Dispel the Illusion

France alone has witnessed an eightfold increase in evangelical Christians over the past half-century, from 50,000 to 400,000 today. Those numbers are small in absolute terms. Indeed, evangelicals represent less than 2 percent of the European population. But their influence is growing, as Roman Catholic and traditional Protestant churches increasingly borrow from their hands-on and inclusive doctrine.

Today pro-lifers understandably lament the transfer of party control in Congress. But if the recent election sparks a revival of pro-life Democrats, the loss may ultimately prove to be a boon. Over the long-term the unborn will be more secure if they have protectors in both parties.

A Chinese military surgeon had eight Chinese citizens killed to supply a single foreign patient with a new kidney, said former Canadian Secretary of State for Asia-Pacific David Kilgour on November 14. Kilgour spoke as a special guest at the Asian Human Rights Week forum in Warsaw, on day two of a five day program. "The incredible thing is that the doctor would…go down the names on sheets of paper looking for blood types and tissue types and so on, and he [the patient] would point at names on the list. The doctor would then go away and come back with organs," said Kilgour.

A high school principal in rural northern Carroll County said she would investigate reports of sex parties involving students and possibly recent graduates ... Health and school officials said this week that middle and high school students in Carroll County were participating in sex games that sometimes involved up to 30 people.

The Vatican, for example, wants the death penalty to be abolished, Third World debt to be forgiven and the arms trade to disappear. The evangelical church runs some of the largest hostels for the poor and homeless in North America and spends billions of dollars fighting poverty in Africa and Latin America. Almost half of all AIDS patients are cared for by the Christians whom Elton so despises.

The Lord Chancellor has warned doctors they risk going on trial for assault if they refuse to allow patients who have made 'living wills' to die. Lord Falconer's message to the medical profession told doctors and nurses that new laws will require them to end lives rather than save them. Those who decline to do so will face jail or, alternatively, big compensation claims in the courts.

An anti-abortion protester who held up a graphic image of an alleged aborted fetus will have to wait a while longer to find out if obscenity charges against her will proceed. Suzie Ryan was charged with displaying obscene material after she held up her sign in front of a private abortion clinic in downtown Fredericton. She was due to appear in court on Friday, but that has been postponed.

In Kansas, outgoing Attorney General Phill Kline sought records from abortion clinics after statistics showed there were dozens of abortions on underage girls, but no reports of rape on a child, despite state laws requiring those reports. The abortion industry reportedly responded to his investigation of those circumstances with an organized campaign to deny him re-election in favor of a candidate who had publicly promised to discontinue those investigations.

China has acknowledged for the first time the scale of "transplant tourism" — in which the organs of executed prisoners are sold to foreigners — and are to force doctors to pledge to stop the practice ... According to state-run press, the vice health minister, Huang Jiefu, told a summit for transplant doctors in Guangzhou this week: "Most of the organs from cadavers are from executed prisoners."

Syracuse University professor Arthur C. Brooks is about to become the darling of the religious right in America - and it's making him nervous. The child of academics, raised in a liberal household and educated in the liberal arts, Brooks has written a book that concludes religious conservatives donate far more money than secular liberals to all sorts of charitable activities, irrespective of income. In the book, he cites extensive data analysis to demonstrate that values advocated by conservatives - from church attendance and two-parent families to the Protestant work ethic and a distaste for government-funded social services - make conservatives more generous than liberals.

The United States has some concerns about a rising China, including a military expansion that may be excessive, Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice said Friday. Beijing has spent heavily in recent years on adding submarines, missiles, fighter planes and other high-tech weapons to its arsenal and extending the reach of the 2.3 million-member People's Liberation Army, the world's largest fighting force. Its reported military budget rose more than 14 percent this year to $35.3 billion, but outside estimates of China's true spending are up to three times that level.

"She was mine to do with what I wanted to do with, she was married to me and therefore her parents had lost all rights to her. Do you get that?" Yet another person has come forward to relate a rant and display of temper by Michael Schiavo, the Florida man who has interjected himself into national politics because he believes that he was wronged by efforts made by Congress, the President and the Vatican as well as others to save the life of his disabled wife, ordered to die by the judicial decree of Pinellas County Probate Court Judge George W. Greer.

A picture book about two male penguins raising a baby penguin is getting a chilly reception among some parents who worry about the book's availability to children and the reluctance of school administrators to restrict access to it. The concerns are the latest involving "And Tango Makes Three," the illustrated children's book based on a true story of two male penguins in New York City's Central Park Zoo that adopted a fertilized egg and raised the chick as their own.

