From: Eddie Chumney
To:      heb_roots_chr@geocities.com
Subject: Religion in the News / Y2K Problem



         DIGEST OF PROPHETIC DEVELOPMENTS
                     JUNE 15 TO JUNE 28, 1998


POPE'S ACITVITIES AND PLANS

POPE PLANS TO VISIT IRAQ NEXT YEAR
London Electronic Telegraph 6/15/98

THE Pope is to visit Iraq in February or October next year,
including Ur, the birthplace of Abraham, Church sources said at
the weekend.  Cardinal Roger Etchegaray, in Baghdad for a
religious conference, said at the congregation of St Joseph's
Church: "The Pope is on the road to your city." Iraq's Chaldean
Catholics make up about 10 per cent of the population.

VATICAN DELEGATION TO VISIT PALESTINIAN AREAS, MEET ARAFAT
June 27, 1998 LONDON (AP)

A Vatican delegation will visit autonomous Palestinian areas next
week and meet with Palestinian leader Yasser Arafat, a diplomat
said Saturday.  The delegation will participate in a meeting of a
Holy See-PLO joint committee that is negotiating "a fundamental
agreement between the two sides,'' said Afif Safieh, the
Palestinian representative to Britain and the Holy See.  The
first round of talks took place April 27 in the Vatican, and
future sessions will alternate between Palestinian areas and the
Vatican, Safieh said in a statement.  Arafat has held six
meetings with Pope John Paul II, who has spoken out often on the
need for Israel and the Palestinians to push ahead with peace.
The troubled situation has apparently held up a papal trip to the
Holy Land.

POPE URGES EUROPEANS TO RECONCILE WITH JEWS
June 20, 1998 By Victor L.  Simpson, Associated Press Vienna,
Austria (AP)

Europeans must seek reconciliation with the Jews for the
"unspeakable suffering'' inflicted on them, Pope John Paul II
said Saturday as he set down a tough agenda for Europe.  "Don't
forget the history of Europe is closely intertwined with the
history of that people from which the Lord Jesus came,'' John
Paul said.  "The Jewish people have been inflicted with
unspeakable suffering in Europe, and we can't affirm that all the
roots of these injustices have been cut.''   "Reconciliation with
the Jews is one of the fundamental duties of Christians in
Europe,'' John Paul said in an address to Austrian officials and
diplomats in the former Imperial Palace.  The pope also insisted
sacrifices were required of Europeans to overcome injustices and
economic disparity.

JEWISH GROUPS BLAST POPE'S PLANS
Jerusalem Post via FYI by Lee Underwood

Jewish groups are outraged over Pope John Paul II's plans to meet
Friday with a professor of theology who has accused the Jews of
ritual murder.  The pope's three-day visit to Austria was to
include a meeting with the Vienna-based diplomatic corps, whose
members include Dr.  Robert Prantner, envoy extraordinary and
minister plenipotentiary of the Knights of Malta.

In a December 5 article in the Austrian publication ZUR ZEIT
Prantner argued that rather than the Catholic Church apologizing
to the Jews for centuries of antisemitism, the Jews should
apologize for "their deplorable crimes ...  against Catholic
children like the holy martyr-child Anderl von Rinn, against
adults in the days before Easter ...  and for the blood of
murdered Christians, spilled byJewish hands, which cries to
heaven, too."

Efraim Zuroff, head of the Simon Wiesenthal Center's Israel
office, said "this theologian, Prantner, is basically saying that
the blood libel is true - we're in 1998 for God's sake! This is
outrageous.  This is taking us back to the Middle Ages." The
blood libel accusing Jews of the ritual murder of Anderl von Rinn
took place in the 17th century and was used to incite pogroms
against the Jews.  It was condemned in 1985 as a falsehood by
Innsbruck Bishop Reinhold Stecher, who also banned pilgrimages to
the Church of Rinn, which had become a shrine as the purported
place of the ritual murder.

RESTORING "PETER'S TOMB"
Religion News Today 6/18/98

An Italian electric company will restore the tombs underneath St.
Peter's Basilica in the Vatican.  The area called the Vatican
Necropolis houses what is believed to be the burial place of St.
Peter.  The apostle was martyred in Rome and buried on the site
where the basilica rests, the Vatican says.  Archaeologists
discovered tombs there in the 1940s that included bones that some
believe are Peter's.  The electric company, ENEL, will spend $17
million restoring the tombs and installing lighting.  "St.
Peter's tomb, which is the church's very heart and the
justification for its magnificent architectural construction, has
always been a place of pilgrimage," the Vatican's Cardinal
Virgilo Noe said.


