Norway Princess to marry California 6th generation shaman

 

Norway’s Princess Martha Louise to wed U.S. shaman amid years of controversy

By Jan M. Olsen and Stefanie Dazio  The Associated Press

Posted August 30, 2024 11:47 am

 Updated August 30, 2024 11:48 am

 4 min read

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Norway's Princess Martha Louise and Durek Verret arrive at the boats that will transport them to Geiranger for their wedding celebration on Saturday. Heiko Junge/NTB via APThe Norwegian king’s eldest child, Princess Märtha Louise, will marry American self-professed shaman Durek Verret on Saturday in a picturesque corner of southern Norway.

The wedding comes amid widespread criticism of the couple’s actions and waning support for the Scandinavian royals, who have been plagued by negative reports about an unruly family member who faces preliminary domestic violence charges.

Märtha Louise, 52, and Verret, who claims to be a sixth-generation shaman from California, have attracted headlines with their alternative beliefs. She is fourth in line to the Norwegian throne but said in 2022 that she’ll no longer officially represent the Norwegian royal house in order to work closer with her American fiancé.

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Norway’s Princess Martha Louise and her fiance Durek Verrett arrive at the government’s party event in connection with Princess Ingrid Alexandra’s 18th birthday, which is held at Deichman Bjoervika, Oslo’s main library, Thursday June 16, 2022. Hakon Mosvold Larsen/NTB via AP

The princess — she has retained the title — has said she can talk with angels, while Verret, 49, claims that he communicates with a broad range of spirits and has a medallion which helps ward off spells and cure diseases.

They became engaged in 2022. Once married, Verret will not have royal titles or official duties.

In a 2019 deal, Märtha Louise and Verret agreed not to use her connection to the royal house or her title for commercial purposes.

But earlier this year Märtha Louise labeled bottles of gin with her title and launched the brand in time for the wedding, defying King Harald V’s directive that she should not profit from her royal status. The label was eventually changed.

The couple also sold their wedding photo rights to a British celebrity magazine and the film rights to Netflix. The deals prompted protests from Norwegian media, which says it goes against local practices. The couple has often lashed out against the press while promoting themselves on social media.

Meanwhile Marius Borg Høiby, the eldest son of Norway’s Crown Princess Mette-Marit and Crown Prince Haakon’s stepson, is suspected of causing bodily harm and criminal damage. He has confessed that he was intoxicated and was taking cocaine when he was briefly arrested Aug. 6 in Oslo. Borg Høiby, who is the son of Mette-Marit from a previous relationship, has no royal titles or official duties.

Haakon has called it “a serious matter.”

The scandal, along with the upcoming royal wedding, have seriously eroded support for the Norwegian monarchy. King Harald has remained silent about the issues.

A Norwegian political party known for its anti-royalist stance is using the recent scandals to campaign for a proposal to change the Constitution and abolish the monarchy.

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“These cases show some of the fundamental challenges with the monarchy,” Andreas Sjalg Unneland, a lawmaker of the Socialist Left Party, told The Associated Press in reference to the royal wedding and the Borg Høiby case.

“Do we have to wait for a scandal that is so big that we abolish the monarchy, or can we give it a dignified ending?” Sjalg Unneland asked, adding that the nation should hold a referendum on the issue.

The proposal, expected to be tabled next month, is not likely to gain support from other lawmakers.

Saturday’s wedding will be officiated following the Norwegian Church’s wedding liturgy. While it is labeled a private event and no guest list has been made public, the royal household in Oslo says Harald, Queen Sonja, the heir to the throne Haakon and Crown Princess Mette-Marit will attend. Norway’s future king and queen will be joined by their children. Borg Høiby will not attend.

The Norwegian Church will officiate this marriage to a shaman who talks to spirits? OMG!

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Norway’s King Harald and Queen Sonja on board the Royal Yacht wave to the boats carrying wedding guests from Alesund to Geiranger, Norway, Friday Aug. 30, 2024, for the wedding celebration of Princess Martha Louise and Durek Verret on Saturday. Heiko Junge/NTB via AP

Sweden’s Crown Princess Victoria and her husband Prince Daniel also are reportedly attending the ceremony in Geiranger, 265 kilometres north of Bergen, Norway’s second-largest city. Denmark’s King Frederik and his Australian-born wife Queen Mary, however, will not attend.

