Various Roman Catholic leaders troubled by Pope Francis’ same-sex blessing pronouncement–setting the stage for a schism?

500 British priests: Vatican’s proposed blessings of same-sex couples “pastorally and practically inadmissable.” “We see no situation in which such a blessing of a couple could be properly and adequately distinguished from some level of approval,” which would case scandal. pic.twitter.com/OkfkEf3Ql3 — Jonathan Liedl (@JLLiedl) December 21, 2023 COGwriter There is fallout and protests over […]

New Bible Asteroids Game, Animations, and More

By COGWriter Our son Michael Thiel developed another free online Bible game titled: Bible Asteroids. He thinks that this is perhaps the most exciting Bible game he has released yet. He combined a 2D spaceship game with around 350 relatively easy Bible trivia questions. He sent the following about how to play it: Here’s how […]

NBC: Xi warned Biden during summit that Beijing will reunify Taiwan with China

UPDATE: Xi told Biden that Beijing will reunify Taiwan with China, but the timing is still undecided, according to U.S. officials via @NBCNews. Xi said that China would prefer to take Taiwan peacefully, rather than by force. https://t.co/mzNym6vYjd — TaiwanPlus News (@taiwanplusnews) December 21, 2023 COGwriter Taiwan News reports that China wants Taiwan, but that […]

Christmas, Yuletide, and Mithraism

COGwriter On December 25, people in many parts of the world celebrate a holiday. This holiday was celebrated before Jesus was born. And, depending on where it was observed, this season had some different names. Two that come to mind are the Saturnalia and Yuletide. The real reason for the season was to worship the […]

EU agrees to reform migration. Italy’s Giorgia Meloni once said, ‘There is no place for Islam in Europe’

20th December 2023. Historic deal.@EUCouncil and @Europarl_EN just reached a political agreement on the Pact on Migration and Asylum. Better protection of EU borders. More #EUSolidarity. Message from Commissioner @YlvaJohansson 👇 #migrationEU https://t.co/xoovG3dXKT — EU Home Affairs (@EUHomeAffairs) December 20, 2023 COGwriter The European Union took steps to deal with, as well as reduce, migrants: […]

‘Underestimating Washington D.C.’s Debt Trap’

(Unsplash photo) COGwriter More secular sources are pointing out some risks associated with rising USA government debt: Underestimating Washington D.C.’s Debt Trap In May this year, the Congressional Budget Office estimated outstanding US government debt next October to be $27,388 billion. By the end of the first quarter of the fiscal year, it will exceed […]

Roman Catholic once opposed the Protestant use of Christmas trees

COGwriter The Wall Street Journal ran an article before that contained the following: The Stranger in the House Christmas trees arrived in England and America only in the mid-19th century… The Tannenbaum (which simply means “fir tree”) came to be associated, apocryphally or not, with Martin Luther. Because of that, many Catholics in Germany once […]

Newsweek: Germany To Permanently Deploy Troops for First Time Since World War II

(Public Domain Picture) COGwriter Germany has been working on training its troops. The following was in German (https://www.german-foreign-policy.com/news/detail/9440) that I machine-translated into English: 19 December 2023 Military hub Germany With the unusually long duration of Quadriga 2024, the Bundeswehr wants to train the “deployment and leadership of troops over a longer period of time”.[3] In […]

Pope Francis authorizes his clergy to bless the abominable

The Destruction of Sodom and Gomorrah Beyond Lot’s Tent (Wikipedia)   COGwriter The Vatican has authorized blessing for the abominable as the Associated Press reported the following: December 19, 2023 ROME (AP) — Pope Francis formally approved letting Catholic priests bless same-sex couples, the Vatican announced Monday, a radical shift in policy that aimed at […]