(Comments welcome here)
c.f. What you
can do
|
As the world continues to be plagued by
problems that are getting worse rather than better (climate change,
corruption, illegal drugs, poverty, family break-down, harsh government
policies towards the poor etc) we must avoid the trap of just complaining
about how bad things are. We must try to light a candle in the darkness of
our own little world ....by making a commitment to help the poor on a
regular basis ....by conserving water/electricity etc ....by speaking up
for human/Christian values ....by supporting people who are taking a stand
on important issues ....and especially by daily contact with our Creator
and Saviour through Bible study and prayer....i.e. not isolating ourselves
from the world but incarnating ourselves in the world as God the Son did
at the first Christmas. Pope Francis is giving a marvelous example
of a positive encounter with the world. Let's follow his
example - John
W |
Pope
Francis:
Thank
you Holy Spirit
Inspiring photos:
Engagements
of Pope Francis
Many
thanks for checking
this website each day
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Work
ban on refugees in Hong Kong could bring danger to society
Aquino
apology call reaches fever pitch with Manila sanctions vote
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A
President for Peace -
why Kennedy was assassinated:
The second half of the article about the co-operation between Kennedy and
Russia's President Khrushchev is a revelation to me. I always thought
Khrushchev was a "baddie" |
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China's
leaders in closed-door meeting to establish direction of economy |
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| To
go with today's Mass readings about an after-life: |
Near
Death Experiences
The books on this file are most interesting!
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To go with today's readings
at Mass: |
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The cemetery was at the top of a steep hill above
the town, the hearse got to the top and the weight of the coffin forced
the back door open and the coffin fell out and slid down the hill, the
footman chased it down the hill and when it got to the bottom the coffin
hit a ramp in front of the chemist shop, it slid up the kerb and in
through the door, at that point the footman burst through the door and
said to the girl behind the counter, "Have you got anything to stop
this coffin?" |
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A
new letter (in Swahili) from a Tanzanian inmate in a Hong Kong prison:
This letter names 8 prominent
drug lords, and calls on the
head of the Tanzanian anti-narcotics unit, Assistant Commissioner of Police Godfrey
Nzowa,
to publish on-line the photos of this D8
This website's Tanzania
File (stopping Africans
from bringing drugs to HK)
- with links to all letters
from Tanzanian inmates in Hong Kong prisons
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| Francis
wishes to release Vatican II's bold vision from captivity |
 |
Vatican
II Reflection 265
Priests should confidently entrust to the laity duties in the service of
the Church, allowing them freedom and room for action
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John W
mini-Blog |
DG yesterday morning I had the pleasant
duty of collecting the third English printing of "Simple
Bible - Old Testament" ..... 2,000 copies in 22 cartons.
Book has proved to be very popular with inmates ... easy to read.
Whole book is available
free here |
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Sun:
Africa
Mon:
Europe & Russia Tues:
South Asia Wed:
East Asia
Thurs:
S.E. Asia & Pacific Frid:
South America Sat:
Central & North America
Please join me in
praying for one part of the world each day of the week:
Jesus, today, Sunday,
please bless the people of Africa
On this 10th
of the month, Jesus
please bless the
prisoners of Hubei
Please join me in praying for
prisoners in one part of China each day of the month
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Diwali
of Values
- how to deal with corruption
This fine article is speaking about India,
but since corruption is a world-wide problem, the ideas of this article
can be used in every country |
Bishop
Geoff Robinson
and Bishop Bill Morris:
Petition to Pope Francis
to stop sexual abuse
and to reform Church
- & calling for a new
Ecumenical Council !
(John W has signed petition)
-----------------------
Please
encourage more people to see 1-10
re Bishop Bill Morris:
1:
Judge's conclusions
2: Canon lawyer's report
3: Radio interview with judge
4: "The Age" file of letters
5:
Summary re Rome
6:
Frank Brennan's update
7: ABC radio Fr Frank Brennan
8. Update from Frank Brennan
9. Vatileaks & Bp Bill Morris
10: Tablet letter - Frank Brennan
After
reading 1-10, check the "Pravda" report of CNA
Google "Morris" at top of this page for many articles re
Bishop BM, the most recent being talk of March 26, 2013:
Reclaiming
the Spirit of Vatican II
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A
vast, hidden violence on the poorest in the UK could erupt and destroy our
society
Fr Timothy Radcliffe's Westminster Abbey lecture on Oscar
Romero and his legacy |
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Outrage
as Sri Lanka cancels rights experts' visas
(for meeting to coincide with Commonwealth
summit) |
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On using the first reading of yesterday's
Bible Blog, I embarrassingly remembered that an earlier printing of the
reading had an interesting spelling mistake: instead of saying
"Aaron made a golden calf and the people
worshipped it", it said "Aaron made a golden cafe
...." |
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This website's Tanzania
File (stopping Africans
from bring drugs to HK)
On tomorrow's menu: a new
letter from a Tanzanian inmate in a HK prison
- in Swahili - calling on T. authorities to put Big Fish photos on line
for identification
- with links to all letters
from Tanzanian inmates in Hong Kong prisons
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| Francis
wishes to release Vatican II's bold vision from captivity |
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Vatican
II Reflection 264
The priesthood - "the best club in
the world"?
