United States say to the duly elected president of another country, ‘You’ve got to step down,’ ” Robertson said to his viewers on Monday.

What Robertson, 73, has not discussed in these broadcasts is his financial interest in Liberia. In an interview yesterday, he said he has “written off in my own mind” an $8 million investment in a gold mining venture that he made four years ago under an agreement with Taylor’s government.

Yet, he added: “Hope springs eternal. Once the dust has cleared on this thing, chances are there will be some investors from someplace who want to invest. If I could find some people to sell it to, I’d be more than delighted.”

Other Baptist and evangelical Christian leaders said they do not share either Robertson’s support for Taylor or his criticism of President Bush’s call for the Liberian leader to go into exile. “I would say that Pat Robertson is way out on his own, in a leaking life raft, on this one,” said Richard Land, head of the Southern Baptist Convention’s public policy arm.

Allen Hertzke, a professor of political science at the University of Oklahoma and the author of a forthcoming book on evangelicals and human rights, said many religious conservatives “will be horrified” by Robertson’s stance. “His comments really feed into the media critique of Christian conservatives, that they are not sophisticated, they don’t care about others, all they care about are Christians around the world — when in fact that is a caricature of the faith-based human rights movement,” Hertzke said.

In his broadcasts, Robertson has portrayed the Liberian civil war as primarily a fight between Christians and Muslims. Serge Duss, director of public policy for the international Christian relief group World Vision, called that a gross oversimplification.

World Vision and other Christian organizations lobbied successfully this year for legislation banning the importation into the United States of diamonds from war-torn African countries. Taylor has been indicted by a United Nations-established tribunal for allegedly backing militias — funded largely by the sale of diamonds — that raped and maimed civilians during the civil war in neighboring Sierra Leone.

Taylor seized power in Liberia by force in 1989 and was elected president in a 1997 vote that some observers charged was fraudulent. Human Rights Watch, Amnesty International and other groups have condemned his human rights record.

Robertson said yesterday that his investment in the Liberian gold mining company Freedom Gold was intended to help pay for humanitarian and evangelical efforts in the country. One event he helped fund was a three-day rally, called Liberia for Jesus, in February 2002. Taylor declared a national holiday and, according to news reports on Robertson’s Christian Broadcasting Network, prostrated himself on the stage, saying: “I am not your president. Jesus is!”

“There are people who say that’s phony baloney, but I thought it was sincere,” Robertson said. “He definitely has Christian sentiments, although you hear of all these rumors that he’s done this or done that.” © 2003 The Washington Post Company

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Sri Chinmoy, unmasked

Chinmoy is just one of the many pale imitators and dark imposters who have come out of the woodwork since the 60's, preying on their credulous followers like so many spiritual vampires. According to many of his former disciples, Chinmoys' "super human" feats of strength have been revealed to have been hoaxes, and are completely unverifiable.

Links to information and testimonials regarding
sexual misconduct and spiritual abuse by Sri Chinmoy

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The Times , London, one of the most respected and conservative newspapers in the world , has come out with three leading stories on Sai Baba and the sexual abuse by Sai Baba. This is probably a defining moment in the Sai Baba expose, as The Times stories have been picked up and reported on by leading Indian newspapers as well.

Millions of people worship Sai Baba as God incarnate. More and more say the Indian guru is also a pedophile. Read the Salon article: Untouchable?

Championing Psychological Freedoms in
Cults, Corporations, Nations, and Families

The Natural Law Party

Including insider secrets, personal stories,
scandals, news archive, and more

Meditation and Its Side-Effects in Therapy

This article, by Alberto Perez-De-Albeniz and Jeremy Holmes, reviews 75 scientific selected articles in the field of meditation, including Transcendental Meditation among others. It summarizes definitions of meditation, psychological and physiological changes, and negative side-effects encountered by 62.9% of meditators studied. While the authors did not restrict their study to TM, the side-effects reported were similar to those found in the "German Study" of Transcendental Meditators: relaxation-induced anxiety and panic; paradoxical increases in tension; less motivation in life; boredom; pain; impaired reality testing; confusion and disorientation; feeling 'spaced out'; depression; increased negativity; being more judgmental; feeling addicted to meditation; uncomfortable kinaesthetic sensations; mild dissociation; feelings of guilt; psychosis-like symptoms; grandiosity; elation; destructive behavior; suicidal feelings; defenselessness; fear; anger; apprehension; and despair.

