Oddly Enough - <a href=story.news.yahoo.com>Yahoo News-UK Reuters Tue Jun 24, 8:16 AM ET

By Fabian Cambero

SAN FRANCISCO DE YARE, Venezuela (Reuters) - Resplendent in blood-red robes and grimacing, exotic masks, Venezuela's "Dancing Devils" keep evil at bay by cavorting to the throbbing beat of drums in an annual ritual that combines religion with spectacle.

Each year on the Catholic feast day of Corpus Christi, the small Venezuelan town of San Francisco de Yare welcomes thousands of worshippers and tourists who come to watch the prancing, twirling celebrants dressed as red demons.

"People come because they're attracted by this business of the devils, but we're really very religious. What we're doing is cheating the devil so he doesn't get inside us," said Pablo Azuaje, who as dance master leads the celebrants known as "promeseros" in Spanish.

Their title derives from the Spanish word "promise." The "dancing devils" perform in their red robes and extravagant masks to repay "promises" or favours from God -- such as cures or advancements -- in a ceremony that dates back to the 18th century and recreates the triumph of Good over Evil.

Historians in this predominantly Catholic South American country believe the ceremony originally derives from a Spanish medieval religious ritual. But, with its hypnotic drums, gaudy costumes and frenetic dancing, it also incorporates the traditions of African slaves brought from their homeland decades ago to work on sugar and cocoa plantations.

Azuaje, who has been leading the dancers for 20 years, is the most senior member of the Brotherhood of the Holy Sacrament which maintains the annual tradition.

His oversized papier mache mask, made in 1967, is painted in a rainbow of colours and displays grimacing teeth and a crown of horns. Other masks depict snarling jaguars and wild boars.

Every year, the dancers follow an elaborate ritual. They leave from their headquarters, the "Devils House," dancing to the sound of shaking "maracas," a musical instrument made from a hollowed gourd filled with seeds.

After visiting the cemetery to pay tribute to deceased "devils," the dancers head for the Church, built in the mid-18th century, to receive a blessing.

When the drums fall silent, the "devils" crouch down before the priest in a sign of the submission of Evil before Good.

NATIONAL HERITAGE

At the end of mass, the priest swears in new "devils," who dance before him and explain the reasons and duration of the pledge or promise they are making.

"I've been dancing all my life. ... I had a problem with one of my eyes and the Holy Lord cured it for me," said 21-year-old Freddy Sanchez as he put the finishing touches to his costume during the most recent celebration.

The ceremony ends with the dancers jigging backwards through the streets of the town. They visit the homes of some of their colleagues, whose doors are festooned with flowers and religious images.

"The procession is spectacular, the red of the clothes and the craftsmanship of the masks," said Hannu Bruchmann, a German student who said he had travelled to Yare to confirm that the ceremony was as impressive as it had appeared on television.

"Although I'm not religious, I'm fascinated by people's involvement with the dance and the organisation of everything," he added.

The rank of each "devil" in the hierarchy of the dancing brotherhood is represented by the number of horns on his mask. The dance leader has four horns while his deputies have three and ordinary "devils" have only two.

The elaborate, multi-coloured glazed masks are made by local artisans, who also craft necklaces, miniature statues and other items sought after by tourists.

Although women are barred by tradition from dressing up as "devils," many do take part in the ritual wearing red skirts and white blouses with crosses made from palm fronds sown into the backs.

The "Dancing Devils" ceremony is also held in other towns in northern Venezuela, but the one held in Yare, about 45 miles (70 km) south of Caracas, is the most popular.

The United Nations (news - web sites) cultural agency UNESCO (news - web sites) is expected to decide in July whether the colourful tradition should be included in the organisation's World Heritage list.

"Even if we don't get onto the list, we're going to keep on dancing anyway," one red-clad celebrant said.

<a href=www.vheadline.com>Venezuela's Electronic News Posted: Sunday, June 22, 2003 By: Patrick J. O'Donoghue

Venezuelan media sources are speculating about the permanence of Venezuelan Episcopal Conference (CEV) president, Monsignor Baltazar Porras at the Nuncio Apostolic's residence in Caracas. 

