Pat Robertson Could Learn a Thing or Two from Chuck Baldwin

In light of Pat Robertson's indefensible endorsement of Rudy Giuliani yesterday, I'm posting a column by Pastor Chuck Baldwin regarding the candidacy of Ron Paul. Pastor Baldwin pleads with his fellow ministers not to lend their support to phony conservatives (not to make deals with the devil, so to speak), but to take a long, hard look at supporting Ron Paul.

____________________________

AN APPEAL TO MY FELLOW PASTORS
By Pastor Chuck Baldwin
November 6, 2007
NewsWithViews.com

Recently, Iowa pastors gathered to hear my presentation in Des Moines on behalf of Republican Presidential candidate Ron Paul. After listening to me, they then heard ten-term Republican Texas Congressman Ron Paul himself.

Consider how Congressman Paul's message impacted Pastor Jim Hartman of the Assembly of God church in Conrad, Iowa. "I've been supporting Mike Huckabee, but I would say I'm leaning real strong toward Ron Paul." Hartman supported President Bush four years ago and explained, "Up until the last six months I had not allowed myself to imagine that we'd been let down by Bush." As for Iraq, he said, "I don't think we were prepared to understand that culture and to work with that culture." He said he now feels "humble and I feel kind of bad that I haven't done a better job of being faithful to Ron Paul's kind of integrity." [Source: MSNBC, Oct. 30, 2007]

Integrity: that is the issue drawing millions to Ron Paul, including young people. The night before I spoke, nearly 700 students gathered at Iowa State University in Ames to hear Dr. Paul. One of those students wrote me recently. His name is Nathan Rockman. He wrote, "As a columnist for the Iowa State Daily here on campus, I have seen first hand what can be described as Ron Paul fever. Since Dr. Paul visited this past Friday, his message of freedom and liberty has been spreading through campus like wildfire . . ."

Ron Paul doesn't recruit artisan spin writers and bloggers to wear down those who might question his past dealings. He doesn't need to. There are no missing hard-drives, ethics violations, and taxpayer funds used for personal use that need to be spun away. He still refuses to participate in the lucrative Congressional pension fund and returns a portion of his Congressional office budget back to the U.S. Treasury each year.

This kind of integrity moved Pastor Hartman, the students at Iowa State University, and many more like them.

Ron Paul has been fighting for the right to life from the beginning of his public career. Dr. Paul is rock-solid on pro-life. After all, he has helped over 4,000 women deliver their babies into the world in his obstetrics practice in Lake Jackson, Texas. He proposed the "Sanctity of Life Act of 2005" (and 2007), which would require that "human life shall be deemed to exist from conception, without regard to race, sex, age, health, defect, or condition of dependency." Has he recently discovered these pro-life convictions? Not at all. Congressman Paul introduced the Human Life Amendment in Congress in his very first term of Congress, a couple of years after Roe v. Wade was first handed down.

Is Ron Paul a libertarian, as some use in a throw-away line, often intended to move the listener to discard him without thought? Yes, on areas of fiscal, economic and judicial liberty, he is. But, he is also a social conservative and a Constitutionalist.

Ron Paul's priorities are right with marriage. He and his wife, Carol, have been married for more than fifty years. He believes marriage should be between a man and a woman and defends that principle with his vote, where and when he has the Constitutional authority to do so. For example, Dr. Paul strongly supports the Defense of Marriage Act (DOMA). Candidly, though, Ron Paul does not believe (and neither do I) that the U.S. Government needs to be defining that which God has already defined in His Word.

Where pastors often become confused about Ron Paul is that when he is resisting the unconstitutional centralization of our federal government, he is often perceived as being anti-family. Many in these pro-family movements themselves have been co-opted into believing that the solutions to our family problems come in the form of more unconstitutional federal legislation and programs. And when one does not agree with these unconstitutional remedies, they conclude that he or she is "anti-family." Such people mean well but are confused.

America would be much better off if we Christian pastors taught the need for Christ-honoring resistance--at the local level--to anti-family federal intrusions. We should call on our congregations to vote out of office any judge who passes rulings designed to pervert the Biblical family. That doesn't take a Constitutional amendment. It just takes courageous pastors and people who understand that judges, too, must respect the Constitution and our Christian heritage.

