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US BISHOP: WE MUST 'HALT' DEVELOPMENT OF ANY CORONAVIRUS VACCINE DERIVED FROM ABORTED BABIES
from: LifeSiteNews
(24 Apr.) Bishop Joseph Strickland released a pastoral letter asking faithful Catholics to join him in helping to bring to a "halt" any development of a coronavirus vaccine derived from aborted babies. "Tragically, people are not aware of or have chosen to turn a blind eye to the advances in medical science which allow vaccines to be developed with the wholesale use of aborted children's bodies," the bishop of Tyler in Northeast Texas wrote on April 23.
He admitted that "until recently, I knew very little about" the use "of in line stem cells from aborted babies in developing vaccines." Strickland stressed that just because "the crime of abortion is considered legal in our nation does not mean it is morally permissible to use the dead bodies of these children to cure a global pandemic. Emphatically, this practice is evil."
"As your Shepherd," the bishop wrote, "I urge you to join me, NOW, in passionately but prayerfully speaking out against this practice. As I said in the beginning of this letter, I will help you navigate this storm as best as I can. I ask you to join your voices with mine in an effort to bring to a halt [this] reality." Strickland announced he will "provide a guide to assist you with speaking the truth to all your elected representatives, the pharmaceutical industry, and your local community."
"We must insist that legislators create legislation which establishes the illegal and immoral nature of any use of the remains of aborted babies for research," he added. "Further, we must insist that pharmaceutical companies comply with such legislation. I believe this can be a significant building block in a culture of life which eliminates the taint of economic gain that too easily infects the abortion industry." [read more~~]
COMMENTARY: There are several alternatives to using cell tissue from aborted babies: see Researchers: Majority of COVID-19 vaccines currently in clinical trials do not use cells from aborted children. Of the 16 experimental COVID-19 vaccines in early trials, only five or six use aborted baby cells, leaving 10 or 11 vaccine initiatives that pose no ethical questions. Even those five or six could use cells from amniocentesis, which pose no ethical issues for recipients who conscientiously object to abortion, meaning that such vaccines could be used for all who want to be vaccinated.
RUSSIA: 93 PEOPLE ON TRIAL DESPITE AGE, SICKNESS FOR EXERCISING RELIGIOUS FREEDOM
by Victoria Arnold: Forum 18 News Service
(18 May) Twenty of the 93 people on trial on charges of "continuing the activities of a banned extremist organisation" for exercising their right to freedom of religion or belief since the Supreme Court ban on Jehovah's Witnesses are in their sixties, seventies or eighties. Another defendant died in Kirov in April shortly before the first full hearing was due in his trial. Another man died in Smolensk in April after investigators submitted the case against him to prosecutors and before it reached court. Both those who died were in their sixties.
On 1 May 2020, the United Nations (UN) Working Group on Arbitrary Detention adopted a wide-ranging Opinion (A/HRC/WGAD/2020/10) in relation to 18 Jehovah's Witnesses, most of whom are currently on trial. It noted that they were all "arrested and detained ... merely for peacefully exercising their religious beliefs, including by having in their possession religious texts and Bibles, gathering together for worship with fellow believers, gathering money for the activities of Jehovah's Witnesses and worshipping." The Working Group stated that "all the activities that they engaged in were the peaceful exercise of their right to freedom of religion under article 18 of the Covenant [International Covenant on Civil and Political Rights]. These actions were the sole reason for the arrest of all the 18 individuals and the court proceedings against them."
The oldest defendant is 85-year-old Yelena Zayshchuk, whom the FSB security service took in for questioning after raiding her home in Vladivostok in April 2018. Her family "do not understand why they are persecuting an elderly and sick person who has done nothing wrong to anyone," Jehovah's Witnesses commented. Among the other six on trial with Zayshchuk is Nina Purge, who is due to be 80 on 19 June. Four of the other defendants are women in their sixties or seventies. The Judge has sent the case back to prosecutors. Yury Geraskov, who died in Kirov at the age of 64, had not spent any time in detention, but "stress connected with persecution for his faith had negatively affected Yury's health," Jehovah's Witnesses noted.
The Working Group "emphasize[s] that none of them should have been arrested and held in pre-trial detention and no trial of any of them should take or should have taken place," and that "these 18 individuals are part of now ever-growing number of Jehovah's Witnesses in Russia who have been arrested, detained and charged with criminal activity on the basis of mere exercise of freedom of religion, a right protected by article 18 of the Covenant." [read more~~]
COMMENTARY: As you may know, the Jehovah's Witnesses are definitely a pseudo-Christian sect because they deny the full deity of Jesus Christ. Because this newsletter's purpose is to report on Christianity in socialist and secularist countries, we do not usually write about Jehovah's Witnesses. But these cases are simply beyond the pale! How can any civilized country arrest and imprison 80-year-old people simply for exercising their religious freedom guaranteed by that country's constitution? And as you will see by the sixth news headline below RUSSIA REVOKES CITIZENSHIP OF YET ANOTHER ADHERENT OF JEHOVAH'S WITNESSES, Russia has added a new twist: strip these people of their citizenship, making them stateless and depriving them of any social services.