Speaking to the media, Porras says the reason why he is staying at the Vatican Embassy is because he is recovering from a bout of pneumonia and the doctors ordered complete rest.

Dispelling rumors that he is seeking asylum, the Archbishop of Merida insists that he will be out by Monday and is not afraid of arrest for alleged civil rebellion on April 12, 2002. 

Another rumor sweeping media sources is that the government has put out an arrest warrant against Bishop of Coro, Monsignor Roberto Luckert for treason. 

Porras says he does not know where the rumors started. 

Attorney General Isaias Rodriguez brushes aside the rumors and denies that state prosecutors have requesting arrest warrants against members of the Catholic Church.  CEV general secretary Jose Luis Azuaje has confirmed that there are no arrest warrants either nationally or in Merida and wryly comments that the Church is waiting because "there could be surprises in these times." 

Movements have been detected inside conservative Church groups to heigthen tension in Church-government relations, especially after Foreign Minister Roy Chaderton Matos' unfortunate remarks about Christians a week ago. 

Venezuelan media simulators have published articles on the matter suggesting the government will clamp down on the Church. The latest is a piece entitled, "The Catholic Church: Hungry 1951-Venezuela 2003?" suggesting that Catholics should oppose a repeat performance. 

• Monsignor Porras also wrote a piece implicitly comparing events in Venezuela to Hitler's Germany.

These incidents would seem to tie in with an analysis suggesting the loony opposition is mounting another coup attempt said to revolve around early July with the military promotions.

By Caryl Matrisciana - Jesus Journal-ANS, Jun 19, 2003

MENIFEE, CA - J.K. Rowling admits her Harry Potter books teach “morality” but many argue it is an anti-Christian morality forwarding lying, cheating and stealing, all of which Harry is rewarded for when caught. The newest installment, “Harry Potter and the Order of the Phoenix," continues that sordid saga.

The relativistic worldview supports much of the content of Outcome Based Education and Goals 2000 which is taught in public schools today. Perhaps that’s why the Potter books based on dubious values, life after death, elevation of nature and animals above humans and other pagan values is endorsed by educators and mainstream society. Paganism is mainstream it appears and mainstream has gone pagan.

Today, millions of children take Harry’s curse mark on their own foreheads to show their allegiance to Harry. The Bible teaches that at the ruling of the One World leader in the end times, the whole world will take “the mark of the beast” on their foreheads to show their loyalty to him. Are our children being conditioned for something much bigger than even we understand?

8.5 million copies of “The Order of the Phoenix” have been printed for the US market and millions will be able to purchase it on Saturday.

Britain’s Amazon.com, the internet booksellers, have 300,000 copies securely tucked away in a dedicated warehouse in the English countryside ready to send to UK buyers on its Saturday release. UK book chain Waterstones children’s book buyer said, the “books are arriving in sealed boxes. We need to keep them locked off from the shop floor until 12 0’clock. We have to make sure the customers can’t get to them, and staff can’t get to them, apart from the one person who has the key.”

The wait has been 3 years for Potter fans since book #4’s release in July 2000. They did however get their Harry-fix through Warner Brother’s blockbuster movies based on the first two books. Warner Bros. proudly flaunted that film #1 based on book #1 was “an accurate portrayal of Witchcraft”.

The young Wiccan, Harry Potter, then only 11 years has taken the world by storm. According to the Pagan Federation of England the interest of thousands of teens to learn about witchcraft has been stimulated through Harry Potter and television programs like Buffy the Vampire Slayer and Sabrina The Teenage Witch.

Pacific News Service says that in the Spanish speaking world, where Harry’s sales top the bestseller lists in Mexico, Argentina, Chile and Venezuela, Latin American, critics complain “that the world of magic through which Harry Potter travels is a metaphor for the New Age philosophy that is hostile to the Christian faith, and thus Harry Potter is an assault on Latin American values.”

