THE CHURCH MILITANT
Ephesians 5:11-"And have no fellowship with the unfruitful works of darkness, but rather expose them". This Christian News Blog maintains a one stop resource of current news and reports of its own related to church, moral, spiritual, and related political issues, plus articles, and postings from other online discernment ministries, and media which share the aims to obey the biblical commands to shed light on and refute error, heresy, apostasy, cults, and spiritual abuse.
republished below in full unedited for informational, educational and research purposes:
PORTSMOUTH, Ohio —An Ohio professor who was placed
under investigation for declining to address a male student who
identifies as female with feminine pronouns has filed suit, stating that
he should not be forced to violate his Christian convictions. Dr. Nicholas Meriwether, a philosophy professor at Shawnee State
University, says that for many years, he has referred to his students as
“mister” or “miss” or “sir” or “ma’am” as a way of teaching his
students how to be respectful to each other, especially in environments
where there is sharp disagreement over a controversial subject matter.
In January, during his political philosophy class, he responded to a
male student’s question with a “Yes, sir,” but was approached by the
student after class, who advised that he identifies as female and would
prefer to be referred to with feminine pronouns.
According to the legal challenge, Meriwether thought for a moment and
then told the student that he was not sure if he could comply with the
request. The student consequently became angry and spouted a vulgarity
in close proximity to Meriwether’s face. He allegedly threatened to have
the professor fired if he did not refer to him as a woman.
Meriwether reported the incident to university officials, and was
instructed by Roberta Milliken, the dean of the university’s college of
arts and sciences, to refer to students by their last name only,
eliminating any use of pronouns. Meriwether wasn’t sold on the idea, as
he thought it felt more like something a football coach would do, as
opposed to a philosophy professor.
However, he told Milliken that he would do so in regard to the particular student, while using pronouns for everyone else.
Days later, Milliken approached Meriwether to advise that the student
was unhappy with only being called by his last name and had threatened
to file a Title IX complaint. Milliken, who originally agreed with
Meriwether’s arrangement, told Meriwether that he must refer to the
student by his preferred pronoun or he would be in violation of the
university’s non-discrimination policy.
Meriwether replied that he would be willing to refer to the student
by his desired name, but would not use any titles in front of it, such
as “mister” or “miss.” The student went on to complete the class and was
given a high grade.
However, in the meantime, Milliken launched an investigation against
Meriwether due to the receipt of another complaint from the student.
Meriwether outlined in writing that he could not refer to a man as a
woman “due to [his] conscience, ethical or religious convictions, or
[his] views on free speech.”
He realized that he was faced with two choices: either stop using
pronouns for all students and simply refer to them by their first name,
or violate his religious beliefs by accommodating the student’s gender
identity.
Milliken filed a formal charge against Meriwether, stating that he
had created a “hostile environment” because of “the way he addressed”
the student. A letter of warning was also placed in Meriwether’s file,
and meetings with university leadership to explain his religious
convictions were not fruitful. Therefore, Meriwether has now filed suit against Shawnee State University for not granting him a religious accommodation. “By punishing and threatening to punish Dr. Meriwether for refusing
to communicate a university-mandated ideological message regarding
gender identity, defendants have attempted and are attempting to compel
Dr. Meriwether’s speech, in violation of his rights under the First
Amendment,” the lawsuit reads. “Defendants’ non-discrimination policies and their enforcement of
those policies compel Dr. Meriwether to communicate messages about
gender identity that he does not hold, that he does not wish to
communicate, and that conflict with (and for him to violate) his
religious beliefs,” it states. Meriwether is seeking an injunction against the enforcement of the
university’s non-discrimination policy should he refer to a student by
their biological sex. Read the lawsuit in full here.
According to Sputnik News, university spokesperson Elizabeth Blevins
remarked, “We support the freedom of expression by students, faculty,
staff, and visitors on our campus—and provide an educational and work
environment that is free from discrimination, retaliation, and
harassment.”
republished below in full unedited for informational, educational and research purposes:
More than 200 mass graves containing the remains of thousands of people
killed by Islamic State have been discovered in northern and western
Iraq, according to a UN report released on Tuesday, 5 November.
