Latest news with #SermonontheMount
The Star
18-05-2025
- Politics
- The Star
From two popes to journos
WORLD Press Freedom Day came and went on May 3. Weren't we all so preoccupied with one thing or another so significant that the day passed us by? Two popes have some reminders. 'In our different roles and services, never give in to mediocrity. The church must face the challenges posed by the times. "In the same way, communication and journalism do not exist outside of time and history. "Saint Augustine reminds us of this when he said, 'Let us live well, and the times will be good. We are the times.'' – Pope Leo XIV's address to the media on May 12, 2025. Mark that word: mediocrity. Only four days into his papacy, Pope Leo XIV, 69, the first United States-born and Augustinian pope, found time to meet with members of the international media – not only to acknowledge their special coverage and backbreaking work that lasted from Holy Week to the death and funeral of Pope Francis, and then keeping vigil while the conclave to elect the new pope was going on – but, more importantly, to deliver a message so distinctly written for the media. The first words newly elected Pope Leo XIV exclaimed on the balcony facing thousands at St. Peter's Square were greetings of peace. 'Peace be to all of you,' Jesus' own words after His resurrection. The new pope's first words to members of the international media were also about peace. 'In the Sermon on the Mount,' he began, 'Jesus proclaimed: 'Blessed are the peacemakers' (Matthew 5:9). This is a Beatitude that challenges all of us, but it is particularly relevant to you, calling each one of you to strive for a different kind of communication ... we must say 'no' to the war of words and images, we must reject the paradigm of war.' While I was reading the full text of his address (a little more than 800 words, the length of an Inquirer column piece), I imagined him writing it himself in the dead of night, aware that he would be facing communicators, storytellers, and truth-tellers of different stripes who, like him, have come from the trenches. It was therefore not a surprise when in his second paragraph, he expressed 'the church's solidarity with journalists who are imprisoned for seeking and reporting the truth, while also asking for their release.' I thought of 26-year-old journalist Frenchie Mae Cumpio, who has been languishing in a Tacloban City detention cell for five years now, facing terrorism charges. 'The church recognises in these witnesses – I am thinking of those who report on war even at the cost of their lives – the courage of those who defend dignity, justice and the right of people to be informed, because only informed individuals can make free choices. "The suffering of these imprisoned journalists challenges the conscience of nations, and the international community calls on all of us to safeguard the precious gift of free speech and the press.' The new pope stressed that 'communication is not only the transmission of information, it is also the creation of a culture, of human and digital environments that become spaces for dialogue and discussion.' He noted the 'immense potential' of artificial intelligence, which, he said, 'nevertheless requires responsibility and discernment in order to ensure that it can be used for the good of all so that it can benefit all of humanity.' Pope Leo XIV did not miss out on Pope Francis' own message for this year's World Day of Social Communications: 'Let us disarm communication of all prejudice and resentment, fanaticism, and even hatred, let us free it from aggression. "We do not need loud, forceful communication but rather communication that is capable of listening and of gathering the voices of the weak who have no voice.' When Pope Francis honoured two veteran Vatican journalists in 2021, he gave the exhortation 'Listen, deepen, tell.' 'Your mission is to explain the world,' he said, 'to make it less dark, to make those who live there fear it less and look at others with greater awareness and also with more confidence ... "It is difficult to think, meditate, deepen, stop to collect ideas and to study the contexts and precedents of a news item. The risk, you know well, is that of letting oneself be crushed by the news instead of being able to make sense of it. 'This is why I encourage you to preserve and cultivate that sense of mission, which is at the origin of your choice. "And I do it with three verbs that I think can characterise good journalism: listen, deepen, tell.' For truth-tellers, here's one from St. Augustine of Hippo (354-430 A.D): 'The truth is like a lion; you don't have to defend it. Let it loose; it will defend itself.' I hear a leonine roar. Mabuhay si (Long live) Pope Leo XIV at si +Pope Francis! — Philippine Daily Inquirer/ANN
Business Upturn
07-05-2025
- General
- Business Upturn
New Memoir AND THEN GOD STEPPED IN Shares Testament to God's Love and Blessings