(20 May) The UGCC has been actively operating an anti-Crisis center for more than two months, coordinating the Church's ministry in the context of a pandemic and is looking for ways to help a person in need. The results of its work were presented in an interview with "Live TV" by Fr. Lubomyr Yavorsky, a Patriarchal economist. 7,000 food packages were distributed, the initiatives at a total cost of UAH 5 000 000 were implemented, of which UAH 400 000 were raised through online donations. This is reported by the UGCC Information Department.
"Today there are a lot of requests to the Church for help. Different categories of individuals apply. However, first of all, we assist those who are on the front line today, that is the health workers. We, as a Church, are striving to be side by side with the health workers. Therefore, we have about 170 medical chaplains, whose role is well-stated in Ukrainian society today," noted Fr Lubomyr.
The UGCC also allocated its own Church spaces for the health workers, where they can be quarantined if necessary. These are the Patriarchal House in Lviv, the Theological Seminary in Ivano-Frankivsk, and other Church institutions, which, according to the economist, can be provided, if necessary, to health professionals. One of the most active ways the Church can serve today is to feed the hungry. "A lot of people need food now. And, unfortunately, this need is growing," said the Patriarchal economist. "Through the efforts of the Church and donors, more than 7,000 food packages were delivered to the homes of various categories of people throughout Ukraine."
Father Lubomyr also noted that following the appeal of His Beatitude not to give him gifts, but to make a donation instead to the Fund countering the pandemic, a lot of concerned people responded. As a result, donations of UAH 120 000 were raised. [read more~~]
COMMENTARY: Churches and individual Christians all around the world are stepping up to the challenge and are helping those who are hardest hit by this Wuhan Virus pandemic and the economic fallout from the shutdown. (BTW, the exchange rate as of today for the Ukrainian Hryvnia is about 26.8 to U.S. $1.00. But the average income in Ukraine is much lower than in the U.S., so the cost of living - rent, food, utilities, etc. - is also much lower.)
VISITS FROM HORSES BRIGHTEN LOCKED-DOWN DAYS FOR THOSE WITH SPECIAL NEEDS
from: Disability Scoop
(15 May) Lauren Maqboul said her son was happy. He also was confused. But she called it a "good confusion" for her son Cameron, a 4-year-old with autism and attention deficit hyperactivity disorder (ADHD). She said the surprise visit by two miniature horses from Pegasus Therapeutic Riding Academy made his day and sent a surge of much-needed excitement through her neighborhood in the Oxford Circle section of Northeast Philadelphia.
"It was the peak of our quarantine," Maqboul said of the late April afternoon when Big Mac and Bleu — and their handlers — made an appearance on Pratt Street. Since January, Cameron had been taking riding lessons every Thursday at Pegasus, which offers equine-assisted activities and programs for individuals with special needs. His interaction with the horses worked wonders.
"He is a totally different kid," Maqboul said of her son's behavior in the barn and on horseback. "He is calm. He is quiet. He follows instructions. He is serene, almost." Maqboul and Cameron haven’t been able to travel to the barn and riding area on Bustleton Avenue since the outbreak of the coronavirus forced the facility’s shutdown in mid-March.
But on a sunny spring Saturday, a crew from Pegasus paid them a visit, as assistant program director Emily Wilmot and a handful of staff members and volunteers brought two miniature horses to the family home. "Cam was so excited," Wilmot said. "It was so great to see. One of our new instructors, Kylie (Bonelli), she couldn’t stop crying." [read more~~]
COMMENTARY: In these days of lockdown, there are still many things we can do to cheer up somebody who's in worse circumstances than ourselves. You don't need a pony to brighten up someone's day! A phone call, a video call over the internet, or a greeting card might make all the difference to a lonely person.
PRO-LIFE LEADERS DENY DOCUMENTARY'S CLAIM THAT 'ROE V. WADE' PLAINTIFF FAKED PRO-LIFE CONVERSION
from: LifeSite News
(20 May) A documentary that will be released on Friday claims that Norma McCorvey faked at least some of her famous conversion from pro-abortion to pro-life and admitted as much on camera. McCorvey was the "Jane Roe" in Roe v. Wade, the case that imposed abortion on demand across America in 1973.
McCorvey died in 2017 at age 69. She never aborted the child with whom she was pregnant when her lawyers challenged Texas’s abortion law; by the time her case made it to the U.S. Supreme Court, her daughter had already been born. McCorvey went on to become an abortion activist and live as a lesbian before becoming a pro-life Christian in 1995 — which the FX documentary "AKA Jane Roe" now claims was done for money.
