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The Weekly
News In
Review newsletter is a service
provided by Understand The Times that is a
compilation of the news articles
posted on our site during the previous
week.
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September 9 - Kremlin sends nuclear cruiser to Caribbean for first manoeuvres on U.S. doorstep since Cold War
Article: Wars And Rumors Of Wars
Comment from
UTT:
The serious
situation created by the
Russia-Georgia conflict is now headed towards
another cold war. The
scenario foretold by Jesus as recorded in Matthew
24 is being fulfilled as the
news constantly reminds us of "war" and
"rumors of
war."
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September 5 - Pakistan: hearts in Lourdes, Catholics and non-Catholics celebrate the Virgin Mary
Article: Roman Catholic Church And The Last days
Comment from UTT:
One of the major
factors that will bring world
religions together in the future will be
the "Queen of
Peace", also known as the Roman Catholic
"Mary". The
following article indicates that
this is already taking place.
With a solemn Marian procession
presided
over by Lawrence
John Saldanha, archbishop of Lahore and president
of the Pakistani
bishops' conference, the 59th national Marian
pilgrimage, better
known as the Ziarat-e-Muqaddasa Mariam, opens
today in
Mariamabad, the village of Mary.
The procession will leave
the
shrine at five
o'clock this afternoon, crossing all the streets of
the village and
returning to the place of worship.
The celebrations dedicated to the
Virgin Mary will last
three days, during which the pilgrims will be
able to watch
movies on topics including "Lourdes" and
"Fatima."
Devotion
to the
Virgin Mary is fairly
widespread in the country, and includes
Christians and
non-Christians. For a number of
days, thousands of pilgrims
have been
crowding the areas around the shrine.
Archbishop Saldanha
explains
the selection of
this year's motto: "This
year's theme
is 'Mary, the greatest example of stewardship'. We
want
to bring our people
towards the 'stewardship' and we are ready to
present them Mary
as a greatest example of stewardship, so Holy Mary
should be an
example for them, and the faithful can bring
stewardship into
their lives". The prelate continues by
recalling that this
is the "most important event for the Pakistani
Catholic
Church", including the
participation
of people "of
all ages, from all parts of the country", and
above all that "it
embraces
the faithful of other
religions", so that the number of pilgrims"
grows year after
year". The occasion also includes celebrations
of
"the 150th
anniversary of the apparition of the Virgin Mary in
Lourdes".
In recent days, the Daily Times - one
of Pakistan's most
important newspapers -
announced that
"Hindu and Sikh leaders" will also take
part in the
pilgrimage. The
Pakistani bishops applaud this element, saying that
it is
"wonderful" that many Muslims also visit
the shrine, and that
there is the
participation of representatives from the Hindu and
Sikh communities:
"we welcome them and are happy with their
decision
to come
Mariamabad", the prelate
concludes.
Although no official
numbers
are available, Fr
Akram says that
about one million faithful from
various religions
go on pilgrimage to the Marian
shrine.
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September 10 - McLaren Calls World to Wake Up Amid 3 'Frightening' Crises
Article: Social Gospel
Comment from
UTT:
A
major split occurred in
the
beginning of the 20th century within evangelical
Christianity - those who promoted a social
gospel and those who
refused to accept the social gospel and
continued to believe in
the
gospel according to the Scriptures - there is one way
to
heaven
through Jesus Christ
alone.
The exact same thing is
underway now that we into the
twenty-first century. Brian
McLaren and others who promote the
"emerging church" are leading
the
way and preparing the way for
"evangelicals" to
participate.
The
world "is on
a precipice" as it struggles to deal with the three
"tremendously frightening
crises" of climate change,
poverty and
war, says
Brian McLaren, one of the foremost leaders of the
emerging church
movement.
"This is our home and it's fragile
and it's
beautiful but it's
also really in danger," he says in a new short
film for Hope08.
Turning his attention to the "crisis
of poverty"
and the
"huge gap" between the rich and the poor,
McLaren states in
the video
message, "It's an
unsustainable
system when you
have a gap like that."
"A friend of mine says there are
really only two
tribes in this world:
there are the haves and the have-nots," he
says. "The hope that we are looking
for in the
world involves both
of them. It involves the have-nots not giving up
and it involves the
haves learning to care."
