Spiritual Warfare

GHANA British Prime Minister David Cameron demanded that countries who receive British financial aid must "reform" legislation banning same-sex marriage. And the Ghana Parliament replied, "No way."  Parliamentarian Catherine Afeku said, "If any sector of the ministry should sponsor a bill legitimizing same-sex marriage, it will be dead upon arrival."  Ghana President John Atta Mills reiterated that Cameron "does not have the right to direct other  sovereign  nations as to what they should do especially where their societal norms and ideals are different than those which exist in the Prime Minister's society." [ DETAILS ]

PHILIPPINES Father Michelle Joe Zerrudo, one of the less than a dozen exorcists in the Philippines, led on 15 August 2011 a reparation rite outside the Cultural Center of the Philippines (CCP) where the controversial "Kulo" art exhibit was held. Before the rite, he led some 200 lay people in a Tridentine Latin Mass at the Center for International Trade Expositions and Missions in Pasay City. One of the artworks in the exhibit was the blasphemous mixed-media works Poleteismo of Mideo Cruz that incorporate sexual materials into the image of the Lord Jesus Christ. The CCP closed down the main gallery on August 9 after indignations erupted from largely Catholic Filipinos.  

Preternatural beings (angels and demons) have power over nature. That means they can manipulate nature at will. Is it possible that natural disasters are acts of evil spirits (not of God) contrary to what legal views of disaster have it? There is an obvious benefit to the cause of evil when a natural disaster strikes communities. The devastation that these events bring can shake any person's faith. A family whose residence and properties disappear after a tsuanami hit their village can likely tell God: "You're supposed to protect us from danger. But you did not. Why do you do this to us? A natural disaster is an effective tool at torturing people into a shakened, and even crumbling faith.

UNITED STATES OF AMERICA Bishop Thomas Paprocki of Springfield, Illinois, the chairman of the United States Bishops Conference's Committee on Canonical Affairs and Church Governance, organized a two-day conference on exorcism as more than 100 Catholic priests gathered in Baltimore to attend the affair. [ Read report ]

Some 300 exorcists met in mid-July 2011 at Jasna Gora monastery, home to the venerated Black Madonna icon. They will be discussing developments on the "current fashion for vampirism in Europe and around the world, schizophrenia and other mental illness, and the devil's deceit during exorcism. This congress occur once every two years.

The Roman Catholic Church has groaned from the gaping wound from the evil that a few sex-abusive priests caused. It has wounded the Catholic witness to the goodness of the Lord.  This also opened the Church to those who sought monetary windfall from this vulnerability. It is one thing to seek restitution for the damage that the abused had caused to the child and the family. It is another thing to go for more money when settlement had been previously made on the offense committed. Below are cases wherein the complaint filed against the local church, even the Vatican itself, already betrays an obvious intent at taking advantage of such vulnerability. Father Daniel McCormack of Chicago, Illinois In 2008, Father McCormack pleaded guilty in court to molesting five boys in a Catholic school where he used to work, and the Archdiocese of Chicago paid a settlement of $1.6 million as a restitution.  But on 11 May 2011, a mother of one of the five boys sued the Va...

PHILIPPINES A blood-curdling scream echose through the Roman Catholic chapel in Manila as Father Francisco Syquia says a prayer of exorcism over a Satanic cult member believed possessed by the devil. "It's very painful," the woman cries in an unearthly voice, her body contorting in an attempt to break free from the tight grasp of Syquia's assistants. After a few minutes she falls silent, her limp body exhausted. "She would have levitated had she not been restrained," Syquia said of teh woman in the video, portions of which were shown to AFP during a rare interview at his office in the basement of a seminary in Manila. [ Read more. ]

To try to understand what sin is, one must first recognize the profound relation of man to God , for only in his relationiship is the evil of sin unmasked in its true identity as humanity's rejection to God and opposition to him, even as it continue to weigh heavy on human life. Only in the knowledge of God's plan for man can we grasp that sin is an abuse of the freedom that God gives to created persons so that they are capable of loving him and loving one another. Catechism of the Catholic Church, Nos. 386, 387

"Now, however, we walk by faith, not by sight; we perceive God as in a mirror, dimly and only in part. Even though enlightened by him in whom it believes, faith is often lived in darkness and can be put to the test. The world we live in often seems very far from the one promised us by faith. Our experiences of evil and suffering, injustice and death, seem to contradict the Good News, they can shake our faith and become a temptation against it." Catechism of the Catholic Church , No. 164

In 1970, Congress passed, and then President Nixon signed, into law Title X of teh Public Health Service Act, which makes contraceptives available, and later broadened to provide community-based sex education programs and preventive services to unmarried teenagers at risk of pregnancy including abortion. The following year, Planned Parenthood Federation of America, established an international program, largely funded by the United States Agency for International Development, that provides family planning services, reaching millions of women and men in developing countries. On 22 January 1973, the United States Supreme Court ruled in the case of Roe v. Wade that it is constitutional right to privacy and women's right to choose abortion. This became the basis for legalizing abortion in the United States. Live Action, a pro-life advocate group, uncovered on 25 June 2008 a coverup of child sex abuse at an Indiana Planned Parenthood office. And in February 2011, two weeks before the...