COOL ROOFS!

July 23, 2010 – Vol.15 No.18

COOL OFF WITH COOL ROOFS.
by Bruce Mulliken, Green Energy News

The walls of my red brick house are hot to the touch in the record-breaking heat of the summer of 2010. I could probably fry an egg on my home’s gray slate tile roof. (If there was a nice frying pan flat spot, of course.)

Just a few months ago when warm moist air from the south met with cold air from the north, that same tired 60-year old roof held a 4-foot drift of record-breaking snow. The roof was damaged later by ice, and it leaked below.

Halfway through the year the planet is now on track to be the hottest yet in modern times.

The planet’s getting warmer because too much energy in sunlight is being trapped by heat reflective gases that man has put there in his foolish assumption that the thin layer of air we live in could somehow absorb those gases without complaint.

We need to find ways to artificially reflect more sunlight back into space.

TO READ MORE ABOUT THIS GO HERE!

Wind Professionals Trust AWEA

Wind resource professionals trust the AWEA Wind Resource & Project Energy Assessment Workshop to deliver compelling and advanced resource assessment information. And no other event offers such superior networking with a resource assessment focus.

Wind experts share their knowledge of the industry’s evolving needs, and describe state-of-the-art techniques and technologies that use wind assessment data to make wind energy projects possible. The first day’s educational program will dig into the remaining challenges of what has become the consistently applied and traditional wind assessment and energy analysis. On day two, the focus shifts from the traditional challenges and explores “new frontiers” including operational assessment, advances in modeling techniques, and remote sensing. Each day finishes with unparalleled networking and relationship-building.

NOTE : This workshop is technical in nature. If you are new to the wind resource assessment community, consider attending the pre-conference seminar on Monday, September 13: Resource Assessment 101.


Attend this workshop and:
Learn best practices in commonly-used wind resource assessment methods, and their corresponding uncertainties
Explore the extension of annual energy assessment methods to the temporal realm of monthly, hourly, and the projected volatility of energy, hour by hour
Discover methods under development to reconcile projected energy from actual energy generated, whether due to natural wind variability or a need for improved analytical methods
Learn the latest industry benchmarks on project availability
Understand how remote sensing and advanced computation modeling are moving from interesting technologies to tools actually being used in project assessments and accepted by financiers
Who should attend?

Wind Assessors
Meteorologists
Project Developers/Owners
Consultants
Academics/Non-Profits
Turbine Manufacturers
Those needing insight into the detailed nature of wind energy analysis
AWEA member companies that attended past AWEA Wind Resource & Project Energy Assessment Workshops:

Iberdrola Renewables USA
RES Americas Inc.
Horizon Wind Energy
Acciona Energy North America
DNV Renewables
AWS Truewind, LLC
WindLogics
Garrad Hassan
NextEra Energy
NRG
enXco

FOR REGISTRATION INFORMATION, GO TO: www.awea.org/events/wra10/

Wind Energy, Not Too Complicated!

Our thanks to Yonatan Frimer for this video. It depicts the simple process of harnessing the energy which is all around us.

Professional Development Programs

About Professional Development Programs
The Colorado Nonprofit Association offers educational programming for its members across the state on topics and issues relevant to the entire nonprofit sector. With these workshops and webinars, we aim to develop leaders and strengthen the organizations they serve. Inspired by current research and trends, topics will include: advocacy and public policy, fundraising and development, human resources and administration, marketing and communications, best practices and rural issues.

See our upcoming events
View our Webinar Library
GO TO: www.coloradononprofits.org/programs.cfm
The Colorado Nonprofit Training Guide
The Colorado Nonprofit Association, Community Resource Center and Metro Volunteers are collaborating to create an electronic training calendar in an effort to provide quality, integrated training resources to the nonprofit communities of the Denver metro area and statewide.

Page to PracticeTM Book Summaries
This one-of-a-kind leadership tool summarizes the best nonprofit and relevant corporate books each month. Save time and get your most important reading done with Page to PracticeTM. Click here to subscribe at a special membership rate!

Ghost Fleet Off The Coast Of Singapore

The Incredible Ghost Fleet Off The Coast Of Singapore
Jay Yarow|Sep. 14, 2009,

Ghost fleet Off the coast of Singapore is a collection of ships larger than the U.S. and English navies just sitting idle, waiting out the recession. It's a spectacular image, capturing our bruised global economy better than any we've see thus far.

