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ROME, JAN. 27, 2009 (Zenit.org).- Dialogue between Jews and Christians is a sensitive issue, and there have been many misunderstandings about the new Good Friday prayer for the Jews, says a scholar in the matter. According to Father Michel Remaud, director of the Christian Institute of Jewish Studies and Hebrew Literature of Jerusalem, the Good Friday prayer for the Jews used in the "extraordinary rite" is not a prayer for their conversion, but rather a prayer for the Jewish people. He said the text approved by Benedict XVI does not say "Oremus pro conversione Judæorum" (Let us pray for the...

NEW YORK, January 27, 2009 (LifeSiteNews.com) -  Rabbi Yehuda Levin, spokesman for Rabbinical Alliance of America, will be in Rome Thursday meeting with high ranking Vatican officials. While there he will express solidarity regarding the recent Vatican criticisms of US President Barack Obama and his executive order which has permitted US taxpayer funds to be given to organizations performing and lobbying for abortion internationally.  Levin will be representing over 800 Orthodox Jewish Rabbis who form the Rabbinical Alliance of America. His visit is being coordinated by the Rome office of Human Life International. Following Obama's overturning of the Mexico City...

Dozens of American and Canadian Lutheran bishops arrived in Jerusalem on Tuesday for their annual Academy, a meeting for theological discussion. Planned many months in advance, they gathered in the shadow of the war in Gaza. Bishop Mark Hanson, presiding bishop of the Evangelical Lutheran Church in America, called for a cease-fire ahead of his visit, urging "officials of both parties to the conflict to... refrain from all violent acts, which only bring destruction and tragedy, and urge them instead to work to resolve their differences through peaceful and nonviolent means," the church said in a statement. The church believed...

I recently read a book that deserves the widest possible readership: "The Trouble with Textbooks -- Distorting History and Religion," by Gary A. Tobin and Dennis R. Ybarra. I never have met or talked with either of these gentlemen, but I can't say enough good things about this book. For all who believe that there is a fairly objective rendition of history that we are obliged to teach our children, this book reveals how shockingly far from that objective American education -- particularly in schools' textbooks -- has fallen. In their conclusion, the authors quote the great historian of Islam...

Take note all ye cultural fascists out to annihilate Christmas: The Catholic League has a nativity scene on public property in New York City, right in Central Park. We deliberately put it on the corner of 59th and 5th so that New Yorkers taking the 5th Avenue bus downtown can’t avoid seeing it. Indeed, it’s impossible to miss. Next to it will be the world’s largest menorah, a religious symbol that some dunce lawyers still think is a secular symbol. “Every year we get a permit from the New York City Parks Department to display our life-sized crèche in Central...

Marc Shaiman, the Tony Award-winning composer of the film and stage musical “Hairspray,” has done the country a major, if inadvertent, service. He has composed a brief musical piece against California Proposition 8 that takes only three minutes to reveal the ignorance and hate that pervades so much anti-Proposition 8 activism. This short musical, viewed more than 2 million times on the Internet, features major Hollywood talents playing (through song) two groups on a beach -- gay men and women in beach clothes and a stuffy formally dressed church group composed of whites and blacks. Its message begins with a...

The writer Andrew Sullivan sits across the table from you on Chris Matthews' Hardball praising gay-marriage as a symbol of the homosexual community's desire to join the mainstream. He is a Catholic, conservative in many things, and a highly articulate spokesman for his point-of-view. What do you say? The requisite conservative on pundit panels usually falls back on citing heterosexual marriage's 5,000 year history as society's basic building block. Marriage has always been between a man and a woman. 65% of the American people are against homosexual unions. Etc. That's not going to get it. It's a way of brushing...

Above the Hate.com Letter Against Hate to President Monson November 15, 2008 President Thomas S. Monson Office of the First Presidency Church Administration Building 47 East South Temple Salt Lake City, Utah 84150 Dear President Monson: We write firstly to express our deep gratitude to you and the entire LDS community for the large and impressive contributions of your church and its members in protecting marriage in California and Arizona. Anyone who participated in this process has come to admire the competence, diligence and moral courage that so many members of your faith community displayed as part of this coalition...

More than 3,000 people, including longtime Mormon critic James Dobson of Focus on the Family, have signed an online petition thanking the LDS Church for its efforts on behalf of California's traditional marriage initiative known as Proposition 8. "Anyone who participated in this process has come to admire the competence, diligence and moral courage that so many members of your faith community displayed as part of this coalition effort -- as Catholics, Evangelicals, Mormons and people of other faith communities all came together to fight this great battle for marriage," says the petition, which is addressed to LDS President Thomas...

This is my public apology to John McCain, Sarah Palin, Republican voters, Christian evangelicals, Ann Coulter, Sean Hannity, Mike Gallagher and everyone else in the non-Jewish universe who stands four-square behind the State of Israel. While you have written, spoken and, yes, even prayed in strong opposition to any retrofitting of American policy on behalf of the Jewish state, nearly eight out of every 10 American Jews failed to demonstrate similar resolve on Election Day.

