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From Our Store: Essays in Apologetics, Volume I (eBook) What is finally emerging as the sticking point between the Vatican and the Society of Saint Pius X is the question of the assent owed to the Second Vatican Council. This is now the subject of an important essay in L’Osservatore Romano by one of the key negotiators for the Vatican, the vicar general of Opus Dei, Msgr. Fernando Ocariz. Note that there is a link to the full text at the end of our news story, which itself includes substantial quotations.I hate to say I told you so, but Msgr. Ocariz...

Castel Gandolfo, Italy, Sep 30, 2011 / 12:51 am (CNA).- A leading Russian Orthodox official says the Eastern Orthodox churches have yet to resolve the question of authority among themselves, a condition for future progress on the issue of the papacy. “I would say that there are certain divergences, and there are different positions, of the Orthodox churches on the question of the primacy,” said Metropolitan Archbishop Hilarion Alfeyev of Volokolamsk, head of the Moscow Patriarchate Department for External Church Relations, in a Vatican Radio interview following his Sept. 29 meeting with Pope Benedict XVI at Castel Gandolfo. “As we...

Pope Benedict XVI is to rehabilitate Martin Luther, arguing that he did not intend to split Christianity but only to purge the Church of corrupt practices. Pope Benedict will issue his findings on Luther (1483-1546) in September after discussing him at his annual seminar of 40 fellow theologians — known as the Ratzinger Schülerkreis — at Castelgandolfo, the papal summer residence. According to Vatican insiders the Pope will argue that Luther, who was excommunicated and condemned for heresy, was not a heretic. Cardinal Walter Kasper, the head of the pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity, said the move would help...

A boozy Brooklyn man was hit with hate crime charges Sunday for pouring beer on a newlywed neighbor, calling her an "Arab terrorist" and pummeling her husband, police sources said. Following the seemingly unprovoked attack Saturday night in Mill Basin, Simchon Schwartz, 46, hid in a local synagogue and tried to fight off cops when they came to arrest him, sources said. The Hasid even kicked out a window of a police cruiser as he sat inside, whining that "the cuffs are too tight," a source said. "F---ing Arabs! F---ing terrorists!" Schwartz screamed when he grabbed his neighbor, Selda Turan,...

The Russian Orthodox Church and the Roman Catholic Church should accept each other not as rivals, but first and foremost as allies, working to protect the rights of Christians, said Metropolitan Hilarion of Volokolamsk, head of the ROC’s Department for External Church Relations in a speech at an international meeting of Christians in Wurzburg, Germany. "The future of Christianity in the third millennium depends on the joint efforts of the Orthodox believers and Catholics,’’ Hilarion said. Bishop Hilarion later expanded on his statement: “The idea of a strategic alliance with the Catholics is an old idea of mine. It came...

ROME (Zenit.org) -- "Welcome, Mr. President, this meeting of ours is very important," Benedict XVI told Russian President Dmitry Medvedev Feb. 17 when the president visited the pope in the Vatican. These words underscore something of the visit's significance, Medvedev's first after the establishment of full diplomatic relations between the Holy See and Russia. It was at their first meeting in December 2009 that the president and pope agreed to upgrade existing ties to the level of full diplomatic relations. The customary press release from the Vatican's press office described Thursday's meeting in positive terms: "In the course of the...

St Francis and the Sultan: the making of a pious myth Jonathan Wright on a wonderful book that explains how a legendary meeting was reinterpreted over eight centuries 26 June 2009 St Francis of Assisi: His trip to Egypt became one of the centrepieces of Franciscan hagiography In September 1219, as yet another crusade was raging, Francis of Assisi popped across the military lines in order to talk with Sultan al-Malik al-Kamil of Egypt. We have no accurate idea of why he went or what was said but, in an important sense, this doesn't much matter. Here was a legendary...

Churches around the world kicked off on Tuesday The Week of Prayer for Christian Unity. And ecumenical leaders are emphasizing that the week is "not just a nice occasion for friends to gather." Rather, "it is a time to give thanks to God for the gift and promise of unity, to be renewed in our ecumenical resolve by the assurance of God’s leading, and to recommit ourselves to participate in what God is doing to overcome the barriers between God’s children," said the Rev. Dr. Michael Kinnamon, general secretary of the National Council of Churches. Churches will be praying and...