The Daily Mail has pictures of the idled fleet, and the full story about the decline in the world's trade business.

At this time last year one of the massive cargo ships carrying 80,000 tons of cargo would cost $50,000 a day. Now it's just $5,500. To send a 40 foot steel container of goods from China to the UK cost $300,000 in the summer of 2008. Now it costs just $10,000. The world could have 25% of its ships sitting idle in the next two years.

While the President says the economy has been pulled from the brink, and economists say the recession has ended, these ships floating in Asian seas are a big reminder that we're still far off from recovery.
FOR FULL ARTICLE GO HERE

BEWARE of H1N1 Vaccination...NOT TESTED in Humans

By Harold Gray JustGetThere |

The media is reporting on the governments preparation for a massive vaccination campaign this fall for the hyped up H1N1 hybrid flu virus. Recently Katherine Sebelius, the Health and Human Services Secretary, granted legal immunity for vaccine manufacturers during the stage 6 pandemic declared by the WHO. Even more troubling than the new vaccines or antivirals themselves, is the Emergency Use Authorization (EUA) declared by the FDA, which enables the use of expired stockpiles of Tamiflu or Relenza, and non-compliance with label requirements. The EUA authority will also permit the FDA to allow the use of “unapproved or uncleared medical products” during an established emergency.

The new stock of vaccines the governments purchased, has been fast tracked for approval by the FDA. Health officials admit that the clinical tests are about dosage amounts, and not safety. So the new vaccines being approved for the fall campaign, have the potential to cause severe harm or death, due to the lack of safety tests.

PLEASE READ FULL ARTICLE HERE

Join Together

As 'Partners' in this world in which we live, we (P.I.) believe we need to join together in times of need. Our country and in fact the world is going through a time which is quite different than any other time in history. We see things escalating at an exponential rate, things like:
Scientific experimentation with Genetics, which can threaten our lives, through 'vaccinations' which contain cells from aborted babies.
Through Genetically altered food and seeds.
Through Cloning and lab creations of Chimeras and so on.
We see weather changing; hurricanes, tornadoes and other types of storms have increased all over the world at an alarming rate.
Seismic activity is also on the rise.
Biologists are finding strange mutant fish.

On the Socioeconomic front, not since the Great Depression have Americans felt so "Depressed" about their country's economic woes, BUT Now it is not just the USA feeling the pinch, it's a global scenario!

On the War front: There are countless wars on the African Continent although the news focuses on part of the situations in Iraq and Afghanistan which are draining this country's resources.

As Americans we must see that there is indeed a need to join together, not only aa 'Americans' but as Human Beings. We are all in this together.
At The Palmyra Institute, we have a Think Tank through which we come up with ways to join together, beginning with small steps involving your local community and moving on from there.

Look for more posts on these subjects.
Cheers...P.I.

BloodMoney

Church Phenomena Investigated

Freedom of Expression...NO WAY!

Hareidi Man Arrested for ‘Tired of Gays’ T-Shirt

by Gil Ronen and Nissan Ratzlav-Katz

(IsraelNN.com) Police arrested a hareidi man, Aryeh Yerushalmi, for wearing a T-shirt that said “Homos, We are Tired of You” to a rally by homosexuals at Tel Aviv’s main square Saturday night.

It is not known what law Yerushalmi is suspected of breaking.

According to NRG, police asked him to leave the area and when he refused, arrested him. “They arrest people here because you cannot express yourself in this country,” Yerushalmi said before being forced into a squad car.

For Full Story go Here

Muslims Behead 3 Christian Pastors!

Boko Haram: How 3 pastors were beheaded eyewitness
From TIMOTHY OLA, Maiduguri
Thursday, August 6, 2009

One of the victims of last week’s attack by the Yusufiya sect in Borno State has given a shocking account of how the Islamic extremists killed three pastors who were captured along with other victims on the second day of the insurgence. The victim was among those held hostage in Yusuf’s enclave.

Speaking exclusively to Daily Sun in Maiduguri, the eye witness who preferred anonymity disclosed that the three pastors were beheaded on the instruction of the sect leader, Mohammed Yusuf shortly after bringing them out of his inner chamber.

“The pastors alongside one Ibo man were asked to change their faith to Islam like they did to other people taken as hostages. I think there was an argument by one of the pastors which gave the others some level of confidence to also resist accepting Islam.

