The historic reconciliation between Jews and Roman Catholics over the past 40 years should be extended to Muslims to deal with the challenges of the 21st century, a senior Jewish official has said.

The regular dialogue the two faiths have maintained since the Catholic Church renounced anti-Semitism at the Second Vatican Council, should be “a model for transformed relations with Islam,” Rabbi Richard Marker told an interfaith conference.

Marker addressed the opening session on Sunday evening of a meeting reviewing four decades of Catholic-Jewish efforts to forge closer ties after 1,900 years of Christian anti-Semitism and to ask how the dialogue can progress in the future.

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The sales tax rate increases today in Charleston County by a penny for every dollar spent, putting more strain on recession-weary consumers who have been watching the price of basic necessities rise and rise again.

County residents voted in November to tax themselves — and the county’s many tourists — a bit more in order to fund school construction projects, but the increase kicks in at an unfortunate time.

Gasoline prices are up nearly 10 percent from just a month ago; the federal inflation measure that tracks food prices posted its largest increase in two years in January; and in most areas, water and electricity rates have been marching up, as well.

Read it all from today’s local paper.

Making repairs and negotiating deals comes naturally to 14-year-old Jerome Smalls.

The Zucker Middle School eighth-grader learned how to fix things from his grandfather, Papa, who’s made a career in construction- related jobs, and Smalls’ knack for business is innate.

He combined the two skills to launch a business, The Handykid, and he spent most of last summer doing odd jobs for his North Charleston neighbors and family friends….

Read it all from the front page of yesterday’s local paper.

Morgan Stanley, the world’s top merger adviser, experienced a “very sensitive” break-in to its network by the same China-based hackers who attacked Google Inc.’s computers more than a year ago, according to leaked e-mails from a cyber-security company working for the bank.

The e-mails from the Sacramento, California-based computer security firm HBGary Inc., which identify the first financial institution targeted in the series of attacks, said the bank considered details of the intrusion a closely guarded secret.

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There is no place in British law for Christian beliefs, despite this country’s long history of religious observance and the traditions of the established Church, two High Court judges said on Monday….

The judges underlined that, in the case of fostering arrangements at least, the right of homosexuals to equality “should take precedence” over the right of Christians to manifest their beliefs and moral values.

In a ruling with potentially wide-ranging implications, the judges said Britain was a “largely secular”, multi-cultural country in which the laws of the realm “do not include Christianity”.

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The college seems to have.. [let go this faculty member] in response to an e-mailed complaint from a local lawyer, who pointed out that “Having someone like Jim St. George teach theology at a Catholic college perpetrates a fraud on parents who send their daughters and sons to Chestnut Hill for a Catholic education.” He sent it to Cardinal Rigali as well as officials at the college and the Daily News’ columnist.

St. George says that he told the college about his church but not his sexual behavior when he was first interviewed, though he did not try to hide it. In an official statement, the college’s president says he didn’t tell them about his church and that they didn’t know about his homosexuality.

St. George’s group is one of those many little groups that splinter or flake off large bodies like the Catholic Church, keeping some of the substance and many of the trappings””its seminary is called “Immaculate Conception”””but making adjustments to the difficult parts, almost invariably the moral teachings. This one has just seven parishes, though it features one archbishop, two bishops, one monsignor, two “very reverends,” and two plain “reverend fathers,” some of whom in addition to St. George have “partners.”

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When a modern person puts those four accounts into their mental cusinarts with no understanding of ancient genre of literature, and based entirely on a contextless reading of the Gospels, if by context we mean the ancient contexts””- stuff happens. Bad stuff. The evidence is distorted not clarified. Now the irony is that this happens just as assuredly with the modern secular historian who fails to take the lead from the ancient genre of the documents, but rather prefers the modern discipline of form or source criticism, just as assuredly it takes place, when Billy Bob Proverb mushes all these things into his red letter brain.

I want to suggest as clearly as I can that the four canonical Gospels are portraits of Jesus, not snapshots, they’re more like Monets four paintings of the front of Rouen Cathedral than they are like four black and white photos of Ted Williams taken at various angles in Fenway on the same day by four different photographers, and if one fails to analyze the document according to the type or kind of information it is trying to give you””- you’ve made a category mistake, a huge one.

Now the art historian examining those four Monet paintings knows perfectly well that he is looking at the real historical Rouen cathedral, but through the interpretive lens of impressionistic approaches to painting, which were concerned with light and the difference light makes in the way things appear to us. Impressionism reminds us that in fact reality is not in the eye of the beholder, for the eye can be deceived, any more than meaning is in the eye of the beholder. Yes, Virginia there are definitely meanings in those texts, but it is also true that we are active readers of the texts.