Fr. Franz Schmidberger: Above all the old who continuously try to revive the promise of the "Spirit of the Council". That means that the Counciliar ideology will sooner or later become obsolete. [kreuz.net] The Christ Child is the King of all times and lands. This was what the German District Superior of the Society of St. Pius X,, Father Franz Schmidberger said this Holy Night in a video speech.

UN Climate Conference (COP16) Cancun, Nov 29 - Dec 10, 2010According to this page: COP16 is the official name of the Cancun summit, which is the 16th Conference of the Parties (COP) under the United Nations Framework Convention on Climate Change (UNFCCC). The COP is the highest body of the UNFCCC and comprises environment ministers from 192 countries who have met once a year since the 1992 Earth summit in Rio de Janeiro.Once again, the UN brought together many "faith traditions" in the spirit of Religious Syncretism and Interfaith Dreams. And. They. Just. Won't. Ever. Stop. Not until Christianity has...

Pope Benedict XVI is scheduled to meet with the new general secretary of the World Council of Churches, the Rev. Dr. Olav Fykse Tveit, on Saturday. Speaking ahead of the meeting at the Vatican, Tveit said he expected to discuss some of the challenges facing the global body of Christ, including ongoing efforts towards church unity and the plight of Christians in the Middle East. “It is important that we speak honestly in this meeting about the challenges we have,” Tveit said. “There are expectations for the ecumenical movement that have not been fulfilled, and there are tensions arising in...

Professor at the Catholic University of Munich is Sought by Police Germany. Sheich Abu Adam (40) who is the Egyptian Imam of the Darul Quran Mosque in Munich is alleged to have beaten one of his three wives so that she suffers from many bone breaks. This was according to the website of the 'Bayrischen Rundfunks'. The victim is 31 years old. She called the police by telephone. These came and freed the woman and brought her to the hospital. The Imam is wanted for the charge of causing dangerous physical harm. He serves as the well regarded guest of...

Through all epochs the Catholic Church and only the Catholic Church shows itself to be the Church of Christ. by Doctor Wolfgang Schüler Personified Representation of Mother Church (kreuz.net)The Communion-Ecclesiology of the early Church -- so far as I see -- never answered the question if the Church of Jesus Christ and the Catholic Church are one and the same. Because this identity is self-evident to it.

Southern Baptists stand unalterably opposed to any ecumenical or interchurch union not based upon common convictions and practices drawn from the teachings of the Bible. That is, Southern Baptists will not negotiate a union that would violate our understandings of regenerate church membership, local church autonomy, free church polity, the ordinances, etc. Southern Baptists are nevertheless committed to the unity of the churches—but this is a spiritual union until such time as others convince us that we are in error, or join us on the basis of common conviction. Though opposed to movements toward federation or organic union, Southern Baptists...

Editor: Reminds us of the old saying, "we'll get to you through your children", or the Jesuit adage, "give us a boy till seven, and I'll show you the man" The following was translated from the website, "The Catholic Church in Germany" put out by the German Bishops, thank you very little. It's a children's book which features a visit by two friends of different confessional backgrounds to each others churches. Lena is Protestant. She and Laura are good friends. Last Sunday Lena asked: "Would you like to go with me to Protestant Service?" And Laura said yes. There was...

The Swiss Cardinal Kurt Koch is the new Official heading the Vatican Office for Ecumenism. A discussion about Christian in the Holy Land, Minarets in Europe and the current Islam-Debate. Rome (kath.net/DieWelt) As the successor of the Curial Cardinal, Walter Kasper, the former Basel Archbishop Kurt Koch will become the next President for the Papal Adviser for the Promotion of the Unity of Christians -- a kind of "ecumenical minister" of the Vatican. Koch was born in 1950 in Emmenbrucke in the Canton of Luzern. As his first challenge was a two week Synod in the Vatican on the situation...

Vienna's Archbishop at the Diocesean Meeting: Perhaps in the last years we have been too afraid to accept new forms of cooperation in promotion and management of the direction of communities. Community direction by the laity -- New: Now with POLL! [There's an internet Poll...you probably can't vote on whether or not the Church should allow birth cotrol or not, yet... Editor: Go down and vote on the poll if you want. The question is: What do you say about the ideas of Cardinal Schoenborn? Yes, I think they're good. I don't care NO, I don't find them so grand!...