Reality stars, media influencers and TV personalities will round out the ceremony’s guests in the scenic town of Geiranger, which sits on the shores of its eponymous fjord designated as a UNESCO World Heritage Site.

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Norway’s Crown Prince Haakon, 2nd right, and Crown Princess Mette-Marit, right, and their children Prince Sverre Magnus, Princess Ingrid Alexandra, center, arrive at the boats in Alesund, Norway, Friday Aug. 30, 2024, that will transport them to Geiranger for the wedding celebration of Princess Martha Louise and Durek Verret on Saturday. Heiko Junge/NTB via AP

The Norwegian royal yacht, Norge, has anchored there, surrounded by mountains and rivers. The ship will serve as the dwelling of the king and queen, the royal household in Oslo said.

Märtha Louise has three children from her previous marriage with Ari Behn, whom she divorced in 2017 after 14 years of marriage.

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Although she is the first child of the 87-year-old Harald, her brother, who is two years younger than her, will succeed their father as king.

The Norwegian Constitution was altered in 1990 to allow the firstborn, regardless of gender, to take precedence in the line of succession. The change does not apply retroactively and Haakon remains first in line to the throne. His oldest child, Princess Ingrid Alexandra, will one day ascend the Norwegian throne.

That is, if there is still a throne to ascend to.

Bits and Bites from Around the World > Assange Closer to Extradition to the USA; Man refuses to answer pregnancy question; Girl marries herself

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Britain clears way for Julian Assange's extradition to United States

By Clyde Hughes

   

WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange speaks to reporters from the balcony of the Ecuadorian Embassy in London

 on May 19, 2017. The British Home Secretary agreed to the extradition of Assange to the United States on Friday.

File Photo by Facundo Arrizabalaga/PA-EFE

June 17 (UPI) -- Jailed WikiLeaks founder Julian Assange moved closer to extradition to the United States on Friday after the British Home Secretary Priti Patel approved the move.

Assange, who faces 18 espionage-related laws in the United States, has been aggressively fighting efforts to be taken across the Atlantic Ocean to court hearings.

He has been in London's Belmarsh prison for the past three years after being protected for years in the Ecuadorian embassy there.

"Under the Extradition Act 2003, the Secretary of State must sign an extradition order if there are no grounds to prohibit the order being made," Britain's Home Office said in a statement.

"On 17 June, following consideration by both the Magistrates Court and High Court, the extradition of Mr. Julian Assange to the U.S. was ordered.

"Mr. Assange retains the normal 14-day right to appeal. In this case, the U.K. courts have not found that it would be oppressive, unjust, or an abuse of process to extradite Mr. Assange.

"Nor have they found that extradition would be incompatible with his human rights, including his right to a fair trial and to freedom of expression, and that whilst in the U.S. he will be treated appropriately, including in relation to his health."

In March, a three-judge panel of Britain's Supreme Court ruled that Assange's appeal of a December High Court decision allowing his extradition to the United States did not "raise an arguable point of law" leading the way to Friday's decision.

WikiLeaks released a statement vowing to continue fighting the extradition.

"Today is not the end of the fight. It is only the beginning of a new legal battle," WikiLeaks said, according to The Guardian. "We will appeal through the legal system; the next appeal will be before the high court.

"Julian did nothing wrong. He has committed no crime and is not a criminal. He is a journalist and a publisher and he is being punished for doing his job. It was in Priti Patel's power to do the right thing.

"Instead, she will forever be remembered as an accomplice of the United States in its agenda to turn investigative journalism into a criminal enterprise."

The extradition is tied to 2010, when WikiLeaks posted a series of leaks by former U.S. Army soldier Chelsea Manning, along with more than 250,000 U.S. diplomatic cables containing classified diplomatic analysis from world leaders.

In 2010 an arrest warrant for Assange was issued for two separate sexual assault allegations in Sweden and Britain ruled he should be extradited to Sweden.

Assange fled to the Ecuadorian embassy in London seeking political asylum in 2012, claiming political asylum. He was later charged in the United States in connection with the 2010 cable leak.

I believe the Swedish charges were trumped up because the USA felt Sweden would extradite Assange more easily than Britain. They have since been dropped. 