The
report by the UN Assistance Mission for Iraq (UNAMI) and UN Human
Rights Office documents the existence of 202 mass graves in the
governorates of Ninewa, Kirkuk, Salah al-Din and Anbar. The report emphasises that the evidence gathered will be critical in prosecuting Islamic State militants for war crimes committed against civilians but also in helping families to find out what happened to those who have gone missing, said the UN Office of the High Commissioner on Human Rights (OHCHR). In
support of bereaved families, the report called for a centralised
registry of missing persons as well as the creation of a federal Office
of Missing Persons. “Meaningful truth and justice requires the
appropriate preservation, excavation and exhumation of mass grave sites
and the identification of the remains of the many victims and their
return to the families,” the report said.
To bring this about, the report called on the international community for more resources and technical support. IS
invaded Iraq in 2014 and waged a three-year-long campaign of terror
against non-Muslims, forcing most of its population, including
Christians in the Nineveh Plains in northern Iraq, to flee for their
lives. Thousands of others were tortured or killed. In March security forces discovered the remains of 40 Christians in a mass grave in the northern Iraqi city of Mosul. After capturing the city in 2014, IS had warned Christians to “leave or face execution”. In July, Human Rights Watch called for more support in unearthing several mass graves in and around the city of Raqqa
in northern Syria, containing the remains of thousands of bodies of
civilians killed by IS, residents killed in airstrikes and of IS
militants themselves.
republished below in full unedited for informational, educational and research purposes:
Brazil -(Ammoland.com)- Brazilian
President-Elect Jair Bolsonaro is showing he is not your typical
politician. Bolsonaro has held his political doctrines for decades. For
decades, he has been unable to have them implemented because of the
power of entrenched leftists in the Brazilian
government. One of those deeply held positions is the belief that
trusting the people with more power is the ethical thing to do.
Specifically, President-Elect Bolsonaro is willing to trust them to be capable of protecting themselves with their own firearms. The
government of Brazil has taken the opposite tactic for forty years,
making firearms harder and harder for Brazilians to legally own and use
for self-defense. From South China Morning Post:
In
his first television interview since being elected on Sunday, former
army captain Jair Bolsonaro said it was time to abandon what he called
the “politically correct fallacy” that Brazil would be a safer place if
everybody was unarmed. “It won’t be any better. If there
were three or four armed people here now, I’d be certain that some
nutter wouldn’t be able to come in through that door and do something
bad,” the right-wing populist told his interviewer from Record, a
television channel owned by one of his powerful supporters. In
the 30-minute interview, Bolsonaro – whose sons and supporters are
often seen sporting clothing or hats celebrating automatic weapons and
the National Rifle Association – said he believed gun laws should be
made more flexible.
(snip) Allowing more people to carry weapons and defend themselves with guns would certainly reduce violence, Bolsonaro claimed.
During the last forty years, the Brazilian murder rate has gone up and up and up. In 1980, Brazil had a murder rate of about 12 per 100,000 people.
Brazil had an official murder rate of 30.8 per 100,000 people in 2017. Brazil has about eight firearms for every 100 people. The United States has about 122 firearms per 100 people. The United States has about fifteen times as many firearms per person as Brazil.
The United States has only one-sixth the rate of homicide in Brazil, while it has fifteen times as many guns per person.
The murder rate in both countries is driven by urban, black, young men, primarily organized into gangs.
Fear of crime in Brazil was a significant driver in the 2018 election cycle.
The number of guns in a society does not drive the murder rate. More guns in Brazil will not do more harm.
The
lawless in Brazil have plenty of guns. There are not that many violent
criminals. If violent criminals cannot buy guns on the black market,
they make them in small shops. Fully automatic submachine guns are one
of the simplest repeaters to make. They are a favorite of Brazilian
gangs.
Brazilians who refuse to be victims of crime have not been
able to effectively fight back or protect themselves. They have had to
become criminals if they carry the means to defend their lives.
President-Elect
Bolsonaro aims to change that. He aims for a transformation of the
relationship between the law-abiding population and the law enforcers.
Armed citizens and police are natural allies. Disarmed Citizens are not
the equal of armed police.
