Pentecost

2 When the day of Pentecost came, they were all together in one place. ² Suddenly a sound like the blowing of a violent wind came from heaven and filled the whole house where they were sitting. ³ They saw what seemed to be tongues of fire that separated and came to rest on each of them. ⁴ All of them were filled with the Holy Spirit and began to speak in other tongues as the Spirit enabled them.

⁵ Now there were staying in Jerusalem God-fearing Jews from every nation under heaven. ⁶ When they heard this sound, a crowd came together in bewilderment, because each one heard their own language being spoken. ⁷ Utterly amazed, they asked: “Aren’t all these who are speaking Galileans? ⁸ Then how is it that each of us hears them in our native language? ⁹ Parthians, Medes and Elamites; residents of Mesopotamia, Judea and Cappadocia, Pontus and Asia, ¹⁰ Phrygia and Pamphylia, Egypt and the parts of Libya near Cyrene; visitors from Rome ¹¹ (both Jews and converts to Judaism); Cretans and Arabs—we hear them declaring the wonders of God in our own tongues!” ¹² Amazed and perplexed, they asked one another, “What does this mean?”

¹³ Some, however, made fun of them and said, “They have had too much wine.”

- Acts 2:1-13

 

Archbishop Samuel Prakash: Whit Sunday Message

Whit Sunday Message (pdf.)

- The Most Rev. Samuel P. Prakash

Belief in God Improves the Outcome in Treatment for Psychiatric Illness

According to a Harvard study:

Belief in God significantly improves the outcome of those receiving short-term treatment for psychiatric illness, a recent study conducted by the Harvard Medical School researchers has concluded.

In the study, published in the current issue of Journal of Affective Disorders, Dr. David Rosmarin, a clinician at McLean Hospital and instructor in the Department of Psychiatry at Harvard Medical School, examined individuals at the hospital’s Behavioral Health Partial Hospital programme to investigate the relationship between patients’ level of belief in God, expectations for treatment and actual treatment outcomes.

“Our work suggests that people with a moderate to high level of belief in a higher power do significantly better in short-term psychiatric treatment than those without, regardless of their religious affiliation. Belief was associated with not only improved psychological wellbeing, but decreases in depression and intention to self-harm,” Dr. Rosmarin reported.

The study looked at 159 patients, recruited over a one-year period. Each participant was asked to gauge their belief in God as well as their expectations for treatment outcome and emotion regulation, each on a five-point scale. Levels of depression, wellbeing, and self-harm were assessed at the beginning and end of their treatment program.

Of the patients sampled, more than 30 per cent claimed no specific religious affiliation yet still saw the same benefits in treatment if their belief in a higher power was rated as moderately or very high. Patients with “no” or only “slight” belief in God were twice as likely not to respond to treatment than patients with higher levels of belief.

The study concludes: “… belief in God is associated with improved treatment outcomes in psychiatric care. More centrally, our results suggest that belief in the credibility of psychiatric treatment and increased expectations to gain from treatment might be mechanisms by which belief in God can impact treatment outcomes.”

Dr. Rosmarin commented, “Given the prevalence of religious belief in the United States — over 90 per cent of the population — these findings are important in that they highlight the clinical implications of spiritual life.”

 

Let the Cloning Obfuscation Begin

Wesley J. Smith in the National Review:

Now that human cloning is upon us, look for many scientists and their camp followers (or ignorant reporters) to mislead about what the technology entails. Human SCNT creates human embryos through asexual means. It does not create stem cells. To obtain cloned stem cells, the embryos have to be nurtured and maintained in a dish for about 10 days, destroyed, and the stem cell lines derived.

But don’t look for the embryo part to make many stories. Early case in point, a story by Loren Grush on FNC:

In a major medical breakthrough, researchers at the Oregon National Primate Research Center (ONPRC) have for the first time ever successfully converted human skin cells into embryonic stem cells–via a technique called nuclear transfer. The research has major implications for the future of medical treatments, as many believe embryonic stem cells are the key to treating damaged cells lost through injury or illness.  According to various medical researchers, stem cell therapy has the potential to treat anything from heart disease and spinal cord injuries to major neurological diseases, like Parkinson’s disease and multiple sclerosis.

