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(CNSNews.com) - Sen. John Kerry's presidential campaign has hired a new director of religion outreach, who is being described by a Catholic group as "a curious choice." Mara Vanderslice, who formerly worked as religion outreach director for Democrat Howard Dean, was raised without any faith and didn't become an evangelical Christian until she attended Earlham College, a Quaker school known for its adherence to pacifism, the Catholic League said on Monday. According to Catholic League President William Donohue, when Vanderslice was in college she was active in the Earlham Socialist Alliance, a group that supports convicted cop-killer Mumia Abu-Jamal and...

TO SHOOT OR NOT TO SHOOT: On the show this week I spent quite a considerable amount of time on a topic I never had intended to...but that is sometime's the nature of talk radio - listeners have as much as a mind as the host does and if they so move the entirety of the ship can be set sail in a completely different direction. The topic was video games. A couple of weeks ago I had on Lloyd Melnick of Merscom Games. He is the creator of  TERRORIST TAKEDOWN  which looks like a fairly fun game to...

WASHINGTON (AP) - A small group of war protesters paid tribute to the troops who died in Iraq by setting up more than 1,100 flag-draped cardboard coffins in front of the Lincoln Memorial on Saturday. The coffins stretched halfway down each side of the reflecting pool. At 1 p.m., members of the Iraq War Memorial Coalition read the names of the people who were killed and then played taps. Pat Elder, who helped organize the event, said the 75-member coalition was formed two weeks ago by people who belonged to the Quaker faith, Veterans for Peace and Military Families Speak...

Putin's Talking Tough Wednesday, September 15, 2004 By John Gibson Just for laughs I clicked on a story in the Financial Times of London about a member of the European Parliament saying the Euros have to develop some mettle to stand up to not Usama, or Saddam... but to the United States and Russia. I am telling you this because every so often you need to be reminded how far out in the ozone our so-called friends in Europe really are. So get this, after the Beslan (search) school terror in Russia, Vladimir Putin (search) said Russia will go anywhere...

I love Washington D.C. I've only been there about five times - three of which were in the dead of winter - but I have always enjoyed myself. I like that every building is steeped in historical significance; I'm from San Diego, and we only have one Historical Building in the whole city. Of course, here in Europe, everywhere you turn there is a building founded by monks of the eleventh century, built upon ruins of Roman settlements from 200 BC, restored for use by some prestigious emperor, military hero, or worldly archbishop of the eighteenth century. This puts even...

A Pacifist Dictionary By Kate Maloy Someone recently said to me: My pacifism stops when someone declares war on me. She is apparently a pacifist only until the condition that actually calls for pacifism arises. She wants to know how we can protect ourselves if we don’t return violence for violence. She wants to know what we should do. No wonder she is at a loss. The human race has almost no experience with lasting peace or its strategies. Our default has always been war. When at risk, we want to destroy the enemy that has put us there. ...

ROME (Reuters) - Hooded pacifists said Tuesday they plan to disrupt President Bush (news - web sites)'s visit to Italy next week by blocking roads and attempting to break through barriers erected to protect his entourage. Bush is set to attend ceremonies marking the 60th anniversary of Rome's liberation by the Allies on June 4 but many see his visit as a opportunity to express their opposition to the U.S.-led invasion and occupation of Iraq (news - web sites), which the Italian government has supported. "Starting in the morning we will attempt to penetrate the security zone," said the two...

Thank God that Pearl Harbor was not an isolated declaration of war against the U.S. At 7:53 a.m. on December 7, 1941, the first wave of Japanese assault planes attacked Hawaii. On that same day, the Japanese simultaneously attacked the Philippines, Wake Island, Guam, Malaya, Thailand, Shanghai, and Midway. By the time they rested their pampered little heads on soft down pillows that night...even liberals understood that America was at war. Will it take a few more 9-11’s to convince the “Whine and Cheese” crowd that America, and the rest of the free world, is at war? Notice to all...

ROME - A top Vatican (news - web sites) official sought Wednesday to downplay the Vatican's opposition to the U.S. war in Iraq (news - web sites), saying it only objected to the means of disarming Saddam Hussein (news - web sites), not the ends.   French Cardinal Jean-Louis Tauran, the Vatican foreign minister during the war, stressed the Vatican did indeed oppose the conflict and thought U.N. weapons inspections should have been allowed to continue. But he said Pope John Paul (news - web sites) II shared Washington's ultimate aims in Iraq. "The Holy See is not pacifist," he...

Curmudgeon Emeritus -- Francis W. Porretto March 18, 2004 "Those who have not swords may still die upon them." -- Eowyn of Rohan, in J. R. R. Tolkien's The Lord Of The Rings. They can do more, much more. And some of them do. Now and then, your Curmudgeon frets over his contribution to the security of the nation. A 52-year-old man isn't normally expected to take up arms and cross the seas to do battle with evil, regardless of the Left's repeated cries of "chickenhawk!" at those of us who have counseled all-out war but would not have to...