ANTI-SEMITISM AND PERSECUTION

SYNAGOGUE PLUNDERED
June 20, 1998 Bucharest, Romania (AP)

Thieves plundered a synagogue in northwest Romania, smashing
benches and window panes and stealing 14 candelabras of great
sentimental value to the small Jewish community, according to a
report Saturday.  Teodor Koppleman, former head of the Jewish
community in Oradea, 280 miles northwest of Bucharest, said the
burglary was discovered Friday, the Mediafax news agency
reported.  Police are investigating.  There are 29 synagogues in
Oradea.  Only two are in use, including the one vandalized this
week, Koppleman said.

ANTI-CHRISTIAN ATTACK VOW
by Jeet Thayil in Bombay, India - South China Morning Post
6/26/98

Members of Bombay's ruling Shiv Sena party have vowed to maintain
their attacks on the city's Christian missionaries and churches.
A priest in a suburban Bombay church was recently beaten by a
Shiv Sena mob.  He had been accused of being derogatory about
Hinduism.  "He spoke ill of Hindus because we have more than one
god," said a party leader.  "He had been warned but he didn't
listen, so we decided to teach him a lesson."Supporters of Anand
Dighe, another local Shiv Sena leader, attacked a meeting held at
a school.  The school was ransacked and the preacher beaten for
his "anti-Hindu comments".  According to the Christian
congregation, they had been using the school because Shiv Sena
party leaders had shut down their church.

ARRESTS SHUT DOWN THE CHURCH IN SAUDI ARABIA
Religion Today 6/26/98

The Christian church in Saudi Arabia has come to a standstill as
leaders fear a large-scale crackdown by authorities in the Muslim
nation.  Hundreds of house churches have stopped meeting and
leaders fear incarceration after the arrests this month of 12
expatriates who are Christians.  "There is a silent, mutually
understood moratorium on all gatherings in the country,"
International Christian Concern's Steve Snyder told Religion
Today.  "They are staying underground."

Christian worship is forbidden in the nation, which is ruled by
Islamic Sharia law.  About 150,000 expatriates, mostly Filipinos
who came to Saudi Arabia for employment, worship secretly in 400
house churches.  The tiny native-Saudi church is even further
underground, and avoids contact with expatriate believers for
security reasons, Snyder said.  Evangelism, Christian literature,
Bibles, and crosses are illegal.


APOSTASY AND ECUMENISM

JEWISH WOMEN JOINED IN MARRIAGE IN USA

Sue Levi Elwell and Nurit Shein were joined together as a couple
in Philadelphia, Pennsylvania, in the United States, on Sunday.
Sue is a rabbi and member of the Reform Movement and her partner,
Nurit, is a retired IDF officer.  They were wed in a ceremony
attended by about 100 persons, including many other members of
the Reform Movement clergy.

The lesbian couple understands that the marriage is not accepted
by officials in Israel, but are hopeful this will change in the
future, as officials in Israel continue to work to find an
acceptable solution to the problems stemming from the Office of
the Chief Rabbinate not recognizing the validity of Reform and
Conservative conversions to Judaism and marriages.  Although the
wedding was attended by rabbis of the Reform Movement, there is
no official policy endorsing the union of two persons of the same
sex.

LUTHERANS APPROVE END TO 400-YEAR DISPUTE WITH VATICAN
Weekend News Today Source: Nando Times Tue Jun 16 , 1998

The body representing most of the world's 61 million Lutherans
approved a joint declaration on Tuesday that aims to end a
400-year doctrinal dispute with the Vatican over the Reformation,
Reuters reported.  Lutheran officials said the 19-page text,
intended to mend the split between Protestants and Roman
Catholics, was still being studied by theologians at the Vatican.

In a statement, the Federation said its ruling 48-member Council
had unanimously approved the "Joint Declaration on the Doctrine
of Justification" after polling its 124 member churches in 69
countries over the past year.  "The 'Joint Declaration' ends 400
years of condemnations on the principal doctrinal dispute of the
Reformation, that salvation is a gift from God through grace, not
something humans earn through good works," LWF said in a
statement.  "The 'Joint Declaration' asserts that though there
still remain some differences on the understanding of
justification, the differences are not substantial enough to
warrant the condemnations," it added.