Through a common laboratory method known as somatic cell nuclear transfer (SCNT), ONPRC scientists, along with researchers at Oregon Health & Science University, essentially swapped the genetic codes of an unfertilized egg and a human skin cell to create their new embryonic stem cells…The combination of the egg’s cytoplasm and the skin cell’s nucleus eventually grows and develops into the embryonic stem cell.

False! Repeat after me: The unfertilized egg is not turned into stem cells. Rather, in the same cloning process as resulted in Dolly the sheep, it becomes an embryo, which is destroyed to obtain the cells. Moreover, the process is hardly common. In fact, this is the first time SCNT has worked in humans. That’s why it’ a big story!

The human cloning issue is going go be a Mt. Everest of ethical contention. If we are going to discuss this rationally, we need accurate information from the scientists and the media. I plan to hold both to account in this regard going forward.

 

Report: Canadians Turning Away from Organized Religion

Religion News Service reports:

A new national study shows that while Canada remains overwhelmingly Christian, Canadians are turning their backs on organized religion in ever greater numbers.

Results from the 2011 National Household Survey show that more than two-thirds of Canadians, or some 22 million people, said they were affiliated with a Christian denomination.

At 12.7 million, Roman Catholics were the largest single Christian group, representing 38 percent of Canadians; the second largest was the United Church, representing about 6 percent; while Anglicans were third, representing about 5 percent of the population.

Observers noted that among the survey’s most striking findings is that one in four Canadians, or 7.8 million people, reported they had no religious affiliation at all. That was up sharply from 16.5 percent from the 2001 census, and 12 percent in 1991.

The Canadian trend seems to mirror but even exceed levels of non-affiliation in the United States. A 2012 survey from the Pew Forum on Religion & Public Life pegged the ratio of religiously unaffiliated Americans at just under 20 percent.

But Pew also has found that more than one-quarter of American adults (28 percent) have left the faith in which they were raised in favor of another religion — or no religion at all.

The Canadian study showed that just more than 7 percent of the country was Muslim, Hindu, Sikh or Buddhist, an increase from 5 percent a decade earlier…

Officials in Ottawa stressed that the NHS results, which also examined trends in immigration and ethnic diversity, could be unreliable. Because it was a voluntary survey, it is “subject to potentially higher non-response error than those derived from the census long form,” Statistics Canada cautioned…

Reginald Bibby, a sociologist at the University of Lethbridge and one of Canada’s foremost trackers and interpreters of religious trends, said the NHS findings “do not point to the demise of religion in Canada. But the findings document the tendency of Canadians to reflect the pattern of people across the planet in variously embracing or rejecting religion.”

 

The World’s Population

 

 

Anglican Archbishop Accused of Bullying

Archbishop Dr Phillip Aspinall, who is the Anglican Archbishop of Brisbane and the Primate of the Anglican Church of Australia.

Lawyers for the Archbishop and the synod of Brisbane diocese have failed to get key elements of the sexual harassment and discrimination case thrown out of Queensland Civil and Administrative Tribunal…

His accuser says:

the Archbishop isolated her, failed to respond to her emails, declined to discuss important issues and was “bullying, condescending and interrogating”…

Rest here.

 

Priest to Lonely Dead: ‘I Love You’

No one Mary Helen Wells knew was at her funeral.

The physical sum of her 85 years filled a donated urn Monday afternoon, among 36 other donated urns full of unwanted remains. A kindly priest said prayers and stowed them in a crypt. A groundskeeper sealed it, and the mourners, gathered on principle, dispersed.

In South Florida, hundreds die every year without a survivor to claim them. The causes vary: liver failure, dementia. One homeless man died in 2011 when an industrial oven he was helping someone carry crushed him. Strangers — funeral homes or government workers — hold their bodies.

The Rev. Gabriel Ghanoum claims them. The local Catholic priest gives a ceremony for a new group of the lonely dead every few months. He says to their ashes, “I can tell all of you, each one, that I love you.” He blessed each little box with the tips of his fingers.