McCorvey was baptized by Flip Benham, father of the now famous brothers Jason and David, and ultimately became Catholic. She was confirmed by Father Frank Pavone, national director of Priests for Life. Other titles by AKA Jane Roe's filmmaker, Nick Sweeney, include My Transgender Kid, Girls to Men, and My Transgender Summer Camp (the “Born in the Wrong Body” series), along with Secrets of the Living Dolls.
Abortion activists immediately pounced on Sweeney’s claim that his upcoming documentary shows McCorvey saying at the end of her life, "If a young woman wants to have an abortion, that’s no skin off my a--. That’s why they call it choice." Sweeney also says McCorvey supported Hillary Clinton in the 2016 presidential election. Pro-life leaders responded with stories of their friendships with McCorvey, who they say was colorful and complicated. In the words of pro-life leader and filmmaker Jason Jones, McCorvey was a "thoughtful, decent, beautiful woman who wrestled some powerful demons."
"Norma was a very unfiltered person," veteran pro-life activist Rev. Patrick Mahoney told LifeSiteNews. "No one paid her" to convert. [read more~~]
COMMENTARY: It is deplorable to ply a poor person with money in order to make them say whatever you want them to say. In this instance, it appears that the leftist pro-abortion people may have taken advantage of Norma's poverty just before she died, or perhaps they are fabricating the whole story. In any case, it seems they are projecting on the pro-life movement the very act that they may have committed. And of course, now that Norma is deceased, she can't speak for herself anymore.
RUSSIAN ORTHODOX CHURCH SPEAKER CALLS ITS FINANCIAL SITUATION EXTREMELY DIFFICULT
from: Interfax-Religion
(22 May) The Russian Orthodox Church speaker told about its difficult financial situation which became a result of limitations during the coronavirus pandemic.
"Religious organizations have been placed in an extremely difficult situation in these two months (...) It is clear that a religious organization lives on donations: no people - no donations," head of the Synodal Department for Church, Society and Media Relations Vladimir Legoyda said at online hearings at the Public Chamber on Friday. However, he said that in spite of the difficult situation, religious organizations became centers for extending charitable help.
As was reported, Orthodox churches in Moscow and the Moscow Region were closed before the Holy Week on April 13 and services in them were attended only by clerics. Mosques and synagogues of the Moscow Region closed even earlier. The same limitations were introduced in all regions of the country with negative epidemic situation.
Absence of parishioners resulted in lack of financial income and seriously struck at the church's budget. Patriarch Kirill abolished the "tax" from dioceses for three months of this year and allotted funds to support the most suffering parishes and charitable church projects. [read more~~]
COMMENTARY: Many churches are hurting financially, even as they try to help their congregation and those around them who are in need. Be sure to support your local church as much as you are able during this pandemic!
OTHER NEWS HEADLINES:
SERB CHURCH CLERGY FREED FROM DETENTION IN MONTENEGRO AFTER CONDUCTING LARGE WORSHIP SERVICE
from ABC News
EXCLUSIVE: VIRUS RESEARCHERS UNCOVER NEW EVIDENCE IMPLYING COVID-19 WAS CREATED IN A LAB
from LifeSiteNews
ROC LAUNCHES DEFAMATION CAMPAIGN AGAINST PATRIARCH BARTHOLOMEW, FOREVER LOSING THE PROSPECT OF BEING INFLUENTIAL CHURCH
from Religious Information Service of Ukraine
RUSSIA BECOMING A NEW COVID-19 HOTSPOT
from Mission Network News
ARCHPRIEST DIMITRY SMIRNOV RECOVERING FROM CORONAVIRUS
from Interfax-Religion
RUSSIA REVOKES CITIZENSHIP OF YET ANOTHER ADHERENT OF JEHOVAH'S WITNESSES
from OVD Info
ROYAL MARTYR TSAR NICHOLAS II COMMEMORATED WITH PRAYERS AND GOOD DEEDS ON ANNIVERSARY OF HIS BIRTH
from Orthodox Christianity
CHICAGO POLICE FINE PENTECOSTAL CHURCHES FOR VIOLATING 10-PERSON LIMIT
from Eurasia Review
CHINA: OFFICIALS RAID CHURCH, BEAT CHRISTIANS, USE BRUTAL FORCE AGAINST WOMEN, AND BAN THE CHURCH
from Christian Persecution
NOW, OUR VIEWS:
Crowdfunding Tipsheet
(Maybe you've read this before and you're wondering, "Why am I seeing this again?" But millions of other Christians haven't seen it! So please help us by clicking on the title above, then use the "share" buttons to share it with your social media friends. Thanks!!)
I can’t do this all alone, I need your help! I may have a few thousand social media friends, but together we have millions and millions of contacts!
