Pope Reflects on Role of Christians in Military

Catholic World News:

Pope Benedict XVI met on October 22 with the participants in a conference for military chaplains, and encouraged them “to foster appropriate and well organized pastoral care” for military forces and their families.

The Pope recalled the apostolic constitution Spirituali Militum Curae, by Blessed John Paul II, which was devoted to pastoral care for the military. He remarked: “The military life of a Christian must, in fact, be seen in the light of the first and greatest of the Commandments, that of love for God and for neighbor, because Christians in the military are called to create a fusion whereby they can be soldiers for love, achieving the ministerium pacis inter arma“

The Pope offered special commendation to the work of soldiers who engage in rescue expeditions after natural disasters, or mine-clearing exercises, or peacekeeping missions. Participants included both chaplains and leaders of military ordinariates.

The military chaplains were in Rome for a conference organized by the Pontifical Council for Justice and Peace, focused on human rights.

 

US’s Most Powerful Nuclear Bomb Dismantled

AP reports:

Amarillo, Texas (AP) — The last of the nation’s most powerful nuclear bombs — a weapon hundreds of times stronger than the bomb dropped on Hiroshima — is being disassembled nearly half a century after it was put into service at the height of the Cold War.

The final components of the B53 bomb will be broken down Tuesday at the Pantex Plant near Amarillo, the nation’s only nuclear weapons assembly and disassembly facility. The completion of the dismantling program is a year ahead of schedule, according to the U.S. Department of Energy’s National Nuclear Security Administration, and aligns with President Barack Obama’s goal of reducing the number of nuclear weapons.

Thomas D’Agostino, the nuclear administration’s chief, called the bomb’s elimination a “significant milestone”…

More here.

News to be welcomed indeed.

 

What’s Happening in the Anglican Communion?

The Anglican Communion is in a state of crisis. Many individual provinces (regional churches) have departed from biblically based, Anglican Communion teaching in a variety of areas. These departures from orthodox teaching have caused a great split or “schism” within the communion. The following resources are designed to inform people about how the Anglican Communion reached this point and what is currently happening in the communion.

Read it all here.

Source

What Steve Jobs said about Christianity, Jesus, and Faith

Since penning the post titled, “Yes, Steve Jobs, R.I.P., was an innovating genius. But…”, I’ve been interested in finding out a bit more about Jobs’ thoughts about or attitudes toward Christianity. This USA Today article about a new and detailed (650 pages) biography of Jobs written by Walter Isaacson contains this little nugget:

The book begins with a portrait of the young  Jobs, who was rebellious toward the parents who raised him and  dismissive of the ones who gave him up for adoption. Such feelings of  abandonment probably contributed to Jobs’ controlling nature as an  adult, Isaacson writes, but he mercifully does not psychoanalyze in the  book.

Jobs fell out with Christianity early in  life.  “The juice goes out of Christianity when it becomes too based on  faith rather than on living like Jesus or seeing the world as Jesus saw  it,” he told Isaacson. “I think different religions are different doors  to the same house. Sometimes I think the house exists, and sometimes I  don’t. It’s the great mystery.”

It’s hardly surprising that Jobs apparently embraced the tired “all paths are equal and lead to the same place, etc.” approach that came into its own when he was in his youth. The comment about Jesus and faith is more interesting to me because it suggests that Jobs wasn’t well acquainted with what Jesus actually said about faith; my guess is that he (raised Lutheran) suffered through rotten catechesis (as did many Catholics) as a child. Whatever the case, it seems he didn’t know that the person and message of Jesus were intimately bound up with the necessity and reality of faith…

The rest can be read at Ignatius Insight Scoop here.

 

St Paul’s Cathedral May Close Over Christmas: Will it Really Matter?

St Paul’s Cathedral may be closed over Christmas. The question is: will it really matter, even to Anglicans?

It’s William Oddie in the Catholic Herald:

Anglican cathedrals aren’t the centre of their dioceses: and the St Paul’s clergy don’t all believe in Christmas…

Do give it a read here.