By GlobeNewswire Published on May 7, 2025, 22:00 IST Charleston, SC, May 07, 2025 (GLOBE NEWSWIRE) — Co-founder of In the Garden Missions and Greater Heights Missions, John Womack witnessed the power of God's love firsthand while serving in the mission field of Africa. Called to be a part-time missionary in 2011, he led eighteen different mission trips to Uganda before retiring, and time after time, he saw all the amazing ways in which God intervened in their ministry to bless the lives of the Ugandan people. Having discovered a new appreciation for Jesus' Sermon on the Mount, John looks to inspire a new generation of missionaries in his new memoir. In 'And Then God Stepped In,' John invites readers to embark on a spiritual journey. Recounting how he observed God's love in action in Uganda, John reminds readers of God's presence and direction in their own daily lives. 'God is constantly at work,' John says. 'His love for all people is infinite, and His blessings await those who have faith.' This moving memoir is a must-read for anyone looking to grow their faith or for those who feel called to serve God through ministry. 'And Then God Stepped In' is available for purchase on and About the Author: John Womack is a retired businessman and former part-time missionary. He is the co-founder of In the Garden Missions and Greater Heights Missions and has led eighteen mission teams to Uganda, Africa. A CPA with an MBA, he worked for over fifty years as a financial controller. In his final year of missionary service, he was awarded an Honorary Doctor of Ministry from Global Bishops, Apostles and Ministers Academy recommended by Rev. Dr. Medad Birungi. Attachment Disclaimer: The above press release comes to you under an arrangement with GlobeNewswire. Business Upturn takes no editorial responsibility for the same. GlobeNewswire provides press release distribution services globally, with substantial operations in North America and Europe.
Yahoo
09-04-2025
- Business
- Yahoo
Contributor: Right-wing commentators scrambled to spin Trump's disastrous tariffs
In the wake of reciprocal tariffs landing with all the finesse of a cannonball dive into a hot tub, President Trump has decided to pause them temporarily for most countries (while raising China's tariffs to 125%). The problem? This past week Trump's army of talking heads and Twitter commandos has pushed his 'no pain, no gain' theory like it was the Sermon on the Mount, all while insisting this was the economic tough love America needed. So while Trump struts around declaring victory, as if this whole thing was a masterclass in geopolitical brinkmanship and not a half-baked tantrum, his loyal foot soldiers are left twisting in the wind — on record, parroting laughable justifications for an industrial policy plan their guy now clearly doesn't have the guts, or attention span, to complete. I've got the receipts. And before these painfully awkward justifications get quietly shuffled off to the great memory hole where bad takes go to die, allow me to immortalize a few of the more inspired defenses that were trotted out to sell this mess. Let's begin with Jesse Watters — Fox News' enthusiastic golden retriever in a blazer — who earnestly declared that 'the tariffs are for the children.' It's the last refuge of a scoundrel; apparently, we're supposed to think of tariffs as a kind of noble sacrifice, like planting a tree you'll never sit under, only with less shade and more inflation. 'Here you go, Jimmy — I made your Legos cost 30% more, so you can grow up strong, patriotic and perpetually broke.' Fox News co-host Jeanine Pirro skipped worrying about the children and went straight to not worrying about her retirement account, saying, 'I don't care about my 401(k) today.... I believe this man.' The implication seems to be that the Dow Jones should run on vibes and unshakeable devotion. Well, good for you, Judge. Just hope your Uber Eats app accepts spiritual currency, because blind faith doesn't cover mozzarella sticks. Likewise, Ainsley Earhardt of 'Fox & Friends' endorsed the notion that we should just trust in Trump. 'Give him some time. He's a billionaire. He knows what he's doing,' she said. This is the classic American logic loop: Rich people are smart because they're rich, and they're rich because they're smart. Now, maybe you're thinking that their blind faith in Trump has actually been vindicated. After all, Trump might have gotten close to the edge, but he backed away before catastrophic damage occurred. Check out the stock market, though. And look at our relationships with other nations around the world. Damage has already been done. This brings us to some of the other lines of argument that were bandied about. Right-wing podcaster Benny Johnson tried to put a Zen spin on the economic freefall, saying, 'Nobody ever had their net worth carved onto