etoa, Yes, true. https://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Crown_of_thorns "The most precious treasure, the Crown of Thorns, is housed in Notre Dame'sm one of three holy artifacts along with the True Cross and one of the Holy Nails from the crucifixion." https://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/20...l-paris-fire-witnesses-describe-plumes-smoke/ HH, Praying.
Just saw this flashback from 2016: (IF this could be anything else.....to have ISIS for instance behind such an event would be another attack against Trump who claims to have almost routed ISIS in Syria....but, who knows at this point) Cell of French women guided by Isis behind failed Notre Dame attack A cell of radicalised French women guided by Islamic State commanders in Syria was behind a failed terrorist attack near Paris’s Notre Dame Cathedral last weekend (2016) and planned another violent attack this week before they were intercepted by police, the Paris prosecutor has said. The women, aged 19, 23 and 39, were arrested in Boussy-Saint-Antoine, a small town 19 miles (30km) south-east of Paris, on Thursday night after they were linked to the discovery of a car packed with gas cylinders parked near the cathedral last weekend. Officials said the women had been planning an imminent violent attack on the busy Gare de Lyon station in Paris and were stopped after a police and intelligence operation described as a “race against time”. The Paris prosecutor, François Molins, said one of the women arrested, who he referred to as Sarah H, aged 23, had been engaged at different times to two French extremists who themselves had carried out deadly attacks this year. She had been engaged to Larossi Abballa, who in June murdered a police commander and his police officer partner at their home in Magnanville outside Paris in the presence of their three-year-old son. He filmed the aftermath on Facebook Live before dying in a police raid. She was also betrothed to Adel Kermiche, who slit the throat of an elderly French priest during morning mass in Normandy in July. Her current fiancé was arrested on Thursday, Molins said. The prosecutor said the cell of women terrorists showed that Islamic State“intends to make women into fighters”. He said that if women had previously been “confined to family and domestic tasks” by the militant group, that vision was now strongly out of date. “Their aim was to commit an attack,” he said of the women. https://www.theguardian.com/world/2...lised-by-isis-behind-failed-notre-dame-attack
Forget the Thorns! Did someone save the Sacred Specie (the consecrated hosts stored in the tabernacle)?
Bernie says "go for it"..... Sanders: Abortions up Until Birth Are ‘Very, Very’ Rare – The Decision Doesn’t Belong to the Government During a town hall on the Fox News Channel on Monday, Democratic presidential candidate Senator Bernie Sanders (I-VT) stated that abortions up until the moment of birth are extremely rare, this topic is “being made into a political issue,” and the decision on abortion belongs to a woman and her doctor, not the government. Co-host Martha MacCallum asked, “With regard to abortion, do you believe that a woman should be able to terminate a pregnancy up until the moment of birth?” Sanders answered, “Look, I think that that happens very, very rarely. And I think this is being made into a political issue, okay? So, I think it’s rare. It’s being made into a political issue. But at the end of the day, I believe that the decision over abortion belongs to a woman and her physician, not the federal government, not the state government, and not the [unintelligible].” https://www.breitbart.com/clips/201...the-decision-doesnt-belong-to-the-government/
I believe there are a few prophesies of Paris and Rome burning. I suspect it has something to do also with one day not too far from now, we will look for the Blessed Sacrament and not find it. At that point our weapons will truly be our Rosaries and prayer. Could the fire have been at the hands of terrorists who made use of an opportune situation of renovation...flammables?
