On Monday, September 23rd 60 heads of state from around the globe met at the United Nations climate summit. With headlines from around the world continuing to be filled with atrocities committed against people of faith, President Donald Trump’s decision to host a forum on international religious freedom was a first and designed to address a much more critical environment. In China for example: upwards of 3 million Muslim Uighurs have been sent to “counter-terrorism” or “re-education” camps, where they are tortured into renouncing their religion and forced to recite state propaganda and Christian communities have also been threatened by the forced demolitions of churches and the detainment of pastors and priests.
According to Open Doors 2019 World Watch Report, in just the last year, there have been:
Over 245 million Christians living in places where they experience high levels of persecution
4,305 Christians killed for their faith
1,847 churches and other Christian buildings attacked.
3,150 believers detained without trial, arrested, sentenced or imprisoned
This was a historic meeting focused on protecting religious freedom worldwide. New initiatives were announced including a pledge of $25 million towards protecting religious freedom, sites, and relics. The US is also forming a coalition of business leaders committed to protecting religious freedom.
Trump said: “The United States is founded on the principle that our rights don’t come from government — they come from God,”
The United States is blessed to have a leader who recognizes that religious freedom as a driving force in all public policy. We are proud of the courage he demonstrates on the world stage and we applaud his leadership and efforts to get other nations around the world to join him in recognizing and protecting this fundamental human right.
Los Angeles Chargers quarterback Philip Rivers and his family are devout Catholics — he and his wife Tiffany are junior-high-school sweethearts who married when they were 19 and 18, respectively. Rivers took a moment before the game to say hello to some fans
Kamala Harris likes to tout how tough she is on crime, but there is one crime she turns a blind eye to. The sale of body parts from an aborted baby for profit is in direct violation of state and federal law. Remember the videos that exposed Planned Parenthood selling babies’ body parts?
2020 Presidential Candidate Kamala Harris likes to be recognized for being tough on crime
Kamala Harris Is Tough On Crime
So who did Harris fight for?
U.S. Senator Kamala Harris, a long-time pro-abortion advocate and now a leading Democratic presidential candidate, has received tens of thousands of dollars in political contributions from Planned Parenthood-affiliated entities. In 2016, it was Harris, the California Attorney General, who ordered the search warrant against David Daleiden, an anti-abortion activist who created the undercover videos. Daledien's lawyers are now arguing that the search warrant was “served without probable cause and in bad faith,” and should, therefore, be thrown out.
Even though California laws protect citizen journalists from these kinds of legal attacks, Harris, as a favor to Planned Parenthood, went ahead and filed charges anyway.
Daleiden’s lawyers filed a motion that includes email exchanges between Harris’s office and Planned Parenthood executives working together to obtain a search warrant for Daleiden’s unreleased videos. They also include evidence that the state’s own special investigative team did not believe they had probable cause to search and seize Daleiden’s property.
Instead of fighting against Planned Parenthood, which was violating the law, she chose to fight the person behind exposing them. Kamala Harris is another face of evil.
Yes, missing Mass is a mortal sin. Here is why. For almost 250 years, it was a crime punishable by death to go to Mass. Even the mere accusation of being a Christian and failing to denounce it might have brought martyrdom.
The basic test for determining whether a person was Christian was whether that person regularly shared in the Church’s worship. For the state, a person who professed Christian beliefs but did not express them in prayer posed no danger. For the Church, beliefs not expressed in regular Eucharistic worship were meaningless. The state regarded sharing in the Christian assembly as an act of treason, a capital crime. The Church regarded sharing in its worship as the supreme positive affirmation before God of the Christian life
No Time For Church
Today, many profess faith yet do not practice Eucharistic worship (go to Mass). They are too busy…
Scripture commands us to “work out your own salvation with fear and trembling, for God is at work in you, both to will and to work for his good pleasure” (Phil. 2:13f).
Scripture explains that “as often as you eat this bread and drink the cup, you proclaim the Lord’s death until he comes” (1 Cor. 11:26)
Hebrews explains, “And this will was for us to be holy by the offering of his body made once for all by Jesus Christ” (Heb. 10:10). The offering made once for all is continually repeated on our behalf by the celebration of the Eucharist, thus continuing the working-out of our redemption. “By virtue of that one single offering, he has achieved the eternal perfection of all whom he is sanctifying. ”
That is whyit is a mortal sin to miss Mass. By choosing to stay away from Mass on Sundays and Holy Days of obligation, we deliberately turn our backs on Christ and the process of redemption. You are literally saying NO
During CNN’s recent “climate town hall”, Bernie Sanders, a popular leading 2020 Presidential candidate, was asked by a member of the audience to discuss his thoughts about population control and overpopulation. Sanders replied:
It is a “fact” that women “have a right to control their own bodies and make reproductive decisions,” in reference to abortion.