For FULL Story go Here

Selling God??

Speaking of Dignity...Wow, this guy apparently has no idea what the bible means nor does he care about the people he is affecting. As Bono says,

"My God isn't short of CASH MR."

Check this out...

Surging ministry, growing questions

By Ames Alexander and Tim Funk
aalexander@charlotteobserver.com, tfunk@charlotteobserver.com

Posted: Saturday, May. 23, 2009

INDIAN LAND, S
.C. As Easter approached, the ad ran repeatedly on the Inspiration Network: David Cerullo, clutching a Bible, told viewers they, too, could receive prosperity, physical healing and other blessings God gave the ancient Israelites.
All they had to do, the televangelist said, was send $200 or more. “Go to your phone,” he said. “Sow your Passover offering and watch God do that he said he would … Call now.”
Pitches like this have transformed the Charlotte-area cable network into one of the world's fastest-growing Christian broadcasters, beaming into more than 100 countries on five continents. They've also helped turn Cerullo, Inspiration's CEO and on-air host, into a wealthy man.
He brings home more than $1.5 million a year, making him the best-paid leader of any religious charity tracked by watchdog groups. His salary dwarfs those of executives leading far larger religious nonprofits.
David and Barbara Cerullo live in a 12,000 square-foot lakefront home in south Charlotte – complete with an elevator and an 1,100-square-foot garage. Their grown children also receive handsome salaries.
His network, with a budget of nearly $80 million last year, sprang from the remnants of Jim Bakker's PTL Club. Cerullo and his colleagues have raised much of the money by repeating this on-air assertion: God brings financial favor to those who donate.
Cerullo says he's heard from many people who've “reaped a harvest” after contributing.

But some donors are disillusioned. Rebecca Mills, 54, of north Mississippi, gave about $400 two years ago. Money was tight. But it was a time when she was recovering from breast cancer and trying to get closer to God.

The more she read the Bible, the more she wondered why she'd written those checks: “I could just … tell that what they were saying wasn't right.”

Much of the money sent by people like Mills is now funding the City of Light, a 93-acre campus in northern Lancaster County, S.C., where the network's plans include a sophisticated training and broadcast center.

Taxpayers are also helping to pay for it. Eager to bring jobs to a county with 19 percent unemployment, South Carolina offered the network incentives worth up to $26 million to land the campus – a deal that has been questioned by economic development experts.

Cerullo said he works hard for his salary and has turned down recommendations that he be paid more. He said his appeals to donors are based on God's promises in the Bible, and that 80 cents of every dollar donated is spent to spread the Gospel.

“Ours is an organization based on accountability, based on integrity, based on trust,” the 56-year-old minister told the Observer. “We've proven that in the last 18 years over and over again.”

Rise of a broadcast power

The son of a well-known evangelist, David Cerullo didn't grow up wanting to follow his father's path.

As a teenager, he planned to be a doctor. But, at his parents' request, he agreed to try Oral Roberts University, a Christian school in Oklahoma. There, he said, he began to feel God point him in another direction.

“In that still small voice in my spirit,” Cerullo said, “I felt God suggest to me, ‘Look, change your major to business, and I have other plans for you.'”

After graduating with a business degree, he joined his father's ministry and eventually helped run it. He was ordained in 1974 by the Assemblies of God, but said that even today, “I am probably more comfortable in a roomful of CPAs and lawyers and bankers than I am in a roomful of preachers.”

His father, Morris, grew up in a Jewish orphanage in New Jersey and converted to Christianity at age 14. Later, Morris Cerullo staged worldwide crusades in which, his Web site says, “the lame walk, the blind see, the deaf hear.”

The Inspiration Network launched in 1990, when Morris Cerullo paid $7 million to buy the assets of PTL's cable television network out of bankruptcy. David Cerullo became president.

Throughout most of the 1990s, the network differed from many other religious TV stations: It didn't ask for donations on the air. Instead, it generated revenue by selling advertising and airtime for programs produced by other ministries.

That changed in 1999. David Cerullo decided Inspiration should create its own programs to spread God's word. “We started to put a face on the network,” he said.

That required money, so the network began soliciting donations from the public. Increasingly, it came to rely on “prosperity preachers” – guest evangelists who told viewers that God favored those who donated.