https://www.dailywire.com/news/4599...ook&utm_medium=social&utm_campaign=benshapiro Ohio Democrat Drafts Amendment Seeking To Make Black Babies Exempt From Pro-Life Law A female Democrat state representative from Ohio, Rep. Janine Boyd, drafted an amendment last week seeking to have black babies exempted from pro-life legislation dubbed the "heartbeat bill," which bars babies with detectable heartbeats (around six weeks gestation) from being killed via abortion. As reported by LifeNews, Boyd's bill "would have given an exemption to African American women to abort their unborn babies for any reason up to the state’s current abortion limit, 20 weeks.” Ironically, Boyd "likened restrictions on abortion to slavery as she urged her fellow lawmakers to support the measure," the outlet noted. “Black slaves were once treated like cattle and put out to stud in order to create generations of more slaves,” argued the Democrat. “Our country is not far enough beyond our history to legislate as if it is.” Thankfully, Amendment 0291 failed, and the heartbeat bill was signed by Republican Governor Mike DeWine on Friday. Former Planned Parenthood executive turned pro-life advocate Abby Johnson ripped Boyd's targeted amendment, snarking that "apparently a 38% national abortion rate in the African-American community isn’t enough." "A female, African-American democratic state representative from Ohio presented this amendment to the Ohio Heartbeat bill. This amendment would have made an exception for African-American babies...because apparently a 38% national abortion rate in the African-American community isn’t enough," posted Johnson to Facebook. "The amendment was struck down 11-7."
Ignorance and anti-Catholic bias at the BBC: a former employee writes by Catherine Utley | @catherineutley | 16 APR 2019 | https://www.thearticle.com/ignoranc...writes?utm_source=dlvr.it&utm_medium=twitter# It is a hazard of having worked as a journalist in BBC News for 30 years – in my case in the newsroom of the BBC World Service – that one can never watch or listen to a news bulletin without thinking of how the headline should have been written and how much better the story could have been told. But it really was a remarkable feat for BBC 1’s News at Ten last night to get through the entire programme, without a single mention of any of these words: Christian; Christianity; Catholic; worship; worshippers; sacred; Mass; Holy Week. It was as if it hadn’t occurred to any of them that the awful fire which had been engulfing Notre Dame Cathedral for several hours by the time they came on air, was anything deeper or more meaningful – to billions, at least, of Christians worldwide (particularly Catholics) – than the tragic destruction of a particularly well visited tourist attraction. Lucy Williamson, in Paris, did make one reference to Parisians praying for the Cathedral. There was also much interest in Kevin Connolly’s report later about Notre Dame’s historic significance – references to its having witnessed the coronation of Napoleon and the celebration of the liberation of Paris in 1944 – and so on. But where was the talk of its sacred spaces, made holy by the prayers of Catholic worshippers over hundreds of years? Where the footage of the great Masses celebrated there? Where the clips of the choir raising their voices in hymns of praise? Or the shots of the crowds gathered outside as the fire blazed, singing hymns and praying that the Cathedral might be saved? Why, in short, did the BBC’s flagship news programme, when it had time to prepare its coverage properly, fail to acknowledge Notre Dame’s importance as France’s most profound expression of the Christian civilisation on which an entire continent was founded? The rot at the BBC, in respect of the way in which it reports stories which have to do with the Christian faith, set in, I think, many years ago. It matters because it has now reached the stage where even the slaughter and persecution of Christians worldwide, from Nigeria to China, goes woefully under-reported. Domestic outlets are much worse offenders than the World Service, but even the latter cannot be wholly exonerated. How has this come to be? Much of it stems from ignorance. As a Catholic, I was amazed, at Bush House, at how newsroom colleagues, brought up and educated in the UK, with a knowledge of the global geopolitical scene which far surpassed my own, could be so ignorant about Christianity. I remember one Good Friday on the newsdesk discovering that only one of half a dozen bright, well educated BBC journalists I was working with that day, knew what event it commemorated. Even now, as I write, the seasoned BBC journalist, Hugh Schofield, is telling the