With 'Jesus of Nazareth,' Pope Benedict XVI fights back against 'the dictatorship of relativism' by showing the world his vision of the definitive truth of Christ.
(MSNBC: Book excerpt: "Jesus of Nazareth")
(MSNBC: B16's book: A lifetime of learning)
The president of the Pontifical Commission "Ecclesia Dei" has confirmed that Benedict XVI hopes to increase the availability of the Latin Mass.
People are fundamentally more valuable than all the social structures to which they belong, says Benedict XVI. "The Church's task is not to come up with concrete programs, but rather to illuminate the moral consciences of political leaders, economists and financiers." He underlined "the principle of solidarity as the basis for a true economy of communion and distribution of wealth, both in the international and the national spheres."
Whore's wine...
Benedict XVI says that in today's globalized economy, there is no true development without solidarity. On Friday and Saturday the Centesimus Annus Pro Pontifice Foundation invited some 350 experts to the Vatican to discuss "The Growing Role of Emerging Countries in Global Competition: Economic, Social and Cultural Consequences." The Pope received them in audience Saturday. The lay foundation was created in 1993 by Pope John Paul II to promote the social doctrine of the Church in professional and business sectors.
Vatican's vino...
During his first trip to the Americas, the Pontiff addressed many important themes in his discourses and homilies. Some of them were directed more toward Brazil, but many of the points raised had implications for the Church as a whole. The Pope also recommended that the bishops apply the social teaching of the Church in dealing with the economic and social problems of Brazil, and consider issues from the viewpoint of human dignity, which is a vision that rises above the mere interaction of economic forces.
After 5 years without an official meeting, the Bilateral Permanent Working Commission formed by representatives of the Holy See and Israel say they made important progress.
In all the deliberations during this assembly and in the subsequent implementation of World Health Assembly resolutions at national and local levels, my delegation urges a perspective on health security that is grounded on an anthropology respectful of the human person in his or her integrity and looks far beyond the absence of disease to the full harmony and sound balance of the physical, emotional, spiritual and social forces within the human person.
On a week-long tour of Asia that includes both Vietnam, where he arrived Monday, and China, President Köhler will have to work to find the delicate balance between diplomatic and economic interests.
German press...
Saturday's suicide attack that killed 3 German soldiers in Afghanistan has prompted left-wing calls for a review of Germany's entire peacekeeping mission. But most newspaper commentators say bringing the boys home would hand the Taliban a triumph.
Germany's relations with Russia were never likely to be as cozy under Chancellor Merkel as under her predecessor. But Merkel's tense exchanges with Putin over human rights and other contentious issues at a Europe-Russia summit meeting last week underscore how much has changed - at least in tone. What is less clear is how Germany and Russia will navigate this new phase in their relationship - one of the most sensitive, strategically important and historically fraught in the diplomatic world.
It really wasn't all smiles at Nicolas Sarkozy's first quick summit with Angela Merkel last week, in spite of what you saw on TV.
President Sarkozy is expected to spell out his commitment to a quick treaty reforming the EU's creaking institutions on his inaugural visit to Brussels on Wednesday.
Italian Prime Minister Prodi will call today for retention of the ambitious scope of the draft European constitution, as negotiations on the future of the failed treaty enter their final phase. Prodi will address the European Parliament, which also wants the basics from the original text, now under revision by national governments, kept in place.
Policy makers in Brussels are waiting with keen interest to hear a preliminary ruling this week in a court case that could have major implications for the EU's social model.
With a new head of state and new government barely in place, France turned its attention Monday to the next election battle: parliamentary polls in June that will be key in determining whether President Sarkozy can implement his ambitious agenda for change.
The new French president, who has stressed his friendship with the Jewish state, wants France and the EU to play a more activist diplomatic role in dealing with Arab-Israeli problems through the Mediterranean Union forum. By adopting a strategy of constructive engagement in the Middle East through the MU, France and the EU could try to achieve the kind of goals that the Bush Administration is trying to advance through the use of its military power: Challenging the status quo in the Middle East, while advancing the cause of peace and political and economic reform.
Predictably, western sources paint a negative picture of the 19th Russia-EU Summit, while President Putin underlines the positive points and sets the agenda for the future.
(UPI: Europe's "no" to Putin)
(UPI: Policy watch: Putin & Europe)
Former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev rose to the occasion to defend President Putin's domestic policies as he spoke in Berlin last week. It is unclear whether Gorbachev planned to speak out on the subject or his comments were offhand.
Israeli security forces are on high alert across the country after receiving 10 terror warnings ahead of the traditional Jewish holiday of Shavuot on Wednesday.
[WAR: The "Jews", and the various COGs, have their own man-calculated holidays that are different from Yahweh's heavenly-revealed holy days - with the real Shavuot/Pentecost being on "June 24th".]