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Thus saith the Dalai Lama, that glorified pope:

"Each student must be encouraged to take responsible measures to confront teachers with unethical aspects of their conduct. If the teacher shows no sign of reform, students should not hesitate to publicize any unethical behavior of which there is irrefutable evidence. This should be done irrespective of other beneficial aspects of his or her work and of one's spiritual commitment to that teacher" - Dalai Lama

From the Salon article, His material highness

Supporters of the Dorge Shugden deity -- a "Dharma protector" and an ancient object of worship and propitiation in Tibet -- have been threatened with violence and ostracism and even death following the Dalai Lama's abrupt prohibition of this once-venerated godhead. A Swiss television documentary graphically intercuts footage of His Holiness, denying all knowledge of menace and intimidation, with scenes of his followers' enthusiastically promulgating "Wanted" posters and other paraphernalia of excommunication and persecution.

While he denies being a Buddhist "Pope," the Dalai Lama is never happier than when brooding in a celibate manner on the sex lives of people he has never met. "Sexual misconduct for men and women consists of oral and anal sex," he has repeatedly said in promoting his book on these matters. "Using one's hand, that is sexual misconduct." But, as ever with religious stipulations, there is a nutty escape clause. "To have sexual relations with a prostitute paid by you and not by a third person does not constitute improper behavior." - - more about the Dalai Lama, , that idealized and romanticized glorified substitute pope figure for rebellious children of American Christian parents. He's just as clueless as Jerry Falwell.

A Review of "Orphans of the Cold War":

The U.S. for years, during the 1950s and 1960s, backed the Tibetans with arms, military training, money, air support and etc. The operation failed. Tibetans were killed, but China's hold over Tibet was never shaken. By the end of the 1960s, the effort ended, leaving the Tibetans embittered and abandoned. CIA provided an annual subsidy of $180,000 to the Dalai Lama from late 1950s through the 1960s. A new book "Orphans of the Cold War" by John Kenneth Knaus, a former CIA operative, says in 1951 the Truman administration tried to persuade the Dalai Lama to leave Tibet for exile. Later his flight into exile wasn't voluntary. Knaus found that the CIA's subsidies to the Dalai Lama lasted, from about 1951 until 1974. By 1969, "the decision had already been made to abandon Mustang [the headquarters in Nepal for the Tibetan guerrillas] for operational and not geopolitical reasons." CIA misled the Tibetans into thinking they had American support for an independent Tibet. - Los Angeles Times 6/16/99

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Read my "Thanksgiving Day" (Our Day of Mourning) Sermon

The Pilgrims, Children of the Devil

New Age Old Wives Tales

The "New Age" is full of Gurus with hard-ons, and irate feminists with trust-funds. Over-fed fertility goddesses stuff their faces with organic bon-bons, while freaked-out singing cowboys, wishing they were Indians, bang on tom-toms. They all swoon together to the music of New Age Wayne Newtons.

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Franklin Graham, playboy-turned-preacher son of the Reverend Billy Graham made headlines when he was quoted in an interview saying, the war on terrorism should not be limited to the battlefield. He says it needs to expand to include a war on Islam, the religion. Franklin Graham was chosen to deliver the invocation sermon at George W. Bush Inaugural Prayer Service , leading the National Day of Prayer and Thanksgiving.

Graham's comments are caused quite a stir, coming on the first day of Ramadan.

"We're not attacking Islam but Islam has attacked us," Graham said. "The God of Islam is not the same God. He's not the Son of God of the Christian or Judeo-Christian faith. It's a different God and I believe it is a very evil and wicked religion."

Graham says his beliefs are based on what he has read in the Kur'an, the Islamic holy book, and suggests that America's war on terrorism is also a war on Islam.

"I think we better take a hard look, though, at Islam. I don't believe this is this wonderful, peaceful religion."

The addled clerics' ill-advised remarks were broadcast all across America on NBC TV on Friday, Nov. 16, 2001. By some weird coincidence, that was the first day of the Muslim holy month of Ramadan. By another weird concidence, the U.S. accidentally bombed a mosque on that same day:

U.S. bomb damages mosque

November 16, 2001

WASHINGTON (CNN) -- A bomb dropped Friday as two U.S. Air Force aircraft targeted an al Qaeda facility damaged a mosque in Khowst, Afghanistan, U.S. Central Command officials said.