When Walter Hibson died in his bathroom in West Palm Beach, no one knew. His mail piled up, and a neighbor called the Sheriff’s Office. Deputies found his bones. A county social worker could identify no family or friends. Hibson was 69.

Bobby Melton, 69, cut grass in exchange for room and board in a shed behind a Delray Beach home. Witnesses saw him collapse next to the lawn mower from a heart attack. The county contacted his ex-wife, divorced 15 years ago, who said he had no family. She declined his body.

Lawrence Grening, 65, of Lake Worth, had spoken to a neighbor about his two sons, but no one could locate them after his body was found decomposing in his apartment.

There were homeless people and people who apparently immigrated alone and solitary elderly people who outlived their social network.

“We pray that our brothers and sisters may sleep here in peace,” Ghanoum said…

Rest here.

 

UN Now Urges Eating Insects

Via AFP:

Beetles, caterpillars and wasps could supplement diets around the world as an environmentally friendly food source if only Western consumers could get over their “disgust”, the UN’s Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO) said on Monday.

“The main message is really: ‘Eat insects’”, Eva Mueller, director of forest economics at the FAO, told a press conference in Rome.

“Insects are abundant and they are a valuable source of protein and minerals,” she said.

“Two billion people — a third of the world’s population — are already eating insects because they are delicious and nutritious,” she said.

Also speaking at the press conference was Gabon Forestry Minister Gabriel Tchango who said: “Insect consumption is part of our daily life.”

He said some insects — like beetle larvae and grilled termites — were considered delicacies.

“Insects contribute about 10 percent of animal protein consumed by the population,” he said.

The report said insect farming was “one of the many ways to address food and feed insecurity”.

“Insects are everywhere and they reproduce quickly, and they have high growth and feed conversion rates and a low environmental footprint…

Rest here.

More like bottom feeding.

 

Catholic Population

The Vatican’s annual headcount shows 1.214 billion Catholics worldwide.

Vatican statistics released today show that the number of Asian and African Catholics is continuing its upward trajectory, while the Church in Europe is still shrinking.

The number of religious excluding priests has risen 18.5 percent in Africa and a whopping 44.9 percent in Asia in just 10 years, according to the 2013 Pontifical Yearbook.

The Yearbook, which was published May 13 and contains data from 2011, revealed Catholics still make up less than 18 percent of the world’s population, but the Church is growing the fastest in Africa and Asia.

And although it shows “a strong downward trend was observed in data for the professed religious women with a decrease of 10 percent from 2001 to 2011,” there has also been “a sustained increase” with over 28 percent in Africa and 18 percent in Asia.

The Yearbook states that although the number of Catholics in the world increased by just 1.5 percent from 2010 to 2011, it increased by 4.3 percent in Africa and 2 percent in Asia.

The total number of Catholics that were baptized in 2011 had the highest representation in the Americas at 48.8 percent, followed by Europe with 23.5 percent, Africa was at 16 percent, Asia had 10.9 percent and Oceania came in at just under one percent.

“The dynamics of the number of priests in Africa and Asia is somewhat comforting,” says the document.

It reports that there were over 3,000 new priests in the two continents in 2011 and that in 10 years the numbers increased by 39.5 percent in Africa and 32 percent in Asia.

“America remains stationary around an average of 122,000 priests and Europe, in contrast to the global average, has seen a decrease of 9 percent in the past decade,” the Yearbook says.

Another surprising fact is that the number of permanent deacons has also boomed, especially in Europe and the United States, increasing by over 40 percent in the last 10 years.

The Vatican Secretary of State Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone and the Substitute for General Affairs Archbishop Angelo Becciu presented the Yearbook on May 13 to Pope Francis.

It was edited by several people, including Monsignor Vittorio Formenti, head of the Central Bureau of Statistics of the Church, and Enrico Nenna, the chief statistician in the Vatican’s Central Office for Church Statistics.

The number of Catholics worldwide has remained steady at 1.214 billion for the year 2011.