Chicago Sun-Times
January 26, 2006
BY NICOLE WINFIELD
VATICAN CITY -- Pope Benedict XVI said in his first encyclical Wednesday that the Roman Catholic Church has a duty through its charitable work to influence political leaders to ease suffering and promote justice.
The document, ''God is Love,'' also warns against sex without unconditional love, which he said risked turning men and women into merchandise.
It had been eagerly anticipated because inaugural encyclicals offer clues about a pontiff's concerns.
The 71-page document can be seen as an effort by Benedict to stress the fundamental tenet of the Christian faith -- love -- and assert the church's duty to exercise love through its works of charity in an unjust world.
In the encyclical, Benedict rejected the criticism of charity found in Marxist thought, which holds that charity is merely an excuse by the rich to keep the poor in their place when the rich should be working for a more just society.
Opposes Marxist theology
That appeared to be an extension of the pope's firm rejection of the Marxist-inspired liberation theology, which he firmly denounced in his early years as the Vatican's chief doctrinal watchdog.
Liberation theology, which originated in Latin America, holds that criticizing the oppression of the poor and marginalized should be central to Christian theology, and that the Christian faith should be reinterpreted specifically to deliver oppressed people from injustice.
Benedict conceded that Marxist models of dealing with injustice by trying to provide for social needs did help the poor. But he said Marxism was a failed experiment because it could not respond to every human need.
''There will always be suffering which cries out for consolation and help. There will always be loneliness. There will always be situations of material need where help in the form of concrete love of neighbor is indispensable,'' he said.
Cardinal George comments
Vatican and other church officials said earlier this week that Benedict's theme of ''God is Love'' is very much in line with his thinking, teaching and his pledge from the start of his papacy to be a peacemaker.
''This is the pope as theologian and now as universal pastor,'' Cardinal Francis George, archbishop of Chicago, said. ''So it's a very pastoral theme -- it shows that side of him which was always there but perhaps not able to be expressed as easily in his former work.''
AP
Thursday, January 26, 2006
Sunday, January 01, 2006
Sunday, December 18, 2005
E-M@sonry For The Uninitiated (Update 1)
It seems within a week of making the 'FW Blog' entry below
the 'Masters of the Craft' shut down TLR (The Lodge Room)
Discussion Board, the largest unofficial Masonic discussion
board on the net. As I indicated in the post below and will
briefly expand on here TLR had become the home of a group of
'e-M@sons' who have "terrorized" internet "anti's" for
the last few years. The group which consisted of U.S., U.K.
& Canadian zealous(hothead) Freemasons were run off a number
of Masonic and Non-Masonic Discussion Boards recently. The
admin at TLR had a brief posting before hotlinking to
another of his online masonic enterprise pages that described
his disgust at the behaviour of a number of Brethren
including the language and attacks against supposed 'brothers'
who disagreed with their tactics: http://www.thelodgeroom.com/forum/ 'The Lodge Room',
several of whom had been already banned from A.T.S. and
other Boards.
So what was the reaction of 'e-m@sonry' to having TLR shut
down? Did they take a moment to reflect, to change
their attitudes? Nope. The promptly resurrected a
discussion board off the previously banned and
shut-down site M.O.M.: http://www.lodgeroomuk.com/forum/ 'The Lodgeroom U.K. Forum'
and continued on where they had left off before, after dismissing
the creator of TLR, who wrote in his announcement of
trying, and failing, to stop the extremist rhetoric by these same
individuals. The 'operator' of the new board is believed
to be closely associated with the late great 'Freemasonrywatchwatch',
an effort to slander and demean the noble efforts at this end
of the Masonic rainbow. It will be interesting to see what transpires
next, but the forum appears to be the new central hive of
'e-m@sonry'.