In fact, adherence to the Constitution protects our freedom of speech and assembly; our freedom of worship; our right to keep and bear arms; our right to a trial by jury; the right to be secure in our own homes against police overreach; our right to witness for Christ in public, as a Christian; the right to own property; the right to not be deprived of life or property without due process of law; the right to face our accusers, and the right to keep government local and limited.

Keeping government local and limited is the cornerstone doctrine of American government. Ron Paul understands this more than any other candidate running today.

Most of the problems that we are now dealing with socially, culturally, financially, etc., stem from America abandoning the basic founding principle that "the government that governs least governs best."

Accordingly, America's commitment to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness has been (and is being) systematically stripped from us--not by State legislatures, but mostly by agencies of the federal government.

Consider how it has been federal courts that have banned prayer in school, and legalized abortion and homosexual marriage. Even in the liberal State of Massachusetts it was the courts (along with a compliant liberal governor, Mitt Romney), that forced acceptance of homosexual marriage upon the people.

The solutions to these problems do not reside in more federal legislation. All that does is strengthen the scope and power of the federal judiciary.

The only ones who have anything to fear from Ron Paul are those who believe in Big Government.

You see, Ron Paul is actually calling on us pastors and Christians to stop seeing the federal government as one "in whom we live and move and have our being." Jesus Christ is our Savior and Lord, not the federal government. Have we not, in a material way, set up the federal government as our functional Lord and Savior? When we look to the federal government to solve our moral and spiritual problems, that is exactly what we are doing.

When it comes to the war in Iraq, I firmly believe that Christian conservatives have been duped by the neocons. Dr. Paul--an Air Force veteran and proponent of a strong national defense--opposed the unprovoked and pre-emptive invasion of Iraq, and rightly so. Time has certainly vindicated Dr. Paul's principled position. There was a much better way to deal with al-Qaeda.

Soon after 9/11, Congressman Paul introduced H.R. 3076, the September 11 Marque and Reprisal Act of 2001. According to Paul, "A letter of marque and reprisal is a constitutional tool specifically designed to give the president the authority to respond with appropriate force to those non-state actors who wage war against the United States while limiting his authority to only those responsible for the atrocities of that day. Such a limited authorization is consistent with the doctrine of just war and the practical aim of keeping Americans safe while minimizing the costs in blood and treasure of waging such an operation."

This is precisely what President Thomas Jefferson did when America's ships were confronted with Barbary pirates on the high seas.

If the United States government had listened to Ron Paul, we would not have lost nearly 4,000 American soldiers and Marines, spent over $1 trillion, and gotten bogged down in an endless civil war from which there is no equitable extraction. Furthermore, had we listened to Dr. Paul, Osama bin Laden would no doubt be dead, as would most of his al-Qaeda operatives, and we would be less vulnerable to future terrorist attacks, instead of being more vulnerable, which is the case today.

One thing that Pastor Hartman brought up in our meeting in Iowa was the sentiment of many Christians and pastors to defend Israel. Dr. Paul stated that he did not believe that we do Israel any favors and we actually weaken Israel by our constant meddling and intervention. I agree.

Ron Paul is not Israel's enemy. And neither is he the enemy to Christian liberty and constitutional government.

Ron Paul's non-interventionist and constitutional foreign policy approach would help, not hurt, Israel to resolve tensions with their neighbors. Remember, Israel has more nuclear missiles to defend themselves than all of the Middle East nations combined. Believe me, Israel knows how to defend itself. And know this: America's constant meddling curses Israel more than it blesses.

Also consider this: according to published reports such as this one in the Houston Chronicle, Ron Paul is receiving more donations from military personnel than any other Presidential candidate in either party. Think seriously about this. Our active duty and retired military personnel clearly endorse with their own contributions Ron Paul's non-interventionist position above all others.

In the end, if the candidate is a sincere Christian, he will all the more readily obey his or her oath to preserve, protect, and defend the Constitution of the United States. After all, does not our Lord tell us that our yea is to be yea and our nay is to be nay? In other words, genuine believers are to be true to their word. How, then, could a true Christian make a promise before God and the American people to preserve, protect, and defend the U.S. Constitution and then turn around and ignore that promise?

