An International Missionary Outr

While official Washington has been poring over Harriet Miers' long-ago doings on the Dallas City Council and parsing the Byzantine comings and goings of the Fitzgerald grand jury, relatively unnoticed was perhaps the most momentous event of our lifetime - what is left of it, as I shall explain. It was announced last week that American scientists have just created a living, killing copy of the 1918 "Spanish" flu. This is big. Very big.

First, it is a scientific achievement of staggering proportions. The Spanish flu has not been seen on this planet for 85 years. Its re-creation is a story of enterprise, ingenuity, serendipity, hard work and sheer brilliance. It involves finding deep in the bowels of a military hospital in Washington a couple of tissue samples from the lungs of soldiers who died in 1918, and the disinterment of an Alaskan Eskimo who died of the flu and whose remains had been preserved by the permafrost.

Then, using slicing and dicing techniques only Michael Crichton could imagine, they pulled off a microbiological Jurassic Park: the first resurrection of an ancient pathogen. And not just any ancient pathogen, explained virologist Eddie Holmes, but "the agent of the most important disease pandemic in human history."

Which brings us to the second element of this story: Beyond the brilliance lies the sheer terror. We have quite literally brought back to life an agent of near-biblical destruction. It killed more humans than any other disease of similar duration in the history of the world, says Alfred W. Crosby, who wrote a history of the 1918 pandemic. And, notes the New Scientist, when the re-created virus was given to mice in heavily quarantined laboratories in Atlanta, it killed the mice more quickly than any other flu virus ever tested.

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Article: Wars and Rumors of Wars

October 16, 2005 - Russians Help Iran With Missile Threat to Europe

Former members of the Russian military have been secretly helping Iran to acquire technology needed to produce missiles capable of striking European capitals.

The Russians are acting as go-betweens with North Korea as part of a multi-million pound deal they negotiated between Teheran and Pyongyang in 2003. It has enabled Teheran to receive regular clandestine shipments of top-secret missile technology, believed to be channeled through Russia.

Western intelligence officials believe that the technology will enable Iran to complete development of a missile with a range of 2,200 miles, capable of hitting much of Europe. It is designed to carry a 1.2-ton payload, sufficient for a basic nuclear device.

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Article: Roman Catholic Church and the Last Days

October 17, 2005 - Pope Benedict XVI Channels John Paul II

In the first major interview of his papacy, broadcast on Sunday by a Polish TV station, Pope Benedict XVI said the late Pope John Paul II not only occupied his thoughts but maintained a "constant dialogue" with him through his writings and his abiding presence. Benedict spoke in Italian, on Pope's Day, the anniversary of the late Pope John Paul II's election to the papacy in 1978. He suggested a visit to Poland in June was possible -- "If God wills it, and if my schedule allows for it" -- and laid out a few basic differences between John Paul's papacy and his own.

"My personal mission is not to issue many new documents, but to ensure that his documents are assimilated, because they are a rich treasure," he said. John Paul II left behind a mass of writing, including 14 encyclicals (communications issued by the pope to the Catholic leadership) and many Pastoral Letters. This writing keeps Pope Benedict in constant touch with his predecessor. "I hear him and I see him speaking, so I can keep up a continuous dialogue with him," he said. "... His nearness to me isn't limited to words and texts, because behind the texts I hear the Pope himself. A man who goes to the Lord doesn't disappear: I believe that someone who goes to the Lord comes even closer to us."

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Article: Miscellaneous

October 10, 2005 - An Anatomy of Megachurches

"Megachurch"-like "McMansion" or "big-box store"-is a disdainful put-down. And like many put-downs it is not particularly accurate; very large churches have been around for a long time. Think Hagia Sophia, the Gothic cathedrals, or that Vatican megabasilica, St. Peter's, which accommodates 60,000 worshipers. (The largest church in the world is an overscaled replica of St. Peter's in Côte d'Ivoire, of all places.) What distinguishes the current crop of megachurches is not so much their size-none rivals St. Peter's-but their different sense of architectural style.