The gifts grew rapidly, from about $200,000 in 1999 to about $40 million last year.

The influx of money has created a powerhouse of religious broadcasting.

The ministry's flagship Inspiration Network carries a variety of programming, from shows featuring controversial evangelists John Hagee and Benny Hinn to Christian hip-hop videos and an adventure show for children. Twice a day, the network airs its homegrown “Inspiration Today!” show, in which Cerullo and other evangelists ask for contributions.

Generous pay

As their networks grew, David Cerullo and his wife built a comfortable life. Their home, in a gated south Charlotte community, is valued at $1.7 million, real estate records show.

Few nonprofit leaders are paid more than Cerullo. In 2007, he received roughly $1.52 million in base pay, along with other compensation totaling about $69,000, according to the ministry's IRS filing.

Guidestar, which monitors nonprofits, compiles a database on thousands of charities – including 13,000 religious organizations that filed IRS returns for 2006, the last year with complete records. None of the faith-based groups paid their leaders more than the Inspiration Network.

Even religious nonprofits with vastly larger budgets pay their presidents substantially less, the Observer found. The Christian Broadcasting Network, founded by Pat Robertson, has a budget roughly four times larger than Inspiration's. Compensation to CBN's president totaled $344,000 in 2007.

Concern about Cerullo's salary prompted Wall Watchers, which monitors religious charities, to issue a “donor alert” to caution people about giving to the Inspiration Networks.

“That amount of salary is outrageous and out of sight,” said Rodney Pitzer, research director for the Matthews-based group.

Cerullo declined to discuss Wall Watchers' warning.

His family is also on the payroll. His wife, Barbara, received about $198,000 in total compensation in 2007, according to Inspiration's IRS return. Son Ben, daughter Becky and their spouses, who also work there, received a total of nearly $400,000, according to a network spokesman.

Barbara heads Inspiration's women's ministry. Ben, ordained by his grandfather's ministry, oversees youth efforts. Becky is starting a network aimed at 18- to 34-year-olds. Becky and Barbara are not ordained ministers.

IRS rules prohibit nonprofits from paying “unreasonable compensation” to officials. But the agency examines the returns of fewer than 8,000 of the 1.8 million tax-exempt organizations each year.

A paid independent consulting firm recommends the salaries of Inspiration's executives, including Cerullo, according to spokesman John Roos. The board of directors makes the final decision.

Cerullo said he and his wife, both of whom sit on the board, recuse themselves from discussions about his salary and abstain from the votes.

For a while, though, that arrangement apparently left just one board member to decide his salary. From late 2005 to 2008, the board consisted of only three members, including Cerullo and his wife.

The board expanded to four members last year and to six members this year, officials say. Today, the board is chaired by Cerullo and includes a fundraising expert and a neighbor who helps run a communications firm.

Cerullo says he earns his pay, typically working 60 to 80 hours a week. He oversees four cable networks, a ministry and a television production company, all while playing a key role in developing the City of Light complex, he said.

The board received a recommendation that he be paid “substantially” more, Cerullo said, but he turned down the additional money because “I am blessed beyond my imagination … I don't need it. I don't want it. I won't take it.”

He said he knows of other religious nonprofits that pay their CEOs more, but he wouldn't identify them. He also declined to share a salary survey used to set his pay. But he said that study looked at compensation for cable network CEOs, church pastors and ministry leaders.

Cerullo said the “average preacher” probably would not have the business know-how to do what he does, and that his salary is still below what his peers earn at cable networks such as Discovery and CNN.

Cerullo's staff is also well-paid. More than 25 of the network's 330 employees collected over $100,000 in 2007, the IRS filing shows.

Roos, Inspiration's senior vice president for marketing, said the network examines national salary averages before setting any employee's pay.

“This is a high-tech, very specialized (operation),” he said. “…That comes with a price tag.”

Still, two larger religious broadcasters, Trinity Broadcasting Network and CBN, had fewer employees earning six-figure salaries, records show.

Inspiration has chosen not to join the 1,385-member Evangelical Council for Financial Accountability (ECFA), which sets standards for governance and fundraising by Christian charities. “I don't believe in organizations that set themselves up to create burden with very little benefit,” Cerullo said.

U.S. Sen. Charles Grassley, R-Iowa, who is investigating the finances of six other televangelists, questioned why any religious nonprofit would decline to join ECFA, which he likens to a Good Housekeeping seal of approval.