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Secretary-General of the United Nations, Kofi Annan
President of the United States of America, George W. Bush

(Photo by Agence France-Presse)

"You can fool some of the people all of the time and those are the ones you want to concentrate on."
- President Bush, speaking at the Gridiron Dinner, Washington, DC March 31, 2001

"According to Abbas, immediately thereafter Bush said: "God told me to strike at al Qaida and I struck them, and then he instructed me to strike at Saddam, which I did, and now I am determined to solve the problem in the Middle East." - Read the entire article: Haaretz, Jerusalam, Tuesday, June 24, 2003

The Burning Bush, "God's man of the hour" Bush aide Tim Goeglein recently told the Christian-right magazine World: "I think President Bush is God's man at this hour, and I say this with a great sense of humility."

Extensive list of Bush regime lies about Iraq

The American "Christian Right" is firmly entrenched in the White House, the Pentagon and the CIA. They have contributed greatly to the creatiom of hell on Earth by shaping world events to conform to their distorted and erroneous beliefs about the Bible, bringing about a self-fulfilling prophecy of their "Armegeddon theology".

The current conflict in the Middle East, and the "War on Terrorism", have their roots in British religious fanaticism:

BRITISH LITERALIST FOREIGN POLICY

The British Literalists--strong among the Anglican Evangelicals and in various Nonconformist churches--were not about to abandon their hopes of converting Jews and sending them to Palestine to meet their Messiah, especially not around 1840, when the current British policy of offering protection to Jews living in Palestine raised great expectations among the the premillennialists. Indeed, Literalist influence was unofficially helping to shape that policy. An ardent Literalist, Lord Ashley (later the Earl of Shaftesbury), was stepson- in-law and confidant of Lord Palmerston, the British foreign secretary. Ashley had private hopes of bringing about, through British action, the restoration of Israel to Palestine in preparation for the Second Advent. In 1840 he prodded Palmerston, by adducing political reasons, into seeking international backing for Jewish migration to Palestine, while he confided to his diary his own very different motives, which were distinctly religious:

Dined with Palmerston. After dinner left alone with him. Propounded my scheme, which seemed to strike his fancy . . . . Palmerston has already been chosen by God to be an instrument of good to His ancient people; to do homage, as it were, to their inheritance, and to recognise their rights without believing their destiny . . . . I am forced to argue politically, financially, commercially; these considerations strike him home; he weeps not like his Master over Jerusalem, nor prays that now, at last, she may put on her beautiful garments.[1]

Ashley's influence was likewise behind the establishment of a consulate in Jerusalem in 1838, also the creating of an Anglican bishopric there in 1841 and the appointment to it of a Jewish Christian bishop. On October 16, 1841, he wrote in his diary: "Where would the Sultan's permission [to build the bishop's church] have been without Palmerston's vigour in consequence of my repeated and earnest representations?"[2]

But Ashley's dream of a British-sponsored and treaty-protected Jewish migration to Palestine did not materialize. The four-power treaty of 1840 ignored the matter. Even the Jews themselves showed little interest; more than half a century passed before Zionism arose.

[p. 4] Nevertheless, 20th-century British policy in the Middle East owed something to the prophetic interpretation of the Literalists of the 1830s and 1840s.

As one recent writer has put it:

Lord Shaftesbury's adventure marks the point when events began leading logically toward the [Palestine] Mandate. . . .

Palmerston['s Middle Eastern policies] mark the beginning of official British intervention on behalf of the "Jewish nation" and of its resettlement in Palestine. . . .

Ashley had not labored in vain. . . . All these events centering in the Holy Land [including "the visionary prospects aroused by the Evangelical craze for conversion of the Jews and the Jerusalem bishopric"] combined to create almost a proprietary feeling about Palestine. The idea of a British annex there through the medium of a British-sponsored restoration of Israel began to appeal to other minds than Ashley's.[3]

[1] Anthony Ashley, Earl of Shaftesbury, Diary entries, quoted in Edwin Hodder, The Life and Work of the Seventh Earl of Shaftesbury, vol. 1, pp. 310, 311. Ashley was the one referred to, but not named (in London Times, Aug. 17, 1840, p. 3, col. 5), as the promoter of western-sponsored Jewish migration to Palestine.