I also believe that Assange should not have been charged in the USA until the criminal activity he exposed had been dealt with. 

This seems like a Deep State activity aimed at getting control of the internet media. 

Man prevented from donating blood over pregnancy question

Man prevented from donating blood over pregnancy question

© Getty Images / UniversalImagesGroup

Habitual blood donor Leslie Sinclair has been turned away from the Albert Halls clinic in the Scottish city of Stirling after refusing to answer a question on an intake form asking about whether he was expecting a child or had been pregnant during the prior six months.

Sinclair was sent home on Wednesday night from the facility where, despite much-publicized efforts by the Scottish National Blood Transfusion Service (SNBTS) to find 16,000 new donors, National Health Service (NHS) personnel refused to take his blood without a response to the pregnancy question.

“I am angry because I have been giving blood since I was 18 and have regularly gone along. I’m very happy to do so without any problem,” Sinclair said on Thursday, according to the Daily Mail. He explained that while he had no objection to filling out forms about “medical conditions or diseases” because he knows “the blood needs to be safe,” he found the pregnancy question baffling.

“I pointed out to the staff that it was impossible for me to be in that position, but I was told that I would need to answer, otherwise I couldn’t give blood. I told them that was stupid and that if I had to leave, I wouldn’t be back, and that was it, I got on my bike and cycled away,” the retired engineering company driver said.

The 66-year-old, who claims to have donated over 125 pints of blood in the last 50 years, denounced the NHS’ new policy as “nonsensical,” pointing out that “there are vulnerable people waiting for blood, including children, and in desperate need of help.” Pregnant women are required to wait six months after giving birth to donate blood.

The NHS launched what it described as its biggest-ever blood drive in October, calling for an unprecedented 100,000 new donors by the spring in anticipation of doctors returning to performing elective surgical procedures that were largely shut down or postponed during the Covid-19 pandemic. 

The agency also announced last June that “everyone” would be asked “the same gender-neutral questions” in what a PSA video called “our most inclusive donation experience yet.” 

SNBTS director Marc Turner explained that “while pregnancy is only a relevant question to those whose biological sex or sex assigned at birth is female, sex assigned at birth is not always visually clear to staff.” He cited the NHS’ “duty to promote inclusiveness” as the basis for requiring the clearly-male Sinclair to share his pregnancy status.

India: Gujarat girl ties the knot with herself

Her marriage had to be solemnised at home instead of temple as priest backs out

Published:  June 09, 2022 16:40

IANS 

Kshama Bindu going through the rituals of marriage.

Image Credit: AP

Baroda: Gujarat girl Kshama Bindu, who grabbed the headlines and hit the eye of the storm after she expressed her intention to marry herself, has solemnised her marriage in a private function at her residence.

Kshama performed mehandi, haldi ceremonies and got married on Wednesday in the presence of ten people, including her friends and colleagues.

Sharing her wedding pictures on Instagram, 24-year-old Kshama posted in Hindi, “Khud se mohabbat me pad gai, kal mai apni hi Dulhan ban gai”.

In the pictures of her ‘mehandi’, she could be seen wearing a kurta, jacket and dhoti.

Her marriage had to be solemnised at home on June 8 instead of temple on June 11 as the priest who had agreed to get Kshama married to herself backed out after opposition from local politicians.

Kshama’s expression of self love grabbed a mix reaction. On one hand, she was trolled on social media, while on the other hand, many people supported her.

Talking to IANS, Kshama said she changed her wedding venue and kept it simple as she did not want to hurt anyone’s feelings.

She thanked everyone who wished her on social media after the wedding.

And Now for Something Completely Different... Objectophilia

Woman reveals WEDDING plans with Boeing jet

she’s been dating for six years

© Michele Kobke/ Instagram

The heart wants what it wants, as Emily Dickinson once wrote. But the American poet could hardly have envisioned the case of a German woman who has revealed plans to wed “the love of her life” – a 40-ton jumbo jet.

Michele Kobke has been dating the Boeing 737-800 since she met it at Berlin’s Tegel Airport in 2014. She says was immediately attracted to the jet’s wings, winglets and thrusters when she spied it through the airport window.   

