Jesuit Trained man honored by Archbishop of Denver accused of Raping adult woman gets off

Story Update HERE

"The District Court for the City and County of Denver twice reviewed the complaint against the Archdiocese of Denver regarding Ms. Birge and Mr. Hernandez. The judge dismissed the case against the Archdiocese, indicating that there are no facts in the complaint that show negligence on the part of the Archdiocese. The court awarded the Archdiocese tens of thousands of dollars in legal fees and costs against Ms. Birge. The Archdiocese chose not to collect the awarded fees."

 Archbishop of Denver Charles J. Chaput (L) with GW Bush

Article Detailing the case

Second Article

Article of Archdiocese honoring the accused

Possibly accused being arrested for kidnapping

Accused Name: Juan Carlos Hernandez

Victim's Name: Katia Birge

Name of Organization where the alleged rape took place: Christo Y Yo

Details: "Birge's case involves a lay minister named Juan Carlos Hernandez, who ran a Hispanic young adult church group called Christo Y Yo. According to Joyce's story, Birge became close to Hernandez, who was ten years older. One night, he drove her to a dark part of town, where she says he raped her in the front seat. He then told her she was a whore.
Birge eventually told her family. They informed the parish priest, who directed them to speak with the archdiocese. Birge says church leaders weren't very responsive, telling her they might have done something if she'd been a child.

Photo taken from a Jesuit School of Theology
at Berkeley periodical

Birge brought a lawsuit against Hernandez and the archdiocese, which was dismissed late last year. In her story, Joyce says the church implied in court that what happened between Birge and Hernandez was "just a date gone wrong." Read More


Additional Info: "Hernandez, who was trained at the Jesuit School of Theology in Berkeley, California, and the Mexican-American Catholic College in San Antonio, was also the 2006 recipient of the Archbishop Gomez Pastoral Leadership Award, as a Church leader “whose actions embody Catholic teaching.” At a $100-plate dinner to benefit Centro San Juan, Hernandez was feted by the award’s namesake, Archbishop José H. Gomez of the Los Angeles Archdiocese, as well as Archbishop Chaput. In the Archdiocesan newspaper, Denver Catholic Register, Liliana Flores, the Archdiocese’s Hispanic Youth Coordinator breathlessly declared of Hernandez, “I think he could die for Jesus.” Read More

Official PRIEST Trailer - In Theaters 5/13/2011

Basilica of Our Lady of Peace of Yamoussoukro in the Ivory Coast

"The basilica was constructed between 1985 and 1989 at a cost of $300 million." (Click thumb nails to view full size)





"The basilica was met with some controversy globally when construction began. The lavishly built basilica sits in the middle of the African bush in an impoverished city where only a minority of homes have running water and adequate sanitation. The cost of the basilica doubled the national debt of Côte d'Ivoire, but many of the country's Roman Catholics are proud of the church." Source







Link to the Unhived Mind: Vatican moving to Africa ?

Holy Water

"Holy Water" used to be vended through coin operated machines..

http://www.smith.edu/hsc/museum/ancient_inventions/hsc18b.htm

"The simple person-machine exchange of goods has been functioning fine for millennia, it turns out, since the very first vending machine was invented in 215 B.C. by the mathematician Hero of Alexandria, who came up with a coin-operated gadget to dispense holy water. The first vending machine hit the United States in the late 19th century; it sold Tutti-Frutti gum on New York mass transit." source: http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/content/article/2010/02/03/AR2010020303498.html

(Now the CC just put the "donate" box right near the holy water instead of flat out charging for it. -Thomas)
References:

Krug, Bryon: Vending Business-in-a-Box, BooksOnStuff, 2003.

^ http://www.smithsonianmag.com/science-nature/ancient_calendar.html Old World, High Tech: World's First Vending Machine (scroll down to see the item)

^ "History of the Vending Machine" page of Gumballs.com.

U.K. Commons Passes Sex-Ed Bill Forcing Schools to Promote Homosexuality, Abortion- Head of Catholic bishops’conference and the Catholic Education Service thanked for supporting bill

http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2010/feb/10022403.html


By Hilary White

LONDON, February 24, 2010 (LifeSiteNews.com) – The House of Commons voted 68 to 177 last night to pass third reading of the government’s sex-education bill in a vote that pro-life and pro-family advocates have called “deplorable.”