Patriarch Bartholomaios I hopes for the re-opening of the Seminary of Chalki by 2011 -- 15 Diaspora-Metropolitans of the Ecumenical Patriarchate, including Metropolitan Staikos of Austria, have Turkish citizenship. Constantinople (kath.net/KAP) Bartholomaios I, Greek-Orthodox Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople, sees signs for an improvement of the situation of the Ecumenical Patriarchate in Turkey. In an interview with "Kathpress" on Monday afternoon in the Phanar in Istanbul he said, it is very certain, that the Seminary in Chalki will be reopened in 2011. Bartholomew referred to the most recent address of the Turkish Vice Prime minister Bülent Arinc, who had explained in...

Different Bishop, different morals: In the last years the Society of Pius X has celebrated with thousands of faithful in open air High Masses behind the Basilica of Lisieux. Tomorrow the Faithful may use the Basilica. [kreuz.net, Lisieux]Tomorrow afternoon the Society of Saint Pius X will celebrate the Old Rite in the Basilica of St. Lisieux. The Society has published this on their French Website. The yearly pilgrimage on foot to Liseux was organized from the Priory of the Society in the village Gavrus in Normandy.

In separate diplomatic but stern warnings this month, the Orthodox and Catholic Churches addressed the Archbishop of Canterbury in his own palace and told him that the future of Christianity in Europe will not be a half-hearted, vague sentiment that accommodates itself to the mores of the time, but a vigorous and bold faith that stands for Christ and against the errors and whims of the age.The first salvo came from Russia, when Metropolitan Hilarion of Volokolamsk, Chairman of the Moscow PatriarchateÂ’s Department for External Church Relations, spoke at the annual dinner meeting of the ironically named Nicean Club.After reminding...

[Vatican] Germans must have more respect for "their" Pope, hear [obey] and try to understand him. With these words Walter Cardinal Kasper admonished his countrymen from Bishops to Theologians, from Priests to simple believers. In an interview with the German weekly Focus he noted, that abroad "many shake their heads about the manner and fashion, with which Germans handle the Pope from their own homeland." A few days before the begin of the State Visit of Pope Benedict XVI in Great Britain and his Pastoral trip to Scotland and England the German Curia Cardinal warned of an "aggressive atheism" in...

The stealing of the host is supposedly comparable with the willful destruction of a Tora-roll or the desecration of a graveyard. [kreuz.net Graz] Unknown persons have damaged more churches in the Austrian Diocese of Graz-Seckau. This was according to the Press Office of the Diocese today. The media has regarded this crime with indifference. The press text in the main speaks of "more disturbances and defacement of Catholic churches."

"Porous, ambiguous, deceptive", the famous Mainz Canon Lawyer, Father Georg May, let loose a scathing condemnation on the departing president of the Vatican Office for Unity. [kreuz.net] "In the era of Kasper the extraction of the knowledge of the faith by Catholic Christians was expedited." Mainz canon lawyer, Father Georg May, said this for the Catholic Monthly 'Kirchliche Umschau' about the new President Emeritus of the Papal Office for Unity, Walter Cardinal Kasper (77).

I had the privilege of being part of Church history on Saturday, June 12, 2010. My friend of many years, former Protestant minister and Pro-Life hero, Paul Schenck, was ordained as a Priest of the Catholic Church. My history with Fr. Paul Schenck goes back decades. ...It was against this background that I traveled to Harrisburg, Pennsylvania this past weekend; to rejoice with my long time friend at the goodness of the Lord in calling him. He was ordained a deacon six months ago. With a dispensation from Rome waiving the celibacy requirement, he was ordained to the Holy Priesthood...

Belgrade - Serbian Patriarch Irinej has invited Pope Benedict XVI to Serbia, for the pontiff's first-ever visit,Belgrade daily Novosti reported on Sunday. The pope, if he accepts, will travel to Serbia in 2013 for a celebration of the anniversary of the Edict of Milan. "Representatives of all churches will be invited to the celebration of 1,700 years of the Edict of Milan in Nis in 2013 and there is no reason to pass the Church of Rome," Irinej said. In 313 Roman Emperor Constantine and Emperor Licinius, who ruled the eastern parts of the empire, signed the Edict of Milan...

What catches the attention of a columnist for The Washington Post? A recent column by Kathleen Parker indicates that theology has become a focus of national attention. Kathleen Parker used her column in The Washington Post to take on Franklin Graham and his belief that belief in Jesus Christ is the only way of salvation. Parker began her column with the fact that Franklin Graham prayed outside the Pentagon last week, rather than inside, having been disinvited by the Pentagon as the speaker for its scheduled National Day of Prayer service. Graham, you will remember, was disinvited because of statements...

