Christian Portal News

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Christian groups in the US have demanded that the British ambassador to the country should be sent home after gay Tory MP Alan Duncan failed to apologise over a joke about murdering Miss California Carrie Prejean.

They have also called for President Barack Obama to temporarily sever diplomatic relations with Britain.

aBetterWay Gay, Marriage, Obama

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… Good Friday for millions of Christians in the West, a day that commemorates the crucifixion and death of Jesus.

But the holiday, in conjunction with Easter on Sunday, presents a challenge to ministers, religious educators and parents: How should adults convey the message of death and suffering to children?

By making sure to tell the end of the story, answers Marjorie Connolly, religion teacher at St. Mark’s Episcopal Church and School in Houston. “Christ has died, Christ has risen, Christ will come again — this is the mystery of our faith,” she says. “Death is not the end of the story.”

Full story at The Houston Chronicle.

aBetterWay Crucifixion, Easter, Episcopal, Jesus, School

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Pilate, of course, failed to heed his wife’s warnings and sentenced Jesus to die. Though he famously tried to wash his hands of the act, the result was centuries of infamy and perhaps a few nights of sleeping on the couch.

Pilate’s wife, meanwhile, remains an enigma. She’s consigned to an off-stage role in the Bible, neither described nor named. But early Christians dubbed her Claudia Procula, called her the first gentile follower of Jesus and canonized her for trying to save him.

Claudia’s story hardly ends there. In fact, each subsequent generation has remade Claudia in its own image.

Full story by RNS at Kansas City Star.

aBetterWay Bible, Claudia, Easter, History, Jesus, Pilate

Read the Full Article at LifeSiteNews.com Headlines

CHICAGO, IL, January 29, 2009 (LifeSiteNews.com) – NBC has rejected an uplifting and positive pro-life ad submitted for its Super Bowl broadcast this Sunday.  After several days of negotiations, an NBC representative in Chicago told CatholicVote.org late yesterday that NBC and the NFL are not…

aBetterWay Catholic, Obama, Pro-Life, Sports

Read the Full Article at LifeNews.com Pro-Life Headlines

Zurich, Switzerland (LifeNews.com) — A former worker for a Dignitas suicide clinic in Switzerland is speaking out and was so horrified by what she saw that she is now sharing her story with European media. Soraya Wernli was a “companion” worker, someone holding the hand of patients who would take their lives at the Swiss clinic.

aBetterWay Europe, Euthanasia, Pro-Life, Suicide

Read the Full Article at LifeNews.com Pro-Life Headlines

Milan, Italy (LifeNews.com) — A regional court has issued a new ruling in the ongoing saga over the life and death of Eluana Englaro. The Lombardy court ruling that the government of the region must provide a clinic that will remove Eluana Englaro’s feeding tube resulting in a drawn-out painful starvation and dehydration death.

aBetterWay Court, Euthanasia, Pro-Life

Read the Full Article at LifeNews.com Pro-Life Headlines

London, England (LifeNews.com) — A Romanian abortion film that previously won the top award at the Cannes Film Festival has been named as the winner of the BBC4 World Cinema award. The movie 4 Months, 3 Weeks and 2 Days, which offers a look at illegal abortions, collected another prize at BBC4’s annual ceremony on Tuesday night.

aBetterWay Abortion, Pro-Life

Read the Full Article at RELIGION

Ethics? Morality? Fuggedaboutit. (Semi-)seriously. From my e-box:

Shippensburg, PA – January 28, 2009 – A new study in the journal Social Science Quarterly examined the relationship between first name popularity in adolescents and tendency to commit crime. Results show that, regardless of race, juveniles with unpopular names are more likely to engage in criminal activity.

