Vatican rules that appearances of Jesus in Normandy in the 1970s were not genuine in part because his predictions of the end of the world by the year 2000 didn't pan out lol

 

Vatican Finally Shuts Down French Town’s Decades-Long Jesus Claim

 ... The instruction also noted that the reported appearance of Jesus had said the world would end before the year 2000. “Clearly, this purported prophecy was not fulfilled,” it said.

Um . . . 

I am coming soon.

-- Revelation 3:11; 22:7, 12, 20 

In the real world abortion is the leading cause of death, 73 million, but in France that is prohibited information

 

 The French media regulator has fined the conservative channel CNews €100,000 for, during a Catholic programme, saying that abortion is the world’s leading cause of death. The episode reveals the extent to which the debate on abortion is deadlocked in France.

In February 2024, presenter Aymeric Pourbaix, during the Catholic programme “En quête d’esprit,” broadcast every Sunday on the conservative channel CNews, showed an infographic on the causes of death, ranking abortion as the leading cause, with 73 million deaths each year worldwide. That translates to 52% of annual deaths, far ahead of cancer (10 million) and smoking (6.2 million).

The journalist’s comments sparked a wave of indignation in the mainstream press, on the grounds that abortion cannot be considered a “cause of death” because the foetus should not be considered a living being. ...

Reported here.

See current year for yourself under Health.

The Paris Olympics Opening Ceremony was inspirational to some people, in a Charlie Hebdo sort of way

 

Cave art all over the world shows digits may have been ritually removed, rendering Christian gospel accounts calling for self-mutilation less exceptional

In a paper presented at a recent meeting of the European Society for Human Evolution, researchers point to 25,000-year-old paintings in France and Spain that depict silhouettes of hands. On more than 200 of these prints, the hands lack at least one digit. In some cases, only a single upper segment is missing; in others, several fingers are gone. ... Four sites in Africa, three in Australia, nine in North America, five in south Asia and one in south-east Asia contain evidence of finger amputation. “This form of self-mutilation has been practised by groups from all inhabited continents,” said Collard. “More to the point, it is still carried out today, as we can see in the behaviour of people like the Dani.”

More. 

 

The Christian gospel accounts have been dismissed perennially as mere hyperbole:

And if thy right eye offend thee, pluck it out, and cast it from thee: for it is profitable for thee that one of thy members should perish, and not that thy whole body should be cast into hell. And if thy right hand offend thee, cut it off, and cast it from thee: for it is profitable for thee that one of thy members should perish, and not that thy whole body should be cast into hell. 

-- Matthew 5:29f.

Wherefore if thy hand or thy foot offend thee, cut them off, and cast them from thee: it is better for thee to enter into life halt or maimed, rather than having two hands or two feet to be cast into everlasting fire. And if thine eye offend thee, pluck it out, and cast it from thee: it is better for thee to enter into life with one eye, rather than having two eyes to be cast into hell fire.

-- Matthew 18:8f.

And if thy hand offend thee, cut it off: it is better for thee to enter into life maimed, than having two hands to go into hell, into the fire that never shall be quenched:

Where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched.

And if thy foot offend thee, cut it off: it is better for thee to enter halt into life, than having two feet to be cast into hell, into the fire that never shall be quenched:

Where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched.

And if thine eye offend thee, pluck it out: it is better for thee to enter into the kingdom of God with one eye, than having two eyes to be cast into hell fire:

Where their worm dieth not, and the fire is not quenched.

-- Mark 9:43ff.

 

This older tradition is remembered in stark contrast to the miracle working Jesus of resurrection imagination who is wont to undo some of these extreme expressions of repentance:

The blind receive their sight, and the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, and the deaf hear, the dead are raised up, and the poor have the gospel preached to them. 

-- Matthew 11:5

And great multitudes came unto him, having with them those that were lame, blind, dumb, maimed, and many others, and cast them down at Jesus' feet; and he healed them:  Insomuch that the multitude wondered, when they saw the dumb to speak, the maimed to be whole, the lame to walk, and the blind to see: and they glorified the God of Israel. 

-- Matthew 15:30f. 

And the blind and the lame came to him in the temple; and he healed them. 

-- Matthew 21:14 

And in that same hour he cured many of their infirmities and plagues, and of evil spirits; and unto many that were blind he gave sight. Then Jesus answering said unto them, Go your way, and tell John what things ye have seen and heard; how that the blind see, the lame walk, the lepers are cleansed, the deaf hear, the dead are raised, to the poor the gospel is preached.

-- Luke 7:21f.

Academic co-authors of famous study about honesty now shown to contain fake data still think it OK how remarkably uninvolved they were in it

This is how it works. It's about credentialism and arguments from authority, not about "science". Academia is rife with this sort of thing. Today's academics are as phony as the medieval clerisy ever was.

 

Renowned psychologist Dan Ariely literally wrote the book on dishonesty. Now some are questioning whether the scientist himself is being dishonest:

... four of the five authors said they played no part in collecting the data for the test in question.

