A Homily by Father Jay Scott Newman - "The Eternal Word"

Homily of Reverend Jay Scott Newman

Pastor

Saint Mary's Catholic Church

Greenville, South Carolina

January 24, 2010

Andrea Bocelli - "Panis Angelicus" - César Franck

Moscow Military Tattoo -- "Amazing Grace"

In September 2007, Red Square was the scene for Moscow's first International Military Tattoo, called "Kremlin Zorya." It was the largest event of its kind ever staged in Moscow, with more than 1,500 people taking part, including 47 military bands from around the world and 36,000 visitors a day, for four days.

Here the massed pipes and drums of regiments from Great Britain, Australia, Republic of South Africa, Canada and New Zealand perform "Amazing Grace."

Obama The Taxman

"The Story of English: Black on White" with Robert MacNeil

This fifth episode of Robert MacNeil's story of the English language probes the roots of Black English, including the American slave trade, plantation life, the Creole influence, and Harlem's jive talk. There is a special focus on the influence of the Sea Islands of Georgia and South Carolina. Earlier episodes may be found in the archives for January, to the right.

British Journalist Asks 'Can I Claim Asylum in the US?'

From The Telegraph
By Ed West

A German family have been granted asylum in the United States because their children were being forced to learn a curriculum that was “against Christian values”, according to German paper The Local.

A US court has granted asylum to an evangelical Christian family who fled Germany because they were not allowed to homeschool their children.

An immigration judge in Nashville, Tennessee ruled that parents Uwe and Hannelore Romeike, and their five children, are free to stay in the US, where they have been since 2008, news agency AP reported late on Tuesday.

The parents, who came from the state of Baden-Württemberg, allege they were persecuted for their faith and defiance of Germany’s compulsory school attendance since those who do not comply face fines and jail time.

According to Uwe Romeike, his family was fined the equivalent of some $10,000 over two years, but could not afford to make payments after their court appeals failed.

“I think it’s important for parents to have the freedom to choose the way their children can be taught,” Romeike told AP, later adding that German curriculum was increasingly “against Christian values.”

The other day I asked if parents who did not toe the New Labour political line could take their children out of “Citizenship” classes, but I didn’t realise I might be able to flee Europe altogether.

In Britain, meanwhile, the Government is trying to make homeschooling even harder, supposedly because homeschooled children could be abused more, but in reality, I suspect, because many of the parents are religious.

Homeschooling may not be everyone’s cup of tea, nor is Evangelical Christianity for that matter, but allowing parents to decide their children’s education is a mark of a free society. And many parents of young children, and not even just religious ones, feel rightfully uncomfortable about schools trying to force the state’s morality on their kids, and not just in the arena of sex.

Marc Young, editor of the Local, says the Romeikes have made a “mockery” of US asylum policy, but the decision is entirely in line with American tradition. The Puritans left East Anglia for New England not because they feared death or imprisonment but because under James I, Englishmen were expected to follow a narrow Anglican worldview. Conservatives in western Europe feel the same way today.

Now where can I apply for asylum to the US?

Ed West is a journalist and social commentator who specializes in politics, religion and low culture.

Conservative Anglican Group Moving Toward Union with Rome

From Catholic World News

Anglican Archbishop John Hepworth, the head of the Traditional Anglican Communion (TAC), has reported substantial progress toward the goal of entering into communion with the Holy See. The Australian prelate reported that he would soon meet with officials of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, and then with the Anglican bishops who have joined him in a petition to be accepted into the Catholic Church.

Under the terms of Pope Benedict’s apostolic constitution Anglicanorum Coetibus, Archbishop Hepworth observed, Anglicans now have the opportunity to become Catholics while maintaining their identity. “The ball is in our court,” he said. “We asked for this and this is what we got.”

“This becoming Anglican Catholics, not Roman Catholics,” the archbishop continued. He noted that the Pope’s policy allowed for the Anglican bishops entering the Catholic Church to retain “those revered traditions of spirituality, liturgy, discipline and theology that constitute the cherished and centuries-old heritage of Angli­can communities throughout the world.”

Archbishop Hepworth recognized that some Anglicans object to the Vatican’s demand that all the bishops and priests of the TAC must be conditionally re-ordained, in light of the Catholic stand that Anglican orders are invalid. TAC members may contest that stand, Hepworth said, but should recognize that “we ourselves moved beyond the Anglican Communion in order to ensure the validity of sacramental life. Rome is now seeking the same assurance.”

Source(s): these links will take you to other sites, in a new window.

• Ordinariate: the sceptics ‘are eating humble pie’ (Church Times)