[2] Hodder, op. cit., vol. 1, p. 377 (cf. pp. 370, 374). See also Harold Temperley, England and the Near East: The Crimea (1936), p. 443, note 275; Barbara W. Tuchman, Bible and Sword (1956, 1968), chap. 10.

[3] Tuchman, op. cit. (1968 ed.), pp. xi, 197, 208.

American religious fanatics have taken up where the British left off, continuing the cycle of dysfunctional religious compulsion, taking it to new heights of lunacy and absurdity:

THE ZIONIST ORGANIZATION OF AMERICA'S ISRAEL NEWS CONNECTION

Hayseed Stephen's "Oil the Road to Armageddon"

"In January 1978, Hayseed, who had been "partying" for days, had an experience like the Apostle Paul on the Damascus Road. He told Jesus he'd go anywhere, even to the North Pole. Shortly afterwards, he was holding his first revival above the Arctic Circle, at Prudhoe Bay, an Alaskan oil camp."

Editor's note: Shades of Dubya!!!
It gets even more bizarre:

"A meeting in 1982 played a key role in establishing Stephens' relationship with Israel and the Jewish people. Hayseed was one of the dozen Christian businessmen invited to pray with then Israeli Prime Minister Menachem Begin just prior to his making a decision on the war and invasion of Lebanon.

Stephens felt led by the Lord to give Begin a large, white Texas cowboy hat and it was then that Begin, unknowingly, spoke prophetic words: "Maybe you will be the one to come and find oil for us in Israel."

Two hours later, the Lord spoke to Stephens, telling him the "greatest oil field in the world" lay beneath the southwest end of the Dead Sea.

To find out more about Ness Energy or its status on the stock exchange go to: Ness Energy

From the sublime to the ridiculous, from the Ness Energy website:

25 Reasons Why the Oil God has saved for Israel Will be discovered by Hayseed Stephens and Ness Energy

With Excerpts from Hayseed Stephen's Film "Oil the Road to Armageddon"

Written by Timothy C. Davis, Apr 98 Mar 99

1. In 1982 while on a business trip to Israel, Hayseed Stephens claims he had a God-given revelation that the richest oil field in the world is at the southwest end of the Dead Sea. At that time the area surrounding the Dead Sea from its northern tip around to the southern edge on the western side was still controlled by Israel. Much of this land was acquired because of the favorable outcome of the 6 day, June 5th - 10th, 1967 Arab-Israeli War. When asked by the Israelis in 1983 where in their country he would like to drill for oil, Mr. Stephens took a detailed map of the region and pointed to a precise location. Since that time until now, the land on the western side of the Dead Sea has, piece by piece, been reacquired by Palestine, all that is except for the area surrounding the drilling site he proposed in 1983 at the southwest end of the Dead Sea.

Continued

What do fundamentalist Christians believe about the future of Israel?

23. Jesus Christ's return to this Earth is imminent, and after he takes his bride (the true Church) to be with him in a place he has prepared for them, all hell will break loose. I've often wondered why the Book of Revelation says that the nation to their north (Russia) will attack them. Of what benefit would they gain by attacking little tiny Israel? Oil, is the reason!!! Oil that has been sitting under Israel for thousands of years since God created this Earth. This truly prolific oil field will be the hook in the jaw of every major power in the world, especially since it belongs to the outcasts known as Israel. In the future, Russia will attack and be destroyed and then another mighty group of nations will advance upon Israel from the east with a 200 million-man army according to the Bible. Did you know that there is only one nation in the world that can come even remotely close to fielding a 200 million-man army and that nation is China and as the Bible states they are due east of Israel. Currently, China is building a super-highway through Tibet, Pakistan and Afghanistan that has little commercial value and is headed directly to Israel. Did you also know that most scoffers said that China would never be able to cross the Euphrates River valley to get to Israel because of the shear enormity of that river? Well the scoffers are wrong!!! In 1994 Turkey completed the Ataturk Dam which as REVELATION 16:12 says will allow the Kings of the East to cross the Euphrates river Valley so that they can proceed to the Valley of Megiddo. In 1981 another Christian oil wildcatter named Andy SoRelle drilled a well in Israel near Haifa which borders the Mediterranean Sea."

