The Weekly News In
Review
Newsletter is a
compilation of the news articles that have appeared
on the Understand The Times website during the
previous week.
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October 14 - Call for Muslim-Christian Unity 'Very Encouraging', Says Vatican Interfaith Head
Article: Ecumenical Movement - Other Religions Uniting With Roman Catholics
A top Vatican
official in charge of relations with Islam
said a recent letter from
Muslim scholars to Pope Benedict XVI and other
global Christian leaders is "very interesting" and
"very
encouraging."
"I would say that this represents
a very encouraging
sign because it shows that good
will and dialogue are capable of
overcoming prejudices," Cardinal
Jean-Louis Tauran said Friday, according
to The Associated Press.
Using quotations from
the Bible and the Koran to support
their message, the
authors of the letter argued that
the most fundamental tenets of Islam and
Christianity are identical: love of
one (and the same)
God, and love of one's neighbor.
Shortly after news of the
letter was released, Anglican
Archbishop Rowan Williams, who is
among the letter's recipients, responded,
saying "[t]he
call to respect, peace and goodwill
should now be taken up by Christians and
Muslims at all levels and in all
countries."
In
addition to Benedict and Williams,
Thursday's letter
also addressed
Ecumenical Patriarch
Bartholomeos I, "first among equals" in the
Eastern Orthodox Communion; Dr.
Samuel Kobia, general secretary of the World
Council of Churches; as well as leaders of
world groupings of Baptist,
Lutheran, Methodist and Reformed
Christians.
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October - 15 Fatima's message is that following Gospel is path to peace, pope says
Article: Roman Catholic Church And The Last Days
FATIMA,
Portugal (CNS) -- The
heart of the message of
Fatima is that following the Gospel is the path
to authentic peace,
Pope Benedict XVI said in a message broadcast
Oct. 14 at the Marian
shrine.
Marking the 90th anniversary
of the last apparition of Our Lady of
Fatima to three young children,
Pope Benedict said
the shrine continues to echo
Mary's call to "her children to live their
baptismal consecration in
every moment of their existence."
"She is the refuge and the path
that leads to
God," he told
thousands of pilgrims at the shrine for an
anniversary Mass and the
dedication of a new shrine church.
During his midday Angelus
prayer at the Vatican,
the pope asked Mary to give
"all Christians the gift of true conversion
so that the perennial Gospel
message, which shows humanity the path to
authentic peace, would be
proclaimed and witnessed to with coherence and
fidelity."
"Our Lady did not
ask to be admired,
invoked or venerated," he
said. "She asked people to entrust themselves
to her. She asked that the
hearts of individuals, nations and all
humanity would be
consecrated to her."
As Mary's choice of appearing
at Fatima to three illiterate children
demonstrates, "heaven requires the effort, even
seemingly insignificant, of the
most humble servants," he
said.
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October 14 - The faithful remember miracle of Fatima
Article: Signs And Wonders
With tears
streaming down her cheeks, Victoria
Dumlao spoke of the day last month when
she and others believe they
saw an image
of Jesus and his mother Mary in the
sky above a Catholic shrine in Warren
County.
"The sky,
it showed us, Jesus, the Eucharist,"
she said. "To see is to
believe."
So, fueled by
curiosity, spirituality and a hope they, too,
would have a holy experience,
the faithful more than 3,000 -- came by
bus and church van, by bicycle and
car from as far away as California to
celebrate Mass and listen to several
priests talk about the sightings.
"Just as
everyone who sought refuge on Noah's
ark, so, too, all those who find refuge
in Mary will be saved from damnation and
eternal death,"
Rev. Ronan Murphy preached.
"Prayer is the most powerful force in the
universe."
Shortly
before Mass began, parishioner
Jacinta Velasquez of Jersey City purchased a statue of
Jacinta Marto, after whom
Velasquez said she was named.
"It's not only a
souvenir from today, but something to
remind me of miracles," she
said.
"I don't need people to
believe that I saw," she said.
