MARYLAND: LAW ABIDING GUN OWNER KILLED DURING RED FLAG CONFISCATION RAID

 

MARYLAND: LAW ABIDING GUN OWNER KILLED DURING RED FLAG CONFISCATION RAID 

BY BOB ADELMANN

SEE: https://www.thenewamerican.com/usnews/constitution/item/30567-law-abiding-gun-owner-killed-during-red-flag-confiscation-raid?vsmaid=1865&vcid=3987; 

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.

Related articles:
New Florida Gun-control Bill Contains "Red Flag" Provision
Florida’s "Red-flag" Law Taking Guns Without Due Process
Red Flag Warning: States Confiscating Guns by Ignoring Fourth Amendment
New Oregon Law Green Lights Gun Confiscation in "Emergencies"
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SEE ALSO:
https://www.ammoland.com/2018/11/maryland-red-flag-gun-confiscation-order-ends-with-dead-gun-owner/ 
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 Gun Gripes #170: "Red Flag Laws"

by IraqVeteran8888

 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.

 

"MIGRANT CARAVAN" DWINDLES AS BARBED WIRE GOES UP

 

"MIGRANT CARAVAN" DWINDLES 

AS BARBED WIRE GOES UP

BY R. CORT KIRKWOOD

SEE: https://www.thenewamerican.com/usnews/immigration/item/30564-migrant-caravan-dwindles-as-barbed-wire-goes-up?vsmaid=1865&vcid=3987;

 

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.

YES, UNVETTED ILLEGAL "CARAVANS" THREATEN PUBLIC HEALTH WHILE LEGAL IMMIGRANTS ARE SUBJECTED TO MEDICAL SCREENINGS

YES, UNVETTED ILLEGAL "CARAVANS" THREATEN PUBLIC HEALTH WHILE LEGAL IMMIGRANTS ARE SUBJECTED TO MEDICAL SCREENINGS 

BY MICHELLE MALKIN

SEE: https://www.frontpagemag.com/fpm/271850/yes-unvetted-illegal-caravans-threaten-public-michelle-malkin; 

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.

ROMAN CATHOLICS WORLDWIDE PRAYING IN CEMETERIES TO FREE SOULS FROM "PURGATORY" NOVEMBER 1-8

 "ALL SOULS OCTAVE"

 

ROMAN CATHOLICS WORLDWIDE PRAYING IN CEMETERIES TO FREE SOULS FROM "PURGATORY" NOVEMBER 1-8

BY HEATHER CLARK

SEE: https://christiannews.net/2018/11/05/roman-catholics-worldwide-praying-in-cemeteries-to-free-souls-from-purgatory-november-1-8/; 

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?

Gendron

However, 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":

RUSH LIMBAUGH, LEE GREENWOOD, SEAN HANNITY, JUDGE JEANINE PIRRO SPEECHES AT TRUMP RALLY IN CAPE GIRARDEAU, MISSOURI

RUSH LIMBAUGH, LEE GREENWOOD, SEAN HANNITY, JUDGE JEANINE PIRRO SPEECHES AT TRUMP RALLY 

IN CAPE GIRARDEAU, MISSOURI 

 Trump tells Hannity his final message 
to midterm voters

PRESIDENT DONALD TRUMP MAGA RALLIES JUST BEFORE MIDTERM ELECTIONS 2018

CLEVELAND, OHIO

 

MACON, GEORGIA

CAPE GIRARDEAU, MISSOURI

CHATTANOOGA, TENNESSEE

FORT WAYNE, INDIANA

ROMA DOWNEY PROMOTES NEW AGE DOCTRINE (PANTHEISM & PANENTHEISM)~CHRISTIAN LEADERS SAY NOTHING

ROMA DOWNEY PROMOTES NEW AGE DOCTRINE (PANTHEISM & PANENTHEISM)~

CHRISTIAN LEADERS SAY NOTHING

SEE: https://www.lighthousetrailsresearch.com/newsletters/2018/newsletter20181105.htm; 

republished below in full unedited for informational, educational and research purposes:

Proclaim 19

First she’s there; now she’s gone, or is she? New Age sympathizer Roma Downey was scheduled to speak at the National Religious Broadcaster’s 2019 convention, Proclaim 19. Sharing the docket with her are highly popular evangelical names like John MacArthur, Rick Warren, Greg Laurie, and Kirk Cameron. Lighthouse Trails reported on the story with the release of Greg Reid’s booklet, Butterfly Illusions (which unveils the strong New Age messages in Roma Downey’s new book, Box of Butterflies).