On another matter there is now a group of a dozen or more Masons who have take residence at Wikipedia frantically deleting any and all entries related to the History, Teaching, and Rituals of Freemasonry that are not regurgitations of info found on dozens of Official Masonic websites . We've seen this sort of swarm activity by upset Masons before on the net, whether on alt.freemasonry or on many public 'conspiracy' or 'esoteric' discussion boards. It usually goes on for a while until the board operators or the public gets fed up with the Brethrens complete intolerance of viewpoints contrary to their own, and putting a stop to the
'encompassment', thereby digging the 'society with secrets' hole just a little deeper than it was before.
the 'Masters of the Craft' shut down TLR (The Lodge Room)
Discussion Board, the largest unofficial Masonic discussion
board on the net. As I indicated in the post below and will
briefly expand on here TLR had become the home of a group of
'e-M@sons' who have "terrorized" internet "anti's" for
the last few years. The group which consisted of U.S., U.K.
& Canadian zealous(hothead) Freemasons were run off a number
of Masonic and Non-Masonic Discussion Boards recently. The
admin at TLR had a brief posting before hotlinking to
another of his online masonic enterprise pages that described
his disgust at the behaviour of a number of Brethren
including the language and attacks against supposed 'brothers'
who disagreed with their tactics: http://www.thelodgeroom.com/forum/ 'The Lodge Room',
several of whom had been already banned from A.T.S. and
other Boards.
So what was the reaction of 'e-m@sonry' to having TLR shut
down? Did they take a moment to reflect, to change
their attitudes? Nope. The promptly resurrected a
discussion board off the previously banned and
shut-down site M.O.M.: http://www.lodgeroomuk.com/forum/ 'The Lodgeroom U.K. Forum'
and continued on where they had left off before, after dismissing
the creator of TLR, who wrote in his announcement of
trying, and failing, to stop the extremist rhetoric by these same
individuals. The 'operator' of the new board is believed
to be closely associated with the late great 'Freemasonrywatchwatch',
an effort to slander and demean the noble efforts at this end
of the Masonic rainbow. It will be interesting to see what transpires
next, but the forum appears to be the new central hive of
'e-m@sonry'.
On another matter there is now a group of a dozen or more Masons who have take residence at Wikipedia frantically deleting any and all entries related to the History, Teaching, and Rituals of Freemasonry that are not regurgitations of info found on dozens of Official Masonic websites . We've seen this sort of swarm activity by upset Masons before on the net, whether on alt.freemasonry or on many public 'conspiracy' or 'esoteric' discussion boards. It usually goes on for a while until the board operators or the public gets fed up with the Brethrens complete intolerance of viewpoints contrary to their own, and putting a stop to the
'encompassment', thereby digging the 'society with secrets' hole just a little deeper than it was before.
"They came on in the same old way and we stopped them in the same old way" – Duke of Wellington
Saturday, December 03, 2005
E-M@sonry For The Uninitiated
One in a series of periodic installments on some of the the current cyber enforcement doings by the self-appointed net-nannies of Ancient Free and Accepted Masonry.
A brief summary: http://freemasonrywatch.50megs.com was the old FW url they hijacked after bombarding the admins with complaints & http://freemasoninfo.ca was the url of M.A.S.O.N.(Masons Against Slanderous Offensive Nonsense)
The Website 'Freemasonrywatchwatch' has also disappeared. The M.O.M.(Ministry of Masons) discussion board http://www.mason-defender.net/forum/index.php?sid=59c23fc2bce8e06bef0ff99971ea7310 which was associated with Freemasonrywatchwatch now also appears completely inactive and it's aggressive banner and mission statement have been removed.
However the operators of these projects appear to be currently active on Above Top Secret Discussion Board in the 'Secret Societies' section http://www.abovetopsecret.com/forum/20/pg1/srtpages , and seem to be using 'The Lodge Room' group of boards http://www.thelodgeroom.com/forum/ 'The Lodgeroom Forum' which has an on again off again tyled policy in some of its section'(only open to posting and viewing by made Masons) as a base of operations.
Perhaps the Masters of the Craft determined that these 'ZEALOUS' Brothers were doing more harm than good to the reputation of the Fraternity.
The continual spamming of vulgarity filled posts to FW guestbooks and discussion forums and their twisted complaints to the same provider admins citing the posts they just made anonymously themselves, being one of the more noxious examples of their conduct.