Mclaren shares in the film his personal
story of
reaching out to his Muslim neighbors
in the
days following the
terrorist attack on the World Trade Center in New
York by sending a
letter and making visits to local mosques to
reassure them of
his support.
Gareth Squire, director of the Christian
Enquiry
Agency, believes McLaren is an example of
how
the Christian faith
can impact the world. Brian's wider work is very
timely, and
reminds us that genuine inward personal
transformation
inevitably leads to
transformed decisions and actions, a profound
concern for all
people everywhere, and a commitment to being part of
the solutions the
world needs, not its problems," Squire
said.
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September 8 - Russia courts old allies, steps up defiance of the West
Article: Wars And Rumors Of Wars
Comment from
UTT:
A global crisis involving the
resurgence of
Russia as a world power is clearly underway. We can
expect to see this
scenario continue to expand and the middle-east
to become the epi-
center of global world war.
Russia is groping
for fresh ways to engage with the world after its
lightning-fast
summer war with Georgia chilled relations with the
West and
dismayed even some of its closest regional allies.
"We are
facing the beginning of a complete review of Russian
foreign
policy," says Fyodor Lukyanov, editor of Russia
in Global
Affairs, a leading
Moscow foreign-policy journal. "Things have
changed and,
based on what Russian leaders are saying,
our long effort to integrate with
Western
institutions, to
become part of the Western system, is over. The aim
now is to be an
independent power in a multipolar world in which
Russia is a major
player."
Analysts here
are divided over whether a
"new cold
war" between Russia and the West is in the
offing, but a
growing sense of
isolation is leading Moscow to circle the wagons
closer to home
and to revive alliances with former Soviet allies
such as Syria and
Cuba, and new partners such as Venezuela.
Russian policy-
makers say the world order
has shifted from
the bipolar arrangement of the four-decade-long
standoff between
the US and the USSR, to a brief period of American
preeminence, to
an emerging multi-polar era in which many powerful
players will have to
learn to work out their differences.
"We need new
mechanisms for
strategic security
cooperation, because the old ones are not
working,"
says Andrei Klimov, a member of the
State
Duma's
international affairs committee.
"There is a new reality in
the world, and we need to discuss
it openly."
"Russia has
demonstrated that
it's ready to use force outside its own borders,
and this means
countries of the region are going to have to take
note and choose
whom they listen to," on
big geopolitical
issues, says Mr. Lukyanov.
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September 14 - France pushes legalization of sodomy
Article: Perilous Times
Comment from
UTT:
God's view of
sodomy can be found in the book of
Genesis. Gen
13:13 But the men
of Sodom [were] wicked and
sinners before the
LORD exceedingly.
A push will be under
way soon at the United
Nations to advance the activist
homosexual agenda.
France is currently president of
the European Union, and Austin Ruse of Catholic
Family and Human Rights
Institute (C-FAM) believes they will
try to
give the pro-homosexual movement some
clout. "In their role
as the president of the European Union for the
next six months, France has
announced that they are going to push for a
political declaration in the
General Assembly, calling for the
decriminalization of
sodomy," Ruse explains. Rama Yade is France's
Junior Minister of State for Foreign
Affairs and Human Rights as well as the
main political official advancing
the agenda, hoping
to "combat 'homophobia' as a part
of a campaign to advance 'universal'
human rights."
Ruse stresses that the proclamation will
not be a treaty forcing other
countries to comply and will not be subject
to the General Assembly for a
vote. He says it will
not be legally binding, but it
likely would have an impact anyway.
"It will be used by lawyers around the
world to say that there's a new
international standard coming out of the
U.N. General Assembly, and all of
that will be a lie," Ruse contends.
"It won't be an action of the General
Assembly, but it will be gussied up as if it
is something from the General
Assembly -- and radicals on the
ground will use it in their own court
cases."
Some 90 countries have laws that ban
sodomy, and could
eventually feel the brunt of the U.N.
action.
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September 14 - Encountering Mary turns our gaze upon Jesus our light, Pope Benedict teaches
Article: Roman catholic Church And The Last Days
Comment from
UTT:
The Bible
teaches that Satan
can appear as an "an angel of
light." 2Cr
11:14 And no marvel; for Satan
himself is
transformed into an angel of light.
The pope should
also warn Roman Catholics that messages that come
from the spiritual
realm that contradict Scripture should be
considered a clear
sign that deception is
underway.
