Catholic News 2
FORT MYERS, Fla. (AP) -- Anxious Republican officials are coming to terms with the idea that their second least favorite GOP presidential candidate - polarizing Texas conservative Ted Cruz - may be the party's best last chance to stop Donald Trump....
SEOUL, South Korea (AP) -- North Korea responded to South Korean unilateral sanctions Thursday by firing short-range ballistic missiles into the sea in a show of defiance and vowing to "liquidate" all remaining South Korean assets at former cooperative projects in the North....
SIMI VALLEY, Calif. (AP) -- The Latest on the death of Nancy Reagan (all times local):...
WASHINGTON (AP) -- How can it be that Bernie Sanders could stand on the side of vigilantes on the border, against the auto industry bailout, against an immigration overhaul that would have eased the plight of people in the country illegally? Can this be the liberal senator his supporters know and love?...
WASHINGTON (AP) -- The Latest on 2016 presidential sweepstakes following primaries and caucuses Tuesday in Michigan, Mississippi, Idaho and Hawaii:...
MIAMI (AP) -- Fighting for Florida and beyond, Hillary Clinton and Bernie Sanders tangled in an intense debate Wednesday night over who's the true friend of American Hispanics, trading accusations over guest worker programs "akin to slavery" and the embracing of "vigilantes" against immigrants....
Mexico City, Mexico, Mar 9, 2016 / 03:08 pm (CNA).- The murder of a 24-year-old man in Chihuahua, Mexico last month is being considered by authorities as a “possible satanic ritual” designed to transform the victim into a vampire.A report from the Chihuahua State attorney general says that the four people accused of the murder – three men and a woman, ages 18-25 – “profess Satanism” and performed “inside the Ciber Café an initiation rite in which they decided to have as their victim their friend Edwin Miguel Juárez Palma.”According to the Chihuahua attorney general, the four defendants took the young man “by deception, they bound his hands and lied to him, telling him that he would be initiated into the sect called ‘Sons of Baphomet 1,’ unaware he himself would be the 'sacrifice'… they beat him and wounded him with a glass bottle causing him to die.”Quoted by local media, the directo...
Mexico City, Mexico, Mar 9, 2016 / 03:08 pm (CNA).- The murder of a 24-year-old man in Chihuahua, Mexico last month is being considered by authorities as a “possible satanic ritual” designed to transform the victim into a vampire.
A report from the Chihuahua State attorney general says that the four people accused of the murder – three men and a woman, ages 18-25 – “profess Satanism” and performed “inside the Ciber Café an initiation rite in which they decided to have as their victim their friend Edwin Miguel Juárez Palma.”
According to the Chihuahua attorney general, the four defendants took the young man “by deception, they bound his hands and lied to him, telling him that he would be initiated into the sect called ‘Sons of Baphomet 1,’ unaware he himself would be the 'sacrifice'… they beat him and wounded him with a glass bottle causing him to die.”
Quoted by local media, the director general of the State Police, Pablo Rocha Acosta, said that the young man asked to participate in the rite so he could “resurrect as a vampire.”
Speaking to CNA, noted exorcist and demonology expert Father José Antonio Fortea warned that “the vampire fad is something that's very close to Satanism.”
This fad, he said, “is not just a taste for darkness, but rather a taste for evil, an aesthetic connected to an entire way of looking at life.”
“Vampire-ism totally amounts to devil worship,” he said.
Chihuahua is one of the states hardest hit by drug trafficking violence in Mexico. Juarez, its most populous city, was considered up until 2011 to be the most violent city in the world.
Fr. Fortea stressed the relationship between a society steeped in violence and the growth of Satanism.
“The more a society abandons the ways of God, the more cases of Satanism. The more a nation is Christian, there are fewer cases of devil worship,” he said.
The Spanish exorcist also explained that one does not spontaneously become a Satanist.
“A person only worships the devil when he has come to the end of a complete process of moral degradation. There's a very big difference between following your own passions and participating in a satanic ritual,” he said.
In May 2015, Fr. Fortea coordinated a Major Exorcism of the entire country of Mexico.
The exorcism, which took place in the Archdiocese of San Luis Potosi, Mexico, “puts up barriers to demonic action,” he said. “But unfortunately, that exorcism doesn't serve to prevent someone who is already morally degraded from approaching the Devil asking for things.”