Increase trust in the government. Have more citizens become more difficult to victimize.
It could work. It won't hurt.
About Dean Weingarten:
Dean
Weingarten has been a peace officer, a military officer, was on the
University of Wisconsin Pistol Team for four years, and was first
certified to teach firearms safety in 1973. He taught the Arizona
concealed carry course for fifteen years until the goal of
constitutional carry was attained. He has degrees in meteorology and
mining engineering, and recently retired from the Department of Defense
after a 30 year career in Army Research, Development, Testing, and
Evaluation.
republished below in full unedited for informational, educational and research purposes:
Gary Willis, a resident of Ferndale, Maryland, was awakened Monday
morning at 5:17 a.m. when two officers from Anne Arundel County knocked
on his door. A law-abiding gun owner, Willis answered the door “with a
gun in his hand,” according to a police department spokesman. They were
there to serve him with an “extreme risk protective order” and remove
his legally owned firearms. According to the spokesman, Willis put his firearm down to read the
ERPO but then, apparently recognizing that it wasn’t a legal search
warrant issued by a judge in accordance with protections guaranteed to
him by the Fourth Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, but instead was
issued by a local judge under Maryland’s newly minted “red flag” law, he retrieved his firearm. The spokesman said that Willis “became irate.” In the melee that
followed, one of the firearms carried either by one of the officers or
by Willis went off. One of the officers then pulled his own sidearm and
shot Willis dead. Family members told Capital Gazette reporters that a distant relative
had requested the ERPO the day before, due to an “incident” that
occurred at his residence. The details of the “incident” remain unclear
at this writing, but the backpedaling by the police chief began almost
immediately. Said Anne Arundel County police chief Timothy Altomare:
If you look at this morning’s outcome,
it’s tough for us to say, “Well, what did we prevent?” Because we don’t
know what we prevented or could’ve prevented.
What would have happened if we didn’t go there at 5 am?
Probably nothing. Because during his many years as a resident at his
home in Ferndale nothing untoward happened. His niece, Michele Willis,
said “I’m just dumfounded right now. My uncle wouldn’t hurt anybody.”
Chief Altomare announced that since the law became effective on
October 1, there have been 19 ERPOs issued in his county, his officers
have served nine of them and have seized “around 33 guns” in the
process. So successful have the unconstitutional raids been in Anne
Arundel County that the department is building a new storage facility
specifically to accommodate all the firearms they are expected to
confiscate under the new law.
Gun grabbers are delighted with the new laws springing up around the
country. Jonas Oransky, deputy director of Everytown for Gun Safety,
calls the unconstitutional gun-confiscation laws a “new frontier” in his
group’s attack on private ownership of firearms: “We think of this is a
new frontier. We don’t have a perfect system in this country, and we
can’t stop every act of gun violence. [But these “red flag” laws are] a
way for states to take some care and be somewhat nimble when there is a
dangerous case.”
The point of the Fourth Amendment (“The right of the people to be
secure in their persons, houses, papers, and effects, against
unreasonable searches and seizures, shall not be violated, and no
Warrants shall issue, but upon probable cause.”) is to protect private
citizens such as Gary Willis from living in a police state where police
can be “nimble” and arrive unannounced at 5:17 in the morning with a
piece of paper that says they have the right to take his guns.
The point of the “red flag” laws, however, is to do an end run around that Fourth Amendment. As The New American
noted back in March when “red flag” laws started popping up in a number
of states in response to the Marjory Stoneman Douglas High School
shooting in Parkland, Florida: “The ‘red flag’ provisions do not allow
the person charged to defend himself or even to know who his accuser
might be. Further, he must prove his innocence in order to get his
confiscated firearms returned to him. He is “guilty until he proves
himself innocent.”
ERPOs lower the standard in the Fourth Amendment — probable cause —
to “reasonable cause.” They allow judges to act quickly (in Gary Willis’
case, overnight) before the victim gets wind of what’s coming and can
secure legal counsel to defend himself or make other arrangements to
protect himself and his property.