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John W
mini-Blog |
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Yesterday I met a local Chinese man who said
he had just received good news: his two year old child had just been
accepted into the Norwegian International
School in Tai Po. To my first question "what about learning
Chinese?" he replied "will learn at home"; to my second
"will it be very expensive?" he replied "not really
expensive" ...which is what I just saw when checking the school's
website; and to my third "why not an ordinary school?" he
answered "too much pressure ...and also the NIS as a Christian school
shows extra care for children" |
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Sun:
Africa
Mon:
Europe & Russia Tues:
South Asia Wed:
East Asia
Thurs:
S.E. Asia & Pacific Frid:
South America Sat:
Central & North America
Please join me in
praying for one part of the world each day of the week:
Jesus, today, Saturday,
please bless the people of Central
& North America
On this 9th
of the month, Jesus
please bless the
prisoners of Henan
Please join me in praying for
prisoners in one part of China each day of the month
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Fr Harry E. Winter
OMI (USA)
|
Vatican
II and the Fiftieth Anniversary
of the Assassination of John F. Kennedy:
NOVEMBER 22, 2013
,
ECUMENICAL AND MISSIONARY ASPECTS
Probably
most would agree that his election, his thousand day presidency, and
assassination did make it easier for Americans of all kinds to work
together to lessen racism, poverty and ignorance.
How long that attitude endured is another question |
Liturgy
- New Translation
1998
ICEL Sacramentary
Misguided Missal
The new translation
Ghastly process/result
Ron
Schmit:
1962
Mass a condemnation of Vatican II
PrayTell
------------------------------------------
Spirituality
Sacred
Space
Daily prayer online.
Available in 19 languages
Jackie
Evancho - To
Believe
Pray-as-you-go.org
Daily prayer with
beautiful music
Whole
text of 1966 Jerusalem Bible
Previous Smiles
file |
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| DG
for Pope Francis! |
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Pope's
compassionate embrace for severely disfigured man He
took the man’s face in his hands, kissed him, and gave him a
blessing
Pope
shows his sense of humour as he dons a red nose to congratulate
newlyweds who volunteer with clown therapy charity
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| Medjugorje
? |
Vatican
directs faithful not to host Medjugorje 'seers'
Until the Vatican renders a final judgment, the CDF has asked for
acceptance of a statement issued in 1991 by the bishops of what was
then Yugoslavia, who said: "On the basis of the research that has
been done, it is not possible to state that there were apparitions or
supernatural revelations." |
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When
grave facts and political calculation collide
From 2007, in less than a single term of government,
we watched a neat double play, first Howard, the climate agnostic who
feigned respect for the facts of science in order to meet political
necessity, and next Rudd, a prime minister prepared to abandon belief
for precisely the same reason.
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Yves
Congar, My Journal of the Council, Part IX
Nothing decisive can be done until the Roman Church
has emerged COMPLETELY from its seigneurial and temporal
pretensions. ALL OF THAT must be DONE AWAY WITH;
AND IT WILL BE!
(This is what Pope Francis is trying to
do)
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Letter
to Australian Prime Minister on asylum seekers
- from a most impressive coalition of religious
groups (..excellent..!)
We write to voice our objection to the
Australian Government's recent decision to refer to asylum seekers who
enter Australia by boat as "illegal maritime arrivals". |
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| On
tomorrow's menu DV |
A really beautiful Diwali reflection
on the way for nations to overcome corruption
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Tanzania:
Drugs:
clean courts needed
Only a clean Judiciary can rid the courts of the kind of officers who
allow (the big fish) to go scot free
This website's Tanzania
File (stopping Africans from
bringing drugs to HK)
- with links to all letters
from Tanzanian inmates in Hong Kong prisons
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A
prisoner in jail receives a letter from his wife: "Dear husband,
I have decided to plant some lettuce in the back garden. When is the
best time to plant them?"
The prisoner, knowing that the prison guards read all mail, replies in
a letter: "Dear wife, whatever you do, do not touch the back
garden. That is where I hid all the money."
A week or so later, he receives another letter from his wife.