Let's say I could add one person per day to my contacts (which isn't easy for me to do): on day 10, I would have 10 new contacts; on day 20, I would have 20 new contacts; and on day 30, I would have 30 new contacts. That's not bad, but it's hardly getting anywhere. We need to find a better way: let's think about how a virus spreads --
If each day, I could add 1 new crowdfunder; and on day 2 and each day afterwards we each add 1 new crowdfunder, so on day 10 we would have 512 new crowdfunders, on day 20 we would have 524,288 new crowdfunders, and on day 30 we would have about 540,000,000 new crowdfunders. It's not easy-peasy and in the real world it doesn't go exactly like this, but that's basically how "exponential growth" works!
So please, first, Sign Up to Become a Crowdfunder! Next, click on download and save the above PDF file to your "Desktop" or to another handy location so you can find it easily. Then follow the directions every day to spread the word to your friends and contacts. Thanks in advance!
Yours sincerely,
"Dr. Bob"
Robert D. Hosken, M.Min., D.Min.
The article JUSTICE CLARENCE THOMAS: ROE V. WADE WAS AN 'INCORRECT DECISION' in our previous issue of Hosken-News listed LiveAction's website as the source. When I tried to post the headline on Pinterest with the link to LiveAction's article, they censored it "because it may lead to inappropriate content." LiveAction is the most active source on social media for the pro-life cause, but has met with lots of censorship from sites such as Pinterest, YouTube, and Facebook. When I changed the link to a similar story about Justice Clarence Thomas on this Roe v. Wade case, using LifeSite's article, Pinterest let me post it. This is just one example of the secularist social media censoring news that is written from a traditional Judeo-Christian viewpoint.
Another example: Dennis Prager, a Jewish American whose "PragerU" produces videos espousing traditional Judeo-Christian values and political views, sent me an email this week saying - "Facebook just announced that they have identified PragerU as a fake news media outlet and they will, therefore, restrict our reach to our own audience. Even people who have chosen to follow our page will be deliberately prevented from seeing our posts." So now, both LiveAction and PragerU that each had millions of social media followers are being cut off from these contacts.
This sort of censorship began in autumn 2018 when various conservative media sources started reporting it. Just at that same time, I noticed that the number of views of our Hosken-News blog dropped to about one-third or one-fourth of previous levels. This particular type of stealth censorship is called "shadow-banning" - adjusting search engine algorithms so that traditional Judeo-Christian values and conservative political viewpoints don't show up at the top of internet search results, thus very few people click on those buried search results. This is how the new secularist "digital public square" is constricting our freedom of speech.
And here's yet another instance: Prominent Biology Journal Demands Government Censorship of Intelligent Design. The author of the journal BioEssays article proposes that "search engines could have mandatory color coded banners warning of consistent factual errors or unscientific content, masquerading as science." And if the tech companies that own the search engines won't voluntarily censor, then, per this author, the government should "make them." It sounds like we're getting into some dangerous territory, folks!
A medical missionary friend of ours who has served in Nepal many years, setting up a medical clinic there, writes - "For the first time in decades, the Himalayan Mountains are seen in all their majesty and beauty in Kathmandu since the pollution from factories and vehicles is not spewed into the air during the pandemic quarantine. But the sorrows of the Nepali people are mounting each day." So this week, we sent a small donation from our personal funds to this ministry. If you're interested in helping them, please reply, and I will send you the mailing address.
We in the U.S. feel the pinch of keeping to our homes, not going to work or church. About 30 million Americans are now unemployed, but they're receiving "stimulus checks" and can apply for unemployment benefits. Our friend writes that in Nepal - "Day laborers that are dependent on the wages from a day of manual labor are out of work. There is no government stimulus check or unemployment [benefit] for these brick carriers, yarn transporters and millions more." Worldwide, it's estimated that about 120 million of the world's poorest, including 30 million children, are at risk of starvation due to the economic devastation caused by this Wuhan Virus pandemic: the economic collateral damage might be far worse than the disease.
This week, we also sent a small donation from our personal funds to the Serve the Suffering Humanity ministry in Pakistan, led by Patras Ghani. This Christian ministry distributes Bibles and hygiene kits, feeds and educates dozens of widows and orphans. During this pandemic, food has been very scarce and money to buy it is also hard to find. Christians are the "underdogs" or non-persons in this Muslim country, they are relegated to the most menial and dirty jobs, and are often beaten by their employers. These day-laborers simply starve when they can't work. A $25 donation can feed a widow for two weeks, so please consider supporting this ministry.
Almost every day, I receive pleas from missionaries in Africa, India, Pakistan and elsewhere about the terrible conditions they are experiencing due to this pandemic. It tears my heart out, not knowing if these stories are correct - we have no way of verifying them but in general the suffering is real - and so we simply can't respond to each and every one of them.
The recent article "