The Escalating God Debate

In the Books section of the Philadelphia Inquirer, 6-7-2009, John Timpane reviews Terry Eagleton's latest book, Reason, Faith, and Revolution, Reflections on the God Debate. According to John Timpane: "The oldest questions of all -- Does God exist? Can science prove or disprove it? Is religion good or bad? -- have become the highest-profile intellectual debate of the decade."

Timpane points out that Eagleton's book was the result of a 2006 review that Eagleton wrote about Richard Dawkin's book, The God Delusion. As the result of Eagleton's review, Yale University invited him to give the Dwight H. Terry lectures in April 2008 relative to how "science and philosophy inform religion." The four lectures Eagleton gave form the basis of his newest book.

Eagleton's premise is that the great atheist writer's of our time, such as Dawkins, Hitchens and Sam Harris, have missed the point in thinking that the argument is about proving the existence of God. Rather, Eagleton believes that the issue is: "not about subscribing to some supernatural entity. It's about the image of Jesus in the gospels, a far more radical, subversive image than anybody is willing to accept. The idea is that of transformative love: having the courage to abandon oneself for others, a cause, for justice, in the radical way the New Testament presents Christ as doing." This last quote reminds me of G. K. Chesterton's words: "Christianity was never tried and found wanting. It has never been tried."

While reading John Timpane review was extremely interesting, instead of concentrating on Eagleton's argument, I found myself concentrating on the place of miracles in this recent God Debate. For example, Dawkins in his book, The God Delusion, claims that belief in miracles is not only unscientific but also childish. He writes in a tone of ridicule, about a God who not only created the universe and maintains it, but "who also intervenes in it with miracles, which are temporary violations of his own grandly immutable laws."

I think that it is unfortunate that so few people in our modern world admit to believing in miracles, including the clergy. I can't help but be reminded of the importance of history in understanding how the beliefs that seem so dominant in today's world, slowly developed. While I have been following the God Debate over the last decade, I have to admit that I am more familar with today's atheists, than I am with Marx, Engel and Lenin. While I knew that atheism and Communism were connected, it was only recently that I learned that atheism has been a part of Marxism since its inception. Nor did I realize that Lenin has said: "Our revolution is international, and our first enemy is religion." Then, about the middle of the 20th Century, the Communists started to emphasize a form of Scientific Atheism, which stresses that it is only through sound education in science that religion will ultimately be abolished!

Most people who do not believe in miracles turn to science to support their arguments. And many, many more are simply swayed by what our common culture either approves or disapproves. My interest in miracles has increased over the last two decades, because the number of reported apparitions of Our Lady, together with numerous messages and miracles, have increased dramatically. If God doesn't exist, as the atheists claim, all of these alleged apparitions of Our Lady are just that, alleged but not factual. And concomittantly, when you strip away miracles from the Christian belief in God, you have to ask: "Why believe in Jesus Christ?" If not miracles, "What supports your belief in Jesus as the Second Person of the Triune God?"

PENTECOST SUNDAY, May 31, 2009

Today, Pentecost Sunday, seems a good time to resume my postings. I just got an email from a reader of my blog who wanted to know if I planned to continue. Well, I do! Last Wednesday I submitted my second book to Infinity Publishing. I hope to get the first proof from the publisher in six to eight weeks. Its title is: HERALD of the FATIMA APPARITIONS: JOHN M. HAFFERT. So now I have more time for my two blogs!

When I first started to write the biography it seemed a daunting task. It took me approximately one and a half years to write, edit and make a "print ready" CD. But it turned out to be one more of those special gifts that God the Father loves to delight His children with! I am totally amazed at how much I learned in writing this book about the Father's plans for all of His little ones!!!

Holiday Greetings

I would like to wish all the readers of this blog Happy Holidays, and to Christians I pray that you will have a very blessed and special Christmas, and to all, a New Year filled with Hope!

I have been very busy writing my second book. As soon as I finish it some time next year I hope to resume postings on this blog on a regular basis.

News about Our Lady of Emmitsburg's Apparitions

On Oct. 8, 2008, the Rev. Edwin F. O’Brien, Archbishop of Baltimore, issued an advisory regarding Our Lady of Emmitsburg’s messages to Dr. Gianna Sullivan. The Archbishop writes: "The alleged apparitions to Gianna Sullivan have not been recognized by the authority of the Church. Studied in detail by experts in theology and other pertinent fields, the investigations have come to the conclusion that the alleged apparitions are not supernatural in origin. This has been confirmed by the authority of the Church."