This is not from The Onion. I’m pretty sure. More details after the jump.

aBetterWay Family, Science, Unusual

Read the Full Article at RELIGION

That’s the “I’m not making this up” anecdote in this column by a United Methodist pastor.

aBetterWay Methodist, Pastor, Unusual

Read the Full Article at RELIGION

Zenit.org, the Catholic news agency, reports on Pope Benedict XVI’s “personal explanation” for his decision to lift the excommunications of four ultra-traditionalist bishops, including one who has publicly downplayed the scope of the Holocaust.

The full story is after the jump.

Short version:

• Reaching out to the bishops promotes church unity, something the pontiff has a pastoral duty to foster.
• The bishops deserve “paternal mercy” because they’ve suffered enough.
• He’s confident that his gesture will lead the bishops — who were ordained in 1988 over the objections of Pope John Paul II — to take further steps to come into full communion with the church.
• The Nazis were guilty of “the brutal massacre of millions of Jews, innocent victims of a blind racial and religious hate.” No matter what anyone says. Even one of his bishops.

aBetterWay Bishop, Catholic, Excommunication, Holocaust, Pastor, Pastoral, Pope, Pope Benedict

Read the Full Article at Breaking Religious News latest RSS headlines - Big News Network.com

Five months after the daughter of a member of Saudi Arabia’s religious police was killed for writing online about her faith in Christ, Saudi authorities have reportedly arrested a 28-year-old Ch…

aBetterWay Confession, Persecution, Saudi Arabia

Read the Full Article at AllAfrica News: Religion

Following the kidnap of Reverend Father Pius Kii by unknown gunmen on Sunday, Catholic Bishops yesterday in Port Harcourt, vowed not to pay any ransom, describing the kidnap as sacrilegious.

aBetterWay Africa, Bishop, Catholic, Court, Nigeria, Persecution

Read the Full Article at AllAfrica News: Religion

RESIDENTS of Rubaga in Kamuli district have accused the Catholic parish priest, the Rev. Fr. Peter Mubiru, of evicting them from their land.

aBetterWay Africa, Catholic, Persecution, Priest, Uganda

Read the Full Article at Breaking Religious News latest RSS headlines - Big News Network.com

The Church of Scientology, a controversial self-styled religion with many well-known Hollywood adherents, will be tried in Paris on charges of organised fraud, France-Info radio has reported.

aBetterWay Cults, Scientology

Read the Full Article at Union of Catholic Asian News

The Catholic Church in South Korea plans to focus on evangelization, the family and Small Christian Communities (SCCs) in its pastoral work this year, says a former diocesan pastoral director.

(more…)

aBetterWay Catholic, Evangelism, Family, Korea, Pastor, Pastoral

Read the Full Article at Front Page Stories

A California appeals court has ruled that a Christian high school can expel students because of an alleged lesbian relationship.

aBetterWay Court, GLBT, Lesbian, School

Read the Full Article at Front Page Stories

A lesbian couple is taking an adoption case to West Virginia’s Supreme Court.

aBetterWay Adoption, Court, GLBT, Lesbian

Read the Full Article at CNA Daily News

Sacramento, Jan 29, 2009 / 04:10 am (CNA).- A coalition of Jewish, Catholic and Protestant organizations has filed an amicus brief asking that Proposition 8 be upheld. The coalition argues that the successful 2008 ballot measure, which overturned a state Supreme Court decision imposing same-sex “marriage,” prevents widespread church-state conflict.

aBetterWay Catholic, Court, GLBT, Marriage

Read the Full Article at CNSNews.com Headlines

In 1999, Jill Stanek, a labor and delivery nurse at Christ Hospital in Oak Lawn, Ill., held a premature baby in her arms for forty-five minutes as the child struggled for life and then died.

aBetterWay Abortion, Obama, Politics, Pro-Life

Read the Full Article at Breaking Religious News latest RSS headlines - Big News Network.com

Zenit.org ).- Benedict XVI sent a telegram to the new patriarch of Moscow and of All Russia to congratulate him on his recent election as head of the Russian Orthodox Church.The Pope expressed his &qu…

aBetterWay Catholic, Orthodox, Pope, Russia