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Article: Roman Catholic Church and the Last Days

October 17, 2005 - Benedict XVI's Interview on Polish Television

ohn Paul II "Is Always Close to Me

Q: Holy Father, often in your speeches you evoke the figure of John Paul II and of John Paul II you say he was a great Pope, a venerated late predecessor. We always remember the words you pronounced at the Mass last April 20, words dedicated precisely to John Paul II. It was you, Holy Father, who said -- and here I quote -- "it seems as though he is tightly holding my hand, I see his laughing eyes and I hear his words, which at that moment he is directing to me in particular: 'do not be afraid!'" Holy Father, finally a very personal question: Do you continue to feel the presence of John Paul II, and if you do, in what way?

..... The Pope is always close to me through his writings: I hear him and I see him speaking, so I can keep up a continuous dialogue with him. He is always speaking to me through his writings. I even know the origin of some of the texts. I can remember the discussions we had about some of them. So I can continue my conversations with the Holy Father.

This nearness to him isn't limited to words and texts, because behind the texts I hear the Pope himself. A man who goes to the Lord doesn't disappear: I believe that someone who goes to the Lord comes even closer to us and I feel he is close to me and that I am close to the Lord.

I am near the Pope and now he helps me to be near the Lord and I try to enter this atmosphere of prayer, of love for our Lord, for Our Lady and I entrust myself to his prayers. So there is a permanent dialogue and we're close to each other in a new way, in a very deep way.

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Article: Roman Catholic Church and the Last Days

October 17, 2005 - Eucharist Seen as an Antidote to Drug Addiction

The most effective medicine to alleviate drug addiction could be the Eucharist, suggests the founder of the Community of the Cenacle.
Sister Elvira Petrozzi, addressing the Synod of Bishops last Wednesday, explained how devotion to the Blessed Sacrament changed the lives of many youth recovering from drug addiction.

"What therapeutic method or medicine could I offer them?" she asked, referring to drug addicts. "There is no pill that can give them the joy to live and peace in the heart!"
"I proposed to them what lifted me and gave me back hope so many times: the mercy of God and Eucharistic prayer," she answered.

"The Eucharist cannot be understood by one's brain, but it is felt in the heart," she said. "If you trustfully kneel before him, you will feel that his humanity present in the consecrated host reawakens God's image in you that returns to shine.

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Article: Israel and the Last Days

October 16, 2005 - Court won't let Temple Mount group lay 'cornerstone' of Third Temple

The High Court of Justice on Sunday rejected a request by the Temple Mount Faithful to place what the organization said was the cornerstone of the Third Temple next to the Western Wall, Israel Radio reported.

The court also rejected a request by the group to visit the Temple Mount after 9 A.M. during the week-long Sukkot holiday, which begins Monday night. The organization says its goal is to build the Third Temple on the Temple Mount and to liberate the Temple Mount from "Arab occupation."

The justices said they feared clashes because Sukkot coincides this year with the Islamic holy month of Ramadan, which has become a time of increased attacks by suicide bombers in addition to being a month of fasting and introspection.

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Article: Israel and the Last Days

October 19, 2005 - Police Defy Ruling Allowing Jews to Pray at Temple Mount

The Jerusalem police station responsible for security on the Temple Mount defied a High Court of Justice ruling permitting Jews to worship on the Temple Mount Wednesday morning.
On Monday, the eve of the Sukkot holiday, the High Court of Justice handed down a ruling officially permitting Jews to pray on Jerusalem's Temple Mount on Wednesday, between 7:30-9:00am. The court's decision was in response to a petition filed by the Temple Mount Faithful organization. The ruling stipulated that in order to prevent a confrontation with Muslims, prayers must conclude by 9:00 o'clock, when Islamic worshippers usually arrive.
The decision sets a precedent, as it permits Jews not only to visit the Mount but also to pray there. Such a position has not been taken by the court since at least 1976.

