“Physicians, researchers and ethicists are grappling with the copycat effect of suicide and rising U.S. suicide rates as jurisdictions enact laws to allow the terminally ill to take their own lives with the help of a doctor. Dr. William Toffler, national director of Physicians for Compassionate Care, says suicides do not occur in a vacuum but among others who might be moved to imitate the act, a phenomenon called the “Werther effect.” An increase in suicides should be expected where assisted suicide is legal because society is sending the unmistakable message that killing oneself is a proper response to life’s challenges, he says. “Essentially the message is, ‘I’ll avoid these problems by killing myself,’” says Dr. Toffler, a practicing physician for more than 35 years in Oregon, which became the first state to implement an assisted suicide law in 1997.” –Source
Amazing how they talk about this as if it’s all just an unfortunate phenomenon wherein if one person does it another will follow. How many of us recall our mothers saying, “If Johnny jumped in the lake, would you jump too?” That’s right, most people today will say, huh? Mom never said that! But in my generation it was the favored comeback of moms all over America when you got caught doing something wrong with your friends. I know, this was a regular occurrence in my home seeing how we were the largest family in the State, if not the nation. (I am one of 11 children) Continue reading
“Three sources from different conservative groups said that Heritage employees have been soliciting, stockpiling and vetting résumés for months with an eye on stacking Trump’s administration with conservative appointees across the government. One source described the efforts as a “shadow transition team” and “an effort to have the right kind of people in there. …Ultimately, Trump won 81 percent of the evangelical vote, a higher percentage than even George W. Bush — himself a devout born-again Christian earned in 2004. Part of the reason the list made such a splash was because Heritage and DeMint are hugely influential in deeply conservative circles, often appearing at the nexus of conservative power structures. …It will be as exciting as the 1930s, greater than the Reagan revolution — conservatives, plus populists, in an economic nationalist movement. And daylight between traditionally conservative policy prescriptions and some of Trump’s campaign rhetoric is especially apparent on the issue of foreign policy.” –
(AFP) – A town in eastern France has been ordered to remove a statue of the Virgin Mary to comply with a national ban on religious symbols in public, the local mayor said Saturday.
— The highest ranking Chinese Catholic has stated that if Pope Francis allows Communist China to have a hand in the selection of the nation’s Catholic bishops it would be “betraying Jesus Christ.”
“Germany’s record on free speech leaves a lot to be desired. Vacillating from one extreme to another, from simulcasting Nazi propaganda to criminalizing Holocaust-denial, it has long struggled to protect the civil liberty of free speech while quelling the tides of authoritarianism. In an attempt to control the recent uptick in xenophobia and racism, largely exacerbated by sudden demographic shifts linked to Berlin’s refugee-intake program, German authorities are now prosecuting arbitrarily-defined “hate speech,” otherwise known as free speech, with what appears to be de facto blasphemy laws. On Wednesday, Chancellor Angela Merkel backed a federal program to monitor and police internet activity on popular social media platforms such as Twitter, Facebook, and YouTube. ” –
The powers that be under direction of their dying God are working overtime to try and get the people so scared and so confused that they will seek the protection of their government leaders as well as direction on what to do from their religious leaders. All sorts of strange sights and sounds are happening the world over. (
VATICAN CITY — The Roman Catholic Church will allow priests throughout the world to grant absolution for abortion, the Vatican said on Monday, making permanent a policy that Pope Francis announced a year ago.
“When terrorists or world powers persecute Christian minorities or Christians”, he observed, “they do not ask: ‘Are you Lutheran? Are you Orthodox? Are you Catholic? Are you Reformed? Are you Pentecostal?’ No. ‘You are Christian’. They recognise one only: the Christian. The enemy is not wrong: he recognises where to find Jesus. And this is the ecumenism of blood. Nowadays we are witnesses to this, and I think of the Orthodox brethren beheaded on the beaches of Libya, for example: they are our brothers. They gave witness to Jesus and they died saying, ‘Jesus, help me!’. With His name: they confessed the name of Jesus.” “Therefore, ecumenism in prayer, ecumenism in our journey, and the enemy teaches us the ecumenism of blood.” –
VATICAN CITY (RNS) Pope Francis is firing back at foes of his efforts to make the Catholic Church more open and pastoral in its ministry, telling an interviewer that “they are acting in bad faith to foment divisions.”
WORCESTER, Mass. – A retired Roman Catholic priest has pleaded guilty to his role in an international online dating scam.