Saturday 7 February 2009

They're Back!!!

The Arians!!!!!

The precepts for Laity of the Arian Catholic Church

The following is the irreducible minimum of Arian Catholic practice...

Of Mass. To assist at Mass every Saturday (The Sabbath), the Seven Biblical Feasts and Holy Days of Obligation (or if unable to do so for legal or practical reasons, to follow the instructions advised by their Deacon, Presbyter or Bishop).

Of Confession. To examine their consciences regularly and to seek sacramental absolution when needed for mortal sin, and at Passover (Easter time) to make Confession in obedience to the Arian Catholic tradition.

Of Communion. To receive Holy Communion at least once a year, at Passover (Easter time). To make each and every act of Communion (especially when receiving more frequently) only after due and careful preparation.

Of Holy Law. To uphold the Holy Ten Commandments and the applicable Noahide, Levite and Kashrut Laws, as they are written in the books of the Torah (Genesis, Exodus, Leviticus, Numbers and Deuteronomy) and followed by Jesus the Messiah.

Of Marriage. To keep the Church’s law on marriage.

Of Fasting and Abstinence. To observe the periods of fasting according to the Arian Catholic tradition.

Of Almsgiving. To give Alms regularly and to assist the Church in finding funds to support its operations.

Botched Abortion in the States

From "The Buffalo News"

The Board of Medicine has revoked the license of a Florida doctor accused of medical malpractice in a botched abortion case in which a live baby was delivered, but ended up dead in a cardboard box.

The board on Friday found Dr. Pierre Jean-Jacque Renelique in violation of Florida statutes by committing medical malpractice, delegating responsibility to unlicensed personnel, and failing to keep an accurate medical record. Renelique and his attorney declined to comment after the hearing.

The Department of Health said Renelique was scheduled to perform an abortion on a teenager who was 23 weeks pregnant in 2006. Sycloria Williams had been given drugs in advance to dilate her cervix.

According to the complaint, she gave birth at a Hialeah clinic after waiting hours for Renelique to arrive. The complaint said one of the clinic owners put the baby in a bag that was thrown away.

Police found the infant's decomposing remains a week later.

A medical examiner determined the cause of death was extreme prematurity, the complaint states.

At Friday's hearing, Renelique told the board of his life-long quest to be a doctor. He said there are generations of physicians in his family, and that he decided to follow the same path after seeing his father treat patients.

Renelique described saving a woman's life during the second year of his medical residency in Haiti. He later left his home country to work and train in the United States. It was never his intention to do abortions, he said.

"That was not part of my goals when I came to Florida," he said. "But I had to do it to survive."

During the board's questioning, Dr. Elizabeth D. Tucker, an obstetrician-gynecologist from Pensacola, asked Renelique about three different types of medical forceps. Renelique replied that he possessed each of the instruments.

After each question, Tucker also held up a metal instrument, different from the one she had named and inquired about. One of the tools was a metal rod with an arrow attached at the tip.

Tucker asked Renelique if he had that. He replied that he did.

"For the record, these are from my antique collection," she said later. "We don't use these in terminations."

Renelique's attorney, Joseph Harrison, later requested that his client view the instruments more closely, which the board allowed. Renelique said he had never seen or used the spear in his life.

Renelique said he had advised the patient to come in early as a precaution, and that when he was en route to the clinic, he was called to tend to another patient having an emergency.

He said the clinic staff members didn't tell him about the delivery when he arrived.

Harrison said Renelique expected the board to uphold the current restriction on his license, which prohibits him from performing abortions unless another physician is present. The Department of Health recommended that his license be suspended. But the board decided to revoke it instead which means he will not be able to practice medicine in Florida.

No criminal charges have been filed in the case, but the state attorney's office is investigating.

Discovery of 'Ancient' Cypriot Bible in Syraic

NICOSIA (Reuters Life!) – Authorities in northern Cyprus believe they have found an ancient version of the Bible written in Syriac, a dialect of the native language of Jesus.

The manuscript was found in a police raid on suspected antiquity smugglers. Turkish Cypriot police testified in a court hearing they believe the manuscript could be about 2,000 years old.

The manuscript carries excerpts of the Bible written in gold lettering on vellum and loosely strung together, photos provided to Reuters showed. One page carries a drawing of a tree, and another eight lines of Syriac script.

Experts were however divided over the provenance of the manuscript, and whether it was an original, which would render it priceless, or a fake.

Experts said the use of gold lettering on the manuscript was likely to date it later than 2,000 years.

"I'd suspect that it is most likely to be less than 1,000 years old," leading expert Peter Williams, Warden of Tyndale House, University of Cambridge told Reuters.

Turkish Cypriot authorities seized the relic last week and nine individuals are in custody pending further investigations. More individuals are being sought in connection with the find, they said.

Further investigations turned up a prayer statue and a stone carving of Jesus believed to be from a church in the Turkish held north, as well as dynamite.

The police have charged the detainees with smuggling antiquities, illegal excavations and the possession of explosives.

Syriac is a dialect of Aramaic - the native language of Jesus - once spoken across much of the Middle East and Central Asia. It is used wherever there are Syrian Christians and still survives in the Syrian Orthodox Church in India.

Aramaic is still used in religious rituals of Maronite Christians in Cyprus.

"One very likely source (of the manuscript) could be the Tur-Abdin area of Turkey, where there is still a Syriac speaking community," Charlotte Roueche, Professor of Late Antique and Byzantine Studies at King's College London told Reuters.

Stories regarding the antiquity of manuscripts is commonplace. One case would be the Yonan Codex, carbon dated to the 12th century which people tried to pass off as earlier.

After further scrutiny of photographs of the book, manuscripts specialist at the University of Cambridge library and Fellow of Wolfson College JF Coakley suggested that the book could have been written a good deal later.

"The Syriac writing seems to be in the East Syriac script with vowel points, and you do not find such manuscripts before about the 15th century.

"On the basis of the one photo...if I'm not mistaken some words at least seem to be in modern Syriac, a language that was not written down until the mid-19th century," he told Reuters.