Says Interreligious Dialogue Can Deepen FaithGRANADA, Spain, FEB. 18, 2010 (Zenit.org).- The president of the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue is affirming that Catholics should not fear Islam, but rather welcome the chance for deepening their faith through interchange with Muslims. Cardinal Jean-Louis Tauran affirmed this in Granada during his Feb. 10 opening address for a two-day congress sponsored by the Faculty of Theology of Granada. The congress was titled "Christianity, Islam and Modernity." "We must not fear Islam," the prelate affirmed, "but I would say more: Christians and Muslims, when they profess their own faith with integrity and credibility,...

Two Ignatius Press authors have an engaging conversation in the pages of The Catholic Herald about that question; the conversation has been going on with an exchange of letters going back to last summer (see links below).  The two authors are Moyra Doorly, who wrote No Place For God: The Denial of the Transcendent in Modern Church Architecture (Ignatius Press, 2007), and prolific author and theologian Aidan Nichols, O.P., whose books include Looking at the Liturgy (1996), Hopkins: Theologian's Poet (2006), Lovely Like Jerusalem: The Fulfillment of the Old Testament in Christ and the Church (2007), and Rome and the...

New York, NY, January 19, 2010 … The Anti-Defamation League (ADL) said that the visit to the Rome Synagogue by Pope Benedict XVI "acknowledged the validity of Judaism and affirmed the Catholic-Jewish relationship." Abraham H. Foxman, ADL National Director, issued the following statement: Pope Benedict acknowledged the validity of Judaism and affirmed the Catholic-Jewish relationship by his visit to Rome's main synagogue. Like his predecessor Pope John Paul II, whose 1986 visit to the same Rome Synagogue was a message to the Christian world that Judaism was not superseded by Christianity and is a living dynamic religion with its own...

THE MANHATTAN DECLARATION and EVANGELICAL CO-BELLIGERENCE ...the ineffectual intersection of politics and faith     “The goal of both the church and the state is to advance the public good.” -Francis Beckwith     The ultimate goal of the church biblically is not the public good, but the glory of God in the proclamation and advancement of His gospel of sola fide. God, not the audience, is sovereign. The “public good” is political speak for tolerance. The gospel, however, does divide; it is a stumbling block, offensive and foolishness for those who are perishing.     Here we go...

On November 20, 2009, a document called the Manhattan Declaration was presented to the public by a coalition of co-belligerents. The document is concerned primarily with three very important biblical and cultural issues: the sanctity of life, the meaning of marriage, and the nature of religious liberty. Without question, these issues are up for grabs in our nation. As anyone familiar with my ministry will know, I share the document’s concern for defending the unborn, defining heterosexual marriage biblically, and preserving a proper relationship between church and state. However, when the document was sent to me and my signature was...

Prior to the opening of formal conversations between officials of the Holy See and leaders of the Lefebvrist Society of St. Pius X (SSPX), which began on Oct. 26, the mainstream media frequently misrepresented these discussions as a negotiation aimed at achieving a compromise that both sides can live with. That was to be expected from reporters and commentators for whom everything is politics and everything is thus negotiable. Alas, similar misrepresentations came from “Vatican insiders” who suggested that the teaching of the Second Vatican Council was under joint review by the Holy See and the SSPX, which only made...

APOSTOLIC CONSTITUTION ANGLICANORUM COETIBUSPROVIDING FOR PERSONAL ORDINARIATES FOR ANGLICANS ENTERING INTO FULL COMMUNION WITH THE CATHOLIC CHURCH In recent times the Holy Spirit has moved groups of Anglicans to petition repeatedly and insistently to be received into full Catholic communion individually as well as corporately. The Apostolic See has responded favorably to such petitions. Indeed, the successor of Peter, mandated by the Lord Jesus to guarantee the unity of the episcopate and to preside over and safeguard the universal communion of all the Churches,[1] could not fail to make available the means necessary to bring this holy desire to realization....

Pope Benedict has sure gotten the ball rolling and it seems others want to get into the ecumenical action! Thanks to A Catholic Knight on this one: A Bulgarian Orthodox prelate told Benedict XVI of his desire for unity, and his commitment to accelerate communion with the Catholic Church. At the end of Wednesday's general audience, Bishop Tichon, head of the diocese for Central and Western Europe of the Patriarchate of Bulgaria, stated to the Pope, "We must find unity as soon as possible and finally celebrate together," L'Osservatore Romano reported. "People don't understand our divisions and our discussions," the...