NO, Kurt Vonnegut did not write this wacky scenario, it is real! The truth really IS stranger than fiction!

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Dubya has called his war against "evildoers" a "crusade". An example of the Crusaders' cruelty against other Christians, an excerpt from Nicholas A. Cook's Article about 4th Crusaders:

After receiving absolution, the Crusaders attacked. Constantinople fell after three days of the final, furious attack by land and by sea. Once inside the walls, the Crusaders began an orgy of carnage, brutality and vandalism not seen in Europe since the barbarians invaded seven centuries earlier. No one was spared: not bishop, priest, nun, man, woman or child. Few women escaped being violated, whether at home, in the street, or in the convent. Fires were started throughout the city. The butchery ended only when the Crusaders were so tired that they no longer could lift their swords. Then began looting and profanation on a scale unparalleled in history. A mob rushed into Santa Sophia. With the Image of the Pantacrator looking down upon them from the great dome, they broke up the altar for its gold content, smashed the icons, threw the Holy Gifts to the floor, seized the church vessels for their Jewels, and tore mosaics and tapestries from the walls. Horses and mules were brought into the church the better to carry off the sacred vessels, gold, silver, and whatever else they could gather. Drunken soldiers drank from chalices and ate from patens while riding asses draped with priestly vestments. A mocking prostitute was placed on the Patriarch's chair to dance and sing obscene songs. This pattern of pilferage and desecration was repeated in churches, monasteries and palaces throughout the city. The tombs of the emperors were rifled, and all of the classical statues and monuments which had survived from ancient Greece and imperial Rome were destroyed. One writer wrote that never in history had so much beauty, so much superb craftsmanship been so wantonly destroyed in so short a space of time. What was not carried off was burned, smashed, melted down for its precious metal content, or stripped for its jewels.

After the killing, after the city had been subdued, there began a slow and steady removal of treasures out of the Orthodox temples and into the cathedrals, churches, monasteries, convents, cities and towns of Latin Europe. Some of these items had been venerated, cherished, and protected for centuries, others for a millennium. Now they were being carted away from over a hundred and fifty churches: altars, altar screens, tabernacles, antimins, icons, icon frames, processional, pectoral and altar crosses, gold and silver chains, panagias, mitres, croziers, chalices, patens, star covers and spears, Gospels, Epistle books, ladles, church plate, censers, votive lights, relics, candelabra, epitaphia, fans, reliquaries, vestments, banners, manuscripts, miniatures, ivories, carvings, mosaics, thrones, tapestries, furniture and architectural items. Cartloads of gold and silver from Santa Sophia found their way into the Vatican treasury. Constantinople had become the gold mine which supplied Latin Christendom.

The wealth was so great that the looting continued for sixty years. A century earlier, after the First Crusade, Jerusalem, Antioch, and Edessa were similarly stripped for a period of forty years. Now it was happening to the imperial city. A scandalous traffic in relics was started. The head of St. John the Baptist was carried off to Amiens. Amalfi, Italy took the head of St. Andrew the First-Called from the Church of the Holy Apostles, along with a set of heavy bronze doors. The bishop of Soissons shipped home the head of St. Stephen and a relic of St. John. The remains of St. Clement, pillaged from the Church of St. Theodosia, were taken to Cluny. St. Albans received the relics of St. Marina. Halbstadt claimed the relics of St. James. The True Cross was divided up among the barons, with a portion sent to the pope, and another fragment taken to Paris. A priceless gold and enamel reliquary encrusted with jewels, containing a fragment of the Wood wound up in a nunnery in Steuben. King Louis IX of France paid 10,000 silver marks for the "true" Crown of Thorns, for which he built St. Chapells in Paris.

read the whole article

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There were two Children's Crusades which started simultaneously in 1212, one from the Rhineland, the other in the Loire valley. A ten year old boy, Nicholas, preached the Children's Crusade at Cologne and is said to have recruited more than 20,000 children to his cause. When the pilgrims reached Italy, many of the girls were taken into brothels and others were taken as servants. Those boys who eventually carried on to the east were sold as slaves.

In May 1212, there appeared at Saint-Denis, a twelve year old boy by the name of Stephen. He was alleged to have gathered 30,000 children but at Marseilles they fell into the hands of thieves and were sold as slaves at Alexandria. Over 2000 alone perished when their ships sank in the Mediterranean.