The net directive from the Diocese seems to be that Gianna should not in any way disseminate information within the diocese of Baltimore about her alleged apparitions. For more information, including Dr. Gianna Sullivan’s response as well as the Advisory put out by the Archbishop of Baltimore, click here. (www.prourladyofemmitsburg.org/latestnews.html )

It appears to this writer that the investigations of which Archbishop O’Brien speaks are not new. On Sept. 8, 2000, Dr. Gianna Sullivan received notification from Archbishop Keeler’s office that they were suspending the Marian Prayer Meetings which were being held in St. Joseph’s Church, Emmitsburg, MD pending an investigation of her mystical experiences. The report of the Commission was never made public.

In Sept. 2002 Cardinal Keeler sent a letter to the pastor of St. Joseph’ parish apparently indicating that they were continuing the ban on the use of Church facilities in the Diocese of Baltimore for the dissemination of Gianna’s messages. After Gianna and her husband, Michael, received a brief communication from Cardinal Keeler’s Delegate for Canonical Affairs, Gianna’s husband, Dr. Michael Sullivan, was quoted in the Frederick News-Post of Dec. 8, 2002 as saying that: "the church only restricted using the church property to deliver the messages and the Commission did not specifically condemn or approve the messages."

Most of the priests who back Gianna felt that the Commission’s investigation was flawed and asked for a second investigation. To my knowledge, the Diocese never authorized a second investigatory commission. For more information click here to see the website of the Foundation of the Sorrowful and Immaculate Heart of Mary. (www.centeroftheimmaculateheart.org/foundation/welcome.asp )

It appears very likely to me that the message from Our Lady of Emmitsburg on June 1, 2008 upset some of the Archbishop’s parishioners. In particular, the warning that: "Approximately 60-70% of the world’s population, as you know it, will cease... Prayer is the answer! Prayer can mitigate much of anything to come." Such a warning does not seem to me to be sufficient reason to issue an "advisory" about Dr. Gianna Sullivan! Quite the contrary, this message of June 1, 2008 should be made known to all Catholics!

Why? Because very similar warnings have been reported by Church approved visionaries. For example, at Fatima Our Lady warned Sr. Lucia that "several entire nations would be annihilated" unless the people of the world started to pray more and amend their lives. And, on Oct. 13, 1973, the anniversary of the Fatima Miracle of the Sun, Our Lady appeared to Sister Agnes Sasagawa in Akita, Japan and said: "If men do not repent and better themselves, the Father will inflict a terrible punishment on all humanity. It will be a punishment greater than the deluge. Fire will fall from the sky and will wipe out a great part of humanity." As I said, both these warnings have been approved by the Catholic Church. Our Lady of Emmitsburg gave the same type of warning on June 1, 2008! Is it possible that this warning was one of the prime movers in Archbishop’s O’Brien’s decision?

One more thing needs to be stressed. Two of the visionaries, Sr. Lucia and Dr. Gianna Sullivan, have reported that Our Lady is also predicting that there will be an Era of Peace which will come either through Grace or chastisement, depending on our response! In the book, The Fatima Prophecies , by By Thomas W. Petrisko, et al, the Era of Peace is described by a commission of six experts as referring to the "true reign of Christ". This amazing statement reads as follows: "At Fatima a commission of six experts appointed by the Bishop to interpret the message of Fatima rendered the opinion that the ‘Era of Peace’ promised by Mary implied a ‘true reign of Christ’ on the earth. This was because, they said, there ‘could be no other meaning of the word peace’ on the lips of the Mother of Christ and ‘no other meaning to her words’ my Immaculate Heart will triumph."

TWO SUNS ON THE HORIZON

A private message to Gianna Talone Sullivan was given to her on Memorial Day, May 26, 2008, by Our Lady of Emmitsburg. In this message Our Lady introduced the idea of “stars aligning and moving in their own orbits.” Mary says that this event, which could come: “ sooner than you know, could result in the death of 70% of this world’s population.”

In Our Lady of Emmitsburg’s Public Message to the World on June 1, 2008, she says: “When you see the two suns on the horizon, you must know that this is a time of change, a time of this new beginning about which I have spoken to you before. After you see the two suns, there is only a short time before you will see a tremendous change in weather...I can tell you this: Even your governments and the Church authorities already have knowledge of the stars aligning and its implication upon you...Approximately 60-70% of the world’s population, as you know it, will cease. Of those who survive, 60% of them could die of disease and starvation.”

However, Our Lady of Emmitsburg continues to offer us hope. She says that: “PRAYER IS THE ANSWER! PRAYER CAN MITIGATE MUCH OF ANYTHING TO COME. Love and unity must be at the forefront, not survival of the fittest.”

