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Weekly News In Review

October 9 - 15, 2005
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The following articles were posted at www.understandthetimes.org this past week:

Quake's terrible toll is revealed
Guatemalan village buried by mud, 1,400 feared dead
Bishops urge concrete action to increase respect, understanding of Eucharist
Emerging churches give Christians new ways to worship
African dances 'enrich' Eucharist
Image of pope seen in pancake
Churches near last rites, says Carey
Yom Kippur Services for All
Visitors flock to see image of dead priest
A simple, doable, soul-changing project - World Peace
Non-Catholic Delegates Agree: Future Hinges on Eucharist
Approaching Eucharist without conversion is 'crisis of love', says Bishop Aquila
 

Article: Signs of the Times

October 9, 2005 - Quake's terrible toll is revealed
Pakistan says more than 19,000 have been killed by Saturday's huge earthquake, and it is feared the death toll could climb much further.

More than 42,000 people are believed to be injured, said the interior minister.

"People have been devoured by the earth," said Tariq Farooq, works and communications minister.

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Article: Signs of the Times

October 9, 2005 - Guatemalan village buried by mud, 1,400 feared dead

PANABAJ, Guatemala (Reuters) - Rescuers choking on the smell of death dug for bodies in a black grunge of mud, rock and trees on Saturday where a Guatemalan village had stood until Hurricane Stan spawned a mudslide that killed up to 1,400 people.

It was one of the biggest tragedies in recent years in Latin America, a region often blighted by earthquakes, volcanic eruptions and hurricanes.

After days of heavy rain from Hurricane Stan, tons of earth crashed down a volcano's slopes and into the Maya Indian village of Panabaj as people slept early on Wednesday, covering it in a quagmire up to 40 feet deep in places.

Fire department spokesman Mario Cruz said some 1,400 people had disappeared and were dead.

"There are no survivors here. It happened more than 48 hours ago. They are dead," Cruz told Reuters.
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Article: Roman Catholic Church and Last Days

October 10, 2005 - Bishops urge concrete action to increase respect, understanding of Eucharist: seminary formation, penance, reverent posture
Vatican City, Oct. 10, 2005 (CNA) - As over 200 bishops continue to meet in Rome for the 11th General Synod of Bishops, heavy emphasis has been placed, in recent days, on specific ways that the faithful might better respect and come to a fuller appreciation for the Eucharist and its meaning for the worldwide Church.

On Friday, Cardinal Zenon Grocholewski, Prefect of the Congregation for Catholic Education specifically stressed the need for Eucharistic formation among the Church's future priests, saying that, "The Eucharist constitutes the framework for all formation of seminarians: human, spiritual, intellectual and pastoral."

...Bishop Gabriel Malzaire of Roseau, Dominica also suggested recommendations which he hoped would help reconcile what he sees as a disparity between the faith of many Catholics and how they live their lives.

For example, "the Sacrament of Penance", he lamented, "is not a regular part of the spiritual life of a growing number of Catholics" and "Mixed marriages sometimes lead to a diminished regard for the Eucharist. Inter-communion poses a problem in the Antilles."

He said that while "many of the faithful believe Holy Communion leads to personal sanctification and transformation of attitudes and engenders responsiveness to the needs of others... for many others there is a disparity between what they believe and how they live."

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Article: Apostasy

October 10, 2005 - Emerging churches give Christians new ways to worship
 

MIAMI BEACH, Fla. - We've all heard of the post-modern church, the post-post-modern church, the emerging church. Last weekend, I saw what that looks like.

I was attending the annual meeting of the Religion Newswriters Association, where we considered several aspects of the post-emerging church. I discovered it has many names, many faces and many considerations. What it shares, however, is its unwillingness to be what you expect.

Rick Warren, author and pastor of Saddleback, one of the mega-churches is Los Angeles, was our keynote speaker. He calls the church "purpose driven." Warren's "The Purpose Driven Life," along with his other "Purpose Driven" books, have become best sellers.

Erwin McManus, author and pastor of the church Rick Warren says he would attend if he didn't have his own wildly successful Saddleback, calls his L.A. church Mosaic and his version of Christianity "The Barbarian Way."
These post-pastors and their churches do not look or sound alike, but they have in common a passion to create a new church, a Christianity that may seem radical to traditionalists who worship in sanctuaries that have pews and pulpits.