"I
know that I saw and when you have the
faith everything that you need will be
provided."
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October 16 - Believers See The Holy Father In Bonfire Flames
Article: Signs And Wonders
A fiery figure in flames is
being
hailed as the latest miracle of
Pope John Paul II. The image is
said by many to be that of the
late Holy Father with his right hand
raised in a blessing. It
appeared during a commemoration ceremony to
mark his
death.Details of
the figure in the flames have
appeared on the Vatican News Service
- a TV station which
specialises in religious news broadcasts.
Vatican News Service director
father Jarek Cielecki, a Polish priest and
close friend of the late Pope
John Paul II, described the event after
attending a service at Beskid
Zywiecki, close to the Holy Father's
birthplace at Wadowice, in
southern Poland.
The pictures are being broadcast
continuously on Italian TV and
also posted on religious websites as
links to the Polish religious
website
www.korazym.org.
''I was so
happy
with the picture that I
showed it to our local bishop, who said
that Pope John Paul had
made many pilgrimages during his life and he was
still making them in
death.''
Father
Cielecki said: ''You can
see the image of a person in
the flames and I think it is the servant of
God, Pope John Paul
II.''
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October 15 - Osteen Reveals Keys to Becoming a 'Better You'
Article: Apostasy
Following
the huge success of his first published
work, Your Best Life Now: 7
Steps to Living at your Full Potential,
the bestselling author has on
shelves 3 million copies of his latest
work - the highest first
printing
for a hardcover book in history
of publishing house Simon & Schuster.
Osteen is currently on a
national media tour."I
don't go in and give you a
hundred scriptures in each chapter,"
said Osteen, answering critics
about his book being another self-help
book.
"[B]ut it's the principles of God's
words,"
he added, according to
Houston's ABC 13.
Like Osteen's first book,
Become a Better You is mainly taken
from the megachurch pastor's
weekly sermons which are
positive
messages without the traditional
teachings of suffering or what
critics call the prosperity gospel.
Osteen believes his
newest work is better than his first, which
sold about 5 million
copies.
Become a Better
You features "7 keys to improving your life
every day." Although his
first book presented steps to living "Your Best
Life Now," he said, "it is important that you do
not become
stagnant."
"God always wants to increase
us, to do more in
and through us. He always
wants to take us deeper into self-discovery
and then wants to raise us to a
higher level of living," he
writes in his newest
book.
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October 16 - Bush to Meet With Dalai Lama Today
Article: One World Religion.
WASHINGTON
(AP) - President Bush
and the Dalai Lama will meet
today with a ceremony planned for tomorrow
to award the spiritual leader
the Congressional Gold Medal. China
is warning that the events are
bad for U.S.-Chinese ties.
The Dalai
Lama is the exiled spiritual leader of
Tibet's Buddhists. While the
Dalai Lama is lauded
in much of the world as a
figure of moral authority, Beijing
reviles the 1989 Nobel Peace
Prize laureate and claims he seeks to
destroy China's sovereignty by
pushing for independence for Tibet, where
the Dalai Lama is considered
a god-king.
Bush supports the Dalai Lama's
visit, although the White
House tried to ameliorate Chinese anger
before the Tibetan priest's
arrival. Bush told
Chinese President Hu Jintao
at a recent meeting that he would be
welcoming the spiritual leader
to Washington.
"We
would hope that the Chinese leader would get to
know
the Dalai Lama as the president sees
him - as a spiritual leader and
someone who wants peace,"
she said.
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October 17- Putin warns US against military action in Iran
Article: Wars And Rumors Of Wars
Russia's
president, Vladimir Putin, gave
Iran's leaders a public morale boost in
their nuclear dispute with the west
yesterday by issuing a veiled warning
to the US not to resort to military strikes
over the issue.
Mr Putin used a
historic visit to Tehran - the first by a
Kremlin leader since Stalin in
1943 - to amplify his opposition to an
American attack against Iran. "We
should not even think of making use of
force in this region," he told a five-
nation summit meeting of Caspian Sea
nations.