That leaves Ariely, who confirmed that he alone was in touch with the insurance company that ran the test with its customers and provided him with the data. But he insisted that he was innocent, implying it was the company that was responsible. ...

Francesca Gino, a Harvard Business School professor and one of the authors, wrote, “I was not involved in conversations with the insurance company that conducted the field experiment, nor in any of the steps of running it or analyzing the data.”

Another author, Nina Mazar, then at the University of Toronto and now a marketing professor at Boston University, told the blog, “I want to make clear that I was not involved in conducting the field study, had no interactions with the insurance company, and don’t know when, how, or by whom exactly the data was collected and entered. I have no knowledge of who fabricated the data.”

Gino declined to be interviewed for this story, and Mazar did not return a request for comment. ...

Bazerman of Harvard ... had questions about the insurance experiment’s seemingly “implausible data.” A coauthor assured him the data were accurate and another showed him the file, though he admitted that he did not personally examine it. When the 2012 paper made waves, he “then believed the core result” and taught it to students and corporate executives alike. In retrospect, he wrote, “I wish I had worked harder to identify the data were fraudulent, to ensure rigorous research in a collaborative context, and to promptly retract the 2012 paper.”

Shu, another coauthor who now works in venture capital, voiced similar regrets on Twitter this week. “We began our collaboration from a place of assumed trust — rather than earned trust,” she wrote. “Lesson learned.” She declined to comment for this story.

Notre Dame Cathedral in Paris burns to the ground, an horrific loss

Update:

24 hours later, we can say this grandest of churches did not in fact burn to the ground.

All the wood in the roof above the stone vault was consumed, extremely old oak which was already hundreds of years old in 1160 when construction first began. And had not the heavy spire burned and broken through this stone vault, more of the interior had escaped the flames. As it was, some firefighters doused the interior at level as others attacked the roof fire from above and much was saved in the end, under very difficult circumstances.

Hundreds of millions of Euros have already been pledged for the full restoration of this cathedral, which is literally the center of France.

 

Agence France Presse stumbles into the truth: Clergy "suspectible" of being gay

Ya think?

61.6 million Trump voters just extinguished Western civilization, according to Stephen Prothero of Boston University

Wow, was that easy or WHAT?!

You can push the apocalyptic extremism out of a religion, and Oops!, it pops up somewhere else, as here in America's crummiest newspaper from the mind of a latter day Puritan:

"Americans like myself who hold dear such values as free speech, freedom of the press and freedom of religion — values already under attack in Russia, Turkey, France and India — must turn to citizens in Europe, Asia and elsewhere to keep the beacon burning that American voters extinguished Nov. 8. At least for now, the United States is no longer the foremost defender of Western civilization. It is its greatest threat."

The 11th hour of the 11th day of the 11th month

1918.

Armistice Day.

My grandfather died two months later, a natural born American citizen and pastor of German descent who tried to introduce English-speaking services into his churches, but not without a lot of resistance, which helped kill him in the end of a massive heart attack, aged 52.

It was front page news. The whole town mourned. My dad, not yet 4 years old, was plunged into poverty after the depression of 1920 and spent the Roaring Twenties that way until something worse happened, the Great Depression. At that point his mother sent him to Iowa to live with his older brother, also a pastor, where he went to high school. He remembered his brother was paid in bushels of potatoes and corn and the like instead of in cash because no one had any.

He graduated in 1933, came back home and eventually married in 1937. He went off to fight in another American war against his ancestors, in 1943. Even that late in the history of German Americans, that raised some eyebrows in the family. He served in the artillery in France and Belgium, survived, and sailed home on the Queen Mary with a Purple Heart.

My mother once said her most vivid memory of his return was the smell of his cigarette smoke in the bathroom in the morning. Years later the bottle of Shalimar he brought home for her from France crashed to the wood floor in the bedroom, leaving a more permanent scent of a different kind. They lived in that house until 2000.

They are gone now.

But I remember, at the 11th hour, of the 11th day, of the 11th month that "war is the father of everything" (Heraclitus, Diels-Kranz 22B53).

Just since the attack killing 84 and injuring 202 in Nice, France, on July 14, Muslim fanatics have killed 571 and injured 903 through August 2, 2016

Tracked here.

Peace be upon him, but not upon you.

France's Muslim problem: It has about 1600 "free" foreign imams imported from Morocco, Algeria and Turkey

Reported here in Bloomberg View:

'Many of these imams don't feel French, speak the language well, or understand the lives of many of the second and third-generation immigrants they serve, according to [Abdelali] Mamoun [imam of Alfortville just outside Paris]. Many speak as though their congregations have to make a choice between being Muslim and French. Some just say daily prayers and leave, according to Mamoun, rather than trying to teach and mentor their congregations. Freelance "predators" then mix among the youngsters and draw them away for indoctrination, he says.'