Thus a whirlwind romance was sparked that reached new heights when Kobke was allowed stand on the plane’s wing and kiss it last year. The 30-year-old hopes the relationship will really take off when the pair tie the knot at an intimate ceremony in the Netherlands in March.

“The time in the hangar was the most beautiful moment of my life and when I was with him, we enjoyed our time together, we kissed and I caressed him,” the woman gushed, according to the Mirror.  

Kobke has only met her beloved “Schatz,” meaning darling, twice since. So, to keep love-sickness grounded, she cradles plane components in bed at night. She hopes to one day move into a hangar with the aircraft so they can be together all the time. 

The German woman has very clear ideas about how she wants the couple’s special day to go. “I wouldn’t want to put on a white dress, but dress really smartly with black trousers and a black blazer,” she explained.

I want to have someone marry us and say, ‘Do you want to marry your 737-800’ and I say, ‘Yes,’ we kiss, and then I’m immortalised with him and we can be together forever.

Kobke’s peculiar relationship with the Boeing is highly unusual but it’s not unheard of. It’s an example of objectophilia, a form of romantic attraction focused on particular inanimate objects. 

Oh, good! For a minute there I thought she invented another gender.

But the saleswoman argues that her relationship with Schatz is nothing out of the ordinary. “It’s like a normal relationship, we have relaxing evenings together and when we go to bed, we cuddle and fall asleep together,” she says. Love truly knows no bounds.

I'm so glad this article stops right there!

Saudi Woman Banned from Marrying Her Beau Because He ‘Played Musical Instrument’

FILE PHOTO A man tests his newly finished oud / Reuters

A truly heartbreaking story worthy of a place in One Thousand and One Nights has taken place in a Saudi Arabian city. A woman was denied to marry her sweetheart because he allegedly played a musical instrument, local media report.

Roughly two years ago, a 20-year-old male school teacher, asked for the hand of a woman in the city of Unaizah in Qassim province, Saudi newspapers reported. 

However, the woman’s family refused to greenlight the union, saying that the suitor was not “religiously compatible” because he played the oud, a lute-type instrument popular in the Arab states. In some parts of the ultra-conservative kingdom people who play music are considered to have bad reputation.

Yet the woman, 38, wasn’t planning to give up on marrying her beau and took the case to a lower court. The court’s verdict was disappointing. “Because the suitor plays a musical instrument he is unsuitable for the woman from a religious point of view,” a court statement said.

The woman’s uncle approved the marriage, yet one of her brothers remained a stumbling block. Females in the Gulf kingdom still have limited rights despite ambitious reforms advocated by Saudi Crown Prince Mohammed bin Salman.

Apart from a strict dress codes, women must seek permission from their guardians to marry or divorce.

The 38-year-old even brought the case to an appeals court but she also lost that, despite it being reportedly revealed that a key witness against the man never actually saw him play the oud.

However, her commitment should be applauded as she is not planning to stop. She told Okaz newspaper and Saudi Gazette that she will seek intervention from the highest court authorities. “I won't stop here. I'll take the matter to the Supreme Court. Maybe I'll find my salvation there,” she said. 

Good luck finding anything resembling salvation in a Sharia court. And yet, western countries allow Sharia to be practiced in some places. How absurd!

The plaintiff, who holds an executive position and manages over 300 people, insists that she is “pretty sure” she knows “what is best” for her. “The reason why I am insisting on marrying my suitor is that he has been a teacher for 20 years and everyone who knows him vouches for his honor and piety,” she stated.

Love, Marriage & Divorce in 15 Minutes in the Gulf States

Groom divorces bride 15 minutes into marriage

Gulf News
Bassam Za'za', Legal and Court Correspondent

Dubai: The marriage between a couple lasted less than 15 minutes following a misunderstanding between the groom and his father-in-law, who was in a rush to collect his daughter’s bride price.

The newly-married man divorced his wife within 15 minutes after signing the marriage contract after he felt demeaned by his father-in-law who did not want to wait for him to bring part of the agreed-upon money from his parked car.

The man was believed to have an agreement with the bride’s father to pay Dh100,000 (about $27,000 USD) for the marriage and mention the amount in the contract, an Arabic news report said on Tuesday.