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Article: Signs of the Times

October 19, 2005 - Apocalypse, Now? Katrina, other disasters fuel doomsday predictions

MSNBC

Updated: 9:02 p.m. ET Oct. 19, 2005

It's been 10 months of epic disaster. First there was the tsunami that killed some 250,000 people in Southeast Asia. Then came Hurricane Katrina with its devastating toll on the Gulf Coast, followed by an earthquake that took tens of thousands of lives in South Asia. Now, Hurricane Wilma, one of the most powerful storms ever measured in the Atlantic Basin, is stalking the Florida coast, and experts are warning of a deadly avian flu pandemic.

It's enough to make just about anyone pause to look for meaning in the madness...

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Article: Roman Catholic Church and the Last Days

October 20, 2005 - "The Eucharist Is the Cross Present in History"

Has a wafer actually replaced the Cross? Jesus' ultimate sacrifice?

October 20, 2005 - "The Eucharist Is the Cross Present in History"

VATICAN CITY, OCT. 20, 2005 (Zenit.org).- Is the real presence of the body and blood of Christ in the Eucharist a convention or a fact?

Archbishop Angelo Comastri, the Pope's vicar general for Vatican City State, has asked himself this question and responds in this interview, which comes as the Synod of Bishops on the Eucharist draws to a close this Sunday.

Q: What do you think of the accusation of obscurantism leveled against those who have devotion to the Eucharist?

Archbishop Comastri: Much more than being important, devotion to the Eucharist cannot be omitted. There is no Church if there is no Eucharist.
Moreover, we must not pay attention to what the newspapers write or what the first person we meet thinks.
We must listen to Jesus who has endowed the Church with the Eucharist as the greatest gift of this time of pilgrimage toward eternity, toward the new heavens and the new earth.
Jesus waited for the most overwhelming moment, when he was preparing to ascend the cross, to go to Calvary, the moment of greatest love.
In that moment, Jesus put in the hands of the apostles this enormous gift, in which he enclosed the act of love which is the root of the whole of salvation that exists in history; because the Eucharist is not an alternative to the cross; the Eucharist is the cross present in history.

...Q: What can you say about the Eucharistic miracles? Are they proofs for people of little faith?

Archbishop Comastri:The greatest miracles are those of conversion, of the change of heart, of the healing of despair. Great miracles happen in persons who come into contact with the Eucharist.

The problem is that many don't have the humility to look at the facts, to bow before history and to face these miracles.

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Article: One World Religion

October 19, 2005 - Clinton Wows Canadians with Globalist Platitudes and Hypnotic Charisma

TORONTO, October 19, 2005 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Even in the fifth decade of their Trudeau-inspired national identity crisis, the one thing that Canadians, particularly Torontonians, can agree upon is their hatred for America, particularly for the traditional Christian values espoused by its current president, George W. Bush.

Canadian anti-Americanism is, paradoxically, perhaps best expressed in its adulation for one of the US's most infamously unscrupulous and immoral leaders, former president William Jefferson Clinton. Clinton gave a day-long motivational seminar, called The Power Within, to 5,000 paying listeners in Toronto yesterday while scooping up his usual average $160,000 fee for the event. The former president, whose administration was the most scandal-plagued in US history, urged Canadians to put an end to child poverty and terrorism by embracing the world's religions.

"I hope to help create more of a global conscience, a shared consensus about the challenges we share going forward into the future. We have to find a way to reach that other half of people in the world who don't know we care about them," he said to the audience of business leaders.

... According to those in attendance the former president's appeal has more to do with an ability to manipulate an audience and his almost hypnotic personal charisma than anything unique about what he said.

... To those who keep watch on the agenda of the globalist New Left, however, Clinton's platitudes and soundbites are only too familiar.

They are simplified versions of those proposed by the Canadian guru of the left, Maurice Strong and former Soviet President Mikhail Gorbachev in their Earth Charter, a document adopted by the United Nations that Clinton was rumored to soon be heading as the next Secretary General. The Earth Charter proposes to replace all the religions of the world with pantheistic nature worship in which the human race is seen as a kind of disease to be controlled with abortion and sterilization.

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