Augustine's "just war" theory continues to guide the West.The fall of Rome in 410 was a calamity of staggering proportions to the citizens of the Roman Empire. Civilization itself had been shaken to its foundations. So it was viewed by Augustine, from his vantage point on the North African coast. But he worried not so much about the empire as about the threat of a backlash to Christianity. Hadn't critics warned for years that Christians' pacifism would weaken the empire? Didn't this confirm the fears that Christianity was too other-worldly for its followers to be responsible citizens of the state?...

The Democrats are slated to hold their convention in Beantown July 26-29 of this year. I believe the date for the "handover" to the Iraqis is currently slated at June 30...though Coalition troops may stay in the country. My question: how likely is it that Saddam's trial may start within 30 days of the new government taking shape? The Gallup poll just released some info that said Americans were extremely interested in watching the Saddam trial. Wouldn't it be a wonderful turn of events if Saddam's trial took away the bulk of media and public attention from the 'rats Coronation...

OKYO (Reuters) - When Japan's U.S.-drafted, pacifist constitution came into effect two years after its defeat in World War II, a Japanese brass band marked the occasion by playing "The Stars and Stripes Forever" near the Imperial Palace. That same day -- May 3, 1947 -- a former senior Japanese official committed suicide in shame over the document, which renounced war and placed sovereignty in the hands of citizens rather than an emperor who before the war had been worshiped as a living god. Fifty-seven years later, as Japan's military heads for Iraq (news - web sites) at the nudging...

Tonight at 9:30 p.m., C-SPAN2 presents a press conference by some military families who went on a tour of Iraq last week that was orchestrated by Medea Benjamin.I attended the press conference today. You'll laugh, you'll cry, you'll hurl. I did.

URL: http://www.ird-renew.org/News/News.cfm?ID=757&c=4 New Clergy Group to Push Liberal Causes Mark Tooley November 21, 2003 Frustrated that they continue to be overshadowed by conservative religious leaders, a new association of politically liberal clergy was announced in Washington, D.C. on November 21. Mostly comprised of old National Council of Churches (NCC) types, the Clergy Leadership Network (CLN) will focus on opposing U.S. military action and fighting for a larger federal welfare state, while criticizing religious conservatives. Several of CLN’s leaders were also formerly leaders in the Interfaith Alliance, another liberal religious group founded ten years ago with the nearly identical purpose of...

Veterans deserve our respect The student council at the University of Guelph banned any recognition of Remembrance Day You probably didn't know Pte. John Smith Berry of the 48th Highlanders of Canada. I didn't either. But no doubt, like all of us, he had family and friends who knew and loved him. But most of those are likely gone now. So too were the hopes and dreams that Berry, like all young people, must have harboured, dreams which died with him on that battlefield in Italy on October 5, 1944. There is a brass plaque in his honour, and several...

Today is Veterans' Day in the United States, and Remembrance Day in much of the Commonwealth. In Britain, it's now marked on the preceding Sunday, though with the traditional solemn Royal observances ("Is Charles bisexual?" – the News Of The World). I bought my poppy in Montreal. "Do you know what this means?" asked the aged member of the Royal Canadian Legion as he pinned a poppy on my little girl's coat. "Oh, yes," she replied. "A lot of fellows your father's age have no idea," he said, grumpily. I'd be grumpy, too, if I were him. The Montreal branch...

Foreign Pacifists Shield Arafat Against Israeli Reprisal "Killing Arafat would be a disaster for Israel, the entire region and the world," Avnery said RAMALLAH, West Bank, October 5 (IslamOnline.net & News Agencies) – Fearing Israel might exploit Haifa bombing to "remove" Palestinian President Yasser Arafat, thirty Israeli and foreign pacifists formed a human shield abound the Ramallah headquarters of the veteran Palestinian leader. "We came here because we realized the suicide bombing in Haifa with its many casualties would provide an ideal pretext for (Israeli Prime Minister) Ariel Sharon to do what he wants to do for a long time...

By way of introduction, Snowflake has often joined mid-Missouri Freepers in countering the peace coalition’s “peace vigils” in front of the Columbia Post Office. Several times over the years members of the peace groups have accosted military families as they enter or leave the post office on business. The Freepers try to make a presence there each week in order to show the military families, armed forces members, and veterans that they have support in Columbia. Several of us are dedicated to this presence and we post short articles about our experiences each week. Sometimes discussions, arguments, or confrontations occur....

WASHINGTON (AP) - Susan Schuman's son writes home from Iraq complaining of poor living conditions, skimpy water rations and dozens of daily attacks on U.S. troops that go unreported. The mother of a Massachusetts National Guardsman stationed in Iraq since March, Schuman has joined others - longtime pacifists, military veterans and parents with children on extended deployments - in a campaign to bring them home. "Our soldiers are demoralized. They are fighting an illegal and unjustified war," Schuman said at a news conference Wednesday introducing the campaign, Bring Them Home Now. They want the U.S. occupation in Iraq to end,...