CALGARY, Alberta, January 21, 2010 (LifeSiteNews.com) - The Canada Revenue Agency (CRA) has revoked the charitable status of Kings Glory Fellowship (KGF), a Christian church in Calgary. CRA cites a number of issues with KGF's application, but the decision is based, in part, on the ground that certain KGF Board members have spoken out strongly against abortion, and other moral issues.
"The members of the Board of Directors espouse strong negative views about sensitive and controversial issues, which may also be viewed as political, such as abortion, homosexuality, divorce, etc.,” wrote CRA agent Dian Prodanov in an October 29th letter.
These “political” views make the church ineligible because, according to the agent, a registered charity “may only engage in non-partisan political activities as long as it devotes substantially all (usually 90% or more) of its resources to charitable activities."
KGF's pastor, Artur Pawlowski, is also the founder and pastor of Street Church Ministries, which has made headlines because of its battle with the city of Calgary to uphold its right to preach to and serve the city's poor.
In December, a provincial court judge sided with Pawlowski and SCM, striking down several city infractions against them. Further, the judge found that "the City's attempts ... to limit the scope of the efforts by the accused to minister to his congregants, fall precariously close to being excessive and, to any reasonable observer, an abuse of power."
Prodanov cited numerous problems with KGF's application, such as a lack of detail about various expenditures, but Pawlowski called these other reasons “smoke screens.”
“The main point is that they don't like my opinions about different controversial issues, and I speak about them openly on radio, in paper, and on TV,” he said. “So that's what happens when you express your views as a pastor.”
“If they take the charity status away from a church, they are hoping that they are going to starve us to death in Canada, and therefore we will not be able to influence anyone,” he continued. “That's basically what happens. That's what they want to accomplish. They want to muzzle us up.”
Contact Information:
Prime Minister Stephen Harper
80 Wellington Street
Ottawa K1A 0A2
Fax: 613-941-6900
E-mail: pm@pm.gc.ca
Hon. Keith Ashfield
Minister of National Revenue
7th Floor
555 MacKenzie Avenue
Ottawa ON K1A 0L5
Phone: (613) 992-1067
Fax: (613) 996-9955
E-mail: Ashfield.K@parl.gc.ca
http://www.ottawacitizen.com/opinion/Cultural+engineering/2279442/story.html
Current and former public servants have also expressed concern that taxpayers' dollars are being spent to help government employees learn how to pass French tests and keep their jobs, without necessarily becoming fluent in, or even using, the language.
Forty years after the introduction of the Official Languages Act, the training and testing of federal government employees to ensure they meet language requirements has become a key manifestation of the country's bilingualism policies. The big secret in Ottawa, however, and a poorly kept one at that, is that the system does not serve Canadians particularly well.
The main problem, as so many insiders have witnessed, is that few bureaucrats actually use French in the workplace, despite having spent months off the job training to pass proficiency tests. As Fraser puts it, "There has yet to develop, except in certain departments, a working environment where both languages have their place every day in the workplace."
"French training" has become a symbol of government waste. Stories are told in Ottawa of public servants who are sent away on expensive, publicly-funded French training just a few years, or even months, before retirement. This waste of money is compounded by the fact that, while the public servant is sitting in a classroom, a replacement must be hired to do the job that has been temporarily vacated. And, again, the final joke is that the job never really required French in the first place.
Fraser is offering an alternative, one that enlists Canada's universities in the pursuit of bilingualism. He would like to see universities and the federal government work together to develop "equivalencies" between their language exams, so that graduates can be pre-tested and pre-qualified for the different proficiency levels required for government jobs. He points out, with understandable frustration, that university programs in public administration do not require graduates to be bilingual, even though many of those graduates are supposed to be going on to government jobs.
Shifting some language training to universities is a sensible idea, mainly because it will help get the federal government at least partly out of the language training and testing business. But the disconnect between training and use on the job still demands a deeper look.
Federal departments like to come up with all sorts of ways to help employees practise and retain the language skills they obtained through costly language training programs. But if the government must set up artificial practice sessions so that employees can use their second language, the government needs to ask whether that second language is necessary in some of those jobs.
It's no surprise that Fraser, as language commissioner, is worried to see that language training for public servants had not necessarily created a bilingual culture in many workplaces. And sure, it would be nice to increase the number of new university graduates who count bilingualism among their skills, and who want public sector careers.
But it is also worth considering whether there is a limit to the role of bilingual policy as an instrument of cultural engineering, and whether, in the globalized world of today, approaches that were conceived 40 years ago are vulnerable to obsolescence.
