Insight on the News
Schools Teach “Protection Racket”?
● How do you stop students from vandalizing school property? Some schools, in effect, pay “protection” money. Yes, school officials in Lakewood, New Jersey, make a $200 payment to the high school’s special student activity fund for each month that vandalism damages are under $500. Lesser amounts are deposited for the middle school. A Board of Education official reports that the payment program reduced vandalism damages to about $1,000 during one six-month period, compared to $11,000 during a similar period before the program started.
The results may sound good, but is not this arrangement similar to what hoodlums and organized crime do to many small businesses, charging owners a weekly or a monthly fee so that their establishments will not be harmed? By police, it is called the “protection racket.” Apparently, in today’s moral climate, some schools are so helpless that they actually participate in teaching students how to run what amounts to their own “protection racket.” Certainly the “increasing of lawlessness” that Jesus predicted for our age has reached the core of human society.—Matt. 24:12.
Counting Catholics
● The Roman Catholic Church claims a membership of as many as 700 million world wide. What kind of people are counted as Catholics? One indication comes from St. Augustine’s Rectory in New York city. In response to a recent letter requesting that the church remove his name from its records, a man who had become one of Jehovah’s Witnesses received this reply: “Under no conditions can we remove your name from any Baptismal or other Sacramental records. As you know the Catholic Church is the one true Church founded by Jesus (Matt 16) and to so remove your name would be a sin against the Holy Spirit. Regardless of your present membership you are a Catholic and will go into eternity as a Baptised Catholic . . .”
If this is the general practice when persons request cancellation of their church membership, it certainly calls into question the quality of membership figures offered to the public. It also further promotes the type of religious hypocrisy prophesied to prevail in “the last days,” when the Bible says people would maintain a mere “form of godly devotion.”—2 Tim. 3:1, 5.
Body Thaw
● Cryonic suspension is the practice of freezing a person’s body at death in the hope of its being brought back to life when science finds a cure for the cause of death. By 1971, 13 bodies in the United States had received this treatment and were being maintained frozen by liquid nitrogen at -320 degrees Fahrenheit (-195 degrees C). However, it seems that now probably only about seven of the original 13 bodies remain frozen.
“What happened to the others?” asks “Natural History” magazine. “Apparently, they’ve been thawed,” the article answers, noting that “you have to rely on the good will of your descendants” to pay for maintenance—now about $2,000 per year. “If posterity gets cold feet,” says “Natural History,” “an untimely thaw may be in the offing.”
The gropings of men to extend their lives indefinitely are understandable because God ‘has put time indefinite in their heart.’ Jesus gave the only successful formula for extending life indefinitely when he said: “This means everlasting life, their taking in knowledge of you, the only true God, and of the one whom you sent forth, Jesus Christ.”—Eccl. 3:11; Matt. 6:27; John 17:3.
“Heaven” for Mobster?
● A judge recently ruled that an 89-year-old New Jersey underworld boss because of his age would not have to stand trial for murder and extortion. The old man, who may have caused others a good deal of suffering during his life, complained to the judge about his ailments, saying: “I’m in agony and pain. Come tell St. Peter to bring me to heaven . . . I just want to lay down and hope God takes me out of my misery.” Apparently, the mobster’s priest had not made very clear to his parishioner the wages of sin.—Rom. 6:23.