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Ambikapur, Dec. 15, 2006 (CNA) - An abandoned hut on the outskirts of a central Indian town has become a prayer center at the instruction of a 10-year-old boy who claims to have visions of Jesus. Rohit Rajan Toppo, a sixth-grader, initiated the center in a village near Ambikapur, Chhattisgarh state, 1,300 kilometers southeast of New Delhi, reported UCA News. Known as "Nani Ashram," it attracts hundreds of people including Hindus. "People come to pray here every day," says Fr. Suman Xaxa, who heads the team that runs the five-room center. Its transformation began in November 2005 after Toppo told...

JERUSALEM - The Muslim call to prayer resounds through a large part of the Earth, where more than one billion people call themselves Muslims. Throughout the Islamic world, many Muslims from Gaza to London are also responding to the call to global jihad, where the goal is to take over the world for Islam. It's a clash of civilizations with the Christian faith in the middle. Throughout the nearly 1,400 year history of Islam, Muslims have resisted the Christian Gospel. Many Christians tried to reach them with the good news, but with little success. But according to many reports from...

Some years ago when I was first a bishop in Louisiana, it must have been 1988, I was making my first "ad limina" visit to the Holy Father in Rome. The other bishops of Louisiana were with me and, as what the custom of John Paul II, we were invited in to enjoy a lunch with him. There were eight of us at the table with him. Soup was being served. Bishop Stanley Ott of Baton Rouge, La., who has since gone to God, asked the Holy Father: "Holy Father, what do you think of Medjugorje?" The Holy Father kept...

VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- Cardinal Vinko Puljic of Sarajevo, Bosnia-Herzegovina, announced a commission would be formed to review the alleged Marian apparitions at Medjugorje and pastoral provisions for the thousands of pilgrims who visit the town each year. "The commission members have not been named yet," Cardinal Puljic told Catholic News Service in a July 24 telephone interview. "I am awaiting suggestions from the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith" on theologians to appoint. "But this commission will be under the (Bosnian) bishops' conference" as is the usual practice with alleged apparitions, he said. The cardinal said he did...

In a newsletter published by a conservative Baptist denomination, a story is presented concerning one of its members. Deployed in Iraq , this middle aged soldier revealed that often, as he wrestles with problems of various types, “God just reveals the answer to me.” A leader from his church back home also claims to have heard from the Lord. “The Lord told me,” he says, “That this young man is going to be known as a builder, not a destroyer in Iraq .” So far his prophecy seems to have come true for, although the soldier has been involved in...

  by Robert R. Allard, DirectorApostles of Divine Mercy 75th Anniversary of the appearance of Jesus to St. Faustina, February 22nd 2006 Everywhere you turn, people are talking about Divine Mercy!  Hurricanes, Floods, Tsunamis, Global Warming, and Fires.  Hardly an article can be written about any of these events without the thought of the Second Coming of Jesus and Divine Chastisement. Today marks a very significant date for all mankind.  Seventy-five years ago on February 22nd 1931 Jesus appeared to St. Faustina as The Divine Mercy with a special mission for her.  He told her to paint an image as she witnessed Him with...

CARACAS, Venezuela - Dramatic differences emerged this week among Latin American leftists at Venezuela's World Social Forum, highlighting the region's diverse views. About 1,000 marchers paraded through Caracas on Friday to call attention to causes ranging from land reform to anti-globalization. The crowd was dominated by supporters of Venezuelan President Hugo Chavez, but one small group calling itself Radical Critics held a sign accusing the Venezuelan president and other leaders of not taking a hard-enough stance against corporate capitalism. Chavez has used a windfall in oil profits to funnel millions of dollars into programs for the poor while extending preferential...

A Farragut man who said the end of the world would begin on Friday, has been fired from his job at Knology after going public with it. John Gilmore had run the East Tennessee operations for phone, cable, and internet company Knology. He'd predicted five big cities in the US would face economic collapse. He now says he has no hard feelings toward knology, and understands why it let him go. "In the end I view it as a resignation. I feel God is calling me to do other things. I've said this before but a couple of months ago...

Folks, in my forays looking for good iconography sites I stumbled upon the Mount Angel Abbey Icon Gallery. The icons there had been written--like Holy Scripture, icons are "written," not "painted"--by Br. Claude Lane, Benedictine. Within this gallery I found this icon Br. Lane wrote in honor of Claude Newman, a prisoner in Mississippi's death row back in 1944. Newman's story is quite remarkable and deserves your reading. This remarkable story was published in the March 2001 issue of Catholic Family News and was authored by John Vennari. According to a Fr. O'Leary, a priest-chaplain at that Mississippi jail,Claude Newman...

SOUTHFIELD, MI—Bored with scaring elderly misers, the Ghost of Christmas Future is spending the holiday season taunting modern children with visions of Christmas 2016's hottest toy: the Sony PlayStation 5, a 2,048-bit console featuring a 45-Ghz trinary processor, CineReal graphics booster with 2-gig biotexturing, and an RSP connector for 360-degree online-immersion play. "You know how kids are—a year is an eternity to them," the wraithlike specter said Monday during a visit to the Southfield home of 13-year-old Josh Kuehn. "So just imagine showing them something they'll have to wait 14 years for. Teasing them with a glimpse of the PS5...

PHILADELPHIA — My brother took more trains, planes and automobiles in the last week of his life than he had taken in months, perhaps years. Those journeys were all the more surprising because they occurred in an intensive-care unit at the end of his three-year battle with bone marrow cancer. Bedridden after being rushed to the hospital for what would be the final eight days of his life, Kenny casually mentioned that he was visiting Detroit. It was a rather odd place for him to be traveling — even if only in his imagination — because the hospital was near...

"Mad as the sea and wind when both contend." -- Hamlet "They're talking apples and oranges!" is a familiar frustrated cry from bystanders listening to a furious discussion. It means that while the two sides seem to be arguing about the same thing, they probably aren't. For example, when Democrats in Congress denounce the "unacceptable costs" of President Bush's tax cut proposal, the Democrats are stating their belief that government would be negligent in its duties if it allowed a reduction in the flow of money to Washington --money which the Democrats confidently believe they spend wisely to create and...

<p>While Gov. Gray Davis fine-tuned a plan he'll present today to shave $10 billion from California's growing deficit, advocates for schools, police, counties and cities spent Thursday unveiling "doom-and-gloom" scenarios they hope will spare them the knife.</p> <p>Fearing $1.9 billion in cuts through June, educators called a news conference and talked of having to close schools early and lay off teachers. By the summer of 2004, some predicted, the governor would try to cut more than $4 billion from schools.</p>

How To Silence the War Drums on the Potomac!  by Ron HollandThe Bush Administration plans to topple the government's of Iraq, Iran and Saudi Arabia (in that order) to establish an American controlled oil cartel of Middle Eastern puppet states. Maybe a win-win opportunity for Bush's "oil buddies" & Israel but it could spark Armageddon in the Middle East, again all for oil!   How to stop the war? The irony is neither public pressure in the US, foreign government mediation or the military of Iraq or Iran can halt the attack, surprisingly, it all depends on Saudi Arabia. To stop...

Have received/read several articles--including one scientific report on the Hawaii volcano--about impending quake type stuff supposedly going to happen within the next 1.5 months and some within the next year. IF there is sufficient interest, I'll try and dig them out of my HD and post the better ones. quot;sufficient interestquot; to me would be more than 3-4 replies.