Category: White Horse

A key advisor to Pope Francis, Cardinal Jean-Claude Hollerich, has called for relaxation of Catholic teaching on gay sex, insisting that the Church should not ask “impossible things” of homosexuals.

Earlier this month, Pope Francis named Cardinal Hollerich — a Jesuit like himself — to his inner cabinet of advisors despite the cardinal’s open rejection of central elements of Catholic moral teaching.

“How can you condemn people who cannot love except the same sex?” Hollerich asked during an interview with Glas Koncila, a Croatian Catholic weekly, published March 27. “For some of them it is possible to be chaste, but calling others to chastity seems like speaking Egyptian to them.”

“We can only charge people with moral conduct they can bear in their world,” the cardinal said. “If we ask impossible things of them, we will put them off.”

“If we say everything they do is intrinsically wrong, it is like saying their life has no value,” he added, apparently suggesting that gay sex is “everything they do.”

Read more at: www.breitbart.com

A substantial proportion of young people are engaging in herbs and crystals as part of routine spiritual practices, according to a research firm that specializes in surveying youths.

Springtide Research Institute told CBN’s Faithwire it found 44% of young people between the ages of 13 and 25 “engage with herbs/crystals as a spiritual practice.” Shockingly, 21% do so on a weekly basis.

These results were found in the polling firm’s “State of Religion & Young People 2022” report, underscoring the reality that young people are finding alternative sources of religion and spirituality in an era of rampant secularism and less attachment to Judeo-Christian values.

With culture skewing away from the faith, a vacuum is in its place, and young people are desperately looking to fill the holes.

“Young people today are lonely and desperate to experience a deep sense of connection,” Kevin Singer, head of media and public relations at Springtide, told CBN’s Faithwire. “If that isn’t happening in churches and other faith communities, they will find it elsewhere — typically online — where independent spiritual teachers are making their living.”

Crystals and herbs are two New Age practices some believe hold the power to offer healing or ward off evil spirits, with these elements and practices sparking concern among many Christians.

As GotQuestions.org explains, “According to crystal healers, the careful placing of crystals on a patient’s body is supposed to line up with or stimulate the body’s chakras and promote healing.”

Read more at: www.faithwire.com

Christians in Henan province, China, must complete an online form and receive approval to attend church services. Officials refer to applications for church gatherings as a form of governance for “Smart Religion,” but no legal basis has been provided for such a measure.

REGISTRATION REQUIRED

Henan has one of the largest Christian populations in China. According to the “Smart Religion” requirements formulated by Henan’s provincial religious department, if religious believers want to participate in religious activities, they must make online reservations before they can attend services in churches, mosques, or Buddhist temples.

Local believers must register and make an appointment through an application called “Smart Religion,” developed by the Ethnic and Religious Affairs Commission of Henan Province.

HOW THE FORM WORKS

According to the application’s requirements, religious people must select the religious venue they want to attend before booking. Still, the use of religious identification keywords such as “mosque,” “temple,” “Christianity,” and “Catholicism” is not allowed.

Applicants must fill in personal information, including name, phone number, ID number, permanent residence, occupation, and date of birth, before they can make a reservation. Those who are allowed into the church must also have their temperature taken and show a reservation code.

Read more at: chinaaid.org

The Church of England is considering no longer referring to God as “He,” but using gender-neutral terms instead.

The Right Rev. Dr. Michael Ipgrave, Bishop of Lichfield, will lead a commission overseeing the potential change this spring. He said the church had been “exploring the use of gendered language in relation to God for several years,” The Times of London reported.

Many priests are already starting the Lord’s Prayer with “Our Father and Mother,” instead of simply “Our Father,” and refer to God as “they” instead.

“God is not male. Certainly not the white cis male with a beard, sitting on a cloud we seem to reduce and limit God to so often. God is far bigger than a binary sense of gender allows,” The Rev. Chantal Noppen said.

The Rev. Ian Paul, a conservative Church of England leader, warned that changing God’s pronouns would “move the doctrine of the church” away from the Bible. “The fact that God is called ‘Father’ can’t be substituted by ‘Mother’ without changing meaning, nor can it be gender neutralized to ‘Parent’ without loss of meaning,” he said.