Who knows exactly how many websites or forums which contained material related to freemasonry they disliked they succeeded in getting removed from the internet.
Or perhaps their efforts to 'silence the enemies of the craft' were deemed not sufficiently 'cunningly veiled' and the efforts continue still elsewhere in different forms?
Welcome to the wonderful world of Masonry on the Internet.
A brief summary: http://freemasonrywatch.50megs.com was the old FW url they hijacked after bombarding the admins with complaints & http://freemasoninfo.ca was the url of M.A.S.O.N.(Masons Against Slanderous Offensive Nonsense)
The Website 'Freemasonrywatchwatch' has also disappeared. The M.O.M.(Ministry of Masons) discussion board http://www.mason-defender.net/forum/index.php?sid=59c23fc2bce8e06bef0ff99971ea7310 which was associated with Freemasonrywatchwatch now also appears completely inactive and it's aggressive banner and mission statement have been removed.
However the operators of these projects appear to be currently active on Above Top Secret Discussion Board in the 'Secret Societies' section http://www.abovetopsecret.com/forum/20/pg1/srtpages , and seem to be using 'The Lodge Room' group of boards http://www.thelodgeroom.com/forum/ 'The Lodgeroom Forum' which has an on again off again tyled policy in some of its section'(only open to posting and viewing by made Masons) as a base of operations.
Perhaps the Masters of the Craft determined that these 'ZEALOUS' Brothers were doing more harm than good to the reputation of the Fraternity.
The continual spamming of vulgarity filled posts to FW guestbooks and discussion forums and their twisted complaints to the same provider admins citing the posts they just made anonymously themselves, being one of the more noxious examples of their conduct.
Who knows exactly how many websites or forums which contained material related to freemasonry they disliked they succeeded in getting removed from the internet.
Or perhaps their efforts to 'silence the enemies of the craft' were deemed not sufficiently 'cunningly veiled' and the efforts continue still elsewhere in different forms?
Welcome to the wonderful world of Masonry on the Internet.
Tuesday, November 01, 2005
Over Ten Million Served
Anonymous said...Maybe Bro, maybe...
This BLOG sucks. You never update it. Maybe its because hot air can not be typed!
Saturday, August 13, 2005
Welcome
Welcome to the FW Blog
The Freemasonry Watch website has been on the net for a number of years and has grown to something like a thousand pages, and who knows how many linked articles.
We've had a number of guestbooks and discussion boards on free services over the years, most have been shut down after co ordinated complaint campaigns by Masons, who have also directed similar efforts against the website itself, sometimes to success but most often not.
It seems Masonry has had a hard time adapting to the 'new rules of the game' provided by the internet, which seems to have had a similar effect as the invention of the printing press, the tool 'Brother' William Morgan used to such grand effect, before the Masons of Western New York dumped him in chains on the bottom of the Niagara River.
Today we are in the era of the 'blog' although many net old timers prefer the discussion board format, which we have kept as well.
As far as I understand it a blog is a place where someone writes their thoughts about issues of the day and others post comments or link to it.
Perhaps commentary for this post, the first, could focus on what you think a blog is, how it should be used or run, etc..
Regards,
FW
The Freemasonry Watch website has been on the net for a number of years and has grown to something like a thousand pages, and who knows how many linked articles.
We've had a number of guestbooks and discussion boards on free services over the years, most have been shut down after co ordinated complaint campaigns by Masons, who have also directed similar efforts against the website itself, sometimes to success but most often not.
It seems Masonry has had a hard time adapting to the 'new rules of the game' provided by the internet, which seems to have had a similar effect as the invention of the printing press, the tool 'Brother' William Morgan used to such grand effect, before the Masons of Western New York dumped him in chains on the bottom of the Niagara River.
Today we are in the era of the 'blog' although many net old timers prefer the discussion board format, which we have kept as well.
As far as I understand it a blog is a place where someone writes their thoughts about issues of the day and others post comments or link to it.
Perhaps commentary for this post, the first, could focus on what you think a blog is, how it should be used or run, etc..
Regards,
FW
Subscribe to:
Posts (Atom)