In the Siberian City of Novosibirsk, after the release of book #4, Harry Potter fans were believed to have been poisoned after drinking a “magic potion” inspired by the Potter books. Local police suspected that older children had stolen from a school lab and fed copper sulfate to 23 young children, who were taken to hospital, after a Potter initiation ceremony.

While critics say Rowling’s use of witchcraft in the Potter series is only a literary device, the sited examples only go to show that children believe the so-called fantasy of Harry to be real and a possible tool for the power they crave in their lives.

J.K. Rowlings promised “The books are getting darker….Harry’s going to have quite a bit to deal with as he gets older. Sorry if they get too scary!” In a Newsnight interview on BBC2 TV last week she tells how “she cried after killing off a ‘significant’ character” in her new fifth book.

The first three books were heavily promoted through the American school system by their American publisher Scholastic Inc who have provided school curriculum materials for over 80 years. It is a problem that while the teaching of Christianity has been banned from schools (through suppression of Bible reading, prayer or posting the Ten Commandments), the witchcraft and wizardry of Harry Potter can be read aloud in American classrooms.

episcopalchurch.orgFrom dmack@episcopalchurch.org Date Fri, 13 Jun 2003 17:47:45 -0400 June 13, 2003 2003-142 by Sarah T. Moore

(ENS) Develop exciting missionary education programs. Crank up the young adult service corps and send more missionaries out to other countries. Include more missionaries from ethnic minority groups. Increase seminary internships, improve short-term mission pilgrimages, and expand mission networking.

Those are a few recommendations included in "Companions in Transformation: The Episcopal Church's World Mission in a New Century," a vision statement that the Standing Commission on World Mission (SCWM) developed over the past three years.

However, rather than asking the church to jump immediately into its proposals, the commission will recommend in a resolution to the 74th General Convention this summer that the church, at every level, read and study its suggestions over the next triennium. Then, in 2006, the General Convention will be asked to reach a consensus about how to proceed. Between 2007-2009, the church then can put a framework into place to launch a well-thought out global mission plan--one the whole church embraces.

"Given the scope and possible cost of what we're suggesting the church needs more time to digest and study," says the Dr. Titus Presler, chair of the commission, dean of the Episcopal Seminary of the Southwest in Austin, Texas, and former missionary to Zimbabwe.

"It's not so much the complexity as the matter of realizing that this kind of shift in thinking about world mission and global engagement really means a cultural shift in thinking by the Episcopal Church," he continues. " It requires reflection and what that involves."

Mission companions

By a cultural shift, Presler is speaking of a refocus to an overall motif of companionships, rather than just partnership. He notes today's Episcopal missionary goes out with seven commitments -- to be a companion, witness, pilgrim, servant, prophet, ambassador, host and sacrament. "Everything else in the report works that out: modes of mission, resources, and programmatic emphases."

"When we are companions together, we keep company with breadness' -- people who share bread on a journey. That means sharing the bread of suffering, exaltation, and life. And it means learning as well as giving."

He added, "At the end of the document there is a doxology' that talks about the downsides of past periods of mission history that, over last half of 20th century, have induced a paralysis on Episcopal and mainline euro denominations about engagement," pointing out that this is the commission's attempt to discern and share a vision of what it might be to be mission companions in the 21st century.

Creating the structures

Those responsible for putting the vision into action after the 2006 General Convention will need time to create the structure to put such ministries into place, the commission believes. "Our hope in the triennium is that people will have a chance to digest and discern better into the future what they are able to take on and what they don't," Presler says.

A second related resolution recommends that monies, previously dedicated to international jurisdictions formerly related to and/or financially linked to the Episcopal Church, be directed to future global mission and not absorbed into the general budget. Several international linkages have changed status this triennium, others are scheduled to follow suit, and all releasing previously dedicated financial resources.

"Those funds should continue to go to global engagement which includes a whole group of program areas beyond what world mission receives," Presler notes. "We present a principled way to increase funding and ask the church to adopt that principal with a major commitment to world mission."