Grassley would not comment specifically about the Inspiration Network, but told the Observer that leaders of religious nonprofits should be careful not to use viewers' donations to adopt “filthy rich” lifestyles. Grassley wants to know whether some nonprofits are violating the spending rules that allow them preferential tax treatment.

“I saw (PTL's) Jim Bakker treating his organization like a personal ATM,” said Grassley, the ranking Republican on the Senate Finance Committee, which helps shape the nation's tax laws. “Any religious organization ought to get away from that impression.”

“Debt cancellation!”

Emotional on-air pitches generate much of the money used to pay network salaries. In March, Morris Cerullo appeared on Inspiration's “camp meeting” with a message to fire up prospective donors.

“Is anybody ready for the greatest financial breakthrough you've ever experienced in your life?” he asked.

The elder Cerullo, a Pentecostal minister, at times appeared to speak in tongues. His gravelly voice periodically rising to a shout, he urged members of the audience to fill envelopes with $900 donations.

“When you sow for your financial anointing, the windows of heaven are going to open for you,” he said. “ … In the next nine months, you are going to experience more financial blessings than you've ever experienced in your life! 100 fold! Debt cancellation!”

Soon, these words appeared on the screen: “Call now with your $900 offering and receive God's debt cancellation.”

Until about four years ago, the elder Cerullo had served as an unpaid member of the network's board.

Like other prosperity preachers who raise money for INSP, Morris Cerullo has been criticized for his fundraising methods. In 2005, he was indicted in California for tax evasion, but the charges were later thrown out.

David Cerullo says he believes in his father – and that good things will happen to donors. He said he has gotten many letters and e-mails from contributors who “received what I would call a harvest.” He declined to name them.

“I don't back off … the concept that seeds produce harvest,” he said. “It's naturally accurate. It's biblically accurate. It's spiritually accurate…. The Bible says give, and then what? Then it will be given unto you.”

Laura Gamble is among those who believe her seeds have yielded fruit. The 69-year-old Easley, S.C., resident said she's a regular viewer and contributor. She believes her donations have had something to do with improvements in her health, she said.

“I just got out of the hospital, and I'm having a good recovery,” she said. “It's God looking out for me.”

Donors fuel rapid growth

Texas televangelist Mike Murdock, Morris Cerullo and the other ministers raising much of the network's money adhere to a much-criticized brand of evangelism called prosperity gospel, which holds that God rewards them and their faithful donors with financial prosperity. With the Inspiration Networks and other broadcasters spreading their messages around the globe, those prosperity preachers have in recent years watched their audiences swell.

The financially desperate are among those most likely to be drawn to such pitches, experts say.

Janet Gibbens, 60, of northern California, was holding down odd jobs and barely making ends meet about five years ago when she saw Morris Cerullo on the Inspiration Network. She'd been reading Cerullo's books and listening to his preaching for years. When he called himself a prophet of the Lord, she believed him.

On the air, the elder Cerullo urged viewers to donate to the network – and then prepare to receive “financial blessings that would stagger the imagination,” she recalled.

“I wanted to have something more than this poverty,” she said. “If I coughed up the $200 … He was God's emissary, you know. If you did that in obedience, the sky was the limit.”

So she sent about $200 – all that remained in her bank account, she said.

But her financial situation never improved. About three years ago, she began reading information that caused her to doubt the claims of the people she had trusted. Her faith in those ministers evaporated and was replaced by rage. She now wonders why she ever believed Cerullo's claims. “It's almost like a brainwashing, that they can convince you to give all your money,” she said.

In recent years, the debate over the prosperity gospel has been the subject of cover stories in national magazines, theological conferences and Grassley's Senate inquiry. Critics say preachers who espouse it – from PTL's Jim and Tammy Bakker in the 1980s to Missouri-based Joyce Meyer today – distort the Bible to justify their luxurious lifestyles.

“If that was Christ's message, then I want to know why he wound up on the cross. That's not prospering,” said the Rev. Mike McDonald, pastor at Broad Street United Methodist Church in Mooresville. “He warned against seeking material gain – often quite explicitly.”

Rev. Michael Horton, a California theology professor who edited “Agony of Deceit,” a book that examines the claims of fundraising televangelists, said such appeals lead to “a kind of Ponzi scheme.”