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Should one support or oppose the legislation which regulates union procedures? The Wisconsin Catholic Conference (WCC) has chosen a neutral stance because the present dilemma comes down to either a choice for the common good, of sacrifice on the part of all, at times that pose immense economic threats, both present and future on the one hand, and on the other hand, a choice for the rights of workers to a just compensation for services rendered, and to the upholding of contracts legally made. As Catholics, we see both of these horns of the dilemma as good, and yet the current situation calls many of us to choose between these two goods. Thus the WCC has taken a neutral stance, and this is the point of Archbishop Listecki’s recent statement, which I have echoed.

The question to which the dilemma boils down is rather simple on its face: is the sacrifice which union members, including school teachers, are called upon to make, proportionate to the relative sacrifice called for from all in difficult economic times? In other words, is the sacrifice fair in the overall context of our present situation?

At a time when all are called to sacrifice, this question requires a weighing of the relative sacrifice which all are called upon to make, so that a judgment about just proportions can be made by each one of us.

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Almighty God, who didst call thy servant David to be a faithful and wise steward of thy mysteries for the people of Wales: Mercifully grant that, following his purity of life and zeal for the gospel of Christ, we may with him receive the crown of everlasting life; through Jesus Christ our Lord, who liveth and reigneth with thee and the Holy Spirit, one God, now and ever.

Almighty God, who dost sow the good seed of thy Word in the lives of men: We beseech thee to make us like those who in an honest and good heart, having received the Word, keep it, and bring forth fruit with patience; through Jesus Christ our Lord.

I wish you would bear with me in a little foolishness. Do bear with me! I feel a divine jealousy for you, for I betrothed you to Christ to present you as a pure bride to her one husband. But I am afraid that as the serpent deceived Eve by his cunning, your thoughts will be led astray from a sincere and pure devotion to Christ.

–2 Corinthians 11:1-3

The Pentagon is repositioning warships and planes in the waters off Libya to be ready to enforce a no-fly zone or deliver humanitarian aid, military officials said Monday.

By shifting Naval and air forces in the Mediterranean, the U.S. is preparing the groundwork for possible intervention in the civil war that has engulfed Libya. In recent days, U.S. military leaders have been planning for a range of options, in the event the White House steps up the U.S. response.

“I think it’s safe to say as part of that we’re repositioning forces to be able to provide for that flexibility once decisions are made…to be able to provide options and flexibility,” Col. David Lapan, a Pentagon spokesman, told reporters on Monday.

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The World Food Bank recently released a report saying food prices world-wide are now at “dangerous levels,” having gone up 29 percent in the past year alone. This clearly could contribute to political instability and push millions of people into poverty.

In actuality, it already has. It is no accident that the revolution now sweeping the Arab world primarily is centered in countries that import much of their food.

Food inflation should come as no surprise to those who shop at supermarkets in the United States, where checkout-counter shock is endemic. Grocers and wholesalers say it is not their fault. Farmers say they should not be blamed, for their costs have skyrocketed, too. Well, then, who or what is responsible?

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Worshippers gathered outdoors on Sunday (Feb. 27) after an earthquake ravaged New Zealand’s second-largest city, meeting in unfamiliar churches and next to damaged buildings to reflect, pray, mourn and give thanks.

The death toll from the Feb. 22 quake reached 147 on Sunday, and is expected to double as dozens were trapped in wreckage. The entire central city was cordoned off as hundreds of rescuers continue to find bodies in the rubble.

“It’s going to be a very poignant day for a lot of our people today, as they reflect … on our values,” Christchurch Mayor Bob Parker wrote in the New Zealand Herald. “It’s a day of everybody reaching out. We need to keep our spirits up.”

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Here’s the truth….

Many people who seriously practice a traditional religious faith — be it Christian or other — have a divorce rate markedly lower than the general population.

The factor making the most difference is religious commitment and practice. Couples who regularly practice any combination of serious religious behaviors and attitudes — attend church nearly every week, read their Bibles and spiritual materials regularly; pray privately and together; generally take their faith seriously, living not as perfect disciples, but serious disciples — enjoy significantly lower divorce rates than mere church members, the general public and unbelievers.

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Church-state tensions in the United Kingdom became headline news twice in February. Early in February a group of senior members of Parliament, fearful that legislation paving the way for women bishops might fail in General Synod, indicated that they would use parliamentary powers, if necessary, to see it through.

MP Frank Field filed an Early Day Motion calling on the government to remove the Church of England’s exemption from equality laws if the plan for women bishops fails in Synod. Various advocates of women in the episcopate welcomed this gesture, but others expressed concern that it would set an unhelpful precedent and open the way for the Parliament to impose other unwanted requirements.

Lynne Featherstone, the government’s Equalities Minister, announced plans Feb. 14 to allow religious buildings to be used as venues for celebrations of civil partnerships. She also announced plans to review current distinctions between marriage and same-sex unions. It made visible once more the deep divisions that exist in British society over sexuality.

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