VATICAN AGREES TO SETTLE DOCTRAINAL DISPUTE WITH LUTHERANS
Weekend News Today Source: Nando Times Thu Jun 25 , 1998

The Vatican agreed in principle Thursday to a joint declaration
with the Lutherans intended to settle a doctrinal dispute that
was at the heart of the Protestant Reformation, AP reported.
With the agreement, most of the condemnations the Lutheran and
Roman Catholic churches heaped on one another when Western
Christianity split in the 16th century no longer apply, the
Vatican said.  But while the Vatican said a "high degree of
agreement" has been reached, it said some differences on
fundamental doctrine remain and these require further study.

PRESBYTERIANS, LUTHERANS REACH AGREEMENT TO WORK TOGETHER
June 18, 1998 Charlotte, N.C.  (AP)

After 32 years of talks, Presbyterians and Lutherans have
approved a pact to more closely align their denominations, an
ecumenical agreement that could allow them to share the Communion
table and the pulpit.  The historic agreement was recognized
Wednesday by Presbyterians attending their 210th annual General
Assembly in Charlotte.   The denominations' accord could bring
about routine changes, including Presbyterians and Lutherans
taking Communion at each others' churches.  Presbyterian
congregations could hire Lutherans to be their pastors   or vice
versa.   The new status, called "full communion,'' does not mean
a merger of the 2.6 million- member Presbyterian Church (U.S.A.)
and the 5.2 million-member Evangelical Lutheran Church in
America.  The denominations still have some doctrinal sticking
points.

GREEK CATHOLIC AND ORTHODOX PRIESTS TO RECONCILE
Weekend News Today Source: Cheryl News Thu Jun 25, 1998

Greek Catholic and Orthodox priests in Romania have formed a
commission to reconcile their differences.  The two churches have
been arguing over the ownership of church properties since 1989.
"For the first time in eight years, our Greek Catholic brothers
have replied to our offers of dialogue," Romanian Orthodox Bishop
Nifon said.  The commission will meet in September.

Greek Catholics contend that the Orthodox should return more than
2,000 church buildings confiscated by the former communist
regime.  The communists outlawed the 300,000 strong Greek
Catholic faith in 1946 because its members remain loyal to the
pope.  The ban was lifted in 1989, but Greek Catholics are forced
to meet in public parks and rented halls because they have no
church buildings.

The talks could open the way for a historic visit to the country
by Pope John Paul II.  The pope has said he wants to visit
Russia, Ukraine, and Romania, which are dominated by the Orthodox
faith.  Orthodox priests have opposed such a visit.  "In
principle, there is nothing against a visit by the pope," Nifon
said.  "But such a visit must be well prepared, and should take
place in a pleasant atmosphere of peace among all faiths.

SUN FAILS TO SHOW FOR STONEHENGE SOLSTICE - [Paganism
on the rise]
By Sean O'Neill London Telegraph 6/22/98

DRUIDRY'S most triumphant moment for a decade, the return to
Stonehenge on the summer solstice after years of exclusion, was
blighted yesterday when the most important guest failed to show.
At 4.43am, when the rising Sun should have cast its first rays on
to the heel stone, there was only dull, impenetrable cloud on the
horizon.  The assembled druids, witches, assorted pagans,
astronomers, local residents and a Buddhist made the most of it.
Members of five druid orders, clutching oak leaves and clad in
robes of many colours, prayed, chanted, blew horns and marched
around solemnly carrying antlers mounted on staffs.


MILLENIAL PREPARATIONS

CHURCHES PLAN DECEMBER, '99 MILLENNIUM SERVICE IN BETHLEHEM
Religion News Today 6/18/98

A special ecumenical service will be held in Bethlehem, Israel,
Dec.  4, 1999, when Orthodox, Catholic, and Protestant
congregations gather in Manger Square to celebrate the new
millennium, Ecumenical News International said.  Church leaders
from the three main branches of Christianity will enter the
Church of the Nativity together after the service.  It is a
historic event because space inside the church, said to be the
site where Jesus was born, is strictly allocated to keep members
of various churches separate.

The celebration will be the first in a series of ecumenical
events in the Holy Land, culminating in simultaneous Easter
services March 15, 2001.  It is the first time that Western and
Eastern believers will celebrate the event on the same day in
more than 1,000 years.  The churches have relied on different
calendars to calculate the dates on which religious holidays
fall.  Between five and 10 million Christians are expected to
make pilgrimages to the Holy Land in 2000.


Y2K - EXTENDED REPORTS

THE AFTERMATH OF SENATOR BENNETT'S Y2000 UTILITY HEARING
- Excerpts from Y2000 E-Mail Advisor, a weekly electronic
briefing from Ed Yourdon, Director of the Cutter Consortium's
Y2000 Advisory Service.