“Certainly it works out very well for whoever's at the top,” he said.

One former Inspiration employee, who asked not to be named, said many of the network's donors were elderly people of limited means who hoped that giving to the network would help them “turn their own situations around.”

She said she valued the network's mission of saving souls, but was troubled by the growing number of on-air promises that God would bring good things to donors.

“That teaches people that the things of God are for sale,” she said. “I just have a problem with that. That stuff's not for sale.”

Staff researcher Maria David contributed.

Wild wild West

Christopher West is getting in some trouble after some pretty distasteful remarks regarding the late Pope John Paul II and Hugh Hefner.
As we know CW has become known for teaching on the Theology of The Body, which is a teaching of the Catholic Church and written by Pope JPII. And although it does speak of Sex within Marriage as something sacred, West has gotten pretty carried away with it and to paraphrase Theologian Dr. Alice Von Hidebrand... his fame has gone to his head...
Check out the article:

Denver, Colo., May 12, 2009 / 12:48 am (CNA).- Renowned Catholic thinker Dr. Alice von Hildebrand has criticized Theology of the Body speaker Christopher West, saying his approach has become too self-assured. She criticized his presentations as irreverent and insensitive to the “tremendous dangers” of concupiscence.

Also cautious of West’s remarks on his recent interview with ABC television were Mary Shivanandan and Fr. José Granados, both Catholic authors and theologians.

The news segment showed him calling for Catholics to complete “what the sexual revolution began.” He also described “very profound” historical connections between Hugh Hefner and Pope John Paul II.

West spoke to CNA on Friday, claiming the report somewhat sensationalized his views. He also denied several characterizations conveyed by the news story, explaining that he believed Hefner to be right in rejecting “the disease of Puritanism” but radically wrong in beginning the “pornographic revolution.”

He had told ABC that Hefner had a "yearning," an "ache" and a "longing" for love, union and intimacy.

In a Monday interview CNA spoke about West with Dr. Alice von Hildebrand, a Catholic philosopher and theologian who is professor emerita of Hunter College of the City University of New York.

Dr. von Hildebrand said she knew the “gist” of Pope John Paul II’s Theology of the Body and believed it was “very indebted” to her husband Dietrich von Hildebrand’s 1927 book “In Defense of Purity.” She said there is obviously an “abysmal difference” between the views shared by her husband and John Paul II and those presented by Christopher West.

Reporting that she had seen CNA’s follow-up interview with West, Dr. Von Hildebrand was very critical of the speaker.

“My feeling is that Christopher West has become famous because he started discussing the Theology of the Body, which is extremely appealing topic. The difficulty is that, in the meantime, he became so famous that I do believe he has become much too self-assured and has lost sight of the extreme sensitivity of the topic.”

This is “very troubling” because what she calls the “intimate sphere” is something “very mysterious, very profound, something that has a direct relationship with God.”

“My feeling is that his vocabulary and his way of approaching it totally lacks reverence.”

“Reverence is the key to purity,” she told CNA.” The intimate sphere “is not a topic of public discussion” but is “extremely serious.”

“It seems to me that his presentation, his vocabulary, the vulgarity of things that he uses are things that simply indicate that even though he might have good intentions he has derailed and is doing a lot of harm.”

She said people should not forget that we have been “profoundly affected” by original sin.

“In paradise there was perfect harmony between Adam and Eve. There was no concupiscence.”

“After original sin, not only were we separated from God and condemned to losing eternity. On top of it, every single human faculty was affected. Our intelligence was darkened. Our will was weakened. And all of a sudden, we had the dreadful experience of something called concupiscence.

Before the Fall, there was no inner temptation to impurity between Adam and Eve even though they were naked, she explained. After they sinned, the two started to look at one another with concupiscence.

The Fall had consequences that are “so serious” that it was only the Redemption and the grace of God could remedy.

The fight against concupiscence is “not an easy process,” Dr. von Hildebrand continued. “It is something that calls for holiness, which very few of us achieve. It is a sheer illusion to believe that by some sort of new technique we can find the solution to the problem.”

While one can lead a holy life in marriage, she said to become a saint is “a long and difficult process that calls for a spirit of penance, a readiness to sacrifice.”