If you would like to congratulate Mr Harper for speaking so clearly - and so quickly - in this matter, you may email him at pm@pm.gc.ca
God Save The Queen !
EXCERPTS FROM CANWEST STORY
Harper reminds GG just who is head of state
By Randy Boswell, Canwest News Service
Prime Minister Stephen Harper has sent a clear message to Gov. Gen. Michaelle Jean that she should not call herself Canada's head of state.
"Queen Elizabeth II is Queen of Canada and Head of State," the Prime Minister's Office said in a statement issued to Canwest News Service on Thursday. "The Governor General represents the Crown in Canada."
The extraordinary reminder from the country's head of government to its top viceregal representative follows an uproar over Jean's use of the phrase "head of state" when referring to herself during a speech in Paris on Monday...
But the "head of state" position - as surprised constitutional experts and perturbed officials with the Monarchist League of Canada quickly pointed out to Canwest News Service - is held exclusively by the Queen.
The statement issued Thursday by Harper's office struck one expert - constitutional expert David Smith, University of Saskatchewan professor emeritus of political science - as history-making.
"I can't recall that ever happening before," said Smith, now at the University of Regina and co-editor of the forthcoming Oxford Handbook of Canadian Politics.
But he added it was a welcome move by the Prime Minister's Office because "there seems to be a misunderstanding on the part of Rideau Hall as to the constitutional position of the Governor General under our system."
Monarchist League chairman Robert Finch also applauded Harper for promptly and directly addressing the issue.
"While I am sorry to see that this story has detracted from the 'feel-good' news about the upcoming royal homecoming of the Prince of Wales and Duchess of Cornwall, it is refreshing to see the Prime Minister of Canada, the Governor General's principal adviser, make such a clear statement," said Finch. "I hope this puts an end to the silly notion that the Governor General is head of state - de facto or otherwise."
Finch added: "Serving as the Queen's representative - and the honour and prestige that goes with that opportunity - for me, should be reason enough to want to be a governor general. You surely don't need to strive to be something more than that to earn Canadians' respect."
Rideau Hall declined to comment on the PMO statement....
CELEBRATION: The fraternal Protestant organization is about to open its new headquarters
Orange Lodge gets new life
Chip Martin
The London Free Press
September 4, 2009
The Orange footprint in London is growing.
Dan MacDonald holds the sign from the old Orange Lodge to be featured at the new site on Oxford St. E. (MORRIS LAMONT/Sun Media)
Members of the Orange Lodge, a fraternal Protestant organization, are opening a grand new home on Oxford St. E. to replace aging and cramped quarters elsewhere.
"This is absolutely astounding," Orange Lodge member Daniel MacDonald burbled yesterday. "This will be the most elaborate hall in North America.
"For people who thought we were dying, when they see this building, they will be astounded."
The last time a new Orange Lodge building opened in Ontario was 10 to 15 years ago, in Toronto.
That Toronto building is not half the size of the new London facility, MacDonald said.
The opening Sept. 12 and 13 marks a rebound for an organization, once a powerful political and social force in Ontario, that began to languish in the mid-1900s. Until then, membership in the order was essential to become premier in Ontario, or mayor of Toronto and it had significant clout in Ottawa.
An increasingly multicultural Canada relegated the organization to fringe group status and its promotion of Protestantism, the monarchy and the English language was seen as anachronistic -- and anti-Catholic.
In London, membership is on the rise, with more than 50 members, said MacDonald, with another 30 in related "Black Preceptories" and a youth lodge of 24.
One expert says the Orange resurgence in London and elsewhere may be a manifestation of "Anglo pride" in response to the multicultural mosaic the former British colonies in North America have become.
This development, said Douglass St. Christian, an assistant professor of anthropology at the University of Western Ontario, is not necessarily a bad thing.
"I would suggest there is an element of Anglo- or white-pride at work here which can be a good thing, if done in the spirit of multiculturalism as a model of community," St. Christian said.
The Orange order takes its name from the July 12, 1690 battle at the Boyne River in Ireland where Protestant William of Orange defeated Catholic King James. The "Glorious 12th" was celebrated by Orange parades across Ontario for decades.
Orange order officials from across Ontario, the United States, Ireland, Scotland, Australia and England are expected to attend the opening, which the Grand Master of Ireland, Robert Saulters will attend. In all, 125 guests are expected.
Among the activities are a tour of the building, including the Orange Hall of Heroes, the London Protestant public library and education centre, a dinner, entertainment and worship service.
