[The following item is from the Tuesday, Jan, 2 2001 edition of the Atlanta Constitution]
Religious bias cited in killing at church
St. Lucia police say suspects in bizarre attack called Catholics corrupt.
By Guy Ellis
ASSOCIATED PRESS
Castries, St. Lucia--Two men who attacked worshippers in a cathedral on this small Caribbean island, setting them ablaze and killing an Irish nun, told police they were sent by God to combat corruption in the Roman Catholic Church.
"The way they're talking is that the world is going to end, and that the time had come for what they had to do," police Inspector Gregory Montoute, who interrogated the men, said Monday.
The suspects--20-year-old Kim John and 34-year-old Francis Phillip--identified themselves as Rastafarians, Montoute said. Police spokesman Albert Fregis said St. Lucia's Rastafarian leaders denounced the Sunday attack at the Basilica of the Immaculate Conception in the port town of Castries.
Monsignor Theophilus Joseph, the cathedral's administrator, said John told police, "that God asked him to do it because there is so much corruption in the Catholic Church."
The men told police they were "prophets" sent by Haile Selassie, the late Ethiopian emperor who is worshipped as a god by Rastafarians.
Police said they don't believe the men belonged to an organized group.
"No one gave any indication that they belonged to a sect with extremist beliefs or violent tenets," Montoute said.
Rastafarianism, followed by perhaps 1 million people worldwide, emerged in Jamaica and spread throughout the Carribbean in the 1930s out of the anger felt by descendants of slaves with the colonial powers' oppression of blacks. It is based on peaceful principles. Adherents are often noted for their belief that marijuana encourages the calm necessary for religious meditation.
Sunday's attack came during Holy Communion while more than 400 people were inside the cathedral. The men burst in carrying machetes and a blowtorch while many worshippers were lined up in the aisles, police and witnesses said.
One of the attackers doused people with a flammable liquid, apparently kerosene or gasoline, while another used a blowtorch to ignite the flames, witnesses said. Police said the attackers hacked at people with machetes. But Joseph, the monsignor who runs the cathedral, gave a different account, saying the intruders beat people with pieces of wood and used torches to set worshipers afire.
The attackers then made their way to the altar, where they set fire to the Rev. Charles Gaillard, injured an altar server and burned the altar. Gaillard, who suffered burns on his face, was flown to the nearby island of Martinique for treatment, Joseph said.
The priest was in critical condition, said Monsignor Patrick Anthony, a church spokesman. At least 12 other people were hospitalized after the attack, police said.
Two parishioners who suffered burns and blows were flown to Barbados for treatment, Joseph said.
The slain nun was identified by police as Sister Theresa Egan, 72, of Ireland. She belonged to the Order of St. Joseph of Cluny, an Irish order that has been involved in education programs on the island for nearly 100 years. Witnesses said she was hacked with a machete, but Joseph said an attacker struck her in the head with a piece of wood while she was giving communion.
Egan had lived on St. Lucia for decades.
After the attack, worshippers grabbed John and held him until police arrived. Phillip was captured Monday morning in the suburb of Pave, where he was found hiding in bushes, police said.
Police said the two men may have been the only people involved in the assault, but some witnesses, reported seeing three or four attackers.
[The following item is from an e-mail I received from a friend]
A Letter To Dr. Laura Slessinger
Dr Dr. Laura:
Thank you for doing so much to educate people regarding God's law. I have learned a great deal from you, and I try to share that knowledge with as many people as I can. When someone tries to defend the homosexual lifestyle, for example, I simply remind them that Leviticus 18:22 clearly states it to be an abomination. End of debate.
I do need some advice from you, however, regarding some of the specific laws and how to best follow them.
1.) When I burn a bull on the altar as a sacrifice, I know it creates a pleasing odor for the Lord (Lev. 1:9). The problem is my neighbors. They claim the odor is not pleasing to them. How should I deal with this?
