Nigeria: 15 Christians 'have throats slit' by suspected extremists
Suspected Islamist extremists have killed 15 Christians by slitting their throats in an attack on a village in Nigeria's volatile northeast, residents and a relief source have claimed.
In a stinging rebuke to one of Socialist Hollande's flagship campaign promises, the constitutional council ruled Saturday that the way the highly contentious tax was designed was unconstitutional. It was intended to hit incomes over 1 million euros ($1.32 million).
The largely symbolic measure would have only hit a tiny number of taxpayers and brought in an estimated 100 million to 300 million euros - an insignificant amount in the context of France's roughtly 85 billion euro deficit.Has the press ever reported on the "insignificant amount," in relation to our outrageous debt, that would come in as a result of Obama's plan to tax the rich, and how it would make virtually no impact on eliminating the deficit? As Mark Steyn so memorable wrote:
The life of Saint Stephen is entirely shaped by God, conformed to Christ, whose passion is repeated in him; in the final moment of death, on his knees, he takes up the prayer of Jesus on the cross, trusting in the Lord (cf. Acts 7:59 ) and forgiving his enemies: " Lord, do not hold this sin against them" (v. 60). Filled with the Holy Spirit, as his eyes are about to close, he fixed his gaze on "Jesus standing at the right hand of God" (v. 55), the Lord of all, who draws all to Him.
On St. Stephen’s Day, we are called to fix our gaze on the Son of God, who in the joyful atmosphere of Christmas we contemplate in the mystery of His Incarnation. In Baptism and Confirmation, with the precious gift of faith nourished by the Sacraments of the Church, especially the Eucharist, Jesus Christ has bound us to Him and wants to continue in us, through the action of the Holy Spirit, his work of salvation that redeems, enhances, elevates and leads all to fulfillment. Allowing ourselves be drawn by Christ, like St. Stephen, means opening our lives to the light that calls, directs and makes us walk the path of good, the path of humanity according to God’s loving plan.
VATICAN CITY (Reuters) - Pope Benedict, indicating the Vatican's desire to forge alliances with other religions against gay marriage, on Friday said the family was threatened "to its foundations" by attempts to change its "true structure".
The pope made his latest denunciation of gay marriage in a Christmas address to Vatican officials in which he blended religion, philosophy, anthropology and sociology to illustrate the position of the Roman Catholic Church.
He threw the full weight of his office behind a study by France's chief rabbi on the effects the legalization of gay marriage would have on children and society.
"There is no denying the crisis that threatens it to its foundations - especially in the Western world," the pope said, adding it had to be protected because it is "the authentic setting in which to hand on the blueprint of human existence".
The 85-year-old pope, speaking in the frescoed Clementine Hall of the Vatican's Apostolic Palace, said the family was being threatened by "a false understanding of freedom" and a repudiation of life-long commitment in heterosexual marriage. "When such commitment is repudiated, the key figures of human existence likewise vanish: father, mother, child - essential elements of the experience of being human are lost," the leader of the world's 1.2 billion Catholic said. ...
Significantly, the pope specifically praised as "profoundly moving" a study by France's chief rabbi, Gilles Bernheim, which has become the subject of heated debate in that country.
Bernheim, also a philosopher, argues that homosexual rights groups "will use gay marriage as a Trojan Horse" in a wider campaign to "deny sexual identity and erase sexual differences" and "undermine the heterosexual fundamentals of our society".
His study, "Gay Marriage, Parenthood and Adoption: What We Often Forget To Say", argues that plans to legalize gay marriage are being made for "the exclusive profit of a tiny minority" and are often supported because of political correctness.
A campaign of intimidation by Islamists left most Christians in this southern Egyptian province too afraid to participate in last week's referendum on an Islamist-drafted constitution they deeply oppose, residents say. The disenfranchisement is hiking Christians' worries over their future under empowered Muslim conservatives.
Around a week before the vote, some 50,000 Islamists marched through the provincial capital, Assiut, chanting that Egypt will be "Islamic, Islamic, despite the Christians." At their head rode several bearded men on horseback with swords in scabbards on their hips, evoking images of early Muslims conquering Christian Egypt in the 7th Century. ...
Union activists want voters to believe that right-to-work laws deny union organizing rights, or ban collective bargaining. President Obama peddled this distortion on Monday in Redford, Michigan, claiming that "what we shouldn't be doing is trying to take away your rights to bargain for better wages and working conditions."
Right to work does no such thing. It empowers individual workers. As allowed under the 1947 Taft-Hartley Act, right to work merely lets individual workers choose for themselves if they want to join a union. The laws prevent closed union shops, which coerce individual workers to join unions and to pay union dues. A teacher who opts out under right to work, for example, could save several hundred dollars in annual union dues that go to political causes he may not even believe in.
Unions loathe right to work because they know that many workers would rather not join a union. Americans have seen what happened to the auto and steel industries, the Post Office and so many others. Unions can extract monopoly wages and benefits for a time from a profitable industry, but often at the cost of making that industry less competitive and eventually at the cost of union jobs. Thus did Teamster work rules—cake and bread had to be delivered in separate trucks—cost the bakery workers their jobs at Hostess. Right to work gives workers a choice. ...
According to the West Michigan Policy Forum, of the 10 states with the highest rate of personal income growth, eight have right-to-work laws. Those numbers are driving a net migration from forced union states: Between 2000 and 2010, five million people moved to right-to-work states from compulsory union states.In light of what's coming out of Washington, it is deeply encouraging that states like Michigan are taking aggressive positions like this. Wisconsin is no stranger to union fury. There are battles, and even wars, that are worth fighting, and can be won, even with Obama in the White House.
A Catholic priest who participated in a eucharistic liturgy with a woman priest last month has been ordered to no longer celebrate the Mass or perform any other priestly duties.
Jesuit Fr. Bill Brennan, a 92-year-old Milwaukee-area priest, said the superior of his religious community told him of the restrictions Nov. 29, saying they came at the request of Archbishop Jerome Listecki.
Brennan, a retired parish priest and former missionary to Belize, participated in a liturgy Nov. 17 with Janice Sevre-Dus
Young people's attachment to their mobile phones is eroding their personal relationships, according to a new study.
The claims come after research revealed that young adults - in addition to sending over 100 texts - check their mobile up to 60 times a day. Experts behind a new study have now said compulsively checking a mobile phone is an addiction similar to compulsive spending or credit card misuse.
They said their research showed mobile and instant messaging addictions are driven by materialism and impulsiveness - which also plays a role in behavioural and substance addictions.Not at all surprising.
VATICAN CITY (AP) — Pope Benedict XVI greeted thousands of clowns, acrobats, puppeteers and even a pair of lion cubs on Saturday as the circus came to town for an unusual papal performance.
Benedict clapped and watched amused as circus workers flipped, flopped, juggled and twisted before him in what the Vatican has called a historic audience to make street performers and other itinerant entertainers feel like they belong to the church.