Invitations to the event note it is "a salute to General (James) Wolfe on his great victory 250 years ago on the Plains of Abraham," a reference not expected to win friends among the city's francophone community.
The organization raises money for heart, stroke and cancer research and for disabled children. Until the Ontario government assumed orphanages, the order operated the Loyal True Blue and Orange Home north of Richmond Hill as its major venture.
MacDonald said the new building is about 10,000 square feet, or about 25 times larger than its predecessor, and will be used by other fraternal and benevolent organizations.
The building cost several hundred thousand dollars, it is understood. It sits on 1.5 acres of land adjacent to a Catholic neighbour, Blessed Sacrament school.
Features include antique furniture and an obligatory Union Jack, an organ and other amenities suitable for renditions of the Maple Leaf Forever, a patriotic song penned by Orangeman Alexander Muir.
Chip Martin is a Free Press reporter.
TO: Members and Friends of the Monarchist League of Canada
FROM: Bob Finch, Dominion Chairman
MONARCHIST ALERT: IGNATIEFF AND THE CANADIAN CROWN
Together with our educational work, the League has no more important task than to encourage loyalty from and keep an eye on the views about the Monarchy on the part of Canadian politicians.
Whatever our own partisan preferences and views, it is important that there be good Monarchists in EVERY major political party (probably realistically excepting the Bloc !) so that the Canadian Crown never becomes a divisive issue between parties as it has, to some significant extent, in Australia.
However you might choose to vote in the next federal election - be it soon or still some time away - we certainly should be aware of the views of the Leader of the Opposition, Michael Ignatieff.
Page 25 of the Summer 2009 edition of "Irish Connections" contains the following quotation from Mr Ignatieff. It is contained in the third paragraph of a report from Frank Dwyer about a trip to Newfoundland which he and his wife took during the Summer of 2007, during which they had lunch in a restaurant located on St John's historic Water Street. We quote the paragraph in its entirety to give you the context: - we added the emphasis towards the end:
Suddenly as we looked up, Michael Ignatieff was standing outside our window with a woman, chatting and looking around at the goings on. "Oh yes" Jean said, "the Liberal Caucus are meeting here. I read it in the paper in the morning." As he parted company with the woman, he turned and seeing our interest, waved and we waved back. Then, I suppose it was the Beaujolais, so I beckoned him in. Jean looked at me like I was nuts but before you could say Harvard's, Kennedy School of Politics, Michael was sitting at our table sharing wine and .he was marvelous. And they say this guy is a cold intellectual? Anyway, here was Michael Ignatieff and he was charming and interested in who we were and our views on the country and its future. We talked about leaving his enviable job at Harvard and his notoriety in America. "Ah" he said, "No one cares about Canada in the US." Somehow we got around to talking about my wife's lovely Irish accent and he asked if she was a citizen and then, why she had not become one. "Well" she explained, "I never got around to it. What with raising to boys and my physiotherapy practice." The she said "Besides I don't know that I could swear allegiance to the Queen of England!" "Well" he replied, "Maybe we should look into that. Maybe its time we got our own head of state." I wondered if he meant it or if he was just being polite.
Mr Ignatieff's comment was made before he became Leader of the Liberal Party in December, 2008. The context of the quotation might suggest he was reacting sympathetically to Jean Dwyer's evident hostility to "the Queen of England."
In any event, this first statement of Mr Ignatieff about our Monarchy on the public record - as far as the League is aware. That, together with the charged political climate in Ottawa - make it imperative for EVERY member of the League to contact Mr Ignatieff - quoting the above passage including the source - and asking him for his views on the Canadian Crown. Please be temperate rather than accusatory, and neutral in your tone so that you receive his real views rather than ones which might be tempered - as every politician does - to the perceived bias of the questioner ! Once you have received his answer of course you can react in any way you feel is appropriate.
Please report any reply you receive to us as soon as you can. Contact information follows. And THANK YOU for undertaking this important work.