Numerous
Marian
apparitional messages fit into this
category. Gal
1:8 But
though we, or an
angel from heaven, preach any other gospel unto you
than that which we
have preached unto you, let him be accursed.
Lourdes, Sep 14, 2008 / 01:10
pm (CNA)
.-
After a torchlight
procession, the Holy Father spoke to the pilgrims
about how at
Lourdes, Mary invites everyone
to
enter into God's
dialogue of love with man, a dialogue that finds
physical
expression at Lourdes.
"On
February 11, 1858, in this place known as the Grotto of
Massabielle, away
from the town, a simple young girl from Lourdes,
Bernadette
Soubirous, saw a light,
and
in this light she
saw a young lady who was 'beautiful, more
beautiful than any
other'. ... It was in this
conversation, in
this dialogue marked by such delicacy,
that the Lady
instructed her to deliver certain very simple messages
on prayer,
penance and conversion," the Pope said.
"Lourdes is one of the
places
chosen by God for
His beauty to be reflected with particular
brightness, hence the
importance here of the symbol of
light."
Benedict XVI
indicated that "by coming here to Lourdes on
pilgrimage we wish to enter, following in
Bernadette's
footsteps, into this extraordinary closeness
between heaven
and earth, which never fails and never
ceases to
grow."
It is important
to note that, while Mary is
the one who
appeared to St. Bernadette, Mary continually
pointed the young
girl to contemplate God through the
Rosary,
the Pope
underscored.
"In the
course of the apparitions, it is notable that Bernadette
prays the Rosary
under the gaze of Mary, who unites herself to her
at the moment of
the doxology. This fact confirms the profoundly
theocentric
character of the prayer of the Rosary.
When we pray it, Mary offers us her
heart and
her gaze in order
to contemplate the life of her Son, Jesus Christ."
"A small
flame called hope, compassion, tenderness now
dwells
within them. A quiet encounter with Bernadette
and the Virgin Mary
can change a person's life, for they are here,
in
Massabielle, to lead us to Christ Who is our
life, our
strength and our
light."
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September 14 - Pope in France: Eucharist is Jesus 'past, present and future'
Article: Roman Catholic Church And The Last Days
Comment
from
UTT:
There are many Protestants (and
also Roman Catholics) who
do not understand that a consecrated wafer is
supposed to be Jesus. The
Roman Catholic "new evangelization"
program is
an attempt to educate the
"brethren" and the "separated
brethren" that
this belief is the heart and core
of the Roman Catholic faith. Please
note the following statement
that is found in the article titled "Pope
in France: Eucharist is
Jesus 'past, present and future' that will prove
this
point:
"Benedict knelt for a
few moments of
silent prayer before a
monstrance, a container which exposes the
consecrated host for adoration
by the
faithful".
Pope Benedict XVI
offered a prayerful mediation on the Eucharist
this evening in
Lourdes, calling
the consecrated
host "the eternal presence of the savior of
mankind
to his
church."While tonight's
reflection was
spiritual and, at
turns, even poetic, it also reflects a key
leadership priority
for Benedict XVI: promoting a deeper sense of
Catholic identity in
order to protect believers against the secular
ethos of the
West. Faith in the real presence
of Christ in the
consecrated bread and wine at Mass is a cornerstone
of that
identity.
Garbed in
white liturgical vestments, Benedict said
that the Eucharist
makes Jesus present "past, present and
future."
"The Eucharist is
also Jesus
Christ, future,
Jesus Christ to come," the
pope
said.
"When
we contemplate the sacred host, his
glorious
transfigured and risen Body, we contemplate what we
shall
contemplate in
eternity, where we shall discover that the whole
world has been
carried by its Creator during every second of its
history. Each time
we consume him, but also each time we contemplate
him, we proclaim
him until he comes again, donec veniat.
That is why we
receive him with infinite respect."
Benedict
closed by suggesting that the
Eucharist carries
within itself an inherently missionary dimension.
The pope
invited the crowd at Lourdes
to "remain
silent" for a period of adoration of the Eucharist
after
his remarks, but
then to "tell the world" what they
believe.
After he
finished speaking,
Benedict knelt for a
few moments of silent prayer before a
monstrance, a
container which exposes the consecrated host for
adoration by the
faithful.
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We hope the Weekly News In Review has been a
blessing to you.
Sincerely,
Roger Oakland
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