Willis isn’t the first citizen to be caught in the “red flag” web,
just the first one to die as a result. In Seattle, an agency called the
“Crisis Response Squad” has already pre-identified pre-criminals before
they committed atrocities and seized their legally owned firearms. On
March 1, one of those identified as a “precriminal” didn’t comply with
the court order and made the headlines when police entered his residence
and forced him to relinquish his weapons.
KOMONews.com covered the incident, informing its readers that the
31-year-old man hadn’t committed a crime but was guilty of “escalating
behavior," whatever that means. Some workers at a local restaurant,
according to KOMO News, said the defendant “harassed” them while he was
carrying a holstered firearm (which is legal there).
KOMO News added that this man’s “precrimes” included a history of
police seizing a shotgun from him “in a different incident.” After
entering his residence with the so-called warrant (based not on
“probable cause” but on the much lower standard of “reasonable cause”),
the police not only retrieved a .25-caliber handgun but then entered the
residence of one of the man’s family members, where they hoped to find
some other firearms belonging to him.
A teenage girl from Pembroke Pines, Florida, was brought to police
headquarters and subjected to more than two hours of questioning about
her posts on social media. No attorney was present. None was needed.
After all, the right to “lawyer up” isn’t allowed under the state's new
law. Said Pembroke Pines Police Captain Al Xiques, his “police
department will pursue those Risk Protection Orders in accordance with
the new law when we determine that it is necessary in order to protect
the public’s safety.”
The girl’s attorney is suing to have the new Florida law overturned.
And then there’s the case of Broward County, Florida, Sheriff’s
bailiff Franklin Joseph Pinter, age 60, who allegedly made some verbal
threats toward other bailiffs and, again allegedly, was seen on the
fifth floor of the county courthouse leaning over the railing and
pretending to hold a long gun and shooting at people below.
This was all that the judge needed. On Friday, May 25, the sheriff’s
office sought the ERPO, which the judge granted that same afternoon. No
trial. No defense. No witnesses. No one representing Pinter. In fact,
Pinter had no way of knowing about the court order to seize his 67
firearms until deputies showed up at his door. Where will this end? Repeal isn’t likely, as states, encouraged
happily by gun grabbers, are pushing for more “red flag” laws, not
fewer. Instead, it will end when a court grows a backbone and declares
them unconstitutional. Until then, every citizen legally possessing a
firearm in “red flag” states is in danger of having a relative, an
acquaintance with whom he has had a disagreement, a disaffected or
offended neighbor or co-worker, a mental health “professional,” or as is
sometimes the case, the police themselves, petition a judge and obtain
an ERPO that enables local police to remove the offending weapons from
his possession, by force if necessary. Resistance, as Gary Willis found out, is not only futile, but fatal.
An Ivy League graduate and former investment advisor, Bob is a regular contributor to The New American magazine and blogs frequently at LightFromTheRight.com, primarily on economics and politics. He can be reached at badelmann@thenewamerican.com.
In this Gripe we discuss the dangers of so called "Red Flag Laws," the
consequences and dangers inherent in these unconstitutional laws that
completely ignore due process and have been proven to be statistically
relevant in states which adopted these laws early on. Stay tuned, much
more on the way.
republished below in full unedited for informational, educational and research purposes:
The “migrant caravan” that began in Honduras in October has finally
surged into Mexico City and must reckon whether to head for Texas or
California.
But the caravan’s numbers are dwindling, news and official reports
say, as even a third caravan crossed into Mexico on Friday, likely with
the same goal in mind: Crash the U.S. border and tell (perhaps phony)
tales of persecution to get asylum and lawsuits filed by anti-American
leftists.
Meanwhile, the troops President Trump dispatched to the border to repel the caravan have been erecting barbed wire. Mexico City Arrival The latest from the Associated Press shows that the once-mighty train pushing through Mexico is losing steam, much to the chagrin, undoubtedly, of subversives hoping they can use the migrants to attack the president’s immigration policies in court. Lawyers have already filed a lawsuit on behalf of migrants who have not even arrived.
No longer is the caraven a mass of 14,000 people running over everything in their path, as some estimates had it weeks ago, or even the 7,000 it was before that.
A somewhat smaller contingent landed in Mexico City on Monday, having come from Veracruz on Mexico’s Gulf coast, AP reported.