A growing "coarseness" in U.S. society has had its impact on the Catholic Church, Bishop William S. Skylstad of Spokane, Wash., warned the U.S. bishops as they began their fall national meeting Nov. 13 in Baltimore. Bishop Skylstad, president of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops, said the country has had a long history of vigorous, free exchange of ideas, but "there is a difference between spirited debate and debasing personal attacks ... Today vulgarity is common, hardly noticed. Even the name of God is disrespected in everyday speech," he said. "We confront this coarseness on a daily basis in the newspapers, on television and on the radio," he said.

Ted Morton and Gary McPherson are the new poster boys of the Canadian Taxpayers Federation. The advocacy organization awarded the pair of would-be premiers top marks - a "B" and a "B-" respectively - for responses to a questionnaire on tax cuts, transparency and health-care privatization.

Canada has sent a Chinese diplomat packing for spying on Falun Gong practitioners while posted in Ottawa, says a newspaper report.

Finally, a Canadian prime minister who'll speak up for citizens unfairly persecuted in other countries. By speaking out on behalf of Huseyin Celil, a citizen since coming to Canada as a refugee in 2001 and now sentenced to 15 years in a Chinese jail on grounds he's a terrorist, Harper has done something no other Canadian PM has done. He's put the rights of a citizen ahead of diplomatic niceties, and refuses to "sell out Canadian values ... for the almighty dollar."

If the trend to longer lives and fewer children continues, total population will decline in developed countries, other than the United States, starting by about 2042, some economists predict. Higher birth rates will keep the population growing south of the border, but even there the number and proportion of idle elders will grow relative to the working-age population. These developments will have an unprecedented impact that ordinary citizens could hardly be expected to quantify or put into perspective.

The Cold War ended long ago, but the arrest of a suspected Russian spy in Montreal suggests the stealth battles between spies and spy-catchers that characterized the Soviet era continue. Although counterterrorism has been at the centre of Canada's national security efforts since 9/11, the government has been dropping hints about a spike in spying, sometimes called the world's second-oldest profession.

Montreal Outgames organizers remained unapologetic yesterday, despite ringing up a deficit the provincial government estimates to be $5.3 million ... Dupere blamed the Quebec government for botching organizers' efforts to pay their bills.

A Hong Kong property tycoon and his wife have reportedly paid €125,000 (US$160,406) for a huge Italian white truffle, which may be the world's most expensive ever. Gordon Wu and his wife outbid connoisseurs from France and Italy to win the 1.5-kilogram (3.3 pounds) Alba white truffle from an international auction on Sunday.

A new report released by the Pennsylvania Health Care Cost Containment Council pointed to the high cost of (hospital) infections in both dollars and lives. The report - the first of its kind in the nation - identified the actual number of infections reported by Pennsylvania's 168 hospitals, as well as other related quality-of-care measures, in 2005. The hospitals studied reported 19,154 cases in which patients contracted hospital-acquired infections. The hospitalizations resulting from these infections amounted to 394,129 hospital days and $3.5 billion in hospital charges.

Ironically, Griggs observes, self-proclaimed proponents of tolerance want PFOX's flyer censored and facts about the medical and psychological effects of homosexual behavior suppressed, along with the very idea that sexual orientation is not immutable. These homosexual activists "do not want people to know that change is possible," she says, and "they certainly do not want you to provide an alternative."

Last night CNN’s Larry King confessed to Roseanne Barr that he’s never used the Internet ... King replied, “I wouldn’t love it. What do you punch little buttons and things?” Barr even offered to show King how to use the Internet. King declined.

So the Democrats are back in power on Capitol Hill, but with Congress reconvening in its lame-duck session, it will be interesting to see which below-the-radar bills are slipped in for consideration ... One such proposal is the murkily named "Animal Enterprise Terrorism Act."

After a long illness, the groundbreaking home-entertainment format VHS has died of natural causes in the United States. The format was 30 years old. No services are planned.

What happens next in the Middle East? ... A widely respected foreign policy expert, (Richard) Haass warns that the Middle East could become dangerous for years to come. Iraq has become a major issue in the United States. And it's becoming increasingly clear that the entire region is at risk.

Christians across Canada are being urged to contact their representatives in Parliament and encourage them to support an upcoming motion to reopen the debate over "gay marriage." Such a motion by the Conservative government could come in December, and it could be the first step in a process to overturn a 2005 law pushed through by the then-Liberal government legalizing "marriage" nationwide for homosexual couples. Newspaper tallies say Conservatives may not have the votes to pass the motion, but churches across the country aren't giving up.

Amendment 2 - labeled as the “Stem Cell Research and Cures Initiative” - may have a number of hurdles to clear before it becomes a reality in Missouri. Missouri Baptist representatives met with other members of the Missourians Against Human Cloning (MAHC) coalition Nov. 14 to explore opportunities the group hopes will negate or limit the effects of Amendment 2.

