WLOS — HAYWOOD COUNTY, N.C. — A little bit of Western North Carolina is presented to the Pope.
Lake Junaluska World Methodist Museum wanted to present Pope Francis with a small sculpture of Methodist church founder John Wesley, seeing parallels between them.
“The Pope goes into the communities,” museum director Jackie Bolden said. “He goes into the slums, and when he travels, he goes where the people are.” Continue reading…
And you thought the 70s were wild.
A new study finds that Americans are more accepting than ever before of same-sex canoodling. And not only do they think it’s okay — they’re trying it for themselves.
Nearly half — 49 percent — said “sexual relations between two adults of the same sex” was “not wrong at all” in 2014, a team of researchers from Florida Atlantic University, San Diego State University and Widener University found. Continue reading…
A plastic egg a 5-year-old boy in Limavady, Northern Ireland, thought was a toy turned out to contain an illegal drug.
The Belfast Telegraph reported that the boy was playing with his 8-year-old brother when he saw the yellow plastic shell of a Kinder Surprise egg, a popular toy across the world that consists of a plastic egg covered in chocolate. Inside the egg is usually a small toy.
The egg has been banned in the United States by the Food and Drug Administration for containing nonedible components that could be hazardous to health. Continue reading…
Although Saudi Arabia is a predominantly Muslim country that is hostile to Christians, many in the country are converting to Christianity and receiving support for their faith online.
CINCINNATI — Judge William Mallory enjoys handing out creative sentences from his bench over at the Hamilton County Courthouse.
But the one he meted out in his Municipal Court room Wednesday wasn’t even his idea.
And boy, oh boy, did he like it.
Instead of sending Jake Strotman to jail on a misdemeanor attempted assault conviction, Mallory sent the 23-year-old Catholic to a Baptist church for the next 12 Sundays. Continue reading…
“The European Union reached an agreement Tuesday with some of the world’s biggest social media firms, including Facebook and Twitter, on ways to combat the spread of hate speech online. Under the terms of a code of conduct, the firms, which also include YouTube and Microsoft, have committed to “quickly and efficiently” tackle illegal hate speech directed against anyone over issues of race, color, religion, descent or national or ethnic origin. The sites have often been used by terrorist organizations to relay messages and entice hatred against certain individuals or groups.” –Source
And how will they define the hate speech? If it speaks against any viable foundational structure regarding Rome’s long prophesied agenda to place a mark on every person on earth, they will make the biblical truths that the remnant people preach illegal. The fact using the Bible to share truth with people in danger of hellfire is already considered a hate crime in Canada as well as in America confirms any mention of biblical truth will soon become illegal worldwide. Continue reading…
(RNS) The Vatican has always been a hothouse for conspiracy theories, and a new controversy over the so-called Third Secret of Fatima is showing just how persistent such fixations can be — to the extent that the latest episode even forced Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI out of seclusion to refute claims that he once shaded the truth about the mysterious prophecy.
At the same time, however, the new Fatima saga has overshadowed what could be a much more problematic bit of Vatican intrigue: how Benedict’s presence as the first ex-pope in more than six centuries is continuing to raise questions about the nature of the papacy, and the authority of Francis, the current pope.
So far, most of the media attention has been focused on the three Fatima “secrets” that the Catholic Church believes were vouchsafed by the Virgin Mary to three shepherd children in Portuguese town of Fatima in 1917. Continue reading…
Despite Pope Francis’ literal embracing of a top Islamic cleric and declaration that their “Meeting is the message,” his top aid said Christians must apply Matthew 28 to everyone, including Muslims.
“We have a mission to convert all non-Christian religions’ people [except] Judaism,” Cardinal Kurt Koch said. “And what is very important for us is that we can make mission only with a credible witness and without any proselytism.” Continue reading…
Historically in Catholic devotional life, the month of June is dedicated to the Sacred Heart of Jesus with the First Friday of June observed as the proper feast day of the Sacred Heart. This year, the feast falls on June 3.
The Sacred Heart devotion was formalized in the seventeenth century, through apparitions of Jesus Christ to St. Margaret Mary Alocoque, a simple Visitation nun in Paray-le-Monial, France.
As the Church enters the month of June during this Jubilee Year of Mercy, influenced by the Divine Mercy devotion from Poland, some questions come to mind: Is there a shared message between the Sacred Heart devotion given to St. Margaret Mary Alocoque in the seventeenth century, and the Divine Mercy devotion given to St. Faustina in the twentieth century? Continue reading…
VATICAN CITY — When then-Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger met the press in 2000 for the formal release of the so-called Third Secret of Fatima, he said he knew many people would be disappointed.
Almost 16 years later, at the beginning of a yearlong preparation for the 100th anniversary of the apparition of our Lady of Fatima in 2017, now-retired Pope Benedict XVI is still dealing with people not convinced the secret is really out. Continue reading…