If these predictions seem far fetched, consider the Catholic Church approved apparitions of Our Lady of Fatima. In the Fatima apparition the Mother of God predicted that a great chastisement was imminent and that “several nations would be annihilated” IF the world did not turn back to God. To support her words, Mary promised that a miracle would be performed at a predicted time and place. The ‘Miracle of the Sun’ occurred as promised on October 13, 1917 in the Cova da Iria, Portugual before more than 100,000 people! For more information see the book, Meet the Witnesses, by John M. Haffert.

In another of his more than twenty books, John M. Haffert describes this amazing Miracle of the Sun as follows: “A light was seen in the sky which looked like the sun. It was visible within a radius of more than twenty miles, clearly defined (hence not something seen through a fog or mist), whirled in the sky like a wheel of fire, threw off shafts of colored light which colored objects on the ground. After several minutes, it seemed suddenly to loose itself from the sky and to plummet toward the earth, causing the crowd to believe that the world was about to end. It was over in twelve minutes.”

It is not so easy to be incredulous about the Miracle of the Sun, when we learn that not only was it witnessed to by over 100,000 people, but that it was attested to by the two most powerful, atheistic newspapers in Portugal, O Seculo and O Dia. Prior to the Miracle, these two newspapers : “had been blasting at the story of Fatima as being anything from a Jesuit fraud to rankest superstition.”

After the Miracle occurred both newspapers accurately printed what their reporters had seen. These descriptions were so thorough that the Vatican used them in the Beatification and Canonization proceedings of the two young visionaries, Jacinta and Francisco! Never before in the history of the Catholic Church had a miracle happened at the very time and place predicted in advance!

Is it too late for us to respond to these critical messages from God? The late Pope John Paul II, that great contemplative, spoke about the importance of the Fatima messages. He said that the key point was that at Fatima Our Lady had pointed the way for us to respond in order to “save mankind from self-destruction.”

Which Will You Choose?

On April 8, 2008, God the Father through Dr. Gianna Sullivan spoke once again to humanity. He points out how we have been blessed and given life. And He asks us whether or not we realize that we are “special and savored by Heaven”? God the Father emphasizes that we "have every port of glory" at our fingertips.

Referring to the apocalyptic challenges that face mankind as never before, God the Father points out the two choices that face us and speaks of the tremendous graces that He is now making available to the whole human race. He tells Gianna:

“I am relinquishing all graces unto you, not one by one but as if a floodgate was to open to you so that you can be inebriated by My Love and come DROWN in the Precious Blood of My Son, protected and full of Life. "

“Or, if you do not desire that, then the floodgates of the human natural world will pour forth and overtake you; and there, at the mercy of nature, you will have the same opportunity to DROWN in another world."

Pope Benedict XVI and Prophecy

I just purchased online for $61, including shipping, a newly published book, Christian Prophecy, The Post-Biblical Tradition, written by Niels Christian Hvidt. The list price is $74. The book has a hard cover with approximately 400 pages, printed on acid free paper, and is published by Oxford University Press. As far as I can tell this book, written by Dr. Niels Christian Hvidt whose degree in theology is from the Pontifical Gregorian University, is a major work on Christian Prophecy. It is a must read for anyone who wishes to get a new insight into the Divine interventions occurring today as well as during the last few centuries.

One thing that impresses me is the fact that the Foreword is written by Pope Benedict XVI! He begins by telling us what a prophet is not. He “is not a soothsayer; the essential element of the prophet is not the prediction of future events. The prophet is someone who tells the truth on the strength of his contact with God—the truth for today, which also, naturally, sheds light on the future." He makes an important point in that Moses speaks of himself as a prophet when he says to his people “God will send you a prophet like me.” Pope Benedict XVI says that Moses was a friend of God in a special way. He writes: “I tend to see the root of the prophetic element in that ‘face to face’ with God, in ‘talking with Him as a friend.’ Only by virtue of this direct encounter with God may the prophet speak in moments of time.”

Pope Benedict XVI points out that Niels Christian Hvidt worked within the framework of fundamental theology in his study of Christian Prophecy and therefore “investigates the purpose and preconditions of Christian prophecy in light of developments in the past 50 years in Revelation theology.” Most importantly he says that this book “offers a new approach to the actualization of Revelation, especially in the very life of the Church, which sociological investigations show in an interesting way.” The Pope ends with these words: “Niels Christian Hvidt has trod new theological land and therewith has made important contributions to a theme that needs further thought.”

In what I have had an opportunity to read thus far, I find the book quite deep but very readable. It is a big help to me in understanding not only how prophecy developed, but also its role in the Christian church.