Ideas have consequences: The time value of money is being destroyed by the Christian West

The 10-year government bond currently yields less than 1% in the following countries of Europe:

Switzerland: -.18

Germany: +.18

Czech Republic: .23

Netherlands: .26

Denmark: .28

Austria: .31

Finland: .32

France: .38

Belgium: .41

Sweden: .41

Latvia: .54

Lithuania: .59

Ireland: .78

In these nations of Europe and the world, the 10-year government bond currently yields less than 2%:

United States: 1.93

Portugal: 1.65

United Kingdom: 1.54

Canada: 1.44

Norway: 1.34

Italy: 1.22

Spain: 1.15

Slovenia: 1.08

The only others of note are:

Hong Kong (former British colony): 1.50

Israel (!): 1.11

Japan (conquered by America): .33

----------------------------------------------------------------------

Who may worship in your sanctuary, LORD?

Who may enter your presence on your holy hill? ...

Those who lend money without charging interest,

and who cannot be bribed to lie about the innocent.

-- Psalm 15:1, 5

Do good and lend, hoping for nothing again.

-- Luke 6:35

Catholic George Weigel says Charlie Hebdo is as corrosive of decency as the jihadists are destructive of order

The Holy Trinity by Charlie Hebdo's Luz

 

Quoted here:

Issue after issue, Charlie Hebdo mocks, not vice and folly (which are fair game), but many people’s most deeply held and cherished beliefs, including their religious convictions. I won’t describe its cover cartoon lampooning the doctrine of the Trinity after the Catholic bishops of France had opposed so-called “gay marriage;” if that cover was not pornographic, than the word “pornographic” has no meaning.

In the world of Charlie Hebdo, sadly, all religious convictions (indeed all serious convictions about moral truth) are, by definition, fanaticism—and thus susceptible to the mockery of the “enlightened.” But that crude caricature of religious belief and moral conviction is false; it’s adolescent, if not downright childish; it inevitably lends itself to the kind of vulgarity that intends to wound, not amuse; and over the long haul, it’s as corrosive of the foundations of a decent society as the demented rage of the jihadists who murdered members of Charlie Hebdo’s staff.

Pope Francis Thinks Poverty Is An Option: "I Want A Church Which Is Poor"

The pope comes near to the kingdom of God:

198. For the Church, the option for the poor is primarily a theological category rather than a cultural, sociological, political or philosophical one. God shows the poor “his first mercy”.[163] This divine preference has consequences for the faith life of all Christians, since we are called to have “this mind… which was in Jesus Christ” (Phil 2:5). Inspired by this, the Church has made an option for the poor which is understood as a “special form of primacy in the exercise of Christian charity, to which the whole tradition of the Church bears witness”.[164] This option – as Benedict XVI has taught – “is implicit in our Christian faith in a God who became poor for us, so as to enrich us with his poverty”.[165] This is why I want a Church which is poor and for the poor. They have much to teach us. Not only do they share in the sensus fidei, but in their difficulties they know the suffering Christ. We need to let ourselves be evangelized by them. The new evangelization is an invitation to acknowledge the saving power at work in their lives and to put them at the centre of the Church’s pilgrim way. We are called to find Christ in them, to lend our voice to their causes, but also to be their friends, to listen to them, to speak for them and to embrace the mysterious wisdom which God wishes to share with us through them.

-- Evangelii Gaudium, 11/24/2013

-----------------------------------------------------------

When will the church actually divest itself of everything and become the poor instead of objectifying the poor and viewing poverty as an option, preference or priority for itself?

"So you cannot become my disciple without giving up everything you own."

-- Luke 14:33

Not even Stanley Hauerwas (here) considers that in "The End of Charity".

The church has still not come to terms with the fact that the foundation laid by the apostles has a giant crack in it.

Little Lord Lesus

It was embarrassing enough when Pope Benedict resigned before the assembled cardinals in Latin and no one understood him. Was "Francis" in the crowd?

Now a papal medal with a favorite line of the new pope misspells "Jesus" in Latin, as reported here:

"They went on sale on Tuesday but it was not long before it was noticed that the word Jesus, stamped around the edge of each medallion, had been spelt wrongly, with an L in place of the J."

Even more embarrassing is that this gotcha gets it wrong also, not realizing there is no "J" in Latin. The Vulgate spells it with an "I", so for example Jesus becomes "Iesus" as in "et lacrimatus est Iesus" (John 11:35). So did I.

Until I saw in the comments section that philology and textual criticism aren't quite dead yet out there after all, as one Seth Murray explains how the error must have occurred:

The Latin capital "I" was taken for an "l" in the lower case as in "lover", and re-capitalized "L" unthinkingly at the mint.

Francis' papal motto, incidentally, comes from the venerable Bede:

The motto of Pope Francis is taken from a passage from the venerable Bede, Homily 21 (CCL 122, 149-151), on the Feast of Matthew, which reads: Vidit ergo Jesus publicanum, et quia miserando atque eligendo vidit, ait illi, ‘Sequere me’. [Jesus therefore sees the tax collector, and since he sees by having mercy and by choosing, he says to him, ‘follow me’.]

On the Death Penalty in France

"The death penalty still exists in France, but only for the victims!"

-- Marine Le Pen