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In 1965 he became Vice Chancellor of the Diocese and four years later Chancellor. In 1970 He was named Prelate of Honor by the Holy Father. He was Vicar General of his diocese when he was named Auxiliary Bishop of Harrisburg and Titular Bishop of Ulcinium in Dulcigno by Pope John Paul II on July 24, 1979. He was ordained a month later in St. Patrick's Cathedral in Harrisburg where he officially became acting Bishop on January 4, 1984 being installed by Cardinal John Krol of Philadelphia. He was promoted to Archbishop of the Baltimore Archdiocese on April 6, 1989 by the Pope and formally installed on May 23, 1989 After hosting the city's bicentennial celebration, he was chosen Vice President of the National Conference of Catholic Bishops Three years later he was elected President of the NCCB.
His greatest honor came in 1994 when the Holy Father elected him to the Sacred Conclave by including his name for the cardinalate in the Consistory of November 26, 1994 at which time he received his red hat and the titular church of St. Mary of the Angels. At 68 years-old, Cardinal Keeler remains one of the younger United States cardinals along with Cardinals Law, Mahoney and George and feels his work has just begun. He has been most active in the Curial memberships of the Congregation for Oriental Churches and the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity. It is his intricate involvement in these two offices that have made him so valuable in the cause of reuniting the Orthodox and Western Churches. Sadly, because of the war in Kosovo and Balkan unrest, the co-presidents of the Joint International Commission for the Theological Dialogue between East and West - Cardinal Keeler and Archbishop Spyridon, head of the Greek Orthodox Church in America, were forced to postpone their historic meeting that had been scheduled next month at Emmitsburg. Besides his knowledge of the Orthodox Church, he is also very adept at Christian-Judaic relationship from his experience in interfaith dialogue. He was invaluable to Pope John Paul II in 1987 when the Holy Father visited our shores in setting up meetings with Jewish leaders in Miami and Protestant representatives in the Bible Belt of Columbia, South Carolina. His experience in ecumenical endeavors served him well in being appointed to the previous-mentioned Curial offices.
The honors he has received read like a who's who. They include the Americanism Award from the Anti-Defamation League, Marylander of the Year (once in 1986 and again in 1994), Nostra Aetate Award conferred by the Insitute for Christian-Jewish understanding, the Silver St. George Medal from the National Catholic Committee on Scouting and the Shaare Zedek Medical Center in Jerusalem Lifetime Achievement Award presented this year in February to name just a handful of honors.
I wish for all the world to know that happiness and peace in your earthly life come only from seeking and doing the Divine Will!
O! How sweet is the Most Perfect Will of God! How delightful is the Way of the Trinity, for the way is marked by faith ever-growing, trust ever-flowing and love always being purified in the furnace of love.
Why do My children seek happiness in the things of earth? Why do My children look to any government to bring them peace? Man's will is weak, his thinking is finite. How can man make peace when man has abandoned God?
I solemnly tell all the world: you have abandoned Me, you have rebuked Me and made yourselves gods who know what is best. Best? For the eternal salvation of your soul? Or for its eternal damnation?
I solemnly tell you I created you to live eternally with Me in Heaven, your true home. I desire you to live by the commandments I have given to all, and I desire you to live My Gospel Message fully. There is no compromise of My Gospel Message. To live My Gospel is to find true peace and joy here on earth; a place which will never be taken from you, not even at the moment of death.
O! I see your sorrows and pains. I know each of your heart's burdens. Come to Me, for I am your All. There is no greater friend than Me, Who Am God, Jesus Christ, Savior and Redeemer.
I do solemnly tell you that the Hour approaches when, in My Mercy, all mankind shall know the Truth - and God alone is pure Truth. This Hour of Great Mercy comes in order to further separate the wheat from the chaff.
In these days ask yourselves if you are wheat or chaff? I, the Good Shepherd come to gather all My sheep into one fold. I desire to find you among the sheep, not among wolves and billy goats. But you have free will. Which will you choose?
I am the Way, the Truth, and the Life. Come to Me, and I will be your strength, for I, your God, help each of My sheep to carry their cross.
I love and bless you. Pray much for the Hour approaches.