He then took aim at the Mexico City policy, a decades-old provision that forbids U.S. foreign aid from going to programs that promote or perform abortions.
Sanders erroneously told the audience that the Mexico City policy “denies American aid to those organizations around the world that allow women to have abortions or even get involved in birth control, to me, is totally absurd.”
“So I think especially in poor countries around the world, where women do not necessarily want to have large numbers of babies and where they can have the opportunity through birth control to limit the number of kids they have–something I very, very strongly support.”
Jeanne Mancini, president of the March for Life, said in a statement provided to Catholic News Agency that Sanders’s rhetoric, which promoted the use of taxpayer dollars to go to abortion providers, was “despicable” and “wildly out of touch with mainstream America. All the 2020 Presidential Democratic candidates support abortion, many up until birth, and they support the United States providing funds to third-world countries to promote abortion.
Bishop Fulton Sheen, the first television evangelist, with the vision of the Church, saw what was happening to the world. In a radio sermon, ‘Signs of Our Times’ delivered on January 26th in 1947, Sheen offered the following.
And those of us who have followed the systematic and organized world campaign for atheism, which insinuates itself ever into government bureaucracies, and are familiar with the anti-God attacks, are compelled to say to one’s adversaries: “You have not convinced us that there is no God, but you have convinced us that there is a devil!”
“How will he come in this new age to win followers to his religion? He will come disguised as the Great Humanitarian; he will talk peace, prosperity and plenty not as means to lead us to God, but as ends in themselves; he will write books on the new idea of God, to suit the way peope live; induce faith in astrology so as to make not the will but the stars responsible for sins; he will explain guilt away psychologically as inhibited eroticism, make men shrink in shame if their fellowmen say they are not broadminded and liberal; he will be so broadminded as to identify tolerance with indifference to right and wrong, truth and error; he will spread the lie that men will never be better until thy make society better and thus have selfishness to provide fuel for the next revolution; he will foster science but only to have armament makers use one marvel of science to destroy another; he will foster more divorces under the disguise that another partner is “vital”; he will increase love for love and decrease love for person; he will invoke religion to destroy religion; he will speak of Christ and say He was the greatest man who ever lived; he will say his mission is to liberate men from the servitude of superstition and Fascism; he will organize children’s games, tell people whom they should and should not marry and unmarry, who should bear children and who should not; he will benevolently draw chocolate bars from his pockets for the little ones, and bottles of milk for the Hottentots; he will tempt Christians with the same three temptations with which he tempted Christ.”
The anti-Christ will not be so-called; otherwise, he would have no followers. He will wear no red tights, nor vomit sulfur, nor carry a trident, nor wave an arrow tail as the Mephistopheles in Faust. This masquerade has helped the devil convince men that he does not exist, for he knows that he is never so strong as when men believe that he does not exist. When no man recognizes, the more power he exercises. God has defined Himself as “I am Who am” and the Devil as “I am who am not.”
‘Signs of Our Times’ sermon delivered on January 26, 1947
As Christians, we must realize that a moment of crisis is not a time of despair, but of opportunity. The more we can anticipate the doom, the more we can avoid it. Once we recognize we are under Divine Wrath, we become eligible for Divine Mercy. It was because of famine that the prodigal said, “I will arise, and will go to my father. . .” (Luke 15:18). The very disciplines of God create hope. The thief on the right came to God by a crucifixion.
Jews, Protestants, and Catholics alike, and men of goodwill must realize that the world is serving your souls with an awful summons-the summons to heroic efforts at spiritualization. We may not be able to meet in the same pew, but we can meet on our knees.
The Democrat National Committee recently passed a resolution that embraces secularism and criticized traditional religious values. The resolution was applauded by the Secular Coalition of America, an organization that lobbies on behalf of atheists, agnostics and humanists in public policy. The resolution was unanimously passed at the DNC’s summer meeting on Aug. 24 in San Francisco, California.
Sarah Levin, director of governmental affairs for the Secular Coalition for America said, “America was founded as a secular government charged with representing and protecting the freedoms of people of all faiths and none – I am proud to see the Democratic Party take that to heart by bringing secular Americans into the fold”
She could not be more wrong… Quite simply it is a myth that America was founded on secular humanistic philosophy.