According to the father-husband agreement, the man was supposed to pay Dh50,000 at the time of signing the contract inside the Sharia judge’s office and the remaining amount upon leaving the court building.

Family members and friends accompanied the bride and the groom to the Sharia judge’s office to witness the signing of the marriage contract.

The groom paid the bride’s father Dh50,000 in the judge’s office at the time of signing, according to the news report, and as the bride, groom and attendees walked out, the bride’s father asked his son-in-law to pay the rest.

The groom asked his father-in-law to wait for a few minutes and assured him that the other Dh50,000 was in his car.

The woman’s father insisted the groom pay up immediately, even though the groom told him that he would get the money within five minutes after leaving the court building.

The father-in-law then told the man to send a relative or friend to get the money, a lawyer who is handling the case confirmed to Gulf News on Tuesday.

The lawyer, who wished not to be named, added, “The groom felt insulted and demeaned by his father-in-law. He told the bride’s father that he did not want his daughter as his wife and divorced her in less than 15 minutes from signing the marriage contract.”

I wonder if that was the real story? I wonder if the bride's father suspected that the groom would run off with the bride without paying the remaining Dh50,000? In fact, I would bet money that such was the case which just goes to show you what kind of man the father was selling his daughter to. I presume the father kept the first Dh50,000. 

Belgians Just Can't Stop Shooting Themselves in the Foot

Terrorist leader, 35, is allowed to MARRY while in prison in Belgium in a move that could stop him being deported back to Morocco

By Chris Pleasance for MailOnline

Fouad Belkacem, 35, Belgium's most notorious jihadi recruiter, has been allowed to marry the mother of his children from jail

Belgium's most notorious terror recruiter has been allowed to marry the mother of his three children from behind bars.

Fouad Belkacem, 35, wed the woman in Hasselt prison several weeks ago in a move that activists and politicians fear could stop him being deported back to Morocco.

Under the alias of Abu Imran, Belkacem ran the Islamist website Sharia4Belgium which aimed to turn the European nation into an Islamic state.

Belkacem openly praised Osama bin Laden and called for the implementation of sharia law, including the death penalty for homosexuals.

He also spent years recruiting jihadist fighters and encouraging them to go and fight in Syria against Bashar al-Assad.

In early 2015 Belkacem was sentenced to twelve years behind bars and handed a £26,000 fine by a court in Antwerp.

Belgian authorities have already started a procedure to strip him of his passport and nationality, which would mean he would be deported after serving his sentence.

Campaigners fear the marriage will stop Belkacem, who ran the terror website Sharia4Belgium, being deported back to his native Morocco

Antwerp alderwoman Zuhal Demir revealed she denied permission for the marriage three times before local authorities approved the union.

In a furious Facebook post, Ms Demir said: 'He detests our laws but used them to legally to marry. To what end?

'We owe this unscrupulous gentleman nothing. I hope that deportation after jail time is still possible.'

Ms Demir, whose parents are Alevi Kurds from Turkey, branded the affair 'a painful missed opportunity.'

Vatican's New Guidelines Maintain Ban on Gay Priests

This report is from the CBC - keep in mind that it is very liberal

and pro-LGBTQI. It is also written from the perspective of someone who obviously doesn't believe there is a God.

Some observers were hoping progressive Pope Francis would reverse the ban

By Megan Williams, CBC News 

Pope Francis poses for a selfie at the Vatican on Jan. 5, 2017. (Tony Gentile/Reuters)

Megan Williams is a Canadian foreign correspondent and writer based in Rome. Her radio documentaries and reports from around the world have won many awards. She covers everything from the Vatican, culture and corruption to Italy's ongoing refugee crisis.

As Pope Francis approaches the fourth anniversary of being elected head of the Roman Catholic Church, he remains an exceedingly popular Catholic leader.

Despite the dissatisfied grumblings from a small core of conservative cardinals, whom the Pope has so far ignored, most Catholics find Francis's move away from stressing doctrinal rules and toward more compassion a more realistic and reassuring direction for Catholicism.

Even his softened stance toward LGBT Catholics — from his "Who am I to judge?" comment about gay people to his use of the word "gay" — has provided hope for gay Catholics, long shunned by their church, that the shift in tone might make its way into official church documents.