their tombstone.' Johnson also channeled your favorite hippie aunt, claiming that money is just 'digital ones and zeroes,' man. Sure. Right up until the ones in your bank account run out and the zeroes get tacked onto your rent bill. And then there's Fox Business' Larry Kudlow — once a proud free trader, now just another guy huffing Trump fumes — saying, 'Buying cheap goods is not a real prosperity.' You know what else isn't prosperity, Larry? Telling working people to pay more for socks while billionaires get tax breaks and bailouts. And who could forget the Fox News caption 'Trump's Manly Tariffs' that popped on screen during a segment in which Watters asserted that 'When you sit behind a screen all day it makes you a woman.' Which is a weird flex coming from a guy who literally gets paid to sit behind a screen all day. In makeup. Also … what's wrong with being a woman? And just when you think the excuses couldn't get any crazier, the weirdest theory (which Trump shared on social media!) alleged that the president was intentionally crashing the economy to lower interest rates so we can refinance our debt — a sort of 4D chess-meets-psychotic break. I'm not even sure I fully understand how this was supposed to work, because this sort of delusional thinking usually only emerges after you watch 'The Producers' on mushrooms. Taken together, these various Trumpian hot takes weren't serious rationalizations; they were desperate attempts to throw rhetorical spaghetti at the wall and hope something sticks. They could all coexist in the same swirl of chaos — belief over logic, loyalty over evidence, vibes over value — what Rush Limbaugh used to call a 'phony-baloney plastic banana good-time rock-and-roll' kind of thing. It was like a 'Choose Your Own Adventure' book, until Trump decided it was time for the story to end (or, at least, pause). . Trump's specialty isn't policy; it's performance art. Just remember that the next time something like this happens. (Hint: We could all be doing this again in 90 days — when Trump's tariff 'pause' expires.) Matt K. Lewis is the author of 'Filthy Rich Politicians' and 'Too Dumb to Fail.' If it's in the news right now, the L.A. Times' Opinion section covers it. Sign up for our weekly opinion newsletter. This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
Los Angeles Times
09-04-2025
- Business
- Los Angeles Times
Right-wing commentators scrambled to spin Trump's disastrous tariffs
In the wake of reciprocal tariffs landing with all the finesse of a cannonball dive into a hot tub, President Trump has decided to pause them temporarily for most countries (while raising China's tariffs to 125%). The problem? This past week Trump's army of talking heads and Twitter commandos has pushed his 'no pain, no gain' theory like it was the Sermon on the Mount, all while insisting this was the economic tough love America needed. So while Trump struts around declaring victory, as if this whole thing was a masterclass in geopolitical brinkmanship and not a half-baked tantrum, his loyal foot soldiers are left twisting in the wind — on record, parroting laughable justifications for an industrial policy plan their guy now clearly doesn't have the guts, or attention span, to complete. I've got the receipts. And before these painfully awkward justifications get quietly shuffled off to the great memory hole where bad takes go to die, allow me to immortalize a few of the more inspired defenses that were trotted out to sell this mess. Let's begin with Jesse Watters — Fox News' enthusiastic golden retriever in a blazer — who earnestly declared that 'the tariffs are for the children.' It's the last refuge of a scoundrel; apparently, we're supposed to think of tariffs as a kind of noble sacrifice, like planting a tree you'll never sit under, only with less shade and more inflation. 'Here you go, Jimmy — I made your Legos cost 30% more, so you can grow up strong, patriotic and perpetually broke.' Fox News co-host Jeanine Pirro skipped worrying about the children and went straight to not worrying about her retirement account, saying, 'I don't care about my 401(k) today.... I believe this man.' The implication seems to be that the Dow Jones should run on vibes and unshakeable devotion. Well, good for you, Judge. Just hope your Uber Eats app accepts spiritual currency, because blind faith doesn't cover mozzarella sticks. Likewise, Ainsley Earhardt of 'Fox & Friends' endorsed the notion that we should just trust in Trump. 