When Pastor Todd DuBord visited historical sites in the Washington, D.C., area recently he was thrilled with being on the site of so many events important to the founding of the United States ... But as a history buff, he noticed quickly that one influence from the nation's early years was left out – not just once or twice – but repeatedly.

Faced with rising public acceptance of same-sex relationships, three U.S. Christian denominations are taking strong measures this week to condemn homosexual acts as sinful.

As their nation modernises to finally shake off socialism and join the EU in January, Bulgarians are being forced not just from outdated jobs but abroad to find work. Bulgaria's population is falling faster than anywhere else in Europe.

Prime Minister Stephen Harper says his government will not abandon "important Canadian values" by toning down criticisms of China's human rights record to improve trade relations with Beijing. Harper made the comments to reporters on Wednesday after being apparently snubbed by Chinese President Hu Jintao.

Ontario's ombudsman has received 300 complaints from lottery players who say they've been cheated of their winnings since the provincial watchdog launched its probe two weeks ago into the Ontario Lottery and Gaming Corp. The revelation from ombudsman Andre Marin yesterday came as the OLG announced new security measures and apologized to "anyone whose confidence in us was shaken," said lottery CEO Duncan Brown.

Parents at a west-end Toronto school balked this week after crosses were removed from a Remembrance Day display in the name of religious equality. When teacher Tom Ramanauskas' Grade 3 students at Swansea Public School decorated a bulletin board outside their classroom for Remembrance Day, they included the poppies and crosses symbolized in John McCrae's In Flanders Fields, a poem they had read in class. But on Thursday, the school's principal had a conversation with Mr. Ramanauskas that prompted him to drop the crosses.

A federal study has uncovered lax controls over the seizure of suspect cash that may be tied to crimes such as money laundering and terrorism. The internal audit of the Canada Border Services Agency found officials wrongly confiscated funds, failed to report seizures properly and did not always promptly deposit the money in the bank.

Her husband has been killed, I am told, and she has come with the others, packed in like corn. She is not talking to anyone. And I have nothing to say, either, no questions to ask. I write nothing down. Everything is so heartbreakingly obvious that it hurts just to look.

When it comes to hard-core sex video games, it seems Canada leads the way ... "Probably the most hard-core title comes out of Canada," Brathwaite told a seminar yesterday at the Montreal International Game Summit.

The second largest association of Baptist churches in the nation is slated to vote Tuesday on a measure that would oust churches that endorse homosexuality. Messengers to the Baptist State Convention of North Carolina's annual meeting in Greensboro are expected to approve the exclusion measure after years of division that had already resulted in several expelled churches along the way.

"Christian movies make two to seven times as much money, and often four to six times as much money, as movies with explicit sex and nudity." The conclusion came after an examination of almost 2,700 films that topped the box office from 1996 through 2005, and it revealed that sex and nudity do not sell as much as Hollywood pundits and Madison Avenue advertisers would like consumers to believe.

Janet Baird is a former employee who has been protesting outside her local Wal-Mart stores because of the corporation's affiliation with a homosexual chamber of commerce group. She says she is not surprised at this latest flap concerning the attendance policy, and that the corporate officials are "really making it almost impossible" for many workers to keep their jobs.

A Republican-led legislative panel says in a new report on illegal immigration that abortion is partly to blame because it is causing a shortage of American workers. The report from the state House Special Committee on Immigration Reform also says that "liberal social welfare policies" have discouraged Americans from working and have encouraged immigrants to cross the border illegally.

Christian and Muslim Britons joined forces yesterday to tell city officials to stop taking the Christianity out of Christmas, warning them that this simply fuels a backlash against Muslims. They attacked local authorities who used titles such as "Winterval" for their Christmas celebrations and avoided using Christian symbols in case they offended minority groups, especially Muslims and Hindus.

Special effects explosions, idling vehicles, teams of workers building monumental sets -- all of it contributes to Hollywood's newly discovered role as an air polluter, a university study has found. The film and television industry and associated activities make a larger contribution to air pollution in the five-county Los Angeles region than almost all five other sectors researched, according to a two-year study released Tuesday by the University of California, Los Angeles.

A cyberspace missile has hit the London-North-Centre byelection campaign of Liberal candidate Glen Pearson ... Burghardt slammed the Liberal Party as greedy and corrupt, the Kyoto climate change accord as stupid, same-sex marriage as wrong and missile defence as good.

There's an extra bit of a bounce in my steps these days. That's because the federal Liberals, who love to gloat, appear to be in real disarray and without direction. Meanwhile, Prime Minister Stephen Harper is pulling it all together.

Pooh-bahs in Brussels have come up with a new grammar rule for themselves and the Netherlands--making it official that the name "Christ" will soon be written with a lower-case "c". That was the stipulation in an orthography reform published earlier this month in Brussels

Three articles in the London TIMES Online published this week illustrate what is happening in Britain. Unmoored from their own ethical and religious tradition, Britons are propelling themselves down a slippery slope.