Those hopes, though, were recently dashed when the Vatican published a new set of guidelines for the training of seminarians with the rosy title The Gift of the Priestly Vocation.

Within the manual lay a decidedly less jubilant clarification of who qualifies for the job. 

"The Church … cannot admit to the seminary … those who practice homosexuality, present deep-seated homosexual tendencies or support the so-called 'gay culture,' " it read. 

The ban on gay men from entering the seminary came as a surprise to no one close to the Vatican. First introduced in 2005 by Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, before he became Pope Benedict XVI, it was part of an attempt to purge the priesthood of homosexuality — both the act and the orientation — in part as a response to the sex abuse crisis. 

'The idea that gays cannot be good priests is stupid, demeaning, unjust and contrary to the facts.'

- Thomas Reese

Vatican observers such as Thomas Reese, a Jesuit priest and National Catholic Reporter columnist, did not hide their dismay that the ban on gay seminaries, albeit couched in vague language, remained.

"The idea that gays cannot be good priests is stupid, demeaning, unjust and contrary to the facts," wrote Reese. "I know many very good priests who are gay, and I suspect even more good priests I know are gay."

Reese may well have been referring to men like Krzysztof Charamsa. 

The former high-ranking Vatican official and now defrocked Polish priest worked for a decade or so under Ratzinger, inching deeper into the closet as he increasingly heard language like "intrinsically disordered" used to describe gay people.

Vatican official Krzysztof Charamsa, left, came out as gay in 2015 and denounced the Vatican for 'paranoid homophobia' at a news conference with his partner Eduard Planas. (CBC)

"It was horror to think that I [was] gay," Charamsa said of his early years in the seminary in his homeland of Poland.

Later, as a doctrinal official at the Vatican, he said, he was under continual stress that someone might realize he was gay.

But after falling in love with a man, Charamsa made a move that few other gay priests have dared.

In a blistering denunciation of what he called the Vatican's "paranoid homophobia," in late 2015 Charamsa stepped out of the closet at a news conference, with his gay partner by his side.

"It was desperate, my coming out," he said, "because I wasn't able to simply say, 'We need to study sexuality. We need to get informed.' But you know, everybody at the Vatican knows, when we begin to get informed [about sexuality], we'll have to change the doctrine, because it's incoherent with human sexuality."

Same sex = no sex

Cardinal Thomas Collins, the Archbishop of Toronto, attended the Vatican family meetings and in an interview shortly after Charamsa's public outing, said he took exception to the former priest's characterization of the Catholic Church as homophobic.

Archbishop of Toronto Thomas Collins, seen here in 2007, says it's 'simply unfair' to accuse the Catholic Church of being homophobic. (L'Osservatore Romano/Associated Press)

"I think that's just simply unfair," said Collins. "To accuse anyone of being phobic — that's a bludgeon to shut down people's freedom of speech. You barely open your mouth and someone says you're phobic."

Collins, a doctrinal hardliner, says gay Catholics should be treated with compassion, but his advice to same-sex couples is the same advice the Catholic Church provides to Catholics who have divorced and remarried outside the church: do not have sex.

"To accuse anyone of being phobic — that's a bludgeon to shut down people's freedom of speech. You barely open your mouth and someone says you're phobic." - AB Collins

"We're dealing with a tendency or inclination," Collins said. "We're not slaves to anything in life. What it means to be free is not to be a slave to our inclinations."

Yet longtime Vatican expert Robert Mickens says euphemisms such as "homosexual inclinations" are just one of the many ways the Catholic Church avoids facing the issue of gayness in its midst, or what he calls the "homoerotic culture" of the church.

This is where this discussion goes off-track, I think. AB Collins appeared to be referring to sexual inclinations of any kind, not just homosexual. The concept for priests and bishops is that they are spiritually minded, not earthly minded and nothing is more 'earthly' than sex. Marriage is outlawed in the priesthood, so why wouldn't gay sex be likewise?

I don't agree that marriage should be outlawed; it is a fine ideal, but too many priests have proven themselves to be far less than ideal. Nevertheless, even if marriage were permitted, gay partnerships would still be a sin in my books. Nothing is more clear in the Bible than God's hatred of homosexuality, so it's very difficult to see how a practicing homosexual can have a realistic relationship with Jesus Christ.

