June 9, 2006 - Catholics Unshaken By Huge Scandals Because Eucharist is at Church's Core
 Article: Roman Catholic Church and the Last Days

Spirit Daily - These are times that some thought would shake the Church to its core -- diminishing membership, slashing attendance, eradicating donations, and perhaps even fracturing the faith itself.

There have been hundreds of priests found guilty of heinous abuse. There is the head of a major movement, recently disciplined in a way that many see as negating a lifetime of ministry. Bishops have been accused. There is the founder-priest of a national Catholic teen program who is up for trial (once more, abuse), and there has been the recent conviction of a priest for ritual homicide.

It should be enough to shake the faith and even decimate it (as the Jim Bakker scandal devastated an entire television ministry), but attendance has held steady, donations have remained the same in most dioceses, and the Church has proved to be the "rock" foreseen by Jesus.

Such is because at the base of Catholicism is not any one person -- is not a priest, is not even the Pope -- but is Christ in the Eucharist.

Many are those who claim they have been healed through the Eucharist -- while receiving it or during Adoration. In other cases, the Host seems to change constitution or shape.

"Our Lord is giving indications, I believe, around the country and around the world, that He is real," writes a wonderful priest, one of many wonderful priests, Father Robert DeGrandis, in a power-packed little book called The Real Presence of Jesus in the Holy Eucharist.

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 June 5, 2006 - Pope and Blair Talk Faith and Peace in First Private Meeting
 Article: Roman Catholicism and the Last Days

British Prime Minister Tony Blair and Pope Benedict XVI discussed the role of religion in politics and society during their first private talks Saturday in the Vatican.

According to a Vatican statement, the two men focussed on the importance of inter-faith dialogue to tackle terrorism and achieve global peace.

"Prominence was given to the contribution which common values between the religions can bring to this dialogue, in particular with moderate Islam, and above all when it comes to issues like solidarity and peace," Vatican spokesman Joaquin Navarro-Valls said in a statement Saturday.

Blair was accompanied by his Catholic wife Cherie who had already met the pope in April when she participated in a Vatican conference on children.

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 June 7, 2006 - Satellite data indicate massive Antarctic crater
 Article: Creation/Evolution - Evidence for Creation

A massive crater in Antarctica may have been caused by a meteor that wiped out more than 90 per cent of the species on Earth 250 million years ago, a U.S. geologist said Wednesday.

The 480-kilometre-wide crater, which lies hidden more than 1.5 kilometers beneath a sheet of ice, was discovered by scientists using satellite data, Ohio State University geologist Ralph von Frese said.

Mr. von Frese said the satellite data suggests that the crater could date back about 250 million years to the time of the Permian- Triassic extinction, when almost all animal life on Earth died out, paving the way for dinosaurs to rise to prominence.


The crater was found in what's known as the Wilkes Land region of the East Antarctic Ice Sheet.

"This is a strong candidate for the cause of the extinction," Mr. von Frese told Associated Press in a telephone interview from Ohio.

"This Wilkes Land impact is much bigger than the impact that killed the dinosaurs, and probably would have caused catastrophic damage at the time", he said.

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 June 11, 2006 - Israel and Hamas Militants Clash - Ending 16-Month Old Cease Fire
 Article: Israel and the Last Days

GAZA CITY, Gaza Strip (AP) -- Israel killed two Hamas militants in an airstrike Sunday while Palestinian militants bombarded southern Israel with homemade rockets as a 16-month-old cease-fire unraveled and the two sides moved closer toward a broader conflict.

The violence complicated Palestinian President Mahmoud Abbas' efforts to persuade the Hamas-led government to endorse a document implicitly recognizing Israel. In a new blow to Abbas, the Hamas prisoner who helped draft the proposal withdrew his name from the document, deepening internal Palestinian divisions ahead of a July 26 referendum on the plan.

Hamas militants called off the truce late Friday after Israel assassinated a leading commander in the Hamas-run security forces and an explosion blamed on Israeli artillery fire killed eight Palestinian beachgoers.

Hamas has largely honored the February 2005 cease-fire, and the group's latest statements have raised concerns it could carry out a new wave of suicide bombings. In the 4 1/2 years before the cease-fire, Hamas suicide bombers killed more than 250 Israelis, according to Israeli officials.

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 June 8, 2006 - Interfaith Group Seeks End Of Torture Policy
 Article: Social Gospel

American evangelical, Catholic, Jewish and Muslim leaders are calling for an end to U.S. policies that allow torture of prisoners.

Clergy signing the statement of the National Religious Campaign Against Torture include the Rev. Rick Warren, Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, the Rev. Ted Haggard and Rabbi David Saperstein.

Other signers include former President Jimmy Carter, Nobel Prize winner Elie Wiesel and the head of the Islamic Society of North America.

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 June 10, 2006 - Most Israelis oppose West Bank withdrawal
 Article: Israel and the Last Days

JERUSALEM - Most Israelis oppose Prime Minister Ehud Olmert's plan to evacuate Judea and Samaria and think the Israeli leader is doing a poor job in office, according to a major poll released yesterday.

Olmert has been repeatedly claiming the majority of Israelis support his withdrawal plan, citing his election last March as a referendum on the proposed Judea and Samaria evacuation. Olmert's Kadima party won parliamentary ballots by a slim plurality.

The poll, commissioned by the Haaretz newspaper and supervised by Tel Aviv University, cited 56 percent of Israelis as opposing Olmert's plan, which calls for evacuating most of Judea and Samaria - large mountainous terrain within rocket firing range of Jerusalem, Tel Aviv and Israel's international airport.

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 June 8, 2006 - Spring of 2006 warmest on record in Canada, says Environment Canada
 Article: Signs of the Times

OTTAWA (CP) - The spring of 2006 has been the warmest in Canada since record-keeping began, according to preliminary data from Environment Canada.

Average temperatures have been 3 degrees C above normal, consistent with a trend that has seen temperatures rise 1.6 degrees C since 1948.

The trend has been accelerating, with five of the warmest springs on record occurring in the last decade, the federal data show.

Last winter was the warmest on record with temperatures 3.9 degrees above normal.

The rising temperatures are clearly due to human-caused emissions of greenhouse gases such as carbon dioxide, said Environment Canada climatologist Bob Whitewood.

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