Ron Paul lives his Christian faith and takes his oath to the Constitution seriously. What more could we ask for in a Presidential candidate? Every Christian pastor should seriously consider Congressman Ron Paul. Here is his website:

© 2007 Chuck Baldwin - All Rights Reserved

Source: NewsWithViews.com

Robertson Endorses Giuliani

Pat Robertson has announced he will be backing RINO Rudy Giuliani. That's right, the self-anointed mouthpiece of what remains of the once powerful Religious Right has endorsed an pro-abortion, pro-gay, pro-gun control, pro-illegal immigration social progressive.

Robertson was willing to overlook the liberal positions of the 3-times divorced lapsed Catholic from New York because of Rudy's "ability" to lead the Nation in the "War on Terror." Again, I must ask the question- exactly what is it in Giuliani's past that makes one think he would be effective in fighting terrorism? His horrible decision to move the Emergency Command Center into the World Trade Center after the first bombing? or was it his refusal to supply emergency personnel with communications gear that actually worked like it was supposed to? or maybe it was his backing of a corrupt womanizing Police Commissioner to head the Department of Homeland Security- whose kids of whom Rudy just happened to be their godfather?

These morons all seem to think that somehow, being mayor of a city during a terrorist attack qualifies Giuliani to lead the "War on Terror" and make America "safe." (Note: I'm not taking a position here as to whether 9/11 was an actual terrorist attack or not- I am simply putting the conventional view out there, since that view is central to Giuliani's campaign)

Robertson invoked the Reagan doctrine- my 80% friend is not my 20% enemy. If Rudy is only Pat's "20%" enemy, then Pat isn't much of a conservative- or a Christian, for that matter. But then again, we already knew this about Pat.

In the grand scheme of things, this endorsement means very little. Robertson's influence has been fading for years, and may give Giuliani a 1 or 2 point bump- but I doubt it will have even that effect.

The Top 100 Conservatives?

It's pretty obvious the word "conservative" means something different to the editors at the London Telegraph than it does to me. As I read through the list, it was readily apparent that they recognize no distinction between real conservatives and neocons- and, as evidenced by their choice as the most influential "conservative" in the United States, they don't know the difference between a liberal and a conservative, either.

Their choice as the most influential conservative? Rudy Giuliani. That's right, a pro-gay, pro-abortion, and pro-gun control liberal is the most influential American conservative.

The failure to distinguish notwithstanding, the ratings themselves are laughable. I don't like Bill O'Reilly, but having him at #82 and Glenn Beck at #18 is patently absurd. Ron Paul made the list at #96, with Chuck Norris checking in 25 spots ahead of the Congressman.

The liberal list is a little more feasible, but George Soros at 15 is insane. Through his MoveOn.org and other progressive/socialist organizations, Soros basically controls the Democratic Party. At least they put Ah-nold on this list- although I'm not sure why Lieberman is listed among the Conservatives.

For a good laugh, you can see both lists in full here.

Higher Education or Brainwashing?

According to the University of Delaware, I'm a racist. If you're white, so are you. Don't bother trying to argue otherwise, you're a racist. We're so racist that we invented racism, and no one but us can be racist.

All dorm students are required to attend the brainwashing sessions, and "treatment" is available for those wishing to be further brainwashed, so that they may hate the white race as much as the multiculturalists do.

Apparently Sistah Souljah rides again.

-------------------------------------
University to students: 'All whites are racist'
Mandatory program 'treats' politically incorrect attitudes
Posted: October 30, 2007
9:35 p.m. Eastern
By Bob Unruh
©2007 WorldNetDaily.com

A mandatory University of Delaware program requires residence hall students to acknowledge that "all whites are racist" and offers them "treatment" for any incorrect attitudes regarding class, gender, religion, culture or sexuality they might hold upon entering the school, according to a civil rights group.

"Somehow, the University of Delaware seems terrifyingly unaware that a state-sponsored institution of higher education in the United States does not have the legal right to engage in a program of systematic thought reform. The First Amendment protects the right to freedom of conscience – the right to keep our innermost thoughts free from governmental intrusion. It also protects the right to be free from compelled speech," said a letter from Samantha Harris, director of legal and public advocacy for The Foundation for Individual Rights in Education to university President Patrick Harker.

