Watching the World
“War in Peace”
● A new book published in London entitled War in Peace contends that since World War II some 130 military conflicts in over 100 countries have killed about 35 million people. “In the vast majority of these conflicts, the four original major powers of the United Nations Security Council—Britain, France, the United States and the Soviet Union—have played prominent roles,” observes Canada’s Toronto Star, noting that 80 percent of the military actions of the major powers since 1968 are in violation of international law. Are the violators punished? “Thanks to the Security Council veto procedure, no sanctions ever have been levied,” answers the Star. Additionally, “the great powers, along with other Western allies, have nurtured the world’s appetite for war by making the production and sale of weapons the world’s leading cash commodity, surpassing food.”
More Evidence for Bloodless Surgery
● A recent study of major women’s surgery on Jehovah’s Witnesses at Michigan’s Wayne State University Hutzel Hospital revealed that there was almost no difference in recovery between 165 Witnesses and a similar-sized control group. “The study adds evidence that major operative procedures can be carried out on Jehovah’s Witness patients without blood transfusions or blood products,” reports the medical journal Obstetrics & Gynecology. “Physicians who accept the responsibility for the medical care of Jehovah’s Witness patients must be concerned about their spiritual as well as their physical welfare.”
The medical journal also makes this legal point: “Technically, giving a blood transfusion against the patient’s will constitutes an act of battery. A physician’s choice in this matter is limited to abiding by the limitations imposed by the patient or referring her to someone who is willing to accept these limitations.”
Religion Under Attack
● A number of Philippine Roman Catholic priests and nuns recently have been arrested or killed as subversives. Additionally, “the military took the unusual step of including the names of two priests on a list of rebels for whose capture rewards were offered,” reports The New York Times. And a Philippine general “warned four rebel priests in the northern Ilocos regions to surrender or suffer the same fate” as a priest who had been killed. During an interview for BBC (the British Broadcasting Corporation) one of the four priests reportedly explained “that he had taken up arms against the Government because of his desire to share communion with the poor and oppressed.”
● Scores of Nigerian civilians and police are said to have died when a religious cult believing themselves impervious to bullets held out four days against local police. It finally took a mortar barrage to put down the cultists. “Many ordinary people, regarded by the cult as heretics and infidels, were cut down and mutilated even as the police moved in,” asserts a report in the Times. “It was another episode in northern Nigeria’s long annals of religious unrest.”
Dominion or Kingdom?
● Canada’s recent debate over changing the name of the nation’s birthday from Dominion Day to Canada Day brought out some revealing background. One witness pointed out to a senate subcommittee that British authorities had advised against taking the national name “Kingdom of Canada” because it might be offensive to the neighboring republic, the United States. Instead a less objectionable name was taken from the 72nd Psalm (Authorized Version): “He shall have dominion also from sea to sea, and from the river unto the ends of the earth.” Ps 72:8Another witness representing the Canadian Monarchist League explained why “dominion” was picked: “What it meant really was realm or kingdom, but they hoped the Americans wouldn’t figure it out.”
Pius XII and the Holocaust
● “As a Catholic priest, perhaps I should be inclined to applaud the effort of Virginia Offer to defend Pope Pius XII against the charge that he failed to help the Jews in World War II,” wrote Monsignor Joseph G. Bailey in response to Miss Offer’s letter to The New York Times. “But in view of the historical evidence now available, I can only say she distorts the record and whitewashes Vatican diplomacy at the time of the Holocaust.” In evidence, Bailey states: “John Morley, a priest and historian at Seton Hall College, has drawn a very different conclusion in his recent book, ‘Vatican Diplomacy During the Holocaust.’ Surely Father Morley had no reason to initiate a polemic against the leaders of his church. His appraisal is very sober and restrained. But it is also damning.” After presenting abundant evidence, priest Morley’s book declares: “It must be concluded that Vatican diplomacy failed the Jews during the Holocaust.”
Similarly, law faculty member Barnett M. Sneidman of Canada’s University of Manitoba wrote to the Winnipeg Free Press suggesting that the pope could have used the Vatican radio to broadcast “a strongly worded protest against the killings, coupled with the imposition of the interdict upon the German nation or the excommunication of all German Catholics involved in the Holocaust.” Instead, wrote Sneidman: “The Pope did nothing. When a Catholic journalist asked him why not, he replied: ‘Dear friend, do not forget that millions of Catholics serve in the German armies. Shall I bring them into conflicts of conscience?’”
