Excerpts from ΧΧΧVΙΙΙ-6 (05)

“Watchman,

what of the night?”

"The hour has come, the hour is striking and striking at you,
the hour and the end!"            Eze. 7:6 (Moffatt)

The Pope's Intent

 

Pope John Paul II died following the close of the first Sabbath in April. In March he had set his prayer intentions for the month of April against the backdrop of the "Year of the Eucharist." The weekly edition of L'Osservatore Romano, (March 23, 2005) reported these intentions. The "general" intent read:

 

That Christians may live Sundays more fully as the Day of the Lord, to be devoted in a special way to God and their neighbours (p. 12).

 

Does this indicate the direction Papal thought and action was tending as the Year of the Eucharist would come to its climax?

 

With the election of Cardinal Ratzinger as Benedict XVI will this intent change? Under Benedict XV, the "wound" began to heal; under John Paul II, the wound has been healed. What next under Benedict XVI?

 

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Page 8

 

IN ARKANSAS

 

The Arkansas House of Representatives has rejected a resolution supporting the First Amendment principle of church-state separation.

 

The Arkansas House voted 44-39 against Resolution 1005 that quoted the religious liberty clauses of the First Amendment and a section of the state constitution, which holds that citizens cannot be "compelled to attend, erect, or support any place of worship."

 

Democrat Rep. Buddy Blair sponsored the resolution. Following the House action, he told the Arkansas Democrat, a Little Rock daily, "Apparently, the churches are dictating how they vote, not their conscience."

 

Blair, a Methodist, said, "Too many people use their own church or their own religion as an example of how they're going to vote on legislation. I felt like I wanted to remind them that there is a wall [of separation between church and state] there." ...

 

Some observers lamented the House vote. Mike Doughtery, a staffer at the Benton Courier, a Benton, Ark., weekly, blasted House members for rejecting the pro-church-state separation resolution.

 

"People who don't believe there should be a separation of church and state are the people who believe mixing government and religion is OK, as long as it is their religion that is government sanctioned," wrote Doughtery, the weekly news' editor (Church & State, April 2005, p. 21).