The organization cited excerpts from the university's Office of Residence Life Diversity Education Training documents, including the statement:

"A RACIST: A racist is one who is both privileged and socialized on the basis of race by a white supremacist (racist) system. 'The term applies to all white people (i.e., people of European descent) living in the United States, regardless of class, gender, religion, culture or sexuality. By this definition, people of color cannot be racists, because as peoples within the U.S. system, they do not have the power to back up their prejudices, hostilities, or acts of discrimination….'"

The education program also notes that "reverse racism" is "a term created and used by white people to deny their white privilege." And "a non-racist" is called "a non-term," because, the program explains, "The term was created by whites to deny responsibility for systemic racism, to maintain an aura of innocence in the face of racial oppression, and to shift the responsibility for that oppression from whites to people of color (called 'blaming the victim')."

The "education" regarding racism is just one of the subjects that students are required to adopt as part of their University of Delaware experience, too, FIRE noted.

The "shocking program of ideological reeducation," which the school itself defines as a "treatment" for students' incorrect attitudes and beliefs, is nothing less than "Orwellian," FIRE said.

The school requires its approximately 7,000 residence hall students "to adopt highly specific university-approved views on issues ranging from politics to race, sexuality, sociology, moral philosophy and environmentalism."

"FIRE is calling for the total dismantling of the program, which is a flagrant violation of students' rights to freedom of conscience and freedom from compelled speech," the organization said.

On a foundation blog, a student noted that one residence assistant told students, "Not to scare anyone or anything, but these are MANDATORY!!" And the training program for those who indoctrinate students includes the order: "A researcher must document that the treatment/intervention was faithfully applied (ex: specific lesson plans were delivered to every student, etc.)."

Further, the school requires "a systemic change" as a result of the program, FIRE noted. As one RA told students: "Like it or not, you all are the future Leaders, and the world is Diverse, so learning to Embrace and Appreciate that diversity is ESSENTIAL."

"The University of Delaware's residence life education program is a grave intrusion into students' private beliefs," FIRE President Greg Lukianoff said. "The university has decided that it is not enough to expose its students to the values it considers important; instead, it must coerce its students into accepting those values as their own. At a public university like Delaware, this is both unconscionable and unconstitutional."

According to university materials, RAs are instructed to ask students during one-on-one sessions questions such as: "When did you discover your sexual identity?" "When were you first made aware of your race?" and "Who taught you a lesson in regard to some sort of diversity awarness? What was the lesson?"

"Students who express discomfort with this type of questioning often meet with disapproval from their RAs, who write reports on these one-on-one sessions and deliver these reports to their superiors. One student identified in a write-up as an RA's 'worst' one-on-one session was a young woman who stated that she was tired of having 'diversity shoved down her throat,'" FIRE said.

This particular student responded to the question, "When did you discover your sexual identity?" with the terse: "That is none of your damn business," FIRE said.

Requirements for students include: "Students will recognize that systemic oppression exists in our society," "Students will recognize the benefits of dismantling systems of oppression," and "Students will be able to utilize their knowledge of sustainability to change their daily habits and consumer mentality," FIRE said.

The foundation said students even are "pressured or even required" to make social statements that meet with the school's approval.

"The fact that the university views its students as patients in need of treatment for some sort of moral sickness betrays a total lack of respect not only for students' basic rights, but for students themselves," Lukianoff said. "The University of Delaware has both a legal and a moral obligation to immediately dismantle this program, and FIRE will not rest until it has."

A spokesman for the school, contacted by WND, said he was not ready to make a statement about the situation right away.

But the foundation's letter to Harker noted, "we have never encountered a more systematic assault upon the individual liberty, dignity, privacy, and autonomy of university students than this program," which "requires students to adopt highly specific university-approved views on issues."

"Such utter contempt for the autonomy and free agency of others is the hallmark of totalitarianism and has no place in any free society, let alone at a public university in the state of Delaware," the letter said.