In a
coup for Tehran's leadership, he
invited the Iranian president, Mahmoud
Ahmadinejad, to Moscow for talks.
Mr
Putin called on the five countries
- Azerbaijan, Kazakhstan, Turkmenistan,
Russia and Iran - not to allow an
outside power to use their territories to
launch an attack on another member
of the group.
Despite the
meeting's failure to satisfy
Iranian demands for a fairer allocation, Mr
Ahmadinejad praised the
communique as "very strong"
after it gave explicit backing to Iran's nuclear
programme. It
declared that all signatory nations to
the nuclear non-proliferation treaty -
including Iran - can "carry out
research and can use nuclear energy for
peaceful means without
discrimination". The wording
supported Iran's claim that it is being
singled out unfairly over its nuclear
ambitions, which it insists are
peaceful.
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NEWS ALERT - October 17 - Dalai Lama's All Smiles as He Receives Congressional Gold Medal
Article: One World Religion
Comment from
Understand The Times - October 17
Understand The Times sends out
news alerts
to inform our newsletter
recipients about current events that line up
Bible
Prophecy. This news alert is somewhat
different. Today I experienced a news
event first hand while in Washington D.C.
Then I had one of my researchers
find the news event online to post as an
alert.
I am
writing this from the Washington
Dulles Airport on my way to London,
England. I had a one day layover in
Washington, spending some time with my
wife Myrna while she was attending a
work related conference. This morning I
went with a friend to see the
Smithsonian museum located at
the Washington Mall. While there we
walked
towards the House of Congress where a
large crowd was assembling. When I
asked a security guard what was going on
I was told that the Dalai Lama was
soon to appear following a presentation of
a Congressional award.
The
sound of Tibetan chanting and whaling
over the loud speakers confirmed that a
ceremony was about to take place. A
large sign posted the following message:
"There can be no world peace
without first obtaining inner
peace."
While
the secular media would never report
what I am about to state, my
perception is that this event has
paramount
significance in the spiritual realm. Last
week a so-called "born-again"
President stated that all religions pray to
the same God. This week in front
of the United States House of Congress,
Tibetan monks were chanting to the
gods and a "man of peace"
who some say is God was being honored.
America is on the precipice
of an
unprecedented disaster and a spiritual
judgment. A country supposedly
founded on
Christian principles has now openly
abandoned the God of the
Bible and is headed towards
Babylonism.
Worse
yet, people who profess to be
"born-again" Christians, don't
understand the significance of what is
happening from a
biblical perspective. The world is being
prepared for a
false peace and a false Christ. The
Roman Catholic Church will soon have the
solution to bring about this peace plan that
will be ushered in by the Queen
of Peace ("Mary") and her son
the (Eucharistic Christ). It is amazing when
governments of the world begin to bring
this about.
President Bush and the leaders
of Congress put aside their
differences Wednesday to bestow the
nation's highest civilian honor upon the
Dalai Lama, calling the exiled Tibetan
religious leader a "warrior for
peace."
The Dalai Lama said
he was "deeply touched" by his
receipt of the Congressional Gold Medal,
which he received in an ornate
ceremony under the U.S. Capitol dome -
but not before having a hearty laugh
over his inability to speak perfect
English.
"It is a great
honor for me to receive the Congressional
Gold Medal. This ... will bring tremendous
joy and encouragement to the
Tibetan people, for whom I have a special
responsibility," the Dalai Lama
said, reading from his prepared
remarks.
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October 17 - Rick Warren Launches New Plan to Multiply Impact Worldwide
Article: Misc.
Saddleback
Church, one of the largest churches in the
nation,
has launched a new global vision to
multiply impact on the local
and international levels. Within the
next three years, megachurch
in the Lake Forest, Calif., aims to launch
nine new off-site campuses in
addition to its San Clemente campus, which
meets every weekend at the
local high school, and
step up its global P.E.A.C.E.
plan. By 2010, Saddleback hopes to see
10,000 more lives changed
and baptized.