'Give him some time. He's a billionaire. He knows what he's doing,' she said. This is the classic American logic loop: Rich people are smart because they're rich, and they're rich because they're smart. Now, maybe you're thinking that their blind faith in Trump has actually been vindicated. After all, Trump might have gotten close to the edge, but he backed away before catastrophic damage occurred. Check out the stock market, though. And look at our relationships with other nations around the world. Damage has already been done. This brings us to some of the other lines of argument that were bandied about. Right-wing podcaster Benny Johnson tried to put a Zen spin on the economic freefall, saying, 'Nobody ever had their net worth carved onto their tombstone.' Johnson also channeled your favorite hippie aunt, claiming that money is just 'digital ones and zeroes,' man. Sure. Right up until the ones in your bank account run out and the zeroes get tacked onto your rent bill. And then there's Fox Business' Larry Kudlow — once a proud free trader, now just another guy huffing Trump fumes — saying, 'Buying cheap goods is not a real prosperity.' You know what else isn't prosperity, Larry? Telling working people to pay more for socks while billionaires get tax breaks and bailouts. And who could forget the Fox News caption 'Trump's Manly Tariffs' that popped on screen during a segment in which Watters asserted that 'When you sit behind a screen all day it makes you a woman.' Which is a weird flex coming from a guy who literally gets paid to sit behind a screen all day. In makeup. Also … what's wrong with being a woman? And just when you think the excuses couldn't get any crazier, the weirdest theory (which Trump shared on social media!) alleged that the president was intentionally crashing the economy to lower interest rates so we can refinance our debt — a sort of 4D chess-meets-psychotic break. I'm not even sure I fully understand how this was supposed to work, because this sort of delusional thinking usually only emerges after you watch 'The Producers' on mushrooms. Taken together, these various Trumpian hot takes weren't serious rationalizations; they were desperate attempts to throw rhetorical spaghetti at the wall and hope something sticks. They could all coexist in the same swirl of chaos — belief over logic, loyalty over evidence, vibes over value — what Rush Limbaugh used to call a 'phony-baloney plastic banana good-time rock-and-roll' kind of thing. It was like a 'Choose Your Own Adventure' book, until Trump decided it was time for the story to end (or, at least, pause). . Trump's specialty isn't policy; it's performance art. Just remember that the next time something like this happens. (Hint: We could all be doing this again in 90 days — when Trump's tariff 'pause' expires.) Matt K. Lewis is the author of 'Filthy Rich Politicians' and 'Too Dumb to Fail.'
Yahoo
25-03-2025
- Politics
- Yahoo
Arellano: Near death, Pope Francis rallied back. We need his voice more than ever
For the past month and a half, the world has waited for what seemed like the inevitable passing of Pope Francis. The spiritual and titular leader of 1.3 billion Catholics was hospitalized for a severe respiratory infection that turned into double pneumonia and partial kidney failure — a scary diagnosis for the healthiest person, but a veritable death sentence for an 88-year-old missing part of one lung. People prayed and wept worldwide, not just because of his declining health but because it was coming at the worst time possible. Because wherever you look, despots are on the march. Politicians. Tech bros. Captains of industry. Podcasters and social media influencers. They preach that might makes right. They revel in cruelty. They demand adoration, if not outright adulation. These self-aggrandizers attack anyone who disagrees with them. They yearn for the era of kings and emperors. They scoff at concepts like transparency. Humility? That's for the weak. Their message to the masses is simple: Don't look to yourself or your community for salvation from our troubled times. You must believe in us. Standing athwart this mountain of egomania was Francis. Popes wield such power that they can speak ex cathedra — literally, from the papal throne — to make infallible pronouncements on morality that the faithful must obey. Under their domain are billions of dollars in assets and hundreds of thousands of priests. Their every word makes worldwide news. It's the type of clout that Donald Trump, Elon Musk and their fellow tyrannical travelers strive for every waking second of their lives. Yet Francis has rejected all trappings of sovereignty and cult of personality. Instead, the pope has lived and preached what Jesus commanded his followers to do in the Sermon on the Mount, which to the right might as well be the Communist Manifesto nowadays. Within the first weeks of his papacy, Francis urged priests to be 'shepherds living with 'the odour of the sheep'' and leave the comfort of their positions for places "where there is suffering, bloodshed, blindness that longs for sight, and prisoners in thrall to many evil masters." His appointments to the College of Cardinals — the men who will pick his successor — have leaned toward prelates who have ministered on the front lines of poverty