Especially alarming, Harris told WND, is that the school defines learning specifically as "attitudinal or behavioral changes," not acquiring any sort of knowledge and ability.

Such thinking "represents a distorted idea of 'education' that one would more easily associate with a Soviet prison camp than with an American institution of higher education," FIRE said. "As another example, after an investigation showed that males demonstrated 'a higher degree of resistance to educational efforts,' the Rodney complex chose to hire 'strong male RAs.' Each such RA 'combats male residents' concepts of traditional male identity,' in order to 'ensure the delivery of the curriculum at the same level as in the female floors.' This language is disturbingly reminiscent of a pivotal scene from George Orwell's '1984,' in which the protagonist's captors tell him that 'The Party is not interested in the overt act: the thought is all we care about. We do not merely destroy our enemies, we change them.'"

No small danger, FIRE noted, is being presented to the university through such apparent constitutional violations. "Simply put, the residence life education program is a legal minefield," the group said.

One student reacted to the indoctrination with rebellion. On the FIRE blog, he wrote:

"Take the issue of homosexuality, and the rights that should or should not be associated with it. As a Christian, I believe that the Bible says homosexuality is wrong, and is a sin against God. As such, I cannot accept it as a legitimate lifestyle. While I accept homosexuals as people, I do not accept their choice as right, and subsequently I do not think that homosexual couples should be given marital rights. I accept that others do not hold the same views as me. But it is wrong that under the Residence Life curriculum and school mandated curriculum that I should made to feel guilty for my views. … It is not the school's right to try to convince me to embrace the values that Residence Life has chosen. Essentially, if I do not change my views, I will be labeled by my RA as not embracing diversity, and not accepting of certain groups, and thus my RA will try all the harder to change me. This is not the school's job, or right."

Source: WorldNetDaily.com

Neocons, Progressives, and Globalists, Oh My

When the neocons in the Bush Administration need foreign policy advice, to whom do they turn? Why Bill Clinton and Jimmy Carter, of course.

In advance of her Middle East peace conference, Secretary of the Reichstag (oops, I mean State) Rice is seeking advice from globalists like Clinton and Kissinger, UN wonks Carter and Albright, and a host of other career dips- oops, I meant diplomats.

You can bet anything Condi says to Bubba goes right to Hillary... Bush has to keep her in the loop, since he's counting on the continuation of the Bush/Clinton monarchy after the 2008 elections.

This all makes perfect sense- whether Neocon or Progressive, the goal is the same- the elimination of national sovereignty, replaced by global government under the control of the elite.

The NWO of Bush I is alive and well.

You can read the story at Yahoo News.

Sudden Saints

People- especially Americans- want things quick. We drink instant coffee, we eat instant rice, we take our film to one-hour processing centers. Now the Vatican II Catholic Church is offering us instant saints.

The road to canonization used to be a long and arduous one. It also used to be a very selective process. Now, not so much- on either count.

Case in point- "Mother" Theresa. Long celebrated as a great human being and all around good egg, she was "fast tracked" to sainthood by John Paul II, who apparently never met a person who wasn't a saint. The universalist JP II canonized more saints (470+) than his predecessors combined.

The problem is, Mother Theresa was a fraud. That's right- she was not the "saint" she portrayed herself to be in public, and she had no business rising to the level of "Saint." As the following articles illustrate, she fudged (lied about) the number of people she was helping, adopted many hindu traditions into her catholicism, and lived high off the hog while surrounded by those suffering in the worst poverty and squalor. All that's needed now are allegations of sexual misconduct and she would be a perfect candidate for being a Bishop in the post-Vatican II new age cult masquerading as a Church.

I'm posting two articles here- the first, by Michael Parenti (this may well be the only issue we are in substantive agreement on), and the second by the Fathers at Traditio, a traditional Roman Catholic site which (rightly) denounces everything associated with the 2nd Vatican Council.
___________________________

From Global Research:

Mother Teresa, John Paul II, and the Fast-Track Saints
by Michael Parenti
Global Research, October 24, 2007

During his 26-year papacy, John Paul II elevated 483 individuals to sainthood, more saints than all previous popes combined, it is reported. One personage he beatified but did not live long enough to canonize was Mother Teresa, the Roman Catholic nun of Albanian origin who had been wined and dined by the world’s rich and famous while hailed as a champion of the poor. The darling of the corporate media and western officialdom, and an object of celebrity adoration, Teresa was for many years the most revered woman on earth, showered with kudos and awarded a Nobel Peace Prize in 1979 for her “humanitarian work” and “spiritual inspiration.”