“The tragedy of original sin is that all the beautiful male qualities of strength, courage, objectivity, nobility, a chivalrous attitude towards women, degenerated. The danger created by original sin is that many men use their strength and become brutal and abuse women or look at women as mere objects of pleasure.

“Eve was also profoundly affected by original sin,” she added.

“To my mind the conflict between man and woman can only be healed by striving for holiness,” she said. “There are many things Christopher West does not mention.”

Additionally, she charged that West does not mention the Old Testament figures who fell to sexual sin: David, King of Israel, who was blessed in “an extraordinary way” but ordered the murder of the husband of a woman with whom David committed adultery.

“Adulteries lead to murder. It is one of the most abominable stories you can imagine,” she said, explaining the Prophet Nathan’s rebuke of David led to the composition of Psalm 50.

She said it was upsetting to her as a youth to learn that a young man who prayed for “the straight and honest heart so that I may serve my people” went on to have 750 concubines.

“How can you be so good when you’re twenty, and lead such an abominable life when you’re seventy?” she asked. “As far as I can tell, this is something that Christopher West forgets, in this sphere which is extremely dangerous.”

She reported that a priest friend of hers had told her 90 percent of the sins that men accuse themselves of involve the Sixth Commandment against adultery.

Christopher West’s approach makes him forget that sex is “an extreme danger.” Though sex can be sanctified, that sanctification implies “a humility, a spirit of reverence, and totally avoiding the vulgarity that he uses in his language.”

“I’m shocked and horrified by the words that he uses. His mere mention of Hugh Hefner is to my mind an abomination.”

Mary Shivanandan, a theologian who authored the book “Crossing the Threshold of Love: A New Vision of Marriage in the Light of John Paul II’s Anthropology,” was also critical of West’s remarks.

“The sublime teaching of John Paul II’s theology of sexuality is not well served by West’s comparison to Hugh Hefner and his playboy bunnies,” she told CNA in a Monday e-mail. “The late pope had a profound reverence for God’s plan for human love, which such a comparison, no matter how well intentioned, can only diminish and degrade.”

Also providing comment for CNA was Fr. José Granados, a theologian who co-authored with Supreme Knight of Columbus Carl Andersen a book on John Paul II’s Theology of the Body titled “Called to Love.”

Fr. Granados said West’s suggestion that John Paul II took the sexual revolution a step further was “highly inadequate and open to serious misunderstanding.” He explained that Puritanism shares with pornography a negative vision of the body, viewing it without reference to the dignity of the person and to God’s plan for man.

“It is deprived of its symbolism and its language,” he said. While Puritanism attempts to silence the body and its urges, the sexual revolution exalts them “as an absolute.”

“Pornography is in no sense an attempt to recover the beauty of the body and sexuality, but a sign of despair regarding this beauty and the possibility of finding meaning in human love,” he said.

John Paul II’s Theology of the Body recovers “the meaning of the body” with reference to love and to man and God, Fr. Granados told CNA.

“The Pope’s proposal is not just about sexuality, but about the truth of love as the foundation of the person’s dignity and the meaning of reality; and about the family as the place where the person finds himself and his way towards happiness.

“Moreover, one of the results of the sexual revolution is precisely the pansexualism that surrounds our society. We cannot respond with a different kind of pansexualism, with a sort of ‘Catholic sexual revolution,’ which in the end promotes a similar obsession with sex, even if ‘holy’.”

Wednesday, February 11, 2009

Palmyra The Palmyra Institute obtained its 501 c 3 status in 2001. Its purpose was to enhance the "Dignity of the Human Person" through Emotional, Spiritual and Intellectual stimulation.

We have have found that every person have particular things in common among them is the need to be appreciated and can be deserving of appreciation .

Our programs have provided vital assistance to At Risk Youth, Young Adults, College Students, Single Parents and Prisoners, in a nutshell; those on the fringe of society (in one way or another). We provide the stimulus so that Ones inner being may be found more easily.

Some of our Programs:

• Lifeskills, the practical side of life (The Stuff They Don't Teach You in College)
  
• Civic involvement
• Understanding ourselves through true reflection
• Emotions, why do we have them and how do we control them
• Common Sense, it's not so common
• Purpose and Destiny
  

Palmyra also offers Translation Services (English/Spanish) and Advocacy for those less fortunate including those of the Hispanic Community.

For more information you may reach us at: (970)237-3026

We update this site once per week, Thank you.

Monday, January 19, 2009

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