CONTACT INFORMATION
by email: IgnatM@parl.gc.ca
for those of you with a Facebook account, Mr Ignatieff posts on FB at
http://www.facebook.com/MichaelIgnatieff
Mr Ignatieff also uses Twitter: http://twitter.com/M_Ignatieff
Telephone: (613) 995-9364
Fax: (613) 992-5880
ONLY if you live in Mr Ignatieff's constituency of Etobicoke-Lakeshore, ON - the constituency office contacts are as follows:
Telephone: (416) 251-5510
Fax: (416) 251-2845
The Dominion Secretariat/Sécrétariat général
The Monarchist League of Canada/La ligue monarchiste du Canada
PO Box 1057
Oakville, ON L6J 5E9
(800) I'M LOYAL
(905) 855-7262
domsec@sympatico.ca
http://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2009/jul/09070706.html
New Conservative Anglican Intiative Receives Unofficial Support of Queen Elizabeth
By Hilary White
LONDON, July 7, 2009 (LifeSiteNews.com) - Her Majesty, Queen Elizabeth II has twice written to support an emergent group of conservative Anglicans that rejects the ultra-liberal and sexually permissive direction of the Church of England. The Queen recently wrote to the Fellowship of Confessing Anglicans (FCA) that she "understood their concerns" and "understands the commitment to the Anglican Church" and that she wished them well on the day of their official launch on Monday.
FCA leaders had written to the Queen to assure her of their loyalty to the Church of England. Palace spokesmen said that the letters did not constitute an official endorsement of the FCA. The FCA is an alliance of evangelical and Anglo-Catholic parishes in Britain and Ireland whose formation was precipitated in part by the acceptance of homosexuality by segments of the Anglican leadership in the developed world.
Unlike the US and Canada, Britain's official church is tightly intertwined with the civil constitution of the country. The Queen is not only head of state, but in her capacity of Supreme Governor of the Church of England she also formally appoints bishops on the advice of the Prime Minister. She has had little public input in the crisis that has enveloped the Worldwide Anglican Communion since the consecration in 2003 of openly active homosexual Gene Robinson as a bishop of New Hampshire.....
The schisms continue. Disciplined Christians will stand their ground.
http://www.virtueonline.org/portal/
Free speech activist and lawyer, Douglas Christie, comments regularly on YouTube LINK
By Bill Greenwood - Red Deer Advocate - August 01, 2008
There are what we call “truisms,” those kind of universal observations that form the basis of our collective wisdom.
You know, things like: “you can’t take it with you;” “you can’t get blood from a stone;” “the apple doesn’t fall far from the tree;” that sort of thing.
We also have the kind of generalized ethnic observations that aren’t really all that far from the truth. Scandinavians are known to be stoic; Italians are outgoing; the Scots are taciturn.
Some of these kinds of things are actually true, as languages have a certain impact on social interaction that gives rise to these kinds of generalizations. Which, of course, leads us to another great truism: the French are difficult. OK. I’ve said it.
But let’s be honest here, there aren’t seven people in this readership who can claim honestly that they’ve never been forced to acknowledge this hard reality from other sources. After all, it was a French president who got up and left a G8 banquet because he was expected to eat (gasp!) British cuisine. (OK, so we all know that’s an oxymoron, but that’s not really the point, is it?) The entire D-Day invasion almost got sidetracked by Gen. Charles de Gaulle’s anti-Anglo bigotry, in spite of the fact that the entire invasion force amassed to liberate his country’s sorry ass was comprised of English-speaking soldiers.
The point of language is that it is a means of communicating.
In Canada, some French Canadians are caught up in the notion that, unless they can communicate in French, they would prefer not to communicate at all.
Worse, there’s always somebody willing to drag the courts into this.
Some years ago, a fluently bilingual federal civil servant felt an obligation to sue Air Canada simply because he wasn’t offered a choice of soft drinks in French, despite his obvious proficiency in English.
In Alberta, a bilingual truck driver has engaged in a rampant case of faux outrage simply because the traffic ticket wasn’t printed in French.
There is no high-minded principle at work here. None.
Let’s back this up just a bit, shall we?
Every time this issue comes up, it’s important to remember that, since 1759 in Canada, the very survival of the French language has depended solely on simple British courtesy. Without that protection, it would have faded into oblivion, like the fur trade and Napoleon’s dreams.
It’s too easy to overlook that, in a strict libertarian sense, helping the French language survive requires an inhibition of the civil liberties of those who don’t speak French.
Most of us are willing to let that slide — to a point.
But, when citizens who are fully conversant in English try to claim that their rights are somehow being violated by the lack of a French language label on a traffic ticket, then it’s time to push back.
Firstly, this isn’t a case of some poor soul accused of a high crime being forced to endure a trial in a foreign and inexplicable language.
None of us would stand for that.
It’s simply another case of a malcontent linguistic minority attempting to subject the rest of us to yet another level of governmental intrusion into our lives where none is warranted.
The logical extension of this complaint would require that all peace officers in Alberta be conversant in French, despite the fact that — on any given day — there are fewer unilingual Francophones in Alberta than there are mating pairs of Sasquatch in Clearwater County.