Helpfully, AP once again inadvertently proved that the migrants aren’t
running for their lives, as their leftist supporters in the United
States insist, but instead are running for jobs.
By afternoon 2,000 or more had arrived at
the Jesus Martinez stadium, which has a capacity of about three times
that, and eagerly began sifting through donations of clothes, gave
themselves sponge baths, lunched on chicken and rice under the shade of
tents and picked up thin mattresses to hunker down for the night....
Alba Zoleida Gonzalez, 48, from Valle,
Honduras, said she had walked for five hours and hitched a ride on a
tractor-trailer with about 150 people. Her calf muscles were aching, but
that was a small price to pay for the chance at a life better than the
one back home.
“I looked for work, and nothing,”
Gonzalez said, adding that her husband had been robbed and had to hand
over everything he made selling crabs so his assailants wouldn’t do
worse. “And when one does find a little job they kill you for the
money,” she said.
The credulous AP reporters even told the story of “Oscar Ulloa, 20,
an accountant from Honduras.” Accountants are 20 years old in Honduras?
That question aside, the horde is still 1,775 miles from Tijuana on
the border with California, 1,354 miles from the Nogales on the border
with Arizona, and a little less than 600 miles from either McAllen or
Brownsville, Texas. Migrants Dropping Out, Barbed Wire Awaits AP’s reporting shows how much the caravan has diminished.
“Mexico’s Interior Ministry estimated over the weekend that there are
more than 5,000 migrants in total currently moving through Mexico,” but
“2,793 migrants have applied for refugee status in Mexico in recent
weeks and around 500 have asked for assistance to return to their home
countries.”
On October 20, CNN reported that 2,000 of the foot-soldiers had dropped out of the jobs march.
An AP report on Saturday unpacked the numbers
a little more. It explained that “Mexico is now faced with the
unprecedented situation of having three caravans stretched out over 300
miles (500 kilometers) of highways in the southern states of Chiapas and
Oaxaca, with a total of about 6,000 migrants.”
The first caravan now numbers about 3,000 to 4,000, AP reported, while a second that stormed into Mexico last week has between 1,000 and 1,500. A third caravan, this one from El Salvador, crossed into Mexico on Friday. Apparently, another group of 300 is surging toward Veracruz.
In Monday’s dispatch from Mexico City, AP reported that the presidents of Guatemala and Honduras want to know who is behind the caravan movement:
Honduran President Juan
Orlando Hernandez said that “thousands” of his countrymen have returned
to Honduras. Guatemalan President Jimmy Morales went further, calling
for an investigation of people who “promote or participate” in the
caravan, saying they “should be judged based on international laws.”
That would include, presumably, the leftist open-borders activists aiming at destroying American sovereignty.
However many “migrants” get to the border, it might not be as easy to get across as they think. The president deployed 5,200 troops to the border last week, with the promise of some 15,000 more.
And those there are now have begun stringing concertina wire on the Rio Grande.
republished below in full unedited for informational, educational and research purposes:
We live in bizarro times. Suddenly, it is controversial to
state obvious, neon-bright truths. This week, it has become newsworthy
to observe that illegal border-crossers who circumvent required medical
screenings are a threat to America's public health and safety.
Just look at these hyperventilating headlines and tweets.
From Newsweek, which is supposed to, you know, report actual news of
the week: "'We don't know what people have': Laura Ingraham calls
migrant caravan a health issue."
And from The Daily Beast: "Fox & Friends Host Brian Kilmeade Fears 'Diseases' Brought By Migrant Caravan."
This is not "news." It's propaganda recycled and regurgitated by lazy
political operatives masquerading as journalists. At least the Newsweek
writer gave credit to his zealous hitmen sources: "Ingraham's comments,"
he dutifully wrote, "were first highlighted by Media Matters for
America."
MMfA is a militant left-wing oppo research outfit
funded by progressive billionaire George Soros. Somehow,
not-really-Newsweek forgot to mention this fact. (Alas, mentioning Soros
subsidies has also become a forbidden act this week, but that's another
story.) The determined intent of these "news" pieces is not to inform
readers but to inflame them with the dog-whistle assumption that
conservatives, Fox personalities and ordinary Americans who worry about
diseases from immigration are de facto racists.
On cue, tennis
star and celebrity leftist Martina Navratilova barked at Fox News'
Kilmeade on Twitter: "YOU ARE THE DISEASE! the migrants are not the
problem, Trump and his sycophants, like you, are the problem. Stop
spewing fear and prejudice."
Comedian John Henson tweeted: "Brian Kilmeade is spreading the disease of intolerance every single day..."
And former Clinton press flack-turned CNN hack Joe Lockhart wrote:
"This is the disease Fox News spreads every day. They are complicit with
Trump in trying to change the character of our country."
Newsflash, fake newsers: It's neither racist nor xenophobic nor hateful
to discuss the impact of unfettered mass immigration and unvetted
caravans of illegal border-crossers on our public health.
My parents, legal immigrants from the Philippines, were screened for a panoply of communicable and infectious diseases.
My husband's great-great grandparents and their relatives from Ukraine
underwent thorough medical and physical exams at Ellis Island
immediately after disembarking from their arduous transatlantic
journeys. A team of doctors checked for everything from eye disease and
muscle weakness to heart conditions, ringworm and mental deficiencies.
Those who failed were rejected and ejected. No appeals, no apologies, no
amnesty.
I find it especially bizarre that some of the same
outspoken, big government advocates for vaccinating every American
citizen, young or old, against every possible condition, from the flu to
chickenpox to HPV, are the same types now howling over the commonsense
idea that we should protect ourselves from foreign diseases.
It wasn't Trump's idea to build a wall against microscopic invaders. The Immigration and Nationality Act mandates medical screening exams
for legal immigrants and refugees from around the world. The tests are
performed by authorized physicians in either the applicants' countries
of origin or in the United States. The process includes "a physical
examination, mental health evaluation, syphilis serologic testing... and
chest radiography followed by acid-fast bacillus smears and sputum
cultures if the chest radiograph is consistent with tuberculosis (TB)." Legal immigrants and refugees must provide mandatory proof of
vaccination for measles, mumps, rubella, polio, tetanus, diphtheria,
pertussis, hepatitis A and B, rotavirus, meningococcus, chicken pox,
pneumonia and seasonal flu.
Moreover, the Centers for Disease
Control, not Fox News or the Trump White House or any other evil
conservatives, reports that "most experts agree that testing for TB,
hepatitis B, and HIV should be performed for most new arrivals to the
United States. Clinicians should also make a habit of ensuring that this
screening has been done for every new non-US-born patient they see,
regardless of time since the person's arrival."
Actual public
health experts across the Southwest have reported rises in
drug-resistant TB and dengue fever. In June, Australian public health
researchers reported that "scabies, long considered a disease of the
past in the developed world, is making its way back." The scientists
pointed to mass global migration as a leading factor, noting scabies
outbreaks among refugees to the European Union and along America's
southern border.
And in Germany, federal epidemiologists
reported that since opening the floodgates to migrants in 2015, data
show "increased incidences in Germany of adenoviral conjunctivitis,
botulism, chicken pox, cholera, cryptosporidiosis, dengue fever,
echinococcosis, enterohemorrhagic E. coli, giardiasis, haemophilus
influenza, Hantavirus, hepatitis, hemorrhagic fever, HIV/AIDS, leprosy,
louse-borne relapsing fever, malaria, measles, meningococcal disease,
meningoencephalitis, mumps, paratyphoid, rubella, shigellosis, syphilis,
toxoplasmosis, trichinellosis, tuberculosis, tularemia, typhus and
whooping cough."
It's simply insane to argue we should turn a
blind eye to the health status of law-breaking aliens. And it's
treachery, yes, treachery, for so-called journalists to use their
platforms to blithely smear those who dare to question open borders
orthodoxy or report the highly inconvenient facts.
republished below in full unedited for informational, educational and research purposes:
As has been the custom for the past 50 years, Roman Catholics
worldwide who pray at a cemetery between Nov. 1-8—and follow other
requirements—are being offered a plenary indulgence to free their loved
one from Purgatory and send their soul to Heaven. The practice has been
said to be unbiblical for a number of reasons. “Purgatory is a travesty on the justice of God and a disgraceful
fabrication that robs Christ Jesus of His glory and honor,” Mike Gendron
of Proclaiming the Gospel Ministries in Plano, Texas told Christian
News Network. “He alone satisfied divine justice, once and for all, by
the perfect and finished sacrifice of Himself.” “The fatal deception of Purgatory blinds Catholics from the glorious
gospel of grace,” he said. “It is one of Satan’s many lies that keep his
captives from knowing and trusting the sufficiency of Jesus Christ. It
is Christ alone who will present us ‘faultless before the presence of
His glory’ (Jude 24).” THE ‘ALL SOULS OCTAVE’
“We can wield unimaginable power for the souls in purgatory during
the week of All Souls Day, from Nov. 1-8,” wrote author Patti Armstrong
in an article entitled “How to Help Free the Souls in Purgatory,”
published by the National Catholic Register on Nov. 2. “If we visit a
cemetery and pray for a soul in purgatory, they a can be released by us;
one on every one of those days.”
Nov. 1 marked All Saints Day in the Roman Catholic Church, followed
by All Souls Day, which began an octave in which adherents of the
religion are offered—under certain requirements—a plenary, or complete,
indulgence for a deceased loved one or friend. On all other days of the
year, the indulgence is only partial.
While indulgences were especially common during the days of Reformer
Martin Luther (1483-1546), who strongly rebuked the practice, the
November offering is a more recent declaration, issued by the Vatican
under the leadership of Paul VI on June 29, 1968.
“An indulgence, applicable only to the souls in Purgatory, is granted
to the faithful who devoutly visit a cemetery and pray, even if only
mentally, for the departed. The indulgence is partial on any day except
from the 1st to the 8th of November; on those days it is plenary,” the
“Regulations on Indulgences” reads.
According to the Catechism of the Catholic Church
and other Catholic writings, Roman Catholics believe that there are two
types of sin: grave sins, or willful violations of the law of God that
send one to Hell, and venial sins, those that are more minor and would
not jeopardize a person’s salvation.
Catholic teachings also state that while a person may be forgiven of
the guilt of sin through Christ’s sacrifice, a temporal punishment for
that sin still remains. The person therefore must either do penance to
purge themselves on Earth or be purged in a temporary suffering in the
hereafter since Heaven can only accept that which is perfectly pure.
“The whole penitential system of the Church testifies that the
voluntary assumption of penitential works has always been part of true
repentance, and … God does not always remit the whole punishment due to
sin together with the guilt. God requires satisfaction, and will punish
sin, and this doctrine involves as its necessary consequence a belief
that the sinner failing to do penance in this life may be punished in
another world, and so not be cast off eternally from God,” the Catholic
Encyclopedia outlines.
The doctrine was stated to have been solidified during the Councils
of Florence (1439) and Trent (1545-1563), and Catholics further point to
the apocryphal book of 2 Maccabees 12, which states, “It is therefore a
holy and wholesome thought to pray for the dead, that they may be
loosed from sins.”
Therefore, to assist those seeking to have their sins atoned for in
this life, or to stand in the gap on behalf of the dead, the Catholic
Catechism outlines that Roman Catholic leadership “by virtue of the
power of binding and loosing granted her by Christ Jesus” offers
indulgences as a means of intervention “in favor of individual
Christians and opens for them the treasury of the merits of Christ and
the saints to obtain from the Father of mercies the remission of the
temporal punishments due for their sins.”
Each November since 1968, the Vatican has offered the living the
stated opportunity to obtain plenary indulgences for the dead, so that
they might be completely freed from Purgatory and go to Heaven.
One plenary indulgence per day can be obtained during the eight-day
period, and to obtain the indulgence, one must visit the cemetery to
pray for the departed, receive communion, go to confession, and pray for
the pope, with the minimum being the recitation of the Our Father and
the Hail Mary. Other rituals may also be employed.