In other related areas

During the three years since the 2000 General Convention, the commission undertook several topics other than crafting the vision statement. It:

Convened a consultation in 2001 on the intersection of Race, Money and Power in the World Mission of the Episcopal Church;

Assisted in the process of seeking autonomy for some international dioceses and incorporation of others back into the Episcopal Church structure;

Monitored and collaborated with the Episcopal Partnership for Global Mission (EPGM), a group of mission organizations of the Episcopal Church; and

Continued supportive talks with the Convocation of American Churches in Europe, a network of churches, mission congregations, and specialized ministries in five countries, which elected its own bishop-in-charge in 2001, as a step toward a new Anglican identity within the international English-speaking populace.

Three resolutions emerged from these engagements: two about reincorporating two dioceses into the Episcopal Church; and one commending the Executive Council for its continued collaboration with EPGM and recognizing its missionaries.

International jurisdictional linkages

Related through nurture, structure, linkages, or history to the Episcopal Church, the autonomy, or process to reach autonomy, of several international dioceses/jurisdictions required the attention of the commission and Executive Council this triennium.

Continuing to be part of the Episcopal Church are Colombia, the Convocation of the American Churches in Europe, the Dominican Republic, Ecuador Central, Ecuador Litoral, Haiti, Honduras, Taiwan, and the Virgin Islands.

Former members of the Episcopal Church, but now autonomous Anglican provinces, include La Igreja Episcopal Anglicana do Brasil, the Episcopal Diocese of Liberia (now part of the Province of West Africa), the Episcopal Church in the Philippines, La Iglesia Anglicana de Mexico, and La Iglesia Anglicana de la Region Central de America.

Incorporating Puerto Rico, Venezuela; Cuba stays alone

In an historical turnaround, the commission was closely involved with decisions by the Dioceses of Puerto Rico, Venezuela, and Cuba to be reincorporated into the Episcopal Church international provincial structure.

It is unprecedented for a fully developed and autonomous diocese to seek membership in the Episcopal Church. Historically it has only been missionary dioceses that joined the structure of the church. Also it is a change in the church's missionary strategy that, in the past century, sought to encourage independence and growth of autonomous, regional church provinces.

This required intense conversation, meeting, and examination with several dioceses in the Caribbean and Latin America. Discussions centered on theology, mission strategy, colonialism, Anglican Communion structure, governance, political environments, as well as rooting a church within its own culture and indigenous ministries. Clergy and lay pension concerns were explored in conversation with the Church Pension Fund.

The resulting resolution before this General Convention is a recommendation to admit the Dioceses of Puerto Rico and Venezuela as dioceses in union with General Convention and members of Province IX of the Episcopal Church.

Each of these dioceses in its annual synod voted for such a change. The Diocese of Cuba, though originally considering a move, reversed its decision at its February 2003 synod. It will continue to be an "extra provincial" Anglican church, with oversight by a Metropolitan Council, chaired by Canada's Archbishop Michael Peers.

"Companions in Transformation: The Episcopal Church's World Mission in a New Century," is being printed by Morehouse Publishing to be distributed to all deputies and bishops at Convention. (The full text also is posted on the General Convention website.)

Sarah Moore is director of communications for the Diocese of Hawaii and a member of the ENS news team at the 74th General Convention in Minneapolis.

<a href=www.vheadline.com>venezuela's Electronic News Posted: Sunday, June 08, 2003 By: The Very Reverend Roger Dawson

sermon by The Very Reverend Roger Dawson Dean of St. Mary's Anglican Cathedral, Caracas

Today it is Pentecost when we thank God for the gift of the Holy Spirit.

When I was a boy, we called today Whitsun and Monday was a Bank Holiday when everyone crowded the roads with cars and buses in a frantic attempt to have a day on the beach somewhere. It was called Whitsun because the Sundays between Easter and Pentecost were called White Sundays after the girls who were baptized and confirmed on Easter Day and who wore their white dresses to church on these Sundays.

The tradition largely died out except for them coming to church on Pentecost in these dresses, the last of the White Sundays and it got shortened first to White Sunday and then to Whitsun. It has nothing to do with the Holy Spirit, which is why the Church has pushed us back into thinking of this day as Pentecost Sunday and the events recorded in Acts when the disciples were sitting in the upper room waiting for something big to happen.