What usually went unreported were the vast sums she received from wealthy contributors, including a million dollars from convicted savings & loan swindler Charles Keating, on whose behalf she sent a personal plea for clemency to the presiding judge. She was asked by the prosecutor in that case to return Keating’s gift because it was money he had stolen. She never did. She also accepted substantial sums given by the brutal Duvalier dictatorship that regularly stole from the Haitian public treasury.

Mother Teresa’s “hospitals” for the indigent in India and elsewhere turned out to be hardly more than human warehouses in which seriously ill persons lay on mats, sometimes fifty to sixty in a room without benefit of adequate medical attention. Their ailments usually went undiagnosed. The food was nutritionally lacking and sanitary conditions were deplorable. There were few medical personnel on the premises, mostly untrained nuns and brothers.

When tending to her own ailments, however, Teresa checked into some of the costliest hospitals and recovery care units in the world for state-of-the-art treatment.

Teresa journeyed the globe to wage campaigns against divorce, abortion, and birth control. At her Nobel award ceremony, she announced that “the greatest destroyer of peace is abortion.” And she once suggested that AIDS might be a just retribution for improper sexual conduct.

Teresa emitted a continual flow of promotional misinformation about herself. She claimed that her mission in Calcutta fed over a thousand people daily. On other occasions she jumped the number to 4000, 7000, and 9000. Actually her soup kitchens fed not more than 150 people (six days a week), and this included her retinue of nuns, novices, and brothers. She claimed that her school in the Calcutta slum contained five thousand children when it actually enrolled less than one hundred.

Teresa claimed to have 102 family assistance centers in Calcutta, but longtime Calcutta resident, Aroup Chatterjee, who did an extensive on-the-scene investigation of her mission, could not find a single such center.

As one of her devotees explained, “Mother Teresa is among those who least worry about statistics. She has repeatedly expressed that what matters is not how much work is accomplished but how much love is put into the work.” Was Teresa really unconcerned about statistics? Quite the contrary, her numerical inaccuracies went consistently and self-servingly in only one direction, greatly exaggerating her accomplishments.

Over the many years that her mission was in Calcutta, there were about a dozen floods and numerous cholera epidemics in or near the city, with thousands perishing. Various relief agencies responded to each disaster, but Teresa and her crew were nowhere in sight, except briefly on one occasion.

When someone asked Teresa how people without money or power can make the world a better place, she replied, “They should smile more,” a response that charmed some listeners. During a press conference in Washington DC, when asked “Do you teach the poor to endure their lot?” she said “I think it is very beautiful for the poor to accept their lot, to share it with the passion of Christ. I think the world is being much helped by the suffering of the poor people.”

But she herself lived lavishly well, enjoying luxurious accommodations in her travels abroad. It seems to have gone unnoticed that as a world celebrity she spent most of her time away from Calcutta, with protracted stays at opulent residences in Europe and the United States, jetting from Rome to London to New York in private planes.

Mother Teresa is a paramount example of the kind of acceptably conservative icon propagated by an elite-dominated culture, a “saint” who uttered not a critical word against social injustice, and maintained cozy relations with the rich, corrupt, and powerful.

She claimed to be above politics when in fact she was pronouncedly hostile toward any kind of progressive reform. Teresa was a friend of Ronald Reagan, and a close friend of rightwing British media tycoon Malcolm Muggerridge. She was an admiring guest of the Haitian dictator “Baby Doc” Duvalier, and had the support and admiration of a number of Central and South American dictators.

Teresa was Pope John Paul II’s kind of saint. After her death in 1997, he waved the five-year waiting period usually observed before beginning the beatification process that leads to sainthood. In 2003, in record time Mother Teresa was beatified, the final step before canonization.