The Democrat party is no longer walking away from God, they are running and becoming increasingly hostile towards people of faith. During his Presidential run in 2008 and expressing his frustration with some American voters Barack Obama said: “And it’s not surprising then that they get bitter, they cling to guns or religion or antipathy to people who aren’t like them or anti-immigrant sentiment or anti-trade sentiment as a way to explain their frustrations.” A common tactic deployed by many politicians is to assume that every problem must be addressed with Government programs emanating from Washington and those that disagree are bitter.
During the 2012 Democratic convention, Democratic National Convention chairman Antonio Villaraigosa was booed by delegates after a resolution was pushed through inserting the words “God-given” into the party platform along with recognizing Jerusalem as the capital of Israel.
Today all of the Democrat party Presidential hopefuls embrace abortion, some right up to the last minute. This is chilling
Christmas is not a pagan holiday; it is the day Christians celebrate the birth of Christ. Many Anti-Christians will claim that Christmas was a pagan celebration. There are several claims often used. One is that Constantine invented Christmas from the Roman holiday Saturnalia, the feast dedicated to the Roman god Saturn.Another frequent myth is that Christmas was taken from Sol Invictus.
Fr. Mitch Pacwa and Dr. Scott Hahn, theologian and convert to Catholicism, discuss these errors in the video below.
Historically, we know that the pagan celebrations and the Christmas celebration existed at the same time. Whether Christians celebrate a pagan holiday or not doesn’t dismiss the birth of Christ and the reason we celebrate Christmas.
It is important to know that Christians do not hold exclusivity to the truth. Just because a certain religion does not hold the —whole truth— does not mean it contains— no truth. God can, in fact, leave hints of truth in other religions and worldviews. Borrowing or “baptizing” pagan practices and Christianizing them would do nothing to dismiss the unique claim of Christianity.
The essence of Christianity is not an idea, not a system of thought, not a plan of action. The essence of Christianity is a Person: Jesus Christ Himself. That which is essential is the One Who is essential. To become truly real means to come to know Jesus Christ and to learn from Him what it means to be human.” ~Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger (now Pope Benedict XVI)
Although the date of Christ’s birth is not given to us in Scripture, there is documented evidence that December 25 was already of some significance to Christians prior to A.D. 354. One example can be found in the writings of Hyppolytus of Rome, who explains in his Commentary on the book of Daniel (c. A.D. 204) that the Lord’s birth was believed to have occurred on that day: Continue reading
Whether Christ was born on that exact day is not important; what matters is the celebration itself. I celebrated my birthday 35 days after my actual birthdate.
The Brazilian model and actress Adriana Lima, best known as a Victoria’s Secret Angel from 1999 to 2018, was their longest-running model and was named “the most valuable Victoria’s Secret Angel” in 2017. She is also known as a spokesmodel for Maybelline cosmetics since 2003, as well as for her Super Bowl and Kia Motors commercials. At the age of 15, Lima won Ford’s “Supermodel of Brazil” competition and took second place the following year in the Ford “Supermodel of the World” competition before signing with Elite Model Management in New York City.
Lima is a devout Roman Catholic who attends Mass every Sunday. In April 2006, she told GQ that she was a virgin. “Sex is for after marriage,” she said. “[Men] have to respect that this is my choice. If there’s no respect, that means they don’t want me.” She also denounced abortion as a crime and stated that she agrees with any teaching of the church. Lima is known to bring a Bible with her backstage before she goes onstage. She has also said that, before she became a Victoria’s Secret Angel, she had wanted to become a nun.
Regarding her spirituality, Lima said, “The church is in me — I always connect. If you’re connected with the divine and always have pure intentions with everything you’re doing, you’re protected by the angels. I’m very spiritual. I believe in nature, I believe in energy, I believe in spirits
Despite taking the pill, Alyssa Milano had not one but two abortions in 1993, saying it “put her in conflict with her Catholic faith.” She said her life “would be completely lacking all its great joys” had she kept her two aborted children. While she said she “was in love for the first time,” and it was an “overwhelming,” “joyful, exciting, and powerful time in my life.” She explained that she took birth control because “I knew I was not ready to be a parent.”
The Bible tells us repeatedly that all children are a gift from God. Every single life, every single child, is a reward and blessing. Whether they bring parents pride and joy or teach us to be more patient and forgiving, children are a gift from God and a source of growth for His Kingdom here on Earth.
Love is life. God loved and created life. Life is a natural byproduct of love. Let’s pray for Alyssa and all others that the devil has taken a grasp of; that they may find true love and joy and be set free.
God knows that children can bring us closer to Him, help us grow, and bring us absolute joy; we become more of ourselves, not less. Alyssa, sorry you don’t understand that, and sorry for your loss.
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