World at One that the Notre Dame calamity happened in Easter week. No, Hugh. We are not in EASTER week. We are in HOLY Week. We must go through the Last Supper, the betrayal of Christ and His crucifixion before we, at last, next week, come to the joy of the resurrection and the celebration of Easter. But there’s more to it than ignorance. They do not wish to know. A world view which accepts without question the ‘enlightened’ liberal view on matters such as abortion and euthanasia long since, took hold at the BBC, to the extent where, even at the World Service – that last bastion of neutrality – the normal, scrupulous checks on whether we were ‘editorialising’ the story were cast aside when these matters were our subject. Abortion is a right. Fact. Forget those in parts of the world in which we broadcast where it is not regarded as such. The unfolding of the vile scandal of sex abuse in the Catholic Church has merely served to confirm the BBC’s already well established prejudice against Catholicism. Sex abuse has become the only Catholic issue considered worth reporting. When Pope Benedict visited London in 2010, an edict was issued from the morning editorial conference at Bush House, that the Pope’s remarks on child abuse, made on his journey here, were to remain at the top of the story “for a reasonable number of hours”, apparently regardless of anything that might subsequently happen, or that he might say on other topics on arrival. It was an astonishing departure from our normal editorial practice of judging a story as it developed and on its merits. Shortly after the edict was issued, I was asked if I would mind moving from my position as lead writer for the day to the Africa desk, about which I knew nothing. I was replaced by someone who knew nothing of the Pope. Such a thing had never happened to me before and never happened again. I was told later, at second-hand, that it was felt that it might be better to have someone who wasn’t a Catholic write the Pope story. The Notre Dame fire, happening at the start of Holy Week, is especially poignant to Christians because the sight of the flames devouring the Cathedral looks to them like a symbol of the destruction, fuelled by lack of understanding, of all they believe in. When the arduous re-construction begins, a huge amount of thought will need to be given to the purpose which the Cathedral is there to serve. A great many people will be involved in this exercise. Perhaps, after the pain and suffering of this saddest of weeks Parisians will start to witness a new beginning on a level deeper than we can, as yet, imagine. Our Lady of France, pray for us!
I presume some of you received this in your email today. Benedict XVI Incurs Wrath Of Critics April 17, 2019 Catholic League president Bill Donohue comments on reaction to an essay released last week by Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI: If only he would just shut up. That is the consensus of liberal and dissident Catholics to the brilliant essay by Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI on the roots of clergy sexual abuse. They made it clear that their support for dialogue is a ruse. The first sentence of the front-page news story in the April 12 edition of the New York Times set the tone: "In his retirement, Pope Benedict XVI is apparently tired of hiding." The next sentence notes that he previously "declared he would 'remain hidden to the world.'" Get it? He should have stayed under his rock. Why the anger? The Times says that his essay "amounted to the most significant undercutting yet of the authority of Pope Francis," a view also held by John Thavis; he used to pose as a non-partisan journalist for the Catholic News Service. The Catholic Left, after decades of criticizing Saint John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI, have become very protective of Pope Francis. They are upset with Benedict for raising issues they prefer not to talk about. Like homosexuality. Julie Hanlon Rubio, who teaches at the Jesuit School of Theology at Santa Clara University, is angered at the retired pope's "willingness to blame a permissive culture and progressive theology for a problem that is internal and structural." Rachel Donadio of The Atlantic finds it "strange" for him to talk about the "destabilizing" forces of the sexual revolution. Similarly, Thomas Farrell at the website opednews finds such talk "rubbish." It is fun to watch this dance. Usually, we are told that we cannot understand any social problem unless we come to grips with the environment that unleashed it. But when it comes to offering a root cause analysis of the clergy abuse scandal, we are told to focus on internal Church issues, not