The Church of England’s decision to support a policy of withholding or withdrawing medical treatment from very premature or disabled newborns was not a statement of support for infant euthanasia, pro-life leaders have clarified, after media reports, notably The Sunday Times- Britain, said the church was calling for legal euthanasia.

Controversy has erupted over a new technique offered on the NHS which screens embryos for over 200 inherited diseases. Doctors are heralding the test as 'revolutionary' for the diagnosis of genetic disorders. But critics warn the ground-breaking technique is another step towards the creation of the 'designer baby.'

Borat's fan base consists of the kind of people who find funny immensely vulgar comedy which produces its laughs at the expense of often completely innocent people. Unfortunately, there are many such fans ... the movie is much more likely to pander to some college students' desire to watch a morally noxious film (while feeling superior to the mostly middle-class dupes that are Cohen's targets) than it is to turn them into the kind of reflective citizens who would want to repair this damaged world.

Church of England leaders want doctors to be given the right to withhold treatment from seriously disabled newborn babies in exceptional circumstances. The move is expected to spark massive controversy.

Iraqi Prime Minister Nouri al-Maliki called on Sunday for a "complete" cabinet reshuffle as a wave of violence claimed at least 159 more lives, including 35 men killed by a double suicide bombing in Baghdad ... Among the unusually high number of dead on Sunday were 50 bodies found behind a regional electrical company in Baqouba, 60 kilometres northeast of Baghdad, and 25 others found scattered throughout the capital.

Organized religion fuels anti-gay discrimination and should be eliminated, pop star Elton John said in an interview published Saturday. "I think religion has always tried to turn hatred toward gay people," the musician, who is openly gay, said in the Observer newspaper's Music Monthly magazine. "Religion promotes the hatred and spite against gays ... "From my point of view, I would ban religion completely. Organized religion doesn't seem to work. It turns people into really hateful lemmings and it's not really compassionate."

The new pro-life faces in the US House include: Heath Shuler of North Carolina, Joe Donnelly of Indiana, Brad Ellsworth of Indiana, Charlie Wilson of Ohio, Chris Carney and Jason Altmire both of Pennsylvania. “We’ve said for years that when we expand the big tent of the Democratic Party, Democrats win. Tuesday night is proof. Now Democrats need to continue to allow pro-life Democrats to help set the agenda in the 110th Congress,” said Kristen Day, Executive Director of Democrats For Life of America.

Brenda Pratt Shafer witnessed a partial-birth abortion. It was an experience she would rather forget, but cannot ...

Twelve members of his family died in the Rwanda genocide of 1994, when Hutu extremists killed as many as one million Tutsis and Hutu moderates during an infamous 100-day killing spree. “I lost many relatives who remained in Rwanda,” says Arthur Karuletwa, who still harbors vivid memories of the painful ordeal. Arthur was 16 at the time, and his father prudently spirited his immediate family to safety in neighboring Uganda during the unrest.

Last week, the United Church produced its latest response: an advertising campaign for new members, which features among other attractions a "bobbleheaded" Jesus figure on an automobile dashboard, two male figures on a wedding cake, and a can of whipped cream over the question "How much fun can sex be before it's sin?" ... The whole campaign, observed one bemused newspaper columnist, is too ridiculous to ridicule.

Partial-birth abortion is never necessary to save the life or health of the mother. Opponents dispute that, of course, but even lawyer Priscilla Smith, arguing against the federal ban, had to admit when questioned by justices that there were no statistics to verify her claim that the reduction in risk to the mother from the procedure was "significant."

Using "Christmas" for its sales and promotions during this season is appropriate, and good, but it doesn't redeem Wal-Mart's sudden lurch to the left when it joined the National Gay and Lesbian Chamber of Commerce, according to one of the biggest pro-family groups in the United States. "Wal-Mart should remember that the majority of people in this country do not support things like same-sex marriage, and don't want the company giving money to groups that do support it," American Family Association Chairman Donald E. Wildmon said.

The Iraqi Christians are facing, officials said, beheadings, rapes, crucifixions, and other torture ... USCIRF said in its 2006 annual report that "minority communities, including Christian Iraqis, are forced to fend for themselves in an atmosphere of impunity, and lack any tribal or militia structure to provide for their security." The result is that members of these communities continue to flee the country in the face of violence, in an exodus that may mean the end of the presence in Iraq of ancient Christian and other religious minority communities that have lived on those same lands for 2,000 years.

Last month, a local landscaping firm prompted a furor here by telling a gay couple in an e-mail message, “We choose not to work for homosexuals.” The message quickly made its way around the Internet, and the company, Garden Guy Inc., was bombarded with threats and hate mail. But since then, the company’s owners say they have gained far more business than they have lost.