"One of the most important
words in the Christian
life [is] 'go,'" said
Rick Warren, founding and senior pastor of
Saddleback, during his
"Multiplying Our Impact" sermon series
last
month. "The Christian life is a journey
and over
and over again God says you
are to go. We are not a passive faith; you
are a 'going'
faith."
"What
we have seen is that many
churches that see the
lostness that surrounds them are willing to
embrace new modern
methodologies to communicate the unchanging
message
of the hope of Jesus,"
said McGill.
Now, Warren is building a PEACE
Coalition of partners that
includes the government and NGOs and
businesses in addition to
churches. The "P" in PEACE 2.0
now
stands for "Promote
reconciliation" while churches will continue to
focus on planting
churches.
Why? Because it's the
responsibility of the church to do it, said
Warren. And
Saddleback wants to be part of
God's plan of exposing every tribe,
language, people and nation
to the gospel.
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October 18 - China summons U.S. envoy over Dalai Lama award
Article: Misc.
BEIJING
(Reuters) - China slammed the United States on
Thursday for awarding the
Dalai Lama one of its
highest honors and summoned the U.S.
ambassador in
Beijing to
complain, saying its actions had
"gravely
undermined" relations.
China, which
considers the Dalai Lama a separatist, had
already denounced the award as a
"farce" that
would hurt relations between
Beijing and Washington.
"The
move of the United States is a
blatant interference in China's
internal affairs, hurts the feelings of
the Chinese people and has
gravely undermined relations between
China and the United
States," Foreign Ministry
spokesman
Liu Jianchao told a news
conference.
"We urge the United States to take
concrete steps to remove the
terrible impact of its erroneous
actions."
The United States is the latest
country after
Germany and
Australia to incur the
wrath of Beijing over visits this year by
the Dalai Lama.
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October 18 - Putin touts new nuclear weapons against US
Article:Wars And Rumors Of Wars
President Vladimir Putin has
announced
plans to build a new
generation of nuclear weapons after accusing the
United States of harbouring an
"erotic" desire to invade Russia and
steal its natural resources.
Delivering one of his most belligerent
anti-Western tirades, Mr Putin also suggested that
America and its allies had
concocted a fake assassination
plot
to prevent him from
visiting Iran this week.
Russia's already rapid
rearmament would be
stepped up even further, Mr Putin promised.
Ambitious plans to bolster the
country's nuclear arsenal - as well as
its conventional military
hardware - were well underway.
They include new
missile systems, modernised
nuclear bombers and submarines. "We have
plans that are not only great,
but grandiose," he boasted.
"For them, Putin
is the only man who can
defend us from these vicious enemies."
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October 18 - Joel Osteen Converts To Mormonism?
Article: Apostasy
Larry asks Joel the question if Mitt's
Mormonism would keep him
from voting for him. Osteen steered fine
initially saying, that what he
had read demonstrated that he was a man
of character. But then Osteen
veered into the unforgiveable -
being a theological
dufus:
"I've heard him (Mitt
Romney)
say that he
believes in Jesus as his Savior, just like I do... I
hadn't studied it
deeply and maybe people don't agree with
me..."
He also
wanted to know intensely if what Osteen said
was in fact an endorsement of
Mormonism.
On the technical side of
things - the answer is yes.
If Joel Osteen believes that he
and Mitt worship the same "Jesus" then
Osteen is a heretic and should
never preach again at least certainly not
in evangelical churches.
Which in a very small
snapshot demonstrates Osteen's problem start to
finish. He's a nice guy, he
gives great "power of positive thinking" pep
talks. But for Heaven's sake -
some one please
recognize that he is either
willfully negligent or completely
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October 18 - Mel Gibson Named 'Most Powerful Christian' in Hollywood
Article: Apostasy
Mel Gibson has been
named
the "most powerful Christian"
in Hollywood by the
multi-denominational website
Beliefnet.American filmmaker and
actor Mel Gibson shares a
laugh with the audience at a panel discussion
about the green challenge in
businesses during the Forbes Global CEO
Conference, Tuesday Sept. 11,
2007, in Singapore. The director of hit
movie "Passion of the
Christ," who is Catholic,
topped the Beliefnet Power
Dozen list of Christians that "have the clout
to choose their career
direction, while keeping their faith and even
injecting it into their work in
subtle or not-so-subtle ways."