Only two of the top 10 utilities surveyed by the committee had
finished the assessment phase of their Y2000 project; one utility
reported that it didn't know how much code it had; another said
that it stopped counting its embedded systems after it reached
300,000; and none had completed a Y2000 contingency plan.
Senator Bennett concluded that there is a 40% chance of a
nationwide power outage on 1 January 2000...

If anything, the situation is probably worse than Senator
Bennett's committee currently believes, because the data is based
on "self"-reporting of status and progress, rather than
independent assessments.  Even assuming that everyone is acting
honestly and ethically, the status reports are likely to be
optimistic; and given the enormous political pressure associated
with Y2000, there's always a chance that the status reports are
less than honest.

The Defense Department's inspector general has discovered that
between 265 and 338 of a total of 430 DOD systems reported as
Y2000-compliant may not be compliant after all, because they have
not followed procedures required to obtain Y2000 certification.
The Y2000 project managers were under pressure to report
progress, and so they dutifully reported progress.

When the chairman of the Federal Energy Regulatory Commission,
James Hoecker, acknowledged in Senator Bennett's 12 June hearing
that, "The state of Year 2000 readiness of the utility industry
is largely unknown," a few of the Senators were understandably
concerned.  When Michael Gent, from the North American Electric
Reliability Council (NERC) said, "Year 2000 poses the threat that
common mode failures ...  or the coincident loss of multiple
facilities could result in stressing the electric system to the
point of a cascading outage over a large area," there was even
more concern.

We may have to contemplate several months, or longer, of electric
service that's as erratic and unreliable as the Third World
countries.  Have you taken a vacation in the Caribbean in the
past few years?Have you visited the developing countries in
Eastern Europe, Africa, or Asia recently?Have you noticed that
there are sometimes *planned* outages for several hours a day,
every day, for months on end?Or that unexpected brownouts and
blackouts can strike at any point, shutting down equipment and
turning off the lights?That's what we probably face in a little
more than 500 days.  I say "probably" only because it's the
socially acceptable term in today's political climate; in my
mind, the proper term is "definitely."

The interesting thing about the power situation in the developing
countries is that life goes on.  Not as quickly, not as
efficiently, not as productively -- but society, government, and
industry in these countries manage to cope with it.  The lack of
reliable, efficient utilities is one of the reasons they *are*
developing nations, with industrial output much smaller than that
of North America and Western Europe -- but they manage to cope
with it.  We, too, may face a third-world form of utilities on 1
January 2000, and it will be sucha shock that some organizations
won't survive.

RE Y2K AND MARTIAL LAW -- PRESIDENTIAL DECISION DIRECTIVE 63 --

"In the event of a Y2K-induced breakdown of community services
that might call for martial law," will the military be ready?
asked Sen. Robert Bennett, R-UT, chairman of the SenateSpecial
Committee on the Year 2000 Technology Problem, of Deputy Defense
Secretary John Hamre.

His reply? "We've got fundamental issues to deal with that go
beyond just the Year 2000 contingency planning.  And I think
you're right to bring that up."

Later, Bennett added ominously: "The world as a whole is almost
doomed to have major problems because other countries are way
behind, however badly prepared we are" to handle the problem.
"It is entirely possible that every organization in America could
get its own computers fixed ...  and still have major problems.
When people say to me, is the world going to come to an end, I
say I don't know.  I don't know whether this will be a bump in
the road...  or whether this will in fact trigger a major
worldwide recession with absolutely devastating economic
consequences in some parts of the world."

What on Earth are these guys talking about? Martial law? Global
economic collapse? The end of the world?

The government is getting nervous.  To Washington, the Y2K bug
threatens to be either the end of centralized control over the
lives of Americans or an opportunity to extend government's power
even further.

It is, no doubt, this kind of panicky and opportunistic thinking
that led President Clinton to issue Presidential Decision
Directive 63 -- one of the most ominous and least understood
orders to emanate from a White House notorious for issuing such
directives.  It was released by the White House, like so many
others, with little fanfare May 22.

Single-spaced, "The Clinton Administration's Policy on Critical
Infrastructure Protection, "prints out to some 15 pages.  While
it never explicitly mentions the Y2K bug, one can't help thinking
it was in the mind of the authors, who dwell heavily on the
importance of "cyber-based information systems."