Pope Benedict XVI has offered to establish “Personal Ordinariates” within which to care for Anglicans while enabling them to maintain the liturgical and spiritual unique distinctives of their tradition. That is correct, the Roman Catholic Church by way of an “Apostolic Constitution” will provide the process which will allow for Anglican Christians to enter into the full communion of the Catholic Church. The Congregation for the Doctrine of the faith said this in a statement just released: “In this Apostolic Constitution the Holy Father has introduced a canonical structure that provides for such corporate reunion by establishing Personal Ordinariates which...

Thursday, September 10, 2009 -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- HOMELAND INSECURITY WorldNetDaily Exclusive Synagogue holding services with Muslims Interaction comes after canceling seminar on dangers of radical Islam -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- Posted: September 10, 2009 8:53 pm Eastern -------------------------------------------------------------------------------- WorldNetDaily Beth El Synagogue in New London A group that presents seminars on the threat of radical Islam is raising alarm that a synagogue that previously canceled one of its programs, Congregation Beth El in New London, Conn., now plans to celebrate Ramadan with local Islamic leaders tied to extremist groups. "In 2008, I found it appalling that Jewish organizations including the [Jewish Federal of Eastern Connecticut]...

Thousands of representatives of the world’s religions will convene in Australia for the 2009 Parliament of the World’s Religions. An estimated 8,000-12,000 people will meet in Melbourne, Australia, Dec. 3-9, 2009, to dialogue, build interfaith relationships, and discuss critical issues facing the global community. Adherents of a wide range of religious traditions will be present including: Christian, Jewish, Muslim, Buddhist, Hindu, Sikh, Baha’i Jain, and Zoroastrian. “The Parliament event is a place where people come together to encounter ‘the other,’” organizers state in the Council for a Parliament of the World’s Religions (CPWR) website. “This encounter can lead to a...

On October 31, 1999, the Catholic Church and the Lutheran World Federation signed a historic document known as the Joint Declaration on the Doctrine of Justification (JD). This document, the fruit of almost thirty years of ecumenical dialogue, without a doubt will be widely misinterpreted in the secular and religious press. This article is intended to help the reader understand the most important things that the document does and does not say, so that he may better sift through the inevitable misrepresentations. How We Got Where We Are For many years after the Reformation, Protestants and Catholics frequently portrayed the...

Do Vatican II’s teachings on ecumenism and religous liberty really conflict with Traditional Catholic teaching? In his first Envoy article on traditionalist apologetics [see “All Tradition Leads to Rome,” Volume 4.6], canon lawyer Pete Vere identified seven common arguments offered by the Society of St. Pius X (SSPX) in defense of their schism, and how he overcame these objections during his journey back to the Catholic Church. Some readers responded that this schism, initiated by Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre in 1988, isn’t merely about the Latin Mass. The SSPX also takes issue with the Second Vatican Council, particularly on the...

I remember listening to a conversation among several “traditional” Catholics (you know, the anti-Vatican II/anti-John Paul II/anti-Novus Ordo Missae/Latin Mass only crowd!) when I heard one individual exclaim: “Ecumenism is a bad word!” The others quickly nodded in agreement. (Not exactly a surprising statement and response, considering the source.) But seriously, ecumenism is a vital mission of the Church that needs to be understood more fully and correctly, especially as we enter this ostensibly pivotal third millennium. Is ecumenism really a bad word? Or, more to the point, does ecumenism require Catholics to compromise their faith? The answer lies in...

Speaking on Wednesday morning to the ACNA Assembly, His Beatitude, Jonah, Metropolitan of All America and Canada and leader of the Orthodox Church in America (OCA), called for a "full... intercommunion" with the Anglican Church in North America. "What will it take," he asked, "for a true ecumenical reconciliation? That is what I am seeking by being with you today." This marks the potential resumption of an Orthodox/Anglican dialogue that began a hundred years ago between two missionary bishops, St. Tikhon of Moscow and Bishop Grafton of Fond du Lac, only to be broken off in the 1970s with the...

Pope Benedict XVI's outreach tour of the Middle East this week failed to placate critics still smarting from his riot-inciting comments in a 2006 speech at Germany's Regensburg University. The pontiff at that time quoted 15th-century Byzantine Emperor Manuel II Paleologus who said: "Show me just what Muhammad brought that was new, and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." The pope said he regrets any hurt feelings, but some Muslims want more contrition. Sheik Yusef Abu Hussein, mufti of Karak in Jordan, said, "We...