But in 2007 her canonization confronted a bump in the road, it having been disclosed that along with her various other contradictions Teresa was not a citadel of spiritual joy and unswerving faith. Her diaries, investigated by Catholic authorities in Calcutta, revealed that she had been racked with doubts: “I feel that God does not want me, that God is not God and that he does not really exist.” People think “my faith, my hope and my love are overflowing and that my intimacy with God and union with his will fill my heart. If only they knew,” she wrote, “Heaven means nothing.”

Through many tormented sleepless nights she shed thoughts like this: “I am told God loves me-and yet the reality of darkness and coldness and emptiness is so great that nothing touches my soul.” Il Messeggero, Rome’s popular daily newspaper, commented: “The real Mother Teresa was one who for one year had visions and who for the next 50 had doubts—up until her death.”

Another example of fast-track sainthood, pushed by Pope John Paul II, occurred in 1992 when he swiftly beatified the reactionary Msgr. José María Escrivá de Balaguer, supporter of fascist regimes in Spain and elsewhere, and founder of Opus Dei, a powerful secretive ultra-conservative movement “feared by many as a sinister sect within the Catholic Church.” Escrivá’s beatification came only seventeen years after his death, a record run until Mother Teresa came along.

In accordance with his own political agenda, John Paul used a church institution, sainthood, to bestow special sanctity upon ultra-conservatives such as Escrivá and Teresa—and implicitly on all that they represented. Another of the ultra-conservatives whom John Paul made into a saint, bizarrely enough, was the last of the Hapsburg rulers of the Austro-Hungarian empire, Emperor Karl, who reigned during World War I.

John Paul also beatified Cardinal Aloysius Stepinac, the leading Croatian cleric who welcomed the Nazi and fascist Ustashi takeover of Croatia during World War II. Stepinac sat in the Ustashi parliament, appeared at numerous public events with top ranking Nazis and Ustashi, and openly supported the Croatian fascist regime.

In John Paul’s celestial pantheon, reactionaries had a better chance at canonization than reformers. Consider his treatment of Archbishop Oscar Romero who spoke against the injustices and oppressions suffered by the impoverished populace of El Salvador and for this was assassinated by a right-wing death squad. John Paul never denounced the killing or its perpetrators, calling it only “tragic.” In fact, just weeks before Romero was murdered, high-ranking officials of the Arena party, the legal arm of the death squads, sent a well-received delegation to the Vatican to complain of Romero’s public statements on behalf of the poor.

Romero was thought by many poor Salvadorans to be something of a saint, but John Paul attempted to ban any discussion of his beatification for fifty years. Popular pressure from El Salvador caused the Vatican to cut the delay to twenty-five years. In either case, Romero was consigned to the slow track.

John Paul’s successor, Benedict XVI, waved the five-year waiting period in order to put John Paul II himself instantly on a super-fast track to canonization, running neck and neck with Teresa. As of 2005 there already were reports of possible miracles attributed to the recently departed Polish pontiff.

One such account was offered by Cardinal Francesco Marchisano. When lunching with John Paul, the cardinal indicated that because of an ailment he could not use his voice. The pope “caressed my throat, like a brother, like the father that he was. After that I did seven months of therapy, and I was able to speak again.” Marchisano thinks that the pontiff might have had a hand in his cure: “It could be,” he said. Un miracolo! Viva il papa!

© Copyright Michael Parenti, commondreams.org, 2007
-------------------------------------------
From Traditio:

A New Book Reveals that Teresa of Calcutta Had a Crisis of Faith for Over Fifty Years
Her Troubling Correspondence with a Traditional Priest
Arguing against the Catholic and Apostolic Church Has Also Been Revealed
The Canonization Process Has Been Corrupted in Newchurch into Conanization

According to a report in the August 24, 2007, Daily Telegraph, Newvatican is rushing to destruction in the Newchurch "conanization" of Teresa of Calcutta later this year. So much troubling information about this woman is already surfacing, within just ten years after her death in 1997, that any thought of conanization should be postponed indefinitely while a complete and honest investigation is conducted over a period of centuries. Just some of the troubling information that has come to light in just the last ten years:

Teresa injected Hindu "inculturation" into her teaching of supposedly Roman Catholic Faith