Warren was raised in those pews. A fourth-generation pastor who firmly believes that Americans believe in God and Baptists are the biggest denomination, Warren has found financial success and a high-profile influence that has forced him to look beyond that. All that money and notoriety have changed him, he says.
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Article: Roman Catholic Church and Last Days

October 11, 2005 - African dances 'enrich' Eucharist
(ANSA) - Vatican City, October 10 - A Nigerian bishop on Monday stressed the value of chants and dances in African masses, saying they had helped deepen the faith of the continent's Catholics . Speaking during a gathering of bishops in the Vatican, Monsignor John Olorunfemi Onaiyekan admitted there had been occasional "abuses" of Catholic liturgy but he said that in general there was no cause for alarm .
"We don't have cathedrals or splendid paintings by Michelangelo or Leonardo da Vinci, but what we have we are happy to give: our chants and our poetry, the roll of our drums and the rhythms of our dances, all for the glory of God," he said . The bishop's remarks, which won loud applause, came at the start of the second week of a synod which has brought 256 bishops from around the world to Rome to discuss the Eucharist.

Msgr Onaiyekan said bishops had been right to express their reservations over certain "unwise experiments". But he said there was a risk that, by concentrating on the mistakes, the synod would fail to see the richness that existed in African Church services.
"The reservations should be taken seriously but, on the whole, they mustn't be the cause of false alarm," he said .
He also noted that the last pope, John Paul II, showed appreciation for the adaption, or 'inculturation', process which had taken place in recent decades in Africa .

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Article: Roman Catholic Church and Last Days

October 10, 2005 - Image of pope seen in pancake

(Jackson, October 10, 2005, 11:00 p.m.) In the often mundane of everyday life, some tend to look for extra meaning. That can come in many forms, whether it be a voice, a gesture, or a vision. And sometimes these things can take on a greater meaning.

This story started with a picture from a viewer. But really, it started with breakfast. One Sunday morning, Myrna Kincaid's life changed with the flip of a pancake. "Look at my pancake," she reflects. "It looks like, looks like the pope." "I thought it could very well look like him," said Jay, her husband.

Instead of eating the pancake bite by bite, they stored it in the freezer and scurried to church. But, what to make of this, they thought. Luke Galen is a Grand Valley State University professor who teaches a course on psychology in religion. "That one's pretty accurate as far as these pictures go," said Galen.

The Kincaids aren't the first to see religion in an everyday item. The Virgin Mary has been spotted in a tree, Baby Jesus in a pretzel, demons in the smoke billowing from the towers on Sept. 11, 2001, and the Lady Guadalupe salt stain in Chicago. There was even a Virgin Mary that appeared on a toasted cheese sandwich. It sold for $28,000 on Ebay, according to Galen.
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Article: Apostasy

October 12- Churches near last rites, says Carey
Britain's Churches are in such serious decline that if they were shops, they would have been declared bankrupt long ago, Lord Carey, the former archbishop of Canterbury, said last night.

In a bleak assessment of the future of Christianity in this country, he said that the Churches were approaching meltdown and the "last rites" could be administered at any moment.

In a lecture in a Buckinghamshire church, Dr Carey expressed his exasperation that his efforts to revive the Church of England in the 1990s had been frustrated by lack of support from the clergy.

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Article: Israel and the Last Days

October 12, 2005 - Yom Kippur Services for All

Sponsoring the services is the Tzohar ("Window") rabbis' organization, which is dedicated to reaching out to the secular public and helping to fashion the country's Jewish identity via dialogue and "the search for common elements of identity."

Tzohar's other activities in seeking to present Orthodox Judaism in a tolerant and welcoming fashion include conducting weddings for secular couples, pre-wedding counseling for brides and grooms, educational activities, counseling for community rabbis with the goal of elevating their status and involving them in all areas of public life, and more.
The organization hopes that the 250 services it is organizing this year will provide an opportunity for the religious and non-religious sectors to experience the Yom Kippur atmosphere together, and to "pray in a traditional style in an open and friendly manner, while dealing with matters touching on Jewish and Israeli culture."
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Article: Roman Catholic Church and Last Days

October, 2005 - Visitors flock to see image of dead priest
The image of what appears to be a priest holding a child has mysteriously appeared on the wall of a church in Chile.