As I’ve said, language laws represent an unnecessary intrusion of the state into the affairs of the citizenry.
In Canada they exist solely to coddle the sensibilities of a far-too-insecure minority that can’t see the future for the past. Those laws ignore the hard realities of linguistic evolution, especially in the context of the societal evolution of North America.
We can also surmise that it’s not likely that, had history taken a different turn, the English-speaking inhabitants of New France would have been granted the linguistic and religious privileges that came out of the English victory at Quebec.
In their present form, our language laws offend me at a very deep level.
They unnecessarily expand the powers of the state and have gradually tightened the ability of the linguistic majority to participate in their own governments at several levels.
They simply prove the old adage. The French are difficult.
Bill Greenwood is a freelance writer living in Red Deer.
What do the color of the Tennessee Volunteers, the College of William and Mary and the word “hillbilly” have in common?
According to Dr. Barry Aron Vann, all can trace their origins to the Scot-Irish ancestry of early Appalachian settlers — and in particular, William of Orange in the 17th century.
“To understand our culture, you have to understand what happened back then,” he told the audience at Tuesday’s Hungry for History lecture on “The Wilderness Road and the Seed of Ulster.”
Vann, who joined the University of the Cumberlands this year as the founding director of the doctor of education program, gave an hour-long history lesson, complete with personal antidotes and character voices.
In 1688, James II was king of England, Scotland and Ireland, and — much to the dismay of Northern Ireland Protestants — had converted to Catholicism. The issue of religion (and a few other policies) eventually led to a revolution in which William of Orange, a Protestant prince from Scotland, gained the crown.
At Williams’ arrive, James fled to France and began raising an army to invade — which he did, landing in Ireland in 1689.
“(Wiliam’s) followers, who had hid out in the woods and up in the hills where they could see their enemies coming, were known as ‘billyboys’... hillbillies,” Vann said.
The billyboys and William of Orange went on to victory, and their influence was felt in America. The College of William and Mary, founded in 1693 in Williamsburg, Va., was named for William of Orange and his wife. Vann asserted that chants of “Big Orange” could even been traced to the Ulster-Scottish tradition brought by the settlers of the region. “Orangemen” celebrations in Ireland that still take place today, he said, look like any game day in Knoxville, Tenn.
The early wave of Scots-Irish immigrants came over in the early 1700s.
“Whenever these folk started coming to America, they weren’t able to go to New England because, or course, the English had already established themselves there,” Vann said.
Instead, they were encouraged to settle the wilder regions to the west — the Appalachian Mountain range.
“Most of our anscesters, including mine, were humble people,” Vann said. “They were freed from the bondages of fuedalism, and when they arrived in the ports Philidelphia and Charleston, S.C., they were for the most part poor. They’d spent all their money getting over here, very few of them had any surplus wealth at all.”
Early settlers included Scottish Protestants, English Baptists, Welsh Baptist, English Quakers, French Huguenots and German Baptists. Today, there are relatively few Protestants and Presbyterians in Appalachia. Vann attributed that decline to those faiths’ requirements that clergy obtain formal training — something not easy to do in the early frontier years, though many early colleges in the region were established to do so.
The Scots-Irish immigrants — who Vann said had spent years fighting the Catholics and centuries fighting the English — typically had little faith in government and were very self-relient.
“Family and kin are so important because there was no central government that you could call upon to help out,” Vann said. “... So when you come to Appalachia and you don’t have a central government and your government is pushing you to the forefront, well what are you going to do? You’re going to rely upon family, you’re going to rely upon taking the law into your own hands, and you’re going to rely upon a way of life that your ancestors have been developing for centuries.”
The “hillbillies” settled the ridges of the mountains, on locations that weren’t ideal for farming but did provide an opportunity for defense.
“Do we have in this part of the country a strong love of the central government?” Vann asked. “Do we believe that when we’ve got a problem, we call up the government to fix it? Now where do you suppose that comes from? It comes from our ancestors.”
Note: It is believed that Sam Steele was a member of the Orange Order and perhaps some of these records will expand on that.
....."The highlight of the collection for us is Steele's medals and orders," says Loraine Lounsberry, senior curator of the Glenbow history collections. "They are literally jewels that are a distillation of his entire career."
Steele was "the quintessential military man of the Victorian period," she says.
A determined and daring "soldier-hero" who lived in what is now Alberta for 40 years, the Ontario-born Steele joined the North-West Mounted Police in 1873 and was one of the officers who led the new recruits on the March West in 1874 to bