Pope Benedict XVI, here we go!

[HoundedbyHeaven]

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Hey dawnrunner, dacs, manny and all head-over-heels-in-love-with-Church Catholics like me, scoop this out!:

[size=18px]Vatican Gets Win in Failure of Referendum[/size]

Vatican Scores Victory in Failure of Italian Referendum to Overturn In-Vitro Limits

By FRANCES D'EMILIO Associated Press Writer
The Associated PressThe Associated Press
[size=15px]
ROME Jun 14, 2005 — Backed by Pope Benedict XVI, Roman Catholic Church forces have scored a solid victory as an Italian voter boycott doomed ballot initiatives to lift bans on egg-and-sperm donation, freezing of embryos and screening them for genetic defects and other widely used assisted fertility methods.[/size]

The dismal showing for pro-referendum forces in the balloting Sunday and Monday[size=15px] left some worried that Italy's politically influential Catholic church might next crusade to ban divorce and abortion.[/size]{My Comments: About time!}

The 25.9 percent turnout fell far short of the required 50-percent-plus one figure necessary to make the balloting binding on Parliament.
Top Stories

Sponsors had taken aim at a 2004 law that is one of the strictest set of rules in Europe for artificial procreation.

Italians defied Vatican teaching in a 1974 referendum that upheld the legalization of divorce and again in 1981, in a vote that backed Italy's liberal abortion law.

Hoping to doom chances for a quorum, the Italian bishops conference had called for a voter boycott in the traditionally Roman Catholic country.

[size=13px]The German-born Benedict, who depicted the referendums as a threat to life and family, endorsed the bishops' efforts.

The Holy See's press office made no comment on the referendum failure.[/size]

[size=15px]But the Vatican's missionary news agency Fides said it was clear that "Catholics are united on fundamental values, starting from the supreme value of human life."[/size]

Daniele Capezzone, a leader of the Radical Party which battled to overturn the law, said he was worried that the church would set its sights on divorce and abortion.{My Comments: Oh, God's only just warming up.}

Cardinal Camillo Ruini, the Italian bishops conference leader who championed the boycott, denied that the church's next target was Italy's law which permits abortion on demand in the early months of pregnancy.

Ruini, who is Benedict's vicar for Rome, declined to describe the Catholic church as the winner in the referendum.

[size=15px]"What really won was the moral conscience of our people and the future of man himself," Ruini said in an interview on private Canale 5's news Monday evening. [/size]

[dawn runner]

Thats good news. Pope benedict xvi is really God's rotweiller. Kung mahimo lang ta siya Presidente sa Pinas, ok gyud kaayu.

[darkwing]

there's always separation between Church and State unless mo balik to ang Holy Roman Empire ni Constantine...

[dacs]

there's always separation between Church and State unless mo balik to ang Holy Roman Empire ni Constantine...

What happened during the Holy Roman Empire

[mannyamador]

there's always separation between Church and State unless mo balik to ang Holy Roman Empire ni Constantine...

The Holy Roman Empire, if I recall correctly, was way AFTER Constantine. Constantine was a Roman emperor, but there was no Holy Roman Empire in his time. There was a Roman Empire. The two are different.

[HoundedbyHeaven]

there's always separation between Church and State unless mo balik to ang Holy Roman Empire ni Constantine...

The Holy Roman Empire, if I recall correctly, was way AFTER Constantine. Constantine was a Roman emperor, but there was no Holy Roman Empire in his time. There was a Roman Empire. The two are different.

Hey, manny and dacs! You should check Jack Chick's and Dan Brown's "impeccable" historical research! What's the matter with you?! Huh?! What's the matter with you?!

[dacs]

there's always separation between Church and State unless mo balik to ang Holy Roman Empire ni Constantine...

The Holy Roman Empire, if I recall correctly, was way AFTER Constantine. Constantine was a Roman emperor, but there was no Holy Roman Empire in his time. There was a Roman Empire. The two are different.

Hey, manny and dacs! You should check Jack Chick's and Dan Brown's "impeccable" historical research! What's the matter with you?! Huh?! What's the matter with you?!

Sorry, bro. I couldn't help it. I just want to pull out more details from the comment. Of course, I have heard of Jack Chick and Dan Brown. Here is a debunking of all Jack Chick's tracts by the Catholic Answers group. They also have an answer to Dan Brown's The Da Vinci Code here. But I like more the article by Carl Olson and Sandra Miesel:

Part 1
Part 2


'Mane nobiscum, Domine!' --- Stay with us, Lord!