Read more at: justthenews.com

Archbishop of Canterbury Justin Welby, the head of the Church of England, promised LGBT activists that he would “take action” against clergy and lay members of the church’s General Synod who condemn homosexual activity.

The leader of Christian Concern, a group representing a General Synod member whom Welby has threatened to remove, condemned the remarks as “giving a green light for a witch hunt of any Church of England clergy who believe in the traditional view that marriage is between one man and one woman for life.”

Welby responded to an LGBT activist who mischaracterized a quote from an African Anglican bishop, pledging to launch a “disciplinary process” against clergy and lay leaders who utter similar words.

“Here’s a promise: you send me details of a church that is saying something like that and I will ensure that there is a disciplinary process against the clergy who said that,” the archbishop promised. “We’ll root ‘em out! We’ll root them out. Send me the details with that bit of paper and their names at the bottom of it, and I will take action.”

He promised to take action against members of the General Synod, as well as members of the clergy. (An elected body, the General Synod considers and approves legislation affecting the Church of England when it comes to worship and the annual budget.)

Read more at: www.dailysignal.com

Same-sex marriages will receive “prayers for God’s blessing” for the first time in the Church of England following a vote at the General Synod, the legislative body of the established church of England.

On Thursday, the three houses of the Synod voted in favour of officially recognising gay marriages for the first time, with priests now being empowered to give their blessings to such unions.

The vote was overwhelmingly approved by the House of Bishops, which supported the measure by a margin of 36 to four, with two members of the house abstaining from the vote. However, the issue was far more contested amongst the lower houses of the Synod, with the House of Clergy backing the measure by a vote of 111 to 85, with three abstentions, and by the House of Laity which supported the move by a margin of 103 to 92, with five abstaining members.

In a joint statement, the two most senior bishops in the Church, Justin Welby, the Archbishop of Canterbury, and Stephen Cottrell, the Archbishop of York said: “It has been a long road to get us to this point.

“For the first time, the Church of England will publicly, unreservedly and joyfully welcome same-sex couples in church.”

Read more at: www.breitbart.com

The tea tasted bitter and earthy, but Lorenzo Gonzales drank it anyway. On that frigid night in remote Utah, he was hoping for a life-changing experience, which is how he found himself inside a tent with two dozen others waiting for the psychedelic brew known as ayahuasca to kick in.

Soon, the gentle sounds of a guitar were drowned out by people vomiting — a common downside of the drug. Some gagged; several threw up in buckets next to them.

Gonzales started howling, sobbing, laughing and repeatedly babbling “wah, wah” like a child. Facilitators from Hummingbird Church placed him face down on the grass, calming him momentarily before he started laughing and crawling on all fours.

“I seen these dark veins come up in this big red light, and then I seen this image of the devil,” Gonzales said later. He had quieted only when his wife, Flor, put her hand on his shoulder and prayed.

His journey to this small town along the Arizona-Utah border is part of a growing global trend of people turning to ayahuasca in search of spiritual enlightenment and an experience they say brings them closer to God than traditional religious services. Many hope the psychedelic tea will heal physical and mental afflictions after conventional medications and therapy failed. Their problems include eating disorders, depression, substance use disorders and PTSD.

Read more at: apnews.com

Pope Francis recently spoke out against laws that criminalize homosexuality, calling them “unjust” and asserting that God loves all his children regardless of their sexual orientation.

“Being homosexual isn’t a crime,” Francis told the Associated Press in an interview on Tuesday at the Vatican.

The pope admitted that Catholic bishops in some parts of the world support the criminalization of homosexuality but insisted that those bishops must recognize the worth of every human being.

“These bishops have to have a process of conversion,” Francis said, adding that they should utilize “tenderness, please, as God has for each one of us.”

According to The Human Dignity Trust, consensual same-sex sexual activity is illegal in 67 countries or jurisdictions around the world. In 11 of those countries, the death penalty can and sometimes is imposed. Experts note that discrimination against LGBT people, including harassment and violence, still occurs even when the laws are not enforced.

The United Nations has often called for the end of such laws since they violate one’s privacy and freedom and breach a country’s duty to protect the human rights of all, regardless of a person’s gender identity or sexual orientation, under international law.

Read more at: www.christianheadlines.com