In these days, however, My Sacred Heart is torn asunder by the multitude who do not want love, mercy and peace. They seek only to control others through power, and power on earth is satan's tool.
I solemnly tell you that's all power in Heaven and on earth rightly belongs to the Triune Divinity, and it is to those whose will is conformed by the Divine Will that the power is given to have interior peace, and to be love and mercy to all.
O! Why do you not hear My voice pleading? Why do you reject My Mother? Why do you place barriers where My Spirit cannot penetrate?
I solemnly tell you that you do not comprehend the severity of these times. You seek only amusements, to escape from Me!
But you are My children and I pursue you, inviting you to be Mine - that together we might share the Eternal Banquet.
Come, then, and be with Me in every thought, word and deed, for in this way My Spirit fills you, enlightens you and transforms you.
Let the world go - it is passing away. Let your lives shine with virtue, with humility and obedience blossoming into Love.
I, Jesus Christ, call all to live My Gospel, and to delay no longer in giving Me your all. The Hour approaches. The Bridegroom, resplendent, comes. Are you prepared?
I solemnly tell you to prepare lest God's Justice find you lacking and so you shall be swept away.
Come to Me, for I am Meek and Humble of Heart. Yes, I will hear you in your sorrows, and I will comfort you, for I am your Lord God, Savior of the World. All praise now and forever to the Most Blessed Trinity. Amen.
Kazimierz Switon, 68, who has lived in the hut -- consecrated as a chapel last month by a retired priest -- at the site over the past year, has also threatened to set himself on fire if the government removes 300 crosses planted at the site and his hut as required by a new law. Catholic groups, without the support of the country's bishops, have planted 300 crosses outside Auschwitz in the past year as a protest against Jewish calls that a large papal cross already there be removed.
The original 26-foot original cross at the site, which commemorates Pope John Paul II's visit to the death camps in 1979, will remain under the government law. But activists, who originally erected the field of crosses to protect the original, now want all of the crosses to remain.
At some distance, with 7.5 million pilgrims, is the sanctuary of Saint Giovanni Rotondo, where the recently beatified Padre Pio of Pietrelcina lived during many years of his life. The third place would correspond to another Marian sanctuary in Latin America: The Sanctuary of our Lady of Aparecida, where Brazilians venerate the Mother of God, receives almost 7.3 million visitors.
Czestochowa (Poland), Lourdes (France), Lujan (Argentina), Fatima (Portugal) and Padua (Italy), welcomed about five million pilgrims in 1998. Finally, Santiago of Compostela (Spain), Asissi and Loreto (Italy) received an esteemed number of 4.5 million pilgrims.
Arriving in the city by helicopter, the Holy Father will celebrate Mass for a congregation expected to number 30,000, in a local soccer stadium. He will also meet with the bishops of the region, and with a delegation of bishops from Croatia, which lies just across the Adriatic Sea.
The Pope's visit will be his 135th trip to Italian sites outside Rome during his pontificate. The next such trip on his schedule will be in July, when he travels to the Dolomite mountains for his annual summer vacation.
The Population Research Institute (PRI) and Catholic Family & Human Rights Institute (CAFHRI) reported that shipments of UNFPA's "reproductive health kits" have bumped basic medical supplies and even food from supply convoys to refugee camps.
Dr. Gezim Bashka, head of maternity services in the Kukes hospital, told the Italian ANSA press agency that she was short of antibiotics, sheets, and serum. "I don't want to seem ungrateful," she said, "but much superfluous material has arrived. Today a shipment of birth-control. Explain to them that we need other things."
The report also said women from the camps were being transported to abortion clinics and maternity hospitals equipped with sterilization and abortion equipment. PRI said it fears the refugee women, who rely upon the camps for everything, including food and protection, may feel pressured to make the trip to these centers. They also reported widespread use of so-called "emergency contraception," and that the women are being told it does not end an "established pregnancy." In reality, the pills abort an unborn child in the first hours after conception.
UNFPA has "constructed a social marketingâ campaign to fabricate demand for 'reproductive health services' among a 'captive audience' of refugee women," said Steve Mosher, president of PRI. "Given the trauma of these helpless women, the filthy conditions of the camps and of the 'reproductive health facilities,' set up by UNFPA, we are concerned about the health, safety, and the rights of Kosovar women."
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