Shortly after the release of the booklet, Lighthouse Trails learned that Roma Downey’s name (along with her husband Mark Burnett) had been removed from the speakers list for Proclaim 19. Calls to the NRB office in Washington, DC by Lighthouse Trails editors provided no answers as to why Downey’s name was gone other than being told “it has not yet been decided” if she will be speaking there. As has been the “normal” protocol for Christian leaders when they get challenged, there is just dead silence from NRB as well as from the evangelical figures who are involved. But new information about Roma Downey’s beliefs will hopefully prompt NRB and Christian leaders to be responsible and do the right thing.

God “In” Everyone and Everything?

The crux of the New Age is not Ouija boards and Tarot cards but rather is the foundational belief that God is “in” everyone and “in” everything. It is the prevailing doctrine throughout all New Age teachings as well as the root of mystical meditation. To believe that God is in everyone and in everything is to ultimately reject the Cross (whether one realizes that or not). If God is in everyone, then there would have been no reason for Jesus Christ to go to the Cross as a substitute for humanity’s sins because we would already be divine and not need a Savior. That is why one prominent New Age leader quoted his “God” as saying, “the era of the Single Savior is over”1 (because we are all Saviors). It would stand to reason that Christian teachers and pastors who profess to know God’s Word and His ways would easily recognize the contrast between New Age spirituality and biblical Christianity. But in the case of Roma Downey and today’s Christian leaders, this is not so.

For many years now, Roma Downey has consistently and publicly shown herself to be strongly aligned with the New Age. Her long-time spiritual mentor was New Age/New Thought pastor and teacher Della Reese whom Downey considered to be a mother figure. Downey then attended and, in 2010, graduated from the University of Santa Monica (one of the most popular New Age schools in the world). And she favorably quotes the school’s New Age leader and founder, the late John-Roger2 (who claimed he was inhabited by the “mystical traveler consciousness”).  Shortly after her graduation from USM, Downey came on the evangelical Christian scene (calling herself a devout Catholic), producing Bible-story movies and being wholeheartedly welcomed by numerous Christian celebrities (see some photo examples below) including Rick Warren, David Jeremiah, Greg Laurie, Samuel Rodriguez (she wrote the foreword to his 2017 book, Be Light), and Joel Osteen. And now, most recently, her open-armed welcome to speak at Proclaim 19 with John MacArthur, Rick Warren, Greg Laurie, and Kirk Cameron.

Christian Leaders Say Nothing

Until concern was issued by Lighthouse Trails and others, none of the men listed above had any apparent problem with being associated with Roma Downey. But do they even know or care about what she believes? Or have they just benefited from their association with her and ignored what she really stands for? (After all, she has gained the affection and following of millions and millions of people since her Touched by an Angel days—those associating with her would clearly glean from her substantial popularity.) On this point (i.e., the motives of the leaders), we can only speculate. But on the issue of Roma Downey’s New Age beliefs, we can know this for sure. For example, on two different interviews, one in 2012 (during the making of The Bible series) and one in April 2018, Downey stated that she believes God is “in” everyone and everything. (See videos below.) And as Greg Reid shows in his booklet Butterfly Illusions, Downey’s new book Box of Butterflies echoes this same message that God is in everyone by stating that separation is an illusion.3 Reid confronts Christian leaders (many of whom gave their hearty endorsements for Box of Butterflies) for not being more discerning and also for not correcting Roma Downey and her husband about their New Age beliefs and showing them that such beliefs are the antithesis of the message of the Bible and the Gospel, and the two absolutely cannot mix or be joined together. (We must interject here that recently Greg Reid had the opportunity to hand Roma Downey a copy of Warren B. Smith’s biography The Light That Was Dark: From the New Age to Amazing Grace—can Christian leaders say they have done even half that much to point Roma Downey in the right direction?)