JERUSALEM (JTA) -- Pope Benedict XVI .... calling for more understanding between Christians and Muslims. He encouraged Christians and Muslims to oppose terrorism. "Muslims and Christians, precisely because of the burden of our common history, so often marked by misunderstanding, must today strive to be known and recognized as worshippers of God, faithful to prayer, eager to uphold and lift by the almighty decrees,"... ...At the mosque, in a meeting with Muslim leaders, he called for a "trilateral dialogue" including the Church to help bring Jews and Muslims together to discuss peace

Francis Collins, former head of the National Human Genome Research Institute and seminal player in sequencing the human genome, has launched a foundation that seeks to reconcile Christian faith with science. The Washington-based foundation, BioLogos, is funded by the John Templeton Foundation and aims to promote "the search for truth in both the natural and spiritual realms, and seeks to harmonize these different perspectives," according to its website. The BioLogos website also lists several questions (eg. "How does the harshness of evolution align with the idea of a loving God?" and "Can scientific and scriptural truth be reconciled?" and "What...

AMMAN, Jordan, May 9 (UPI) -- Pope Benedict XVI prayed Saturday at the King Hussein Mosque in the Jordanian capital Amman, Vatican officials said. The trip to the mosque, the largest in Jordan, marked the second day of the pope's visit to the Middle East, the BBC reported. Afterwards, Benedict addressed local Muslim leaders, observers said. Earlier in the day he visited Mount Nebo, which, according to the Bible, is where Moses saw the Promised Land before he died. Vatican analysts said the pope is anxious to mend relations with Muslims and Jews on his eight-day sojourn to Israel and...

Christian unity ≠ going along to get along Jaynan Clark Egland Note to the Reader: The following is something I felt inspired to write down while meeting with the ACR—Association for Church Renewal—in Washington, D.C., earlier this month. ACR is a gathering of leaders from reform movements across the mainline denominations. The traditions represented at the meeting included Presbyterian, Methodist, Reformed (U.S. and Canadian), Lutheran, and Disciples of Christ. Many present have been meeting together for decades, WordAlone’s vice-president, Mark Chavez, has been attending for the last eight years. I felt it was timely for me to attend and was...

Army specialist Terry Holdbrooks had been a guard at Guantánamo for about six months the night he had his life-altering conversation with detainee 590, a Moroccan also known as "the General." This was early 2004, about halfway through Holdbrooks's stint at Guantánamo with the 463rd Military Police Company. Until then, he'd spent most of his day shifts just doing his duty. He'd escort prisoners to interrogations or walk up and down the cellblock making sure they weren't passing notes. But the midnight shifts were slow. "The only thing you really had to do was mop the center floor," he says....

It started out as the dream job for a passionate Christian -- reporting about religion for a major newspaper. But writing about other people's religions ended up costing William Lobdell his own. The former Los Angeles Times reporter chronicled his soul-wrenching, emotion-laden journey in the recently released book "Losing My Religion: How I Lost My Faith Reporting on Religion in America -- and Found Unexpected Peace," published by Harper Collins. Lobdell's spiritual journey led him from an uninspired Protestant childhood to agnosticism before he attended a weekend Christian men's retreat where he was "born again." Concerned with what he considered...

Just after midnight on Feb. 3, 1943, an act of extraordinary unselfishness by a group of men became a legend of martyrdom and sacrifice. When the Army ship Dorchester was torpedoed by the Germans just south of Greenland that night, its passengers and crew had 25 minutes to get off the boat. As 902 people went for the life jackets, it quickly was discovered there weren't near enough. Of the 13 lifeboats, only two functioned. In the ship's final minutes, Methodist senior chaplain George Lansing Fox, Rabbi Alexander Goode, Dutch Reformed minister Clark V. Poling and John P. Washington, a...

The Pope is preparing to offer the Traditonal Anglican Communion, a group of half a million dissident Anglicans, its own personal prelature by Rome, according to reports this morning. History may be in the making", reports The Record. "It appears Rome is on the brink of welcoming close to half a million members of the Traditional Anglican Communion into membership of the Roman Catholic Church. Such a move would be the most historic development in Anglican-Catholic relations in the last 500 years. But it may also be a prelude to a much greater influx of Anglicans waiting on the sidelines,...