Mickens, who left the seminary more than 20 years ago after he realized he was gay, says it's an open secret the Catholic priesthood — and the Vatican — is rife with gay men.

He discovered it first-hand in Rome.

The Vatican — is rife with gay men

"After I left the seminary, I started to go out to gay places — beaches and nightclubs — and I was running into all kinds of priests and seminarians and officials that worked at the Vatican," he said.

Mickens says he pities many of them because of the stress of living a double life.

Mickens, like Charamsa and many other gay priests who will speak openly about it, says the Church still remains an attractive place for Catholic gay men who don't want to face their sexuality.

He and others also say much of the anti-gay stance in the Catholic Church is generated by priests he describes as "self-loathing, homophobic and homosexual."

Yet, he says, it is not likely the Church will encourage open discussion about the high numbers of gay men in the priesthood any time soon.

"The Church wants to keep this issue a taboo so that those pious young men will continue to think of the priesthood as the noble way, rather than, 'I'm gay and maybe that's how I should lead my life as a gay man.' If we allow people to live openly their homosexuality, we lose a great pool of our resources for ministry."

Ministry for what, or Whom? Not for God! How can someone practicing what God declares an abomination be a minister for God?

Anne Graham Lotz: Satan Behind Gay Marriage Decision, End Times Looming

SUBMITTED BY Brian Tashman, Right Wing Watch

Last month, Anne Graham Lotz appeared on “Understanding the Times with Jan Markell,” where she repeated her claim that the rapture is imminent.

Anne is the daughter of Billy Graham

She told Markell that God is sending “wake-up calls” to America to get people’s attention: “That’s why he allows the terrorists to strike or a tornado to rip through our city because, for whatever reason, we don’t seem to give him our attention until we’re desperate, and so if we don’t give him our attention, then he’s going to allow things to happen to make us more and more desperate until we do cry out.”

However, Lotz said that God is about to run out of patience with the U.S. and may soon remove “the restraints so that evil comes in like a flood.” One of the signs that God has allowed evil to flood into America, Lotz said, was the recent Supreme Court decision on marriage equality.

“The Enemy has come in like a flood and that’s one of his tactics,” she said of the court’s ruling, “to hit us at every level, every angle so that we feel overwhelmed.”

She added:
You cannot change God’s institution of marriage, so what they’re asking is to join an institution that by its very definition they can’t join. So if the Supreme Court changes that legally in America, they are very seriously defying God. 

I think there are three reasons we could pass that tipping point. One is that reason, the second is abandoning Israel and the third one is the abortion, aborting babies for convenience. Women can scream and holler about that and say they don’t do that, but the statistics show that they do, they use it for birth control. Those three reasons alone would demand that God judge America.”


Last year, CBN interviewed Lotz about her effort to save America from God's impending judgment, where she explained that terrorism, natural disasters, economic problems, and social unrest are all warning signs from God that the return of Jesus Christ will happen within her lifetime.

"The signs that Jesus gives, whether it is in the environmental world, or the national world, the wars and rumors of wars, or the persecution of Christians, the persecution of Jews," Lotz said, "when we see that ratcheting up, increasing in frequency and intensity in the same generation that sees the Gospel being preached to the whole world and Israel reborn are a nation, that's the generation that's the last."

"I believe, with deep conviction, that it's my generation," she continued. "I believe that in my lifetime, if I live out my lifetime, a natural lifetime, I believe I will live to see the return of Jesus in the Rapture when he comes back to take us to be with himself. Which means, preceding that, there are going to be some signs, there are going to be some warnings".

Do you agree with Anne? Generally speaking, except for the pre-trib rapture, I do! The sheer insanity that governs the world these days is certainly an indication that the end is near. The question is, how much worse can it get before God has had enough?

Consider child sex abuse: One in 5 girls and one in 12 boys are sexually abused before they turn 18. Many would say those numbers are very conservative. Certainly in some countries almost half of all girls are sexually abused. In India, more than half of all boys are sexually abused. Altogether, nearly 300,000,000 children have been sexually abused in the 21st century, most of them multiple times, many - thousands of times.

I hope and pray He does not wait much longer, for the incidence of child sex abuse is still getting worse despite many efforts to curb it.