In Warren Smith’s own booklet, Be Still and Know That You Are Not God (God is NOT in Everyone and Everything), Smith states:

Our Spiritual Adversary would have everyone believe that we are all “one” because God is “in” everyone and everything. Using every promotional means possible—including a creative and ingenious perversion of quantum physics—he is attempting to convince the world and the church that while Jesus was Christ, so is everyone. And while Jesus was God, so is everyone else. To underscore this heretical New Age doctrine of God and Christ “in” everyone, he would have us further believe that nothing of any significance happened on the Cross of Calvary. However, the Bible makes it very clear that something extremely wonderful and overwhelmingly significant did happen on the Cross of Calvary. For it was on that Cross that Jesus Christ died to save the world as He defeated sin (1 John 2:2), death (2 Timothy 1:10), and the Devil himself (Hebrews 2:14). As the one and only Christ, He is our Rock (1 Corinthians 10:1-4), He is our Foundation (1 Corinthians 3:11), and in every sense of the word He is the Saviour of the world (1 John 4:14).

The tragedy about this situation between Roma Downey and Christian leaders is that the leaders are using Roma Downey, Roma Downey is using the leaders, and our Adversary is using them both—and countless naïve and undiscerning Christians are buying into the whole thing.

Is Roma Downey going to be speaking at Proclaim 19? We don’t know. NRB is saying nothing about the removal of her name except the unofficial comment to Lighthouse Trails that “it has not yet been decided.” We urge NRB as well as John MacArthur, Greg Laurie, Kirk Cameron, and the other leaders to do the right thing—to speak the truth in love to Roma Downey about the dangers of her New Age beliefs that directly contradict the teachings of Jesus Christ.

Washington Post Interview – 2012 (If you cannot see the two videos below, please click here.)

100 Huntley Street Interview – April 2018 (start at 1:30 min. mark) (100 Huntley Street is Canada’s equivalent to the 700 Club in the U.S.)

PHOTOS THAT SAY  A THOUSAND WORDS:

 

Roma Downey with Mark Burnett and Mr. and Mrs. David Jeremiah (2015) (photo from David Jeremiah’s Twitter account; used in accordance with the US Fair Use Act for the purpose of education, critique, and review)

 

Greg Laurie (and his wife) with Roma Downey and Mark Burnett (2015) (low resolution photo from Greg Laurie’s Facebook; used in accordance with the U.S. Fair Use Act)

 

LOS ANGELES, CA. August 11, 2016: Della Reese & Mark Burnett & Roma Downey & Rick Warren at Hollywood Walk of Fame Star ceremony for actress Roma Downey. (photo from shutterstock, used with permission for editorial purposes only)

 

March 2018 – Calvary Chapel KWAVE Radio program Interview with Roma Downey promoting Box of Butterflies (photo from emergentwatch.com)

Endnote:
1. Neale Donald Walsch, The New Revelations: A Conversation with God (New York, NY: Atria Books, 2002), p. 157.

2.  On Roma Downey’s August 4th 2011 Twitter.

3. To understand the “lie of separation” heresy, read Warren B. Smith’s booklet, Oneness vs. Separation Heresy “Now” in the Church

(Photo of butterflies from bigstockphoto.com; used with permission)

 Note from LT reader: [Contemplative proponent] Priscilla Shirer [see photo below] with Roma Downey at a [spring 2018] charity event where Roma said Oprah was full of the Holy Spirit. As screen captured below:

 

THE "PEOPLE'S CHURCH", A COLLECTIVIST, SOCIALIST UNION BASED ON TOLERANCE, DIVERSITY, UNITY~BUT FAR FROM BIBLICAL CHRISTIANITY AND JESUS AS HEAD

 THE "PEOPLE'S CHURCH"

By Paul Proctor

SEE: https://www.lighthousetrailsresearch.com/newsletters/2018/newsletter20181105.htm; 

republished below in full unedited for informational, educational and research purposes:

I walked through the doors of the First Baptist Church in the spring of 1995 after having been somewhat of a prodigal son for roughly 10 years. I had recently rededicated my life to Christ and wanted to once again be a part of a loving church family. As I entered and sat down to the joyful noise of a magnificent choir and orchestra praising God in song, my heart and soul were filled with wonder, excitement and great expectation. I was truly being prepared for worship.

When the preacher finished his sermon, I was spiritually refreshed and energized for the week ahead. His message had been clear, powerful, convicting, biblical and full of the Holy Spirit. Over time I grew to love this brother in Christ because of his faithfulness and passion for the gospel. After visiting the church for some months, I knew I had found a church home.

A couple years later, the pastor invited me to lunch at a nearby country club he frequented where he mentioned in passing his desire to eventually do away with the First Baptist Church name and simply call it “The People’s Church,” claiming “that’s what everyone called it anyway.” Still taken by the man’s persona, I smiled and nodded in approval as he told me of wanting to take the church in “a new direction,” away from the Southern Baptist stigma that he felt had somehow hindered us in the past and move on greater things. Unfortunately, he didn’t elaborate on what that “new direction” was, and I mistakenly assumed he meant toward a non-denominational identity.

In the coming weeks and months a new message began emanating from his pulpit not unlike what had been coming from, of all places, the presidential podium of Bill Clinton during the height of his scandals. A re-occurring theme of “tolerance, diversity and unity” seemed to permeate almost every sermon. It became increasingly clear to me that the pastor’s “new direction” was worldly and that he was now being guided by someone or something other than God. Friction grew between the two of us over the course of time as his sermons turned away from the Gospel that leads to repentance and faith in Christ to the social psychology of get-alongism. Sure, the Bible calls us to live in peace with one another, to keep and maintain healthy relationships with our brothers and sisters in Christ, but not at the expense of God. The pastor I once held in such high regard began reciting “group-think” platitudes like: “You can’t be right with God and at odds with everyone else,” meaning it was now time for us all to compromise our conscience and convictions for the collective. This is the “Consensus Process” at work, a 200 year-old socialist brainwashing technique known by social psychologists the world over as the “Hegelian Dialectic,” developed by Georg Wilhelm Friedrich Hegel in the late 1700s that involves the practice of compromise to achieve social harmony between opposing groups and/or belief systems. The Hegelian Dialectic is especially damaging to those of the faith who are compelled by the process to accept the unacceptable in order to gain the approval of the group. It is the herd mentality of humanist thinking and an abomination before God.

You see the Bible is full of godly men who stood alone and died fighting the heresy of the herd mentality, including Jesus Himself. Being “at odds with everyone else” is exactly what got Him nailed to a cross! He said: “Enter ye in at the strait gate: for wide is the gate, and broad is the way, that leadeth to destruction, and many there be which go thereat: Because strait is the gate, and narrow is the way, which leadeth unto life, and few there be that find it” (Matthew 7:13-14). This certainly doesn’t bode well for pastors whose primary agenda is church growth and big numbers.

It was not a tolerant Jesus who cleared the temple in Jerusalem of moneychangers with a whip or a tolerant John the Baptist who publicly railed against King Herod for marrying his brother’s wife or a tolerant Paul that stood up against Peter for alienating uncircumcised believers or tolerance that got most of the disciples beheaded or crucified in the early days of the church. Yet, here we are today as a re-invented church of tolerance, diversity, and unity. As the doors are all thrown open to anyone and anything, I ask you, is the church affecting the culture or is the culture infecting the church? Who is proselytizing whom here? Look around and tell me what you see.