the cultural milieu in which it was embedded. In other words, we are expected to believe the scandal took place in a social vacuum. Brian Flanagan at Marymount University says that to blame the 1960s and "a supposed collapse of moral theology" is "embarrassingly wrong." From Marquette University we learn that theology professor James Bretzke says it is wrong to say that "liberal theologians" fostered an irresponsible sexual ethics that helped to create the problem. They are in denial. Are they aware of a book by Anthony Kosnik, Human Sexuality, which was supported by the Catholic Theological Society of America? Or how about a book by the same title by Crooks and Bauer? These three authors maintain that there is no such thing as a deviant sexual act, and both volumes were assigned reading in many seminaries in the 1970s. Wouldn't this suggest a collapse of moral theology? Some try to say that the sexual revolution had nothing to do with the problem because clergy sexual abuse occurred before the 1960s. This is the position taken by Washington Post columnist David Von Drehle. It is also accepted by Andrew Chesnut; he teaches Catholic Studies at Virginia Commonwealth University. Church historian Christopher Bellitto subscribes to this view as well. It won't work. Every study on the subject has shown that there was no crisis until the 1960s. Obviously, there were cases of abuse in the previous decades, but most of those priests who had sick urges kept them in check, until, that is, there was no penalty for acting out. Just read what happened in Boston. Some are chagrined because Benedict only spoke about the abuser, not the enabling bishop. Michael Sean Winters feels this way. Tom Kington of the Los Angeles Times shares this view, saying the essay was "incendiary" for not discussing what Pope Francis stressed, namely the role of clericalism. At least Winters and Kington don't look as clueless as Bellitto or David Gibson. The former says, "The essay essentially ignores what we learned there," a reference to the February summit in Rome on this subject. Gibson, the director of Fordham's Center on Religion and Culture, said that Benedict's essay "runs against everything said and done at the February summit." Precisely. And for good reason—the summit never addressed why molesting priests acted out. It was content to discuss why some bishops made lousy decisions. Clericalism may account for why some bishops were enablers, but it is of no explanatory value understanding why abusing priests did what they did. It took Benedict to bring balance to the discussion. It is impossible to honestly engage the issue of clergy sexual abuse without explaining the role of homosexual priests, though Benedict's critics try to do so. For example, we have the spectacle of New Ways Ministry, a totally discredited outfit, telling us it is a "red herring" to mention homosexuals. Jamie Manson at the National Catholic Reporter, which is also partly responsible for the crisis, tells us that Benedict's "radically homophobic theology" is responsible for the homosexual subculture. Finally, we have Massimo Faggioli from Villanova University. He tries to deflect the obvious—the pernicious role played by homosexual priests in the scandal. He provides a link to one of the John Jay reports on the subject, as if that settles the issue. This is a familiar retort, and it is unpersuasive. The John Jay researchers did an excellent job assembling the data—there is no reason to conclude that the two studies were deficient in terms of their methodology or data collection—but as with any study, conclusions drawn from the data are open to interpretation. The researchers report that 8 in 10 of the molesting priests had sex with postpubescent males, and that less than five percent of them were pedophiles. There is only one word in the English language to describe such behavior: homosexuality. Yet the researchers conclude that homosexuality is not the issue. How did they manage to skirt the obvious? They said not all the priests who had sex with adolescents identified themselves as homosexuals. Now if the homosexual priests identified themselves as heterosexuals, would anyone in his right mind conclude that heterosexuals accounted for most of the problem? Self-identification is an interesting psychological variable, but it is not a substitute for drawing truthful conclusions based on behavior. A dwarf is still a dwarf even if he stands on stilts and announces he is no longer a dwarf. Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI did the Catholic Church a great public service in outlining his thoughts on priestly sexual abuse, and there is nothing his detractors can do about it.