Teresa's "miracle" is denied by the subject's own doctors, who were barred by Newvatican from testifying that the supposed "cure" was a completely ordinary remission of cancer produced by anticarcinogenic drugs

Teresa had a crisis of faith for over fifty years

A new publication of her letters over 66 years, entitled Mother Teresa: Come Be My Light, has revealed that for the last fifty years of her life, she had a deep crisis of faith in God. It is not yet clear whether this collection of letters includes her revealing correspondence with the late Fr. Dr. Rama Coomaraswamy. In this correspondence, Teresa takes the traditional priest to task for insisting on celebrating only the true Mass and confirms that Teresa, far from being traditional, was a rapid defender of the Novus Ordo.

Such serious doubts cannot morally be rushed through by Newchurch to create a phony papier-mache "saint" to make the post-Vatican II crowd happy. Newchurch will simply end up with more egg on its face that it has now. The traditional process of canonization, steeped in caution and careful investigation over centuries, was trashed in 1983 by JPII, himself under suspicion for rushed conanization, who vitiated practically every one of the traditional checks and balances put in place by the Church.

As a result of the corruption of the traditional canonization process and the now-rampant factual errors being made, all Newchurch conanizations must be rejected until a traditional pope or council can sort each case out at some point in the future, when the Church is returned to Tradition. St. Thomas Aquinas, the Universal Doctor of the Church, a most wise and foresightful theologian, indicates that in such cases of gross factual errors, one can doubt the authenticity of canonizations. And Teresa of Calcutta is certainly a case in point.

FEMA Fakes Press Conference

A shadow of things to come, perhaps? The government has created fake news in the past, and now they're faking press conferences.

Of course, FEMA is claiming it was simply a lapse in judgment- but they had ample time to stage the conference and brief the "reporters" as to what to ask, and how to ask it.

Not only can we not believe anything this government tells us, we can't believe anything it shows us, either. And of course, now that the story has broke, the media is screaming about it. But it was covered on the major news channels- and none of them noticed that they didn't know any of the reporters at the press conference?

Suspicious? Of course. Surprising? Hardly. Disturbing? Very.
______________________________________

From Fox News:

FEMA Employees' Role at News Conference on California Fires
Raises Newspeople's Eyebrows
Friday , October 26, 2007

The White House scolded the Federal Emergency Management Agency on Friday for staging a phony news conference about assistance to victims of wildfires in southern California.

The agency — much maligned for its sluggish response to Hurricane Katrina over two years ago — arranged to have FEMA employees play the part of independent reporters Tuesday and ask questions of Vice Adm. Harvey E. Johnson, the agency's deputy director.

The questions were predictably soft and gratuitous.

"I'm very happy with FEMA's response," Johnson said in reply to one query from an agency employee.

White House press secretary Dana Perino said it was not appropriate that the questions were posed by agency staffers instead of reporters. FEMA was responsible for the "error in judgment," she said, adding that the White House did not know about it beforehand and did not condone it.

"FEMA has issued an apology, saying that they had an error in judgment when they were attempting to get out a lot of information to reporters, who were asking for answers to a variety of questions in regard to the wildfires in California," Perino said. "It's not something I would have condoned. And they — I'm sure — will not do it again."

She said the agency was just trying to provide information to the public, through the press, because there were so many questions.

"I don't think that there was any mal-intent," Perino said "It was just a bad way to handle it, and they know that."

FEMA gave real reporters only 15 minutes notice about Tuesday's news conference . But because there was so little advance notice, the agency made available an 800 number so reporters could call in. And many did, although it was a listen-only arrangement.

On Tuesday, FEMA employees had played the part of reporters. Johnson issued a statement Friday, saying that FEMA's goal was "to get information out as soon as possible, and in trying to do so we made an error in judgment."

"Our intent was to provide useful information and be responsive to the many questions we have received," he said. "We can and must do better."

Officials at the Homeland Security Department, which includes FEMA, expressed their concern.

"This is simply inexcusable and offensive to the secretary that such a mistake could be made," Homeland Security spokeswoman Laura Keehner said Friday, referring to DHS Secretary Michael Chertoff. "Stunts such as this will not be tolerated or repeated."

Keehner said senior leadership is considering whether a punishment is necessary.