and war instead of those with high public profiles. He praised the worth of Indigenous people across the globe and opened the synods — advisory councils previously made up of bishops — to lay people so they could be more involved in imagining the future of the church. Above all, Francis hailed migrants in an era when they are loathed worldwide. At a refugee camp in Greece in 2021, he decried our "age of walls and barbed wire." In February, as Vice President JD Vance — a convert to Catholicism — was justifying Donald Trump's proposed mass deportation program, His Holiness wrote a pointed letter to U.S. bishops, tying the plight of the undocumented to the Holy Family and urging church leaders to remind their parishioners about the parable of the Good Samaritan. Conservative Catholics — many of them in the U.S. — have long accused their leader of liberation theology, if not downright heresy, for his work. Francis, with the characteristic pluck of his Argentine upbringing, lampooned them in a "60 Minutes" interview last year as people with a 'suicidal attitude' that 'closed [them] up inside a dogmatic box.' Francis merely urged everyone to read up on their Gospels, where Jesus consistently assailed the rich, lionized the poor and lingered with the meek instead of the mighty. In an era of strongmen, those lessons were a necessary corrective to the corrosive words and actions from Trump and others. This was the voice in the wilderness the world was at the brink of losing. Yet the health of Pope Francis has now improved to the point he was discharged from the hospital and was able to make a public appearance Sunday — frail and weak-voiced and in a wheelchair, but very much alive. His miraculous comeback couldn't have come at a better time for all of us to embrace his message of mercy and brotherhood anew — especially Catholics in the U.S. Read more: Pope Francis calls Trump's plans of mass deportation of immigrants 'a disgrace' A Gallup poll found that church attendance for Catholics dropped 7% since the start of Francis' papacy. The Washington Post reported that 59% of Catholic voters chose Trump in the 2024 election. A recent Pew Research Center study revealed that 41% of Catholics think recent immigration to this country has been "change for the worse," compared to 33% who think it has made things better. It's an odd turn from members of a faith that has relied on immigrants to replenish it since the days of Lord Baltimore. Trump's administration is full of Catholics who seem to have misread the New Testament, or skipped past Matthew 25, where Jesus said God will remember on the Day of Judgment who welcomed the stranger and visited prisoners and who didn't. Trump's inner circle includes Secretary of State Marco Rubio — who just finished a trip through Central America urging those countries to take in the migrants Trump wants deported — and ICE director Tom Homan, a man so heartless that he was featured in a Valentine's Day Instagram post issued by the White House that promised people in the country without legal documentation that they will be deported. New York Cardinal Timothy Dolan laughed alongside Donald Trump at a charity dinner last fall, gave the invocation at the president's swearing-in and told Fox News host Maria Bartiromo with a straight face that Trump 'takes his Christian faith seriously.' Meanwhile, Los Angeles Archbishop Jose H. Gómez, who presides over one of the largest archdioceses in the world and is a Mexican immigrant himself, has spent more time railing against the supposed evils of woke culture than he has openly criticizing this administration's anti-immigrant rhetoric. The archdiocese has long held special masses and novenas — nine days of prayers — on behalf of immigrants. But in a column last month in the L.A. archdiocese's publication urging immigration reform, Gomez couldn't even bring himself to criticize Trump by name, while pointing out that 'the other political party' — Democrats — deported millions when Barack Obama was in the White House. When an Episcopalian bishop — a female priest, no less! — urges Trump to have mercy on migrants, as Mariann Budde did during an inaugural service in the nation's capital with the president in the pews, you know that Francis' U.S. flock can and must do so much better. Sometimes, it takes the near-loss of something — or someone — we took for granted to stir a reckoning. May the illness of Pope Francis spur self-reflection among Catholics, but also all Americans, about why we should help the neediest among us instead of follow those who only want to rule. Pope Francis: Gracias for your witness. Praise God for your continued recovery. I'm sorry we've failed you so far. Pray for us. Sign up for Essential California for news, features and recommendations from the L.A. Times and beyond in your inbox six days a week. This story originally appeared in Los Angeles Times.