Credit: ArtThailand via www.shutterstock.com
IMAGE: (CNS photo/Mohammed Badra, EPABy Beth GriffinNEWYORK (CNS) -- "The most massive failure of the Catholic community at alllevels in the past 20 years has been to address the question of our ongoinginvolvement in the Middle East," according to San Diego Bishop Robert W.McElroy."What is particularlyfascinating and troubling is all three recent popes were clearly opposed to thewars, yet at no level in the Catholic community was there any major oppositionor sustained witness," he said. "It's like the dog that didn't bark."He spoke March 7 at a forum inNew York sponsored by Commonweal magazine on the topic "Prophecy WithoutContempt" and in a subsequent interview with Catholic News Service.Bishop McElroy said there hasbeen no sustained discussion or opposition in society as a whole, as two warsdragged on to become the longest in American history. He attributed the lack ofdiscourse to the absence of a military draft and the subsequent distancing ofthe fighting from the consciousness o...
IMAGE: (CNS photo/Mohammed Badra, EPA
By Beth Griffin
NEW YORK (CNS) -- "The most massive failure of the Catholic community at all levels in the past 20 years has been to address the question of our ongoing involvement in the Middle East," according to San Diego Bishop Robert W. McElroy.
"What is particularly fascinating and troubling is all three recent popes were clearly opposed to the wars, yet at no level in the Catholic community was there any major opposition or sustained witness," he said. "It's like the dog that didn't bark."
He spoke March 7 at a forum in New York sponsored by Commonweal magazine on the topic "Prophecy Without Contempt" and in a subsequent interview with Catholic News Service.
Bishop McElroy said there has been no sustained discussion or opposition in society as a whole, as two wars dragged on to become the longest in American history. He attributed the lack of discourse to the absence of a military draft and the subsequent distancing of the fighting from the consciousness of the people.
"The suffering is not here," he said. Paraphrasing historian David Kennedy, the bishop said, "America has created a capacity to fight wars endlessly because the cost to U.S. society is small, not wrenching, in terms of casualties and as a portion of the U.S. economy."
All three popes opposed U.S. participation in these wars, he said, but "at all levels, the Catholic community has been virtually silent."
The prophecy on the war issue has occurred in the Middle East, he said, where all parties have articulated that the region has been subjected to great tragedies, the bishop said.
Bishop McElroy said the attack on the Muslim community in the United States is "a great outrage."
"The Muslim question is an alarm bell about authoritarianism in society. That's not just a disagreement. It's an alarm bell that goes to the core of who we are as a nation and absolutely needs to be repudiated in the strongest possible way by everybody," Bishop McElroy said.
The anger dominating the current political climate is a sign of disenfranchisement and the feeling of not being listened to by the elites, Bishop McElroy said.
"When significant sectors of working-class white America feel disenfranchised, that's a problem, and this gets played upon in a troubling way," he said.
"Anger that turns into division should always be challenged," the bishop said. "What we're witnessing now is an anger that's meant to divide, to be purposefully destructive of the social fabric of society. It's not anger that is meant simply to redress grievances."
Bishop McElroy said many white Catholic working-class men and women feel shut out of the political process. The Democratic Party, which was their home for so long is inhospitable, "on certain issues that are of interest, and there's just no give."
- - -
Copyright © 2016 Catholic News Service/U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops. www.catholicnews.com. All rights reserved. Republishing or redistributing of CNS content, including by framing or similar means without prior permission, is prohibited. You may link to stories on our public site. This copy is for your personal, non-commercial use only. To request permission for republishing or redistributing of CNS content, please contact permissions at cns@catholicnews.com.
NEWARK, N.J. (AP) -- Elevated levels of lead caused officials in New Jersey's largest school district on Wednesday to shut off water fountains at 30 school buildings until more tests are conducted, but officials said they don't believe the contamination poses any serious health risks....
SEOUL, South Korea (AP) -- North Korea fired two short-range ballistic missiles into the sea on Thursday, South Korea's military said, a likely show of anger at continuing springtime war games by rivals Washington and Seoul and another ratcheting up of hostility on the already anxious Korean Peninsula....