Twenty one US soldiers were killed in Iraq between Thursday and Sunday of last week. Their deaths brought the total number of US military deaths since the war began in March of 2003 to 3,422, according to iCasualties.org, an independent web site that tracks military deaths. Other estimates place the death count at near 4,000.
Militants armed with rockets destroyed nine tankers delivering oil from Pakistan to NATO forces in Afghanistan early Monday.
The next major Middle East war could well be fought not over land, oil or religion - the traditional causes of conflict to date - but over water, a precious commodity becoming rarer by the day.
The US military's new Africa command will help safeguard West African nations' oil and other energy production against rebel or terrorist attacks, the general organising the command said .
International sanctions and US commercial pressure over Iran's disputed nuclear programme are pushing up costs for European companies doing business in the Islamic state and deterring fresh investment. The American Enterprise Institute said French firms were the leading investor, followed by China, Germany and Italy.
Belarus and Iran, two countries isolated by the US and the EU, agreed Monday to forge closer economic, trade and political ties, strengthening what the Belarus president termed "a strategic partnership."
President Ahmadinejad said Monday the nuclear right of the Iranian nation would become fully stabilized soon.
Iran's Foreign Ministry spokesman assessed as "unfounded" allegations made by the US against Iran. "The US, itself, is the main factor behind insecurity and instability in the region."
Iran on Monday charged an Iranian-American academic with seeking to topple the ruling Islamic establishment, state-run television reported.
Whatever...
Iran is secretly forging ties with al-Qaida elements and Sunni Arab militias in Iraq in preparation for a summer showdown with coalition forces intended to tip a wavering US Congress into voting for full military withdrawal, US officials say.
Cccording to Washington Post columnist Jim Hoagland, Plan B may be something far more dramatic: "Using Iraq as a springboard and rationale for an American military strike into Iran," and "strong-arming the admittedly faltering government of Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki out of office and replacing Maliki with a U.S.-anointed Iraqi savior."
Senator Chuck Hagel (R-Neb.) has charged that hard-line pro-Israel neo-conservatives are still directing the Bush administration's Middle East policy, and this to the detriment of America's interests. This is a pointed contradiction of continuing claims by many in the Israel-friendly American media monopoly who attempt to promote the myth that the neo-conservatives are no longer of any influence inside the Bush administration.
No elections in '08...
The Bush administration has released a directive called the National Security and Homeland Security Presidential Directive. The directive released on May 9th, 2007 has gone almost unnoticed by the mainstream and alternative media. In this directive, Bush declares that in the event of a "Catastrophic Emergency" the President will be entrusted with leading the activities to ensure constitutional government. The language in this directive would in effect make the President a dictator in the case of such an emergency.
(GR: Full text of NS&HSPD51)
The veneration and near-worship of the president, and the presidency, has been with us for a long time. In fact, while Americans fancy themselves a Christian people, and their nation a Christian nation, the national faith of the US – and most Americans – is Americanism, and the god of most Americans is their country, its "principles" and its symbols worshiped in deeply held civic faith willed into being over the last 2 centuries (more or less) from bits and pieces of English Calvinism, deism and 19th century evangelicalism. And a whole lot of wishful thinking and very hot air.
Poor Paranoid Protestants...
Although Falwell's personal influence had been waning for years, his death at age 73 last week threw into stark relief the current headless state of the political movement he founded with the establishment of the Moral Majority in 1978. There is no single leader who stands astride the movement as Falwell once did. "Falwell's death highlights the inevitable change in the leadership of conservative Christians. The big question is whether there will be one prominent leader for this movement, as there was most of the time in the past, or whether there will be many leaders, making the movement more diffuse and perhaps less influential."
"At what point, then, is the approach of danger to be expected? I answer, if it ever reach us, it must spring up amongst us. It cannot come from abroad. If destruction be our lot, we must ourselves be its author and finisher. As a nation of freemen, we must live through all time, or die by suicide." So said Abe Lincoln to the Young Men's Lyceum in Springfield. Observing the Senate last week, and looking over the latest figures from the Census Bureau, America is now risking national suicide.
"Sicko," Michael Moore's scathing, important look at the US healthcare system has plenty to rile the far right - and a lot more to enrage the larger American public.
Oil prices have risen above $70 a barrel after a fresh attack on oil installations in Nigeria belonging to France's Total.
Thanks George!...
Royal Dutch Shell, the biggest European oil company, may shelve a joint venture plan to create the largest US refinery because of President Bush's efforts to reduce gasoline use, a Shell executive said Monday.
Over a 3 year period $1.4 trillion mortgages will go into foreclosure and Ben Bernanke tells us, "the slowdown in the housing market has further to run, but it won't have an impact on the rest of the economy." He must be referring to the Martian economy.
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