Under the bill, schools, both religious and secular, will be required to give children information on homosexual relationships as well as artificial contraception and abortion. The government has confirmed that these programs will specifically include information for children on how to obtain abortions and contraceptives.

Under current rules, parents have the right to withdraw their child from sex and relationship education (SRE) classes up until the age of 19. But the bill will lower that to 15, ensuring that students receive at least one year of sex-education. The BBC notes that currently, only 0.04 per cent of parents use the opt-out.

The bill now goes to the House of Lords.

While the bill has been called “controversial,” the controversy in the media has focused on a promise made by the government, with an amendment, that religious schools could teach the new sex-ed curriculum according to their religious “ethos.”

After an outcry by the homosexualist lobby and secular humanist organizations, the bill’s principle supporters, the government quickly backpedalled, assuring the public that the amendment was not an opt-out for faith schools.

This week, while his department issued a public statement to confirm, Children’s Minister Ed Balls told media that the amendment will not change the requirement of Catholic and Anglican schools to promote abortion, contraception, “civil partnerships” and homosexuality as “normal and harmless.”

Even with the amendment, Balls told the BBC, religious schools “must explain civil partnership. They must give a balanced view on abortion, they must give both sides of the argument, they must explain how to access an abortion, the same is true on contraception as well.”

The BBC reports that with 1/3 of Britain’s schools being faith schools, the government is aware that the support and cooperation of both the Church of England and the Catholic Church is crucial to the success of the programs.

This support has been assured by the Catholic Education Service (CES), which helped draft the bill and has defended it against criticisms from parent groups and pro-family advocates. CES claimed credit for the tabling of the faith schools amendment that pro-life and family groups have called “worthless” and Ed Balls himself said would change nothing.

On a BBC radio program Balls specifically thanked Archbishop Vincent Nichols of Westminster, the head of the Catholic bishops’ conference of England and Wales, and the Catholic Education Service for their support of his bill.

“To have the support of the Catholic Church and Archbishop Nichols in these changes is, I think, very, very important, is a huge step forward.”

Paul Tully, general secretary of the Society for the Protection of Unborn children, which has lobbied heavily against the bill, said last night, “This is a dire result for school-children and for unborn children who are in the firing-line of this bill.”

Tully said that Balls had made it clear that the government’s intention was to force all schools, regardless of religious “ethos,” to teach children how to use and where to obtain birth control and abortions.

“These are the key ‘advertising’ messages that the pro-abortion lobby is fighting to have promoted throughout the education system – where children can be influenced and corrupted without parental guidance or protection.”

SPUC has been heavily critical of the involvement of CES, saying that the bishops’ education group has been complicit in creating anti-life and anti-Catholic legislation, that will usher in a new “totalitarianism,” suppressing religious freedoms.

Greg Hurst, writing in the opinion pages of the Times, added that the sex-education bill was all about boosting Labour’s reputation in time for the upcoming general elections, in which Gordon Brown’s Labour party is widely expected to lose. The point of such legislation, Hurst wrote today, is to continue the already massive socialist re-adjustment of Britain.

“Labour politicians want to entrench a change in social attitudes regardless of who wins. Leaving behind a more liberal Britain would be part of Labour’s legacy of achievements. If there were to be a change of government, their successors would have to live with such changes or risk looking reactionary by unpicking them one by one.”

A media release from the Department of Children Schools and Families (DCF) described the kind of cooperation that is expected from Britain’s faith schools, citing a Catholic school in Bedford as a good example.

St. Thomas More school, the DCF said, has developed a “successful balance” between the “faith ethos” and the sex education curriculum. The school teaches that restricting sex to marriage is “the ideal” but it “explicitly recognises the reality that some young people may choose to be sexually active” and will need contraception and abortion.

“The school nurse provides students with clear accurate information” on contraception and “details of local services.” These include “pregnancy options” that include abortion, which is “discussed in a non-judgemental way.”

Paul Tully remarked, “Many people will be especially appalled that both the National Society of the Church of England and the education service of the Catholic Bishops’ Conference have endorsed the provisions of the bill. Mr. Balls made much of the support for the bill by Archbishop Nichols, and we have called upon the Archbishop, and other faith leaders to reconsider their support even at this late stage.”


To contact the Department of Catholic Education and Formation
Catholic Bishops' Conference of England & Wales:
39 Eccleston Square
LONDON SW1V 1BX
Tel: 020 7901 4829
Fax: 020 7901 4821
Email: grace.applewaithe@cbcew.org.uk