News bulletins every day abound with stories of moral unrest somewhere in the world. The Columbine high-school massacre in America a few years ago focused world attention on a once-average community which suffered the outrage of brutal murders. The atrocities that resulted in the deaths of thousands in the World Trade Center terrorist acts brought to light how wicked human beings can be towards one another. Society’s laws are being violated at an ever-increasing rate, as evidenced by the rapid expansion of police forces and proliferation of all manner of ‘security’ devices and services to protect life and property. Clearly,...

Perhaps the PBS Nova producers should have consulted the Naked Archaeologist or The Bible as History before making a show whose purpose is to debunk the Old Testament. Here is the description of the special two hour edition of Nova as reported by Reuters/Hollywood Reporter: LOS ANGELES (Hollywood Reporter) – Bill Maher, on HBO's "Real Time With Bill Maher," frequently refers to the Old Testament of the Bible as the Book of Jewish Fairy Tales. The description might anger the pious and the fundamentalists, but guess what? Maher's close to the truth. A visually stunning two-hour special edition of "Nova"...

Five months and thousands of weddings after California's highest court sanctioned same-sex marriage, anxious eyes around the nation will closely follow voters Tuesday as they decide whether to turn back the clock. Given the state's size and influence, the vote on a constitutional amendment banning gay marriage has become a referendum on sexual orientation and civil rights. Both sides call it the "Gettysburg" of the power struggle between the gay rights movement and the Christian right, with the victors capturing momentum in other states. "As California goes, so goes the nation," Mayor Gavin Newsom boldly predicted at a City Hall...

Whether disapproving churches could be forced to choose between providing services to gay couples or losing their tax-exempt status is one of the questions swirling around Proposition 8, the Nov. 4 ballot measure that would ban same-sex marriage. AdvertisementIn its May ruling legalizing same-sex marriage, the state Supreme Court made clear that it did not intend for the decision to be interpreted as interfering with a church's right to determine who it marries. Yesterday, 59 California law professors released a one-page position paper making their case that the state and federal constitutions provide ironclad protections for churches. “No church's tax-exempt...

Polls continue to slide for No on Prop 8 Equity for All, as reports leak out that the campaign’s management structure is in utter disarray. A series of orchestrated, factually false press statements have been issued alleging the sky will fall if Proposition 8 passes on Tuesday. “Clearly, this is nothing more than a floundering campaign grasping at straws to save its effort,” said Chip White, Protectmarriage.com – Yes on 8 campaign spokesman. “It’s quite sad because those who are hurt most are voters. We invited the No on Prop 8 campaign to debate Proposition 8 this weekend in a...

Dozens of pastors and rabbis across the country are urging their peers to pray for Barack Obama’s repentance and telling their congregations to do the same on Sunday before Election Day. They contend that Obama’s liberal policies on marriage and abortion will fuel tensions with the Muslim world. Packaged with the inaugural edition of The Judeo-Christian View, a new "multimedia journal" mailed to more than 325,000 clergy this week, is a "video sermon" mixing Bible verses with the positions of the Democratic candidate and his Republican opponent Sen. John McCain. It also includes a copy of "Obsession: Radical Islam’s War...

Supporters of Proposition 8, which would ban gay marriage, say a concern for children and respecting the desire of voters are the issues at the heart of their campaign. Interviews indicate, however, that preserving the traditional definition of marriage for historical and religious reasons is a priority for some in the campaign more than the welfare of kids. Chip White, the Yes on 8 press secretary, said he is opposed to gay marriage because voters are "overwhelmingly" against it. In 2000, voters passed Proposition 22 which amended the state Education Code to say that only marriage between men and women...

Rick Warren, nationally acclaimed pastor and author of the New York Times bestselling “The Purpose Driven Life,” announced today his support in favor of Proposition 8, California’s Protect Marriage Act. Warren, founder and senior pastor of Saddleback Church, affirmed his support of the proposition, which would restore the definition of marriage as between a man and a woman, in his News and Views email which is distributed to church members. “For 5,000 years, every culture and every religion - not just Christianity - has defined marriage as a contract between men and women,” Warren wrote. “There is no reason to...

SAN FRANCISCO - A girl in pigtails bounds into the kitchen after school and asks her mother to guess what she learned that day. "I learned how a prince married a prince, and I can marry a princess," she exclaims to her mortified mom. This television advertisement for a ballot initiative that would ban same-sex marriage in California urges voters to "protect children" by approving the measure. There's not a word about education in Proposition 8, but what public schools will be required to teach about same-sex marriage has emerged as the central issue in the campaign. The measure's supporters...

Next to the presidential election, California Proposition 8 is the most important vote in America. It will determine the definition of marriage for the largest state in America, and it will determine whether judges or society will decide on social-moral issues. In 2000, 61 percent of the voters in California, one the most liberal states in America, voted to retain the only definition of marriage civilization has ever had -- the union of a man and woman (the number of spouses allowed has changed over time but never the sexes of the spouses). But in May 2008, four out of...