{"id":1691,"date":"2007-05-24T14:58:15","date_gmt":"2007-05-24T14:58:15","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/blog.beliefnet.com\/viamedia\/2007\/05\/beginning-of-a-varia-post.html"},"modified":"2007-05-24T14:58:15","modified_gmt":"2007-05-24T14:58:15","slug":"beginning-of-a-varia-post","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/2007\/05\/beginning-of-a-varia-post.html","title":{"rendered":"Beginning of a varia post…"},"content":{"rendered":"

Starting with this fascinating post by Ted Olson over at CT – on a recent encounter with Jehovah’s Witnesses:<\/a><\/p>\n

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A couple of weeks ago, I answered a knock at the door and found two eager young evangelists. I was watching my young son at the time, and was unable to invite them in, but I let them ask their lead-in question: "Do you think that the scandals in the various churches have affected their ability to minister effectively?" (I’m paraphrasing here; knowing a bit of JW theology, it’s possible–even likely–that their question may have ended in a slightly different phrase than "minister effectively" and they might have had another word for "churches".)<\/p>\n

"I’m not sure what you mean by the scandals," I said, thinking at the time that they were from evangelical and evangelistic church down the street. (They were dressed too casually to be Mormons.)<\/p>\n

"You know, like pedophile priests," said the woman evangelist, the only one who talked during our brief conversation.<\/p>\n

MORE<\/a><\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/blockquote>\n

Fr. Z on Pope Benedict’s speech to the Italian bishops’ conference today.<\/a><\/p>\n

Keep up with John Allen’s recent posts on the CELAM meeting.<\/a><\/p>\n

An initiative in Manila:<\/a><\/p>\n

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Caritas Manila, the social service agency of the Archdiocese of Manila, wants to educate 10,000 poor students by 2010 as part of an ambitious plan to help 300,000 families in the Filipino capital. Fr Anton C.T. Pascual, executive director of Caritas Manila, said that the plan covers the whole of Metro Manila\u2014the Archdiocese of Manila itself plus the suffragan dioceses of Cubao, Kalookan, Novaliches, Paranaque and Pasig\u2014and includes education at every level: elementary, high school, college, and vocational training.<\/p>\n

\u201cWe need to catch up if we really want to make a major effect against poverty here in the city,\u201d said Analyn Julian, an officer with the Education Assistance Programme.<\/p>\n

But while the plan needs 32 million pesos, only 12 million have been raised so far. Yet this has not discouraged those involved. <\/p>\n

\u201cWork hard, pray, and have faith; God will provide,\u201d said Sheila Conti, a resource mobilization officer, but \u201cwe certainly need help,\u201d she acknowledged. <\/p>\n<\/blockquote>\n<\/blockquote>\n

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Starting with this fascinating post by Ted Olson over at CT – on a recent encounter with Jehovah’s Witnesses: A couple of weeks ago, I answered a knock at the door and found two eager young evangelists. 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The Catholicism comes from her side. Amy grew up in a number of places - Indiana - Washington, DC - Lubbock Texas - Arlington, Virginia - DeKalb, Illinois - Lawrence, Kansas - and Knoxville, Tennessee, where the family settled in 1973. She attended Knoxville Catholic High School, then the University of Tennessee where she majored in history. She received an MA in Church History from Vanderbilt University, where she wrote a thesis on the changing role of women in 19th century American Protestantism, and the ways Scripture was used to justify those changes. She worked as as a teacher in Catholic high schools and a Parish Director of Religious Education and started writing for the diocesan press - the Florida Catholic - in 1988. Amy has written columns for Our Sunday Visitor and Catholic News Service at times over the past twenty years. Her articles have been published in venues ranging from Our Sunday Visitor to the New York Times to Commonweal. She has written 17 books. 18, if you included the as yet tragically unpublished novel. Amy has five children, ranging in age from 26 to 4 and was married to Michael Dubruiel, who died unexpectedly in February 2009. She lives in Birmingham, Alabama.","url":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/author\/awelborn"}]}},"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1691","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/180"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=1691"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/1691\/revisions"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=1691"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=1691"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/www.beliefnet.com\/columnists\/viamedia\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=1691"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}