"NYPD: Man with gas cans arrested at cathedral: A New Jersey man was arrested Wednesday night after entering St. Patrick's Cathedral carrying two cans of gasoline, lighter fluid and butane lighters, according to the New York Police Department. (April 18)" "Police: St. Patrick's Cathedral suspect wasn't 'out of gas': A man was arrested in New York City after he tried to enter St. Patrick's Cathedral with gas cans and lighter fluid " Man with gas cans arrested at St. Patrick's Cathedral in New York "It's hard to say exactly what his intentions were ... we don’t know exactly what his mind-set was." Man carrying gas cans into St. Patrick's Cathedral arrested April 18, 2019 02:23 April 17, 2019, 10:35 PM EDT / Updated April 18, 2019, 7:25 AM EDT By Tom Winter, Jonathan Dienst and Phil Helsel A man carrying two gas cans, lighter fluid and lighters tried to enter St. Patrick’s Cathedral in New York City on Wednesday but was stopped by a security officer and taken into custody, an NYPD official said. "Nothing happened inside the cathedral," the Archdiocese of New York said in a statement. There was no fire, but there were people inside and the building was open at the time of the incident. Three senior law enforcement officials said the man may be emotionally disturbed. The archdiocese said that "the individual was stopped as he tried to come into the cathedral," and he was turned over to police. The incident comes days after the historic Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris burned in what officials in France say they think could be an accident, and renovation work was being done at the time it broke out. Police said that the NYPD maintains a robust security presence at the Cathedral at all times, but that the department had added to that in recent days. Law enforcement sources told NBC News that the man taken into custody is Marc Lamparello, 37, of New Jersey. Lamparello is listed as a doctoral candidate and adjunct lecturer in City University of New York's philosophy department. Marc Lamparello NYPD Deputy Commissioner of Intelligence and Counterterrorism John Miller said at a news conference Wednesday night that the man was stopped shortly before 8 p.m. by a security officer at the cathedral. The man pulled up in a minivan on Fifth Avenue and left the car, Around 7:55 p.m., he returned to the minivan and took out two 2-gallon cans of gasoline, a plastic bag with two bottles of lighter fluid and two lighters and tried to enter the cathedral, Miller said. "As he enters the cathedral, he is confronted by a cathedral security officer who asked him where he’s going, informs him he can't proceed into the cathedral carrying these things," Miller said. "At that point some gasoline apparently had spilled out onto the floor." Two counterterrorism police officers outside were notified and caught up with the man on 50th Street, Miller said. “His answers were inconsistent and evasive,” he said. "His basic story was that he was cutting through the cathedral to get to Madison Avenue, that his car had run out of gas," Miller said. “We took a look at the vehicle. It was not out of gas.” He was then taken into custody, Miller said. He did not make any statements about Notre Dame in his initial statements, Miller said. St Patrick's Cathedral.NBC News "It's hard to say exactly what his intentions were," Miller said, noting that the man in custody is known to police. "We are looking into his background, obviously, and talking to a couple of other agencies,” Miller said. The FBI’s joint terrorism task force is involved “out of an abundance of caution," he said, "because we don’t know exactly what his mindset was, what his motive was.” "But we do know that carrying two cans of gasoline and the equipment to light that, to a public area and a place like St. Patrick’s Cathedral is something that presents a danger to the public, and that’s why he’s in custody," Miller said. New York City Councilman Justin Brannan tweeted that police would be increasing their presence around churches and religious institutions on Thursday as a precaution. The cornerstone of the iconic Midtown church was laid in 1858, and it formally opened May 25, 1879, according to the cathedral’s website. Pope Benedict XVI became the first pope to celebrate Mass there in 2008. The cathedral and has undergone renovations since, including a nearly $200 million restoration that was announced in 2015 and completed a year later, NBC New York reported. "There was some very good work done here, obviously by the St. Patrick’s Cathedral security officer who encountered this man immediately inside," as well as the two police officers who tracked him down, Miller said.
I’m not surprised. Copy cat crimes after ND will probably continue. I hope all churches/cathedrals are protected. What a sad world...
It is really a added sorrow that these “catholic” institutions and publications are critical of BENEDICT for forwarding a catholic/moral analysis of the obvious. No wonder students at these schools and readers of these “catholic” publications have confused their audience. Blame for the moral demise of our culture can be laid at their feet as well. They are complicit in all of this. They don’t like BENEDICT blaming the 60’s moral crisis because it demonstrates that the finger is pointed at them as well. Their mission should have been to expose evil, not ignor...or even promote it as many of these critics here have done. They are not liking the push back from a retired pope.