“The more we do for them (the dead) the more powerful their
intercession becomes for us, both in purgatory and before the throne of
God,” Susan Tassone, author of “The Way of the Cross for the Holy Souls
in Purgatory,” told the National Catholic Register in an article
published on Nov. 2 entitled “Praying for the Dead: Catholic Liturgies
and Practices.” IS IT BIBLICAL? GendronHowever,
Mike Gendron of Proclaiming the Gospel Ministries told Christian News
Network that he finds it lamentable that those who presented the concept
of Purgatory to the world many years ago “had the audacity to declare
that the suffering and death of God’s perfect man and man’s perfect
substitute was not sufficient to satisfy divine justice for sin.”
He said that when his own father passed away, friends even purchased
mass cards so that prayers would be said for him following his death.
“When my own dear dad passed away as a devout Catholic of 79 years, I
was amazed at the hundreds of mass cards purchased for him by
well-meaning friends. We have heard of other Catholics who have willed
their entire estates to their religion so that perpetual masses could be
offered for them after they die,” Gendron recalled. “It is no wonder
that the Catholic religion has become the richest institution in the
world. The buying and selling of God’s grace has been a very lucrative
business for the Vatican.”
He said that when the concept of purgatory is compared to Scripture, it does not add up.
“God’s word leaves absolutely no possibility for sin to be purged
away by anything other than the blood of Jesus Christ,” Gendron
declared. “The Apostle John penned these words with irrefutable clarity:
‘The blood of Jesus His Son cleanses us from all sin’ and ‘all
unrighteousness’ (1 John 1:7, 9). John did not say ‘some’ sins or ‘most’
sins, but all sins! This soundly rebukes the need for a sin-purging
fire.”
He outlined that those who put their faith in Christ are completely
freed not just from the guilt of sin, but also the penalty of it.
“God’s word also declares, ‘All things are cleansed with blood, and
without shedding of blood there is no forgiveness’ (Hebrews 9:22). When
Jesus ‘made purification of sins, He sat down at the right hand of the
Majesty on high’ (Hebrews 1:3),” he noted. “Those who desire to have
their sins purged need to trust a person, not a place. The blood of
Christ is the only cleansing agent for sin! Those who come to the cross
of Christ must come with empty hands of faith, bringing nothing but
their sins.”
Gendron, a former Roman Catholic for over 30 years who now encourages
Catholics to think biblically, further pointed to Scripture’s teaching
that when believers leave their body, they are “present with the Lord,”
and therefore not in an in-between state.
“Every blood-bought believer is instantly present with their Redeemer
at the moment of death. To be ‘absent from the body’ is to be ‘at home
with the Lord’ (2 Corinthians 5:6–8),” he said. “Catholics who believe
in Purgatory need to be asked: ‘Who is in charge of releasing souls from
the purging fire?’ It cannot be God because of His promise to
believers. ‘Their sins and iniquities I will remember no more’ (Hebrews
10:17). After conversion, God no longer counts sins against His children
(2 Corinthians 5:19).”
He urged those who are involved in Roman Catholicism to compare tradition to Scripture.
“The apostle Paul warned people about this when he wrote, ‘See to it
that no one takes you captive through hollow and deceptive philosophy,
which depends on human tradition and the basic principles of this world
rather than on Christ’ (Colossians 2:8),” Gendron noted. “Jesus strongly
rebuked the Jewish religious leaders of His day for nullifying the word
of God with their traditions. He said, ‘They worship Me in vain; their
teachings are but rules taught by men. You have let go of the commands
of God and are holding on to the traditions of men.'”
“We must test every man’s teaching and traditions by examining them
through the lens of Scripture, which is the supreme authority for faith
(Acts 17:11),” he said. “God has revealed His truth through His written
word, not the traditions of men. We must trust and obey the Sovereign
Lord, for our destiny is in His hands, not in the hands of the Catholic
clergy.”
CATHOLIC DOCTRINE: "THE BEGINNING & THE END" WITHOUT THE SAVING GRACE OF JESUS CHRIST
Bishop Hoeller's homily for the Sunday within the Octave of All Souls' Day. Recorded on November 5, 2017.
"MAKING OUR TRANSITION FROM LIFE TO LIFE HEREAFTER "SMOOTH":