Clinton is calling for a plan to ensure "essential national
security missions" as well as general public health and safety by
the year 2000.  Interesting that he would pick that date.The plan
must also provide ways for state and local governments to
maintain order and deliver minimum essential services and the
private sector to keep the economy humming.

Not interested in the federal plans? You may have to be.  The
document states that "it is preferred that participation by
owners and operators in a national infrastructure protection
system be voluntary." Note that word "preferred."

The president's national security adviser will serve as the
clearinghouse for developing the plans.  The first drafts from
federal agencies is due on his desk this November.  The
militaryplays a big role in the plans.  The Defense Department
serves as the "executive agent" through the end of this fiscal
year, after which, Clinton's favorite department, Commerce, takes
over.

The directive also creates the "National Infrastructure
Protection Center, which includes the FBI, the Secret Service,
other federal law enforcement agencies, the Department of
Defenseand the intelligence agencies.  All federal agencies are
ordered to cooperate fully with NIPC.  Private businesses
involved in critical infrastructure will be "strongly encouraged"
to share information with NIPC.

WHY WORRY? RUSSIA'S NUCLEAR AGENCY TO WAIT AND SEE ON COMPUTER
BUG
June 19, 1998 MOSCOW (AP)

Russia's Atomic Energy Ministry will wait until 2000 to fix any
computer glitches arising from the Millennium Bug, a spokesman
said Friday.  "We don't have any problems yet,'' spokesman
Vladislav Petrov told The Associated Press.  "We'll deal with the
problem in the year 2000.''

On May 21, Russian Prime Minister Sergei Kiriyenko ordered the
country's computer experts to develop ways to resolve the 2000
problem by the end of this year, but it is commonly acknowledged
that Russia is far behind its western counterparts in fixing the
glitch.

Many experts believe that if major government institutions and
large companies haven't started fixing the problem, they're
already too late.  A recent study revealed that the U.S.  Defense
Department will complete all its necessary overhauls by 2012 at
the pace it's going now.

CIA: COUNTRIES SPOT US COMPUTER WEAKNESSES
By Jim Wolf Washington (Reuters) June 24, 1998

China and other countries have begun to focus on U.S.  computer
networks as a target forpossible high-tech attacks that could
cripple anything from telephones to electricity, CIA Director
George Tenet said Wednesday. As President Clinton left for a
state visit aimed at strengthening ties with Beijing, Tenet told
a Senate panel that the magnitude of the threat from a wide range
of potential foes, notably China by implication, was
"extraordinary."

He cited the danger of intrusion into networked
informationsystems, tampering with data and "delivery of
malicious code."  "We know with specificity of several nations
that are working on developing an information warfare
capability," the chief U.S.  spymaster told the Governmental
Affairs Committee.

Through high-tech attacks, "information warfare" would exploit
growing reliance on the bits and bytes that weave modern
societies together for everything from telecommunications to
power grids and banking.

"It is clear that nations developing these programs recognize the
value of attacking a country's computer systems both on the
battlefield and in the civilian arena," Tenet added. He quoted
statements from officials in China, Russia and an unnamed third
country to "illustrate the power and the import of information
warfare in the decades ahead."

"An adversary wishing to destroy the United States only has to
mess up the computer systems of its banks by high-tech means,"
Tenet quoted an article in China's official "People's Liberation
Daily" as saying.  Without giving the date of the Chinese
article, he went on to cite it: "This would disrupt and destroy
the U.S.  economy.  If we overlook this point and simply rely on
the building of a costly army ... it is just as good as building
a contemporary Maginot Line," the French fortification that
Germany skirted in World War II.

GINGRICH WANTS $4 BILLION FOR YEAR 2000 COMPUTER BUG
June 20, 1998By Russ Bynum, Associated Press Marietta, Ga.  (AP)

House Speaker Newt Gingrich said Saturday that Republicans will
seek at least $4 billion in emergency spending to solve the
millennium computer problem.  "We believe that the Year 2000
computer problem is a lot bigger problem than the president and
the administration has admitted,'' Gingrich said.  "For all their
talk about the Information Superhighway, (Vice President) Al Gore
is presiding over a large wreck on Jan. 1, 2000,'' he said.

MILLENIUM BUG HAS UN CONCERNED
(IsraelWire-6/27)

On Friday, the United States General Assembly called upon member
nations to appoint a national coordinator, to deal with the
anticipated millenium bug, that may potentially shut down
computers around the world at the turn of the century. Addressing
the assembly was United States Ambassador to the UN, Richard
Sklar, who stressed that countries must take steps now, to avoid
serious breakdown in communications and other vital systems.

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