"Dear husband, you wouldn't believe what happened. Some men came
with shovels to the house and dug up the back garden."
The prisoner writes back: "Dear wife, now is the best time to
plant the lettuce."
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| Francis
wishes to release Vatican II's bold vision from captivity |
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Vatican
II Reflection 263
Priests
are not a bishop's altar boys or servants or branch managers
(just as bishops are not the Pope's branch managers)
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John W
mini-Blog |
Yet another Super Typhoon is
on the move....due
to hit Philippines today
Then where will it go? To Vietnam or Hong Kong? It
should soon on
this HK tracking map (not the black line ...that one
went to Vietnam a few days ago...this is another one that should
appear in purple)
Dear Lord, please protect the world from
typhoons/cyclones/hurricanes!
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Sun: Africa
Mon:
Europe & Russia
Tues:
South Asia Wed:
East Asia
Thurs:
S.E. Asia & Pacific Frid:
South America
Sat:
Central & North America
Please join
me in praying for one part of the world each day of the week:
Jesus, today, Friday,
please bless the people of South
America
On this 8th
of the month, Jesus
please bless the
prisoners of Heilongjiang
Please join me in praying
for prisoners in one part of China each day of the month |
 |
Andrew
Cozzens, the bishop who was nearly aborted
“You’re carrying a deformed foetus, and you need to
not continue with the pregnancy
… You’re carrying a freak, and you shouldn’t continue with
this pregnancy.”
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This
site's full statistics
for October 2013
To publish an
article on this site please contact Fr John Wotherspoon omi:
jdwomi@gmail.com
If you find a broken link in this website,
please contact: jdwomi@gmail.com
Why
I collect rubbish for Pope
Taking
a stand
Navigation
Aids
Standing
up to bullies
Too
Western/European
Abortion
- a true story
"Same-sex
marriage": two elephants
in the men's room
Near
Death Experiences
Globalisation
of Indifference
Tale
of Two Brains
John's other sites:
www.doctorjesus.org
www.riccicenter.com
www.simplebible.info
www.china8.org
www.jesustower.com
www.oneminuteenglish.com
China
Library
- essential reading for anyone interested in China's Christian
history
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Bishops'
support for wars underpins collection for military archdiocese
Only one Catholic bishop, Bishop
John Botean of the Romanian Catholic diocese of Canton, Ohio, can be given
credit for teaching his people the moral consequences of participating in
an unjust war. In a pastoral letter read from every Romanian Catholic
pulpit in the country, he wrote, "Beyond a reasonable doubt
this war is morally incompatible with the Person and Way of Jesus Christ.
With moral certainty I say to you it does not meet even the minimal
standards of the Catholic just war theory. Thus, any killing associated
with it is unjustified and, in consequence, unequivocally murder"
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University students sitting at table in
park next to McDonald's.
Old couple come and sit at nearby table.
Old couple have one bag from McDonald's, with one Big Mac, one French
fries - which they divide in two.
Uni students: "You must be very poor to have only one meal between
two people. We will buy you another meal"
Old couple: "No need, thank you. We share everything. That's
the way we do things"
...after a while.....uni students notice that although the old man and old
woman are sharing the one cup of coffee, only the old man is eating the
Big Mac & fries
Uni students to old woman: "why
aren't you eating anything?"
Old woman: "no problem. We share everything. I'm
waiting for the teeth" |
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Nigerians
targeted after drug murder in Goa
Politicians linked the violence to the illegal drugs trade in the popular
tourist spot
This website's Tanzania
File
(stopping
Africans bringing drugs to Hong Kong)
- with links to all letters
from Tanzanian inmates in Hong Kong prisons
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| Francis
wishes to release Vatican II's bold vision from captivity |
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Vatican
II Reflection 262
Priests should gravitate to the
poor, not the rich
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John W
mini-Blog |
Yesterday I visited three Motor
Neuron Disease patients in a Hong Kong hospital. May there soon be a
discovery of healing treatment/medicine for this terrible disease.
Then I went to another hospital, to its custodial ward, and visited about
10 male inmates/patients.
One good thing about HK's correctional services set-up: ill inmates
receive top medical care in two excellent hospitals |
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Sun:
Africa
Mon:
Europe & Russia Tues:
South Asia Wed:
East Asia
Thurs:
S.E. Asia & Pacific Frid:
South America Sat:
Central & North America
Please join me in
praying for one part of the world each day of the week:
Jesus, today, Thursday,
please bless the people of South
East Asia
On this 7th
of the month, Jesus
please bless the
prisoners of Hebei
Please join me in praying for
prisoners in one part of China each day of the month
|
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Today
is International
Day for Preventing the Exploitation of the Environment in War
Over the last 60 years, at least 40 percent of all internal
conflicts have been linked to the exploitation of natural resources, whether
high-value resources such as timber, diamonds, gold and oil, or scarce resources
such as fertile land and water. Conflicts involving natural resources have also
been found to be twice as likely to relapse
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Vatican II - Renewal (2)
Hans
Küng:
Letter
to bishops
Revolution
to stop authoritarianism
Fr Joseph Ratzinger:
Writings
on Vat II
(link
gone...anyone able to find it?)
