Last summer, The U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops voted overwhelmingly to draft a formal document on the meaning of the Eucharist over whether Biden and other politicians who support abortion policies should receive communion.
The bishops plan to discuss the draft at their annual meeting in November but have clarified there is no national policy banning politicians from communion.
But the pope, this month, advised bishops against denying the Eucharist for political reasons. "I have never refused the Eucharist to anyone," he said, adding it isnât a "prize for the perfect."
Several Republican members of Congress, North Carolina state legislators, various candidates for office, and radical religious-right activists gathered at Temple Baptist Church in Mount Airy, North Carolina, last weekend for the North Carolina Faith & Freedom Coalitionâs âSalt & Light Conference.â
Among the politicians in attendance was Rep. Madison Cawthorn, who used his time in front of his home state crowd to declare that he is waging a âspiritual battleâ in the supposedly âevil and vileâ Washington, D.C., against people like Democratic House Speaker Nancy Pelosi and her âcold, evil eyes.â
âI believe that the power of prayer will save this country in the coming decades,â Cawthorn said. âWhen Iâm in Washington, D.C., I know a lot of you consider the place to be evil and vile, and I am here to tell you with first-hand knowledge, it is evil and vile. But I will tell you when Iâm there, I donât feel an overwhelming sense of darkness as if the devil has complete dominion of that area because I feel a spiritual battle going on on Capitol Hill. And patriots like all of you in this room, on your knees, praying that we have the cover within the spiritual fight is what it will take to save this country.â
âI have to look Nancy Pelosi in her cold, evil eyes every single day,â he continued. âShe just passed a bill yesterday trying to say that we can abort babies on demand all the way up until right before the day of birth. When we hear this, when we hear the fact that if a baby comes through a botched abortion alive, sitting there on the table, they then still have the right to murder that child, we realize that when I quip and say, âI look her in her cold, evil eyes,â itâs not a joke. These people hate us.â (...)
“Political tags — such as royalist, communist, democrat, populist, fascist, liberal, conservative, and so forth — are never basic criteria. The human race divides politically into those who want people to be controlled and those who have no such desire. The former are idealists acting from highest motives for the greatest good of the greatest number. The latter are surly curmudgeons, suspicious and lacking in altruism. But they are more comfortable neighbors than the other sort.”
There was a church in Mexico that foretold the imminent end of the world and the congregation worked themselves into a frenzy. When it didn't happen they of course had to come to terms with it. They decided that they must be very close to God for him to single them out and trick them that way.
That's, uhm, special. The usual retort...
Mr. Strang reflected on this question in a series of interviews last month.
He mused, âGod has plans and purposes we donât understand.â
This spring, the media mogul Stephen E. Strang made an unusual apology to readers in the pages of his glossy magazine.
Mr. Strang presides over a multimillion-dollar Pentecostal publishing empire, Charisma Media, which includes a daily news site, podcasts, a mobile app and blockbuster books. At 70, he is a C.E.O., publisher and seasoned author in his own right. Despite all that, Mr. Strang worried something had gone awry.
âIâve never been a prophet,â he wrote in a pleading March editorâs note. âBut there were a number of prophets who were very certain that Trump would be elected.â
This had not come to pass. Mr. Strang continued, âI hope that youâll give me the grace â and Charisma Media the grace â of missing this, in a manner of speaking.â
Over the past five years, he had hitched his professional fate to the Trump presidency, in a particularly cosmic way: promoting, almost daily, the claim that Trumpâs rise to power was predestined by God. Interviewed in Mr. Strangâs various platforms, a rotating cast of religious leaders spoke with mystic authority on this subject.
Where secular pundits were blindsided by Mr. Trumpâs 2016 victory, the prophets of Charisma had been right. And they predicted another sweeping victory for Mr. Trump in 2020. For Mr. Strang, the last year presented the following question: When you are in the business of prophecy, what do you do when prophecy fails? (...)
There was a church in Mexico that foretold the imminent end of the world and the congregation worked themselves into a frenzy. When it didn't happen they of course had to come to terms with it. They decided that they must be very close to God for him to single them out and trick them that way.
This spring, the media mogul Stephen E. Strang made an unusual apology to readers in the pages of his glossy magazine.
Mr. Strang presides over a multimillion-dollar Pentecostal publishing empire, Charisma Media, which includes a daily news site, podcasts, a mobile app and blockbuster books. At 70, he is a C.E.O., publisher and seasoned author in his own right. Despite all that, Mr. Strang worried something had gone awry.
âIâve never been a prophet,â he wrote in a pleading March editorâs note. âBut there were a number of prophets who were very certain that Trump would be elected.â
This had not come to pass. Mr. Strang continued, âI hope that youâll give me the grace â and Charisma Media the grace â of missing this, in a manner of speaking.â
Over the past five years, he had hitched his professional fate to the Trump presidency, in a particularly cosmic way: promoting, almost daily, the claim that Trumpâs rise to power was predestined by God. Interviewed in Mr. Strangâs various platforms, a rotating cast of religious leaders spoke with mystic authority on this subject.
Where secular pundits were blindsided by Mr. Trumpâs 2016 victory, the prophets of Charisma had been right. And they predicted another sweeping victory for Mr. Trump in 2020. For Mr. Strang, the last year presented the following question: When you are in the business of prophecy, what do you do when prophecy fails? (...)
MyPillow CEO Mike Lindell has joined forces with televangelist Jim Bakker for a 3-day telethon filled with election conspiracy theories and pleas for pillow purchases.
The telethon kickoff was aired Tuesday on KOZL, a station in Spingfield, Missouri.
"Mike is going to be with us for three days," Bakker announced. "It's a very unusual event to have a telethon."
The televangelist complained that "the enemy" had seized his bank accounts. He said that he needed the public to buy Lindell's Bible-themed pillows "just to stay alive." (...)