It wasn’t long before a vulgar campaign for cash began at The People’s Church as if someone was running for political office, complete with banquets, dinners, awards, lots of flattering speech, testimonials, presentations, private meetings and special attention given to the church’s “big givers,” (their term, not mine) all to benefit a massive new building program that would put us in a high-tech “worship center” and twelve million dollars in debt.

When I walked into that entertainment complex where a sanctuary used to be, I saw a lot of cushioned movie theater seats where pews used to be; a big multi-media projection screen where a wooden cross used to be; a half dozen choreographed entertainers performing to applause where a choir used to be; a jazz/rock band playing solos where an orchestra used to be; a young female singer leading simplistic chants before a confused audience where a music minister used to lead great hymns of worship and praise to God and where a charming “facilitator” in a golf shirt preaches that we should all “go along to get along” where a once humble man of God  used to courageously proclaim the Word of God.

I was once listening to a radio program on the Internet where a former teacher and expert on European history and philosophy by the name of Dean Gotcher was being interviewed about the Hegelian Dialectic or “Consensus Process” and how it has successfully been integrated into the government, the media, the military, law enforcement, public education, colleges, seminaries and even the church to centralize everything and unify us all into the socialist mindset of global governance. The global-socialist goal is and always has been a one-world government and a one-world religion. They have used the Hegelian Dialectic for centuries to control large populations around the world and steer them toward a “New World Order.” Near the end of the hour-long program, the man casually mentioned a couple of Christian organizations that were known for seducing churches into this Consensus Process with “progressive” church-growth programs where compromising brings in big numbers. The temptation of such worldly fruit is obviously hard to resist, even among the most faithful of pastors. Nonetheless, doing unholy things in the name of Christ does not make them holy.

When Dean Gotcher mentioned one of those organizations as being The Willow Creek Association, bells began ringing, lights began flashing, and all of a sudden five years of confusion, contention, and controversy between my pastor and me were instantly brought into complete clarity. Of course! The People’s Church belonged to the Willow Creek Association! Once my eyes were opened to their carnal ways through additional research, combined with all I had learned over the years about global-socialism, I became convinced that we, (the church) had been brought into the Consensus Process by way of a socialistic humanist organization posing as a Christian ministry, complete with “change-agents” and “facilitators” (wolves in sheep’s clothing) that I myself had encountered personally from Sunday School to Sunday worship. Apparently, this was the pastor’s “new direction” for The First Baptist Church. It came as no surprise to later discover that Willow Creek’s founder Bill Hybels was a dear friend and personal minister to the nation’s most renown socialist and “facilitator” at the time, Bill Clinton. Now I knew why my pastor began sounding so “Clintonesque” in his Sunday morning sermons.

As I went on to research The Willow Creek Association, I discovered that thousands upon thousands of established churches around the country were being transformed into sensory driven “seeker churches” exactly like ours under the guidance and direction of this organization, all with the same tolerance, diversity, and unity theme, liberal worship format, scripturally shallow teaching, heavy on the comfort and light on the conscience, equipped with huge multi-media projection screens, large sound systems, exotic music, no choir, female ministers, feelings-motivated skits, dance interpretations, and heavily burdened with millions of dollars of debt from building state-of-the-art entertainment venues they call “worship centers.” The revolving disco ball sparkling overhead at the dedication service was a real poignant moment for me personally.

Love not the world, neither the things that are in the world. If any man love the world, the love of the Father is not in him. For all that is in the world, the lust of the flesh, the lust of the eyes, and the pride of life, is not of the Father, but is of the world. And the world passeth away, and the lust thereof: but he that doeth the will of God abideth forever. (1st John 2:15-17)

 

(Paul Proctor is a former free-lance writer. This article is used with his permission.)

Other articles by Paul Proctor:

Three Vital Questions on Navigating Discernment

Are You Prepared? Something to Think About
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 Trevor Loudon Interview - Are Churches in America being Infiltrated?