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German Cardinal Says Pope 'In a Very Bad Way' Tue September 30, 2003 08:23 AM ET BERLIN (Reuters) - Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, the German head of the Vatican body which oversees doctrinal matters, was quoted on Tuesday as saying Pope John Paul was in very poor health and the faithful should pray for him. "He is in a very bad way," Ratzinger told Germany's Bunte magazine in an interview. "We should pray for the pope." Ratzinger, who heads the Vatican's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, told the magazine that the 83-year-old pope had taken on too much, but...

What psychological characteristics do "leftists" like Josef Stalin, Fidel Castro and Ted Kennedy have in common: an enthusiasm for "change"? A commitment to coercive methods of conflict resolution? Narcissism? A propensity for murder? You aren't likely to see a study published in the American Psychological Association's Bulletin that purports to address the above questions, but a few weeks ago a "meta-study" (a study of other studies) by four university professors provided a psychological profile of "conservatives" – among whom they included Adolf Hitler, Benito Mussolini, Ronald Reagan, and George W. Bush. The traits given particular attention were the following: fear,...

Director Tom Shadyac began his career with the hit film Ace Ventura: Pet Detective (that's right, he and Jim Carrey go way back and apparently work wonders for one another's career.) He followed that project with The Nutty Professor, and then went on to team with Carrey once again for 1997's Liar Liar. Shadyac professes to be a Bible-believing Catholic. He sat down with Christian Spotlight to talk about his latest film, Bruce Almighty, and to share out how he reconciles his spiritual walk with his high-profile profession. Interviewer: Megan Basham, Staff Writer First off Tom, I'd like to know,...

In 1582 Pope Gregory XIII established our modern calendar and fixed the rules determining the date of Easter. This year Easter falls on April 20, but it can shift from year to year by as much as a month on Gregory's calendar.         Finding Easter's date for a given year requires a surprising degree of scientific acumen. The last things one might expect to see in, say, the Book of Common Prayer are tables of numbers and rules for mathematical calculations—but there they are, nevertheless.         At first glance, this seems to exemplify a kind of harmony between religion and...

Divinity without Dogma A Look at Progressive Churches by Jonn Salovaara Conscious Choice, September 2001 This article looks at groups associated to varying degrees with Christianity. Other articles have featured, and will feature, outposts of other religious traditions. For thousands of years, churches have formally stated and proclaimed "a body of doctrines concerning faith and morals" -- the dictionary definition of "dogma." Institutionalized belief tends to become dogmatic, even when the belief itself begins as an alternative to an earlier dogma. So it was with early Christianity, starting small and in contrast to Judaism and imperial Roman belief and eventually...

Verbal dexterity and conceptual sleight of hand seems to be a particular specialty of the liberal left. And since there has been a lot of confusion lately about the meaning of terms thrown around by the masters of "progressive" agitprop, it behooves us to clarify some of these terms for a confused public. Check below for the true definitions of terms commonly bandied about by journalists and Hollywood celebrities alike: 1. Capitalist: A. Someone who owns capital, meaning almost all American workers who own capital through their pension funds. B. Someone who understands that capitalism is the only system on...

HOLLOW APOLOGIES: THE DIRTY BOMB OF UNACCOUNTABILITY By: Daniel Sargis A dollar used to be able to buy something and apologies used to have some substance. But in contemporary America, an apology is nothing more than another perverted dénouement in our societal soap opera of the unaccountable. For all practical purposes, the morals of American society have devolved into an infinite loop of malice with the following sequence: 1. Commission of immoral and/or illegal deeds 2. Apprehension (being discovered) 3. Attempt at a cover-up through denial, lies & disinformation (more lies) 4. Assumption of "Victim" status & begrudging guilt ("It...

This is dated but may be of some interest... The Degradation of the Democratic Dogma By Russell Kirk The Heritage Foundation Lecture Number Four Hundred and Twenty-Five November 13th, 1992 This year's series of Heritage Lectures is concerned with the somewhat pressing question of whether our American culture will survive the tribulations of our age. In the two previous lectures, I have discussed the ideology called "multiculturalism" as a menace; and whether a civilization that lacks belief in a religion can endure. In my final lecture, in December, I mean to talk about means for combating cultural decay. Today I...

The Spurious Foundation of Genetic Engineering Barry Commoner is senior scientist at the Center for the Biology of Natural Systems at Queens College, City University of New York, where he directs the Critical Genetics Project. Readers can obtain a list of references used as sources for this article by sending a request to cbns@cbns.qc.edu. Biology once was regarded as a languid, largely descriptive discipline, a passive science that was content, for much of its history, merely to observe the natural world rather than change it. No longer. Today biology, armed with the power of genetics, has replaced physics as the...