Browsing: Religion

A Brief History On March 13, 1825, Pope Leo XII published an apostolic constitution called Quo graviora, a church law that forbade Catholics from becoming Freemasons.  His order confirmed earlier papal edicts and was confirmed again in 2023. Digging Deeper The current status for any Catholic joining the Freemasons is that those “who enroll in Masonic associations are in a state of grave sin and may not receive Holy Communion.”  Apparently the secret rites of Freemasonry are what Catholics object to. Freemasonry goes back to perhaps 1599 or as recently as the 1700s and is an organization of people that…

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A Brief History On February 21, 1848, Karl Marx and Friedrich Engels published The Communist Manifesto, a book that has become the antithesis of capitalists everywhere and to many, synonymous with all that is wrong with the communist sympathizers of the world. Digging Deeper Another book that has achieved a distinct level of distaste among a large part of humanity is Mein Kampf, the fascist manifesto by Adolf Hitler that inspired the catastrophe of World War II and the Holocaust, and continues to inspire haters even today. Obviously, people of certain religions detest the holy books of competing religions, such…

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A Brief History On February 10, 2013, yet another tragic disaster related to a religious event took place when 42 faithful Hindus were killed and another 45 injured at the train station taking people to the 2013 Prayag Kumbh Mela Festival in Allahabad, Uttar Pradesh, India. Digging Deeper Accounts of the cause of the deadly stampede vary, with one version saying the stampede started when a rail broke on a footbridge, and others claiming the police precipitated the event by using batons to control the unruly crowd of faithful people. Apparently, the Kumbh Mela Festival is no stranger to deadly…

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A Brief History On January 25, 1980, India honored the Albanian Nun, known as Mother Teresa, with their highest civilian honor, the Bharat Ratna.  Born in what is now North Macedonia, Teresa would go on to found the Missionaries of Charity and minister to the poor and dying people of India, eventually becoming a Catholic Saint in 2016 almost two decades after her death. Digging Deeper Did this woman deserve these accolades?  Some say no!  Critics claim that though she received millions of dollars’ worth of contributions, her facilities did not provide medical care or comfort to the dying poor…

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A Brief History On January 3, 2002, an Israeli operation called “Noah’s Ark” resulted in the seizure of a ship load of munitions bound for Gaza to arm Palestinian militants. Digging Deeper The freighter, Karine A, had been purchased by the Palestinian Authority and renamed and crewed with Palestinian sailors, loaded with 50 tons of weapons, and sailed to the coast of the Gaza strip between Israel and Egypt, a territory set aside as a Palestinian homeland and home to over 2 million people. The purchase of the weapons had been arranged and facilitated by Iran and the Iran allied…

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