Biggest Population
● After the biggest census ever taken, mainland China announced its population to be 1,008,175,288, with a new baby arriving every two seconds. The New China News Agency claims that the five million census takers were accurate in their count to within 1.5 million. India, the second most populous nation, has about 700 million inhabitants.
Calendar Starts Over
● The Gregorian calendar used in most of the world started its second 400-year cycle last October 15. Every date began to fall again on the same day of the week as it did 400 years before. In other words, if you happen to have a calendar for the year 1583, it will work just fine this year. Pope Gregory XIII put the Gregorian calendar in force on October 15, 1582.
Churches Warm to Homosexuals
● The United Methodist Church’s Judicial Council for the United States recently ruled: “We find no provision [in Church law] making same-sex orientation a disqualification for ordination.” The council said that individual ordinations of Methodist ministers must be decided at the Church’s annual regional conferences. Evidently the Bible is not considered to be part of Church law.
The Minnesota Council of Churches, representing almost half the state’s Church members, has urged member churches to welcome homosexuals. A unanimously approved statement declares: “Creative and whole expressions of one’s sexuality may be found in relationships between men and women, between men and men and between women and women.”
What is probably the first conference for Catholic lesbians in the history of the Church was held in Bangor, Pennsylvania. “Mercy Sister Theresa Kane, the conference’s keynote speaker and president of the 4,500-member organization of the Sisters of Mercy of the Union, spoke to 110 women,” said the National Catholic Reporter. Karen Doherty, the meeting organizer, exulted: “The conference was revolutionary in that women were saying, ‘we are lesbian and we are also Catholic’—and there’s no separation anymore.”
Satellite Saves Fliers
● Three Canadians whose aircraft crashed in a remote mountain valley were saved when their distress signal was picked up by Cosmos 1383, a Soviet satellite. Since the aircraft was over 30 miles (48 km) off course, officials said that under normal circumstances the area of the crash would probably not have been searched for several days. This was said to be the first practical demonstration of a new satellite search-and-rescue system under development by the United States, Canada, the Soviet Union and France. Cosmos 1383 was launched last June, and its American counterpart is scheduled for early this year. The automated satellites will be able to cover large areas and relay emergency signals to ground stations in the four nations and in Norway.
More on Aluminum
● Aluminum was thought to be harmless to humans until scientists recently found it in the brains of senile people and concluded it may be a cause of senility. Now the magazine Science reports that aluminum may be implicated in another degenerative-type disease, amyotrophic lateral sclerosis (ALS, or Lou Gehrig’s disease). A study of diseased brain tissue from residents of the Pacific island of Guam, who have an unusually high incidence of ALS, revealed significantly more aluminum than did brain tissue from controls. The question of whether aluminum cooking utensils are hazardous is still open, according to the scientists.
Flying High
● The newspaper Politika of Belgrade, Yugoslavia, says that when old American Tarzan jungle movies were seen on television recently, the number of broken bones and other injuries shot up: “In the past several weeks, trees have been crowded with children, rooftops have become their targets and everywhere one can hear cries imitating Tarzan, the king of the jungle.”
Coffee to Sober Up?
● The traditional strong cup of coffee for sobering up after too much drink may not help after all, according to Dr. Geoffrey Lowe of Hull University in England. A group of subjects who had four drinks actually performed better in hand/eye coordination tests than another group who drank the same amount but had two cups of coffee. The idea that the two drinks cancel each other out apparently lacks proof. It may be that “together, they overload the brain and cause confusion,” observed Dr. Lowe.
Best Medicine
● Scientists recently studying the beneficial effects of laughter have found it to be similar to moderate exercise. “Muscles in the abdomen, chest, shoulders and elsewhere contract; heart rate and blood pressure increase,” reports Newsweek magazine. “In a paroxysm of laughter, the pulse can double from 60 to 120, and systolic blood pressure can shoot from a norm of 120 to a very excited 200.” A Stanford University doctor calls it a kind of “stationary jogging.” After laughter, muscles are more relaxed and heartbeat and blood pressure drop below normal, indicating reduced stress. A university psychologist suggests that “laughter is related in several ways to longevity.”