Robert
Mickens:
Vatican Implosion
Nicholas Lash:
Vatican II:
Of Happy Memory - and Hope?
Robert
McNally:
Crisis & Criticism in the Church
Priests
9 Masses a day
- need to ordain married men
The
evil of compulsory celibacy
Link
between compulsory celibacy and sexual abuse
Why
are women not being
ordained to priesthood?
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Bishop
Hurley says asylum debate shaped by ignorance
The Bishop of Darwin, Eugene Hurley, says Australia's
asylum debate has been largely shaped by ignorance. Bishop Hurley
says asylum-seekers are misunderstood, demonised and all too often
labelled as queue-jumpers and terrorists |
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| From John W: due
to extra work for asylum seekers and hospital patients - in addition to
full time prison ministry - I need to cut back on the time I give to this
website. In future the site will be much simpler. I have asked the site's
kind weekly bloggers - Chris, Darlene and Martin - to change to
"occasional" instead of "weekly" mode. All their
previous articles can be accessed at links on right side of this page. I
have also encouraged C, D & M to try posting on other sites which
might give them a wider readership than this site. When Chris
published an article on PrayTell not long ago, it attracted more than 70
comments. In future v2catholic will also focus more on the poor, and
will encourage readers to increase concern about issues like
these |
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Africa
and US worry the frayed edges of international criminal justice |
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Largest
massacre of Christians in Syrian conflict
(Let's pray each day: Jesus,
please give peace to Syria ....and please protect Christians in dangerous
places)
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John W -
A computer story that might save
someone you know a lot of trouble
Yesterday morning when I turned on my
computer, I was confronted with a not-easy-to-avoid message from Microsoft
about upgrading from Windows 8 to Windows 8.1 Unable
(through lack of trying long enough) to by-pass the message, I gave in and
downloaded 8.1 ....even though I've long tried to follow a computer policy
of "don't be the first to try anything that hasn't been
tested". My intention to check about possible problems by
Googling "Windows 8.1 problems" was thwarted by the fact I
couldn't get the computer going because of the imposing message.
But then the problems started: my printer would not work, my photo program
would not work...among other things ....and when I Googled "W 8.1
problems" I discovered to my horror that "nothing can be
done....8.1 is totally incompatible with all sorts of things....and
there's no way of going back to Windows 8".
I made several calls to Lenovo technicians (who hadn't heard of this
problem ....so new it is) and a call to Microsoft HK ...no use.
After making one more Google effort I finally found this
YouTube talk on how to uninstall 8.1 and get back to 8 (after saving
all your work).
Last night after returning from prison visit I followed the instructions
on the talk (...not so easy ...English not all that clear)....and I was
able to uninstall 8.1 and go back to 8 ....but then had to start the long
job of re-installing all my programs etc.
So, if you know
anyone using Windows 8, please encourage them to Google "Windows 8.1
problems" if they are thinking of upgrading to 8.1 !
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CIA
made doctors torture suspected terrorists
Shame, USA. Shame, shame, shame
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Windows
8.1 ....What a joke! |
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The
deadly genius of drug cartels
Up to 100,000 people died in drug-related violence in Mexico in the last 6
years
This website's Tanzania
File
(stopping Africans from
bringing drugs to HK)
- with links to all letters
from Tanzanian inmates in Hong Kong prisons
|
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| Francis
wishes to release Vatican II's bold vision from captivity |
|
Vatican
II Reflection 261
Good for priests
to pray in the church, rather than in the presbytery
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John W
mini-Blog |
Yesterday was a very trying day with computer
problems.
There's nothing like a computer problem to test one's patience!
And when one realises that if one had been more careful in the first place
there would not have been a problem .....patience is even more sorely
tested! |
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Sun:
Africa
Mon:
Europe & Russia Tues:
South Asia Wed:
East Asia
Thurs:
S.E. Asia & Pacific Frid:
South America Sat:
Central & North America
Please join me in
praying for one part of the world each day of the week:
Jesus, today, Wednesday,
please bless the people of East Asia
On this 6th
of the month, Jesus
please bless the
prisoners of Hainan
Please join me in praying for
prisoners in one part of China each day of the month |