Paul, who did not experience this upper room phenomenon, wrote to the Romans, "And God, who searches the heart, knows what is the mind of the Spirit, because the Spirit intercedes for the saints according to the will of God." (Rom 8:27) In the First letter to Timothy (2:5) Paul says (if it was Paul who was the author), "There is one God, and also one mediator between God and men, Christ Jesus."

If we put these two together it suggests that Jesus and the Spirit are either the same or interchangeable." If we cannot have Jesus any more in the flesh then we have the Holy Spirit, which is his replacement in the world as our guide and comforter. The holy being by which we are kept in touch with God the father and the one who will guide us into all truth.

Certainly the world could do with such a figure. Watching the news reports from all over the world gives one the impression that everyone is losing touch with God. We need desperately to be in closer contact with God to learn what is his purpose. As transport between places gets faster our whole lives become more frenetic.

When we had to walk from one place to another, or ride in a cart pulled by a slow moving mule or horse there was time for us to consider what we were doing, why we were doing it and what the consequences would be. In today's world we are pushed into snap decisions. We can be transported to any part of the world by satellite communication and computer conferencing and instant answers and solutions are demanded by problems that may have taken years to develop.

Disease of all kinds in Africa has become so rife, not just AIDS, that a solution was seen in providing cheap drugs to African nations by giving them a seventy-five per cent discount. Then the drug producers noticed a reduction in the demand coming from the developed world for the drugs they were supplying to Africa on this cheap deal.

The reason? "African dealers were selling the drugs at discounted prices back into the producing countries and pocketing the profit. The moral obligation to help their own people was ignored it seems.

When food aid was first taken into Iraq the lorries were looted so that instead of everyone getting a little, some got a lot and others got nothing. Survival of the fittest, or a prime example of selfishness and inconsideration for others?

It is easy, of course, to point the finger at others especially the glaring faults such as the two I have outlined. Closer to home we find black market racketeers making big profits on money exchange and the supply of scarce basic foods.

What about our own lives and the decisions we take?

Can we say that they are in line with the work of the Holy Spirit who is trying, as always, to line us up with God?

In an imperfect world we too are imperfect, making hasty decisions and instant judgments and flawed reactions to information that may also be lacking true objectivity.

In Birmingham, Alabama, a large explosion alerted a policeman, he saw a black African American sprinting down the road and immediately came to the conclusion that he had caused the explosion. He took out his gun and aimed for the man but missed. He called for back-up and set off in pursuit. The black man stopped and looked up but the policeman was concentrating on aiming his gun. As he fired the black man caught a child who had jumped from a window of an apartment from which a gas oven had exploded setting the apartment alight. The policeman's bullet hit the child and killed it.

Our gut instincts and training and prejudices often get in the way of good decisions. We all make errors of judgement though hopefully they don't result in the death of others but do we give time each day in training ourselves to work with the Holy Spirit so that our decisions are more likely to be good ones?

Working with the Holy Spirit is the same as working with Christ himself. He is both an intermediary and an intercessor with God on our behalf but we can't just leave everything to him alone. It is not a question of saying "oops! Sorry" and then thinking that Christ will put all things right for us. We have to work through our life's decisions using him as a confidant and counselor. The result may not always turn out as we would like and it could well be that our preferences and prejudices turn result in great hindrances preventing us from making decisions that are in line with God's thinking.

You know, the story of Pentecost is such a strange one and so unlike all the other stories, there must be, I think, some special message in it. Many feel it is yet another description of a resurrection appearance and they may well be right but I believe its special significance for us is that the disciples allowed themselves to be taken over by the Spirit just as they submitted themselves to Jesus and his teaching when he was alive.

That was their commitment and all this time later I believe God is looking for the same commitment in us so that we can be bathed in the Spirit also ... dare we commit ourselves this far to become active agents of God's love?

It is not too difficult to become passive recipients of grace.

We do that by joining a church and attending the Services but to become active is to stop being disciples and with the power of the Spirit becoming apostles. "And there," said William Shakespeare, "ah! There's the rub."