Many attribute Gibson's
blockbuster movie,
which aimed at providing an
authentic portrayal of Jesus Christ's
crucifixion and even featured
Hebrew and Aramaic languages, as the spark
that helped Hollywood re-
discover the Christian and faith market.
Furthermore, Gibson has
also financed the
building of a Roman Catholic
church in California.
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October 18 - Rice Prays for Mideast Peace at Jesus' Birthplace
Article: One World Religion
Note: Rice believes in
"replacement theology" - that the church is
Israel and that the promises
for Israel are for the church not Israel.
"Being here at
the birthplace of my Lord and Savior,
Jesus Christ, has been a very
special and moving experience," said Rice,
the daughter and
granddaughter of Presbyterian ministers, after the
tour, according to The
Associated Press. "It is
also, I think, a personal
reminder that the prince of peace is still
with us."
She
highlighted that the three largest monotheistic
religions of the Holy Land -
Judaism, Christianity and Islam -
have the
opportunity to "overcome differences, to
put aside grievances, to make
religion a power of healing and a power of
reconciliation, rather than a
power of divisions."
While, Rice
did not comment on Israel's West Bank
separation, she did note that
she grew up in the
segregated U.S. South where
people turned away from violence when they
felt they could get a fair chance
in life.
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October 18 - Harry Potter Author Reveals Books' Christian Allegory, Her Struggling F
Article: Rising Interest In The Supernatural
During a
press conference at the kick-off of her
"Open Book Tour"
on Monday, the British author told reporters that
while
religious themes were always present she
purposely refrained from
referencing any particular religion in order to
conceal the
ending.Apparently, the last
installment of the series is
about resurrection and life after death.
By the end of the book,
Harry becomes the
"Master of Death"
and "resurrects" from the dead the spirits
of his
parents, his godfather, Sirius
Black and his old teacher Remus Lupin.
Even though her books
contain religious themes, the church-going
author revealed that she struggles with believing
in a basic Christian tenet of life
after death.
"The truth is that, like Graham
Greene, my
faith is sometimes that my
faith will return. It's something I struggle
with a lot,"
Rowling admitted. "On any given moment
if you asked
me [if] I believe in life after
death, I think if you polled me
regularly through the week, I
think I would come down on the side of yes
- that I
do believe in life after death. [But]
it's something that I wrestle
with a lot. It preoccupies me a lot, and I
think that's very obvious within
the books."
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October 17 - Vladimir Putin pledges to complete Iranian nuclear reactor
Article: Wars And Rumors Of Wars
President Putin forged an alliance
with Iran yesterday against any
military action by the West and pledged
to complete the controversial
Iranian nuclear power plant at Bushehr.
Mr Putin and Mr
Ahmadinejad met after the summit for private talks.
State television in Tehran quoted Mr Putin as
saying that Russia would
continue to "assist Iran's peaceful nuclear
programme".
Russia is building Iran's first atomic
power
plant in the port city of
Bushehr. A row over Iranian payments
has slowed down the work,
and Mr Putin emerged from yesterday's meeting
without setting a date for the
$1 billion (£500 million) project.
However, Russian media
later reported that Moscow had promised to
complete the work on
schedule. "The
construction
and the commission of
Bushehr will be implemented in accordance with the
agreed timetable,"
the Russian news agency Ria reported, citing
the two leaders' joint
statement. Mr Putin also
invited Mr Ahmadinejad to
Moscow.
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We hope the Weekly News In Review has been a
blessing to you.
In Jesus,
Roger Oakland
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