2.) I would like to sell my daughter into slavery, as it suggests in Exodus 21:7. In this day and age, what do you think would be a fair price for her?
3.) I know that I am allowed no contact with a woman while she is in her period of menstrual uncleanliness (Lev. 15:19-24). The problem is, how do I tell? I have tried asking, but most women take offense.
4.) Lev. 25:44 states that I may buy slaves from the nations that are around us. A friend of mine claims that this applies to Mexicans but not to Canadians. Can you clarify?
5.) I have a neighbor who insists on working on the Sabbath. Exodus 35:2 clearly states he should be put to death. Am I morally obligated to kill him myself?
6.) A friend of mine feels that even though eating shellfish is an abomination (Lev. 10:10), it is a lesser abomination than homosexuality. I don't agree. Can you settle this?
7.) Lev. 20:20 states that I may not approach the altar of God if I have a defect in my sight. I have to admit that I wear reading glasses. Does my vision have to be 20/20, or is there some wiggle room here?
I know you have studied these things extensively, so I am confident you can help. Thank you again for reminding us that God's word is eternal and unchanging.
Sincerely,
Sister Mary Elizabeth
[The following item is from Free Inquiry, Fall 2000, Vol.20 , No. 4]
Reaping What You Sow
Psychologist Dr. Laura Schlessinger's TV talk show is scheduled to debut this fall, despite protests against her anti-homosexual rhetoric. But she may wish she hadn't.
The targets of her barbs plan to be in the audience during the tapings. The founder of one group that has formed to protest her show says producers shouldn't be surprised if, to use Schlessinger's own words, "biological errors, deviants," and everyone else is going to attend. What will they do? "Gosh [Paramount and Schlessinger] will just have to wait and see," says John Aravosis of stoplaura.com.
Return Service Requested
A new Web site claims to send on-line prayers direct to God--via radio transmitter. Prayers submitted to the "newprayer.com" site are transmitted towards the distant star cluster known as "M13." M13 was chosen because it dates back to close to the Big Bang and therefore, the "reasoning" goes, must have been close to the "Creator." "Simply clic on PRAY and transmit your prayer to the only known location of God," claims the Web site.
The millions of years a message from Earth would take to reach M13 may explain away a lot of theological issues, such as the problem of evil. Perhaps God does answer prayers...eventually. But that signal delay is a killer.
"When the boat came to these great shores, it did not have an atheist, a Buddhist, a Hindu, a Muslim, a Christian, and a Jew. Ninety-eight percent of these people were Christians."
Republican Albert Robinson, as he tried to convince his colleagues in the Kentucky Senate to adopt a resolution to make the Kentucky Board of Education stop "suppression and censorship of American history" concerning "Christianity's influence."
Filled By The Spirit Of God
The New Life Community Church has been attracting thousands of worshippers to its usually small neighborhood meetings in Weatherford, North Texas. The success of the Pentecostal revival meetings was due to claims by dozens of people that gold teeth, crowns, and fillings had materialized in their mouths during the services. Is this fool's gold or a manifestation of God's holy tooth?
Dim Mohammad Hadhaki shot his sleeping wife as she lay next to her three-month-old son. Although he had had no complaints about his wife, he was disturbed about a neighbor's report of a strange man near the field in which she had been working.
"I could not let people say I didn't protect my honor."
What A Defense
The religious world's curiosity concerning the third secret of Fatima was satisfied when the pope revealed its contents last spring. But to his assassin, Mehmet Ali Agca, it was a godsend. "It is clear. I was predestined," said Agca, who appealed for his release.
Some have interpreted the "secret" to refer to Agca's attempt on the pope's life in 1981. He asked to be released from prison and allowed to leave Italy, but he still has to face the music in Turkey, where he's expected to be jailed for killing a journalist in 1978.
"One shift that should trouble leaders in the Christian church is the superficial relationship that most teens have with Christianity and their plans to reduce their already minimal commitment to the Christian faith."
There are transitional fossils out the yin-yang."
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