Visitors from all over the country are flocking to see the figures at the Christo Rey de Tome Church in Santiago, reports Las Ultimas Noticias.

They believe it is the figure of Father Hurtado, who looked after needy kids when he was alive and who's due to be canonised at the end of the month by the Pope.

According to local priests, the figures started to appear five weeks ago.

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Article: Ecumenical Movement

September 22, 2005 - A simple, doable, soul-changing project

They call their project The October Surprise also known as "The Tent of Abraham, Hagar & Sarah". The surprise is that the Jewish High Holy Days, the Islamic Month of Ramadan and the Christian feast of St. Francis of Assisi who opposed the Crusades and learned from an Islamic teacher, all come in October.

Even the heavens, it seems, are calling all of us to do penance, to be peaceful, to become the human community we are meant to be.

But how?

The group, after praying together themselves, encourages a public day of fast and prayer on Oct. 13 for all of us -- Christian, Muslim and Jew alike. They are asking congregations, organizations and families, to host members of the other communities in order to celebrate these common feasts together. They are suggesting that we all hold teach-ins to honor one another and to come to know our common teachings on peace, on kinship with the earth and all its creatures, on openness to the wisdom of others.

We could each, in addition, alone and together, celebrate these feasts by doing something to protect human rights, to save the earth, to promote peace: sign a petition, send a card to a senator or representative, support a group that is pursuing these issues.

We could even set out to learn from one another things that would bring us all to mutual respect.

Each of us could do something to break the chains of passivity, to change the mindset of helplessness, to join in the process for universal peace.

The question is: Why isn't the name of every diocese, every Catholic group and parish, every religious community and seminary in the country on the list?

*** To view this portion of the article, be sure to scroll all the way down the page!
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Article: Ecumenical Movement

Non-Catholic Delegates Agree: Future Hinges on Eucharist: 11 Discuss Path to Christian Unity
VATICAN CITY, OCT. 13, 2005 (Zenit.org).- Addresses at the Synod of Bishops by 11 delegates of other Christian denominations indicate that the path toward full unity depends on the relationship with the sacrament of the Eucharist.

...Nine of these delegates represented Orthodox or Apostolic Churches, while one was an Anglican and the other a Lutheran.

The representatives of the Eastern Churches, separated for at least a millennium from Rome, focused their addresses on their communities' profound faith in the real presence of Christ in the Eucharist and gave testimonies of how this relationship with the sacrament is lived.

Metropolitan Johannis Zizioulas... said: "We Orthodox are deeply gratified by the fact that your synod, too, regards the Eucharist as the source and summit of the life and mission of the Church."

Laments
For their part, the Anglican and Lutheran delegates protested about the lack of the possibility of partaking in Communion and of joint celebrations of the Eucharist with Catholics.

... "If we really believe the presence of Christ the Savior to be linked with the wonder of holy communion, how can we remain with our divided altars, and not hear the harsh question of the Apostle as directed to us: 'Has Christ been divided?'" he asked.

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Article: Roman Catholic Church and Last Days

October 14, 2005 - Approaching Eucharist without conversion is 'crisis of love', says Bishop Aquila

Fargo, ND, Oct. 14, 2005 (CNA) - Catholics must examine their "lackadaisical" approach to the Eucharist, and recognize that in the mass "we share in the feast that the Lord Himself has prepared for us," said Bishop Samuel Aquila of Fargo.

... "This is a tragedy," he said, "because the Eucharist is about Jesus Christ and his saving works on our behalf."

The archbishop addressed apathy about mass attendance, a lack of knowledge about the Eucharist, and visible signs of irreverence for the Eucharist. He also expressed dismay over the use of cell phones by the laity and ordained ministers alike during mass. Inappropriate dress, gum chewing, cell phones and pagers do not express reverence for the Eucharist, the bishop said. People must dress modestly for church, he said, adding that shorts for adults and mini-skirts for women are not appropriate.

"Each of us must examine how lackadaisical we have become with the celebration of the Eucharist," he said. "While we may have no ill intention in our hearts, we need to look at how we dress for the banquet."

As the Year of the Eucharist concludes, the bishop said he hopes Catholics have come to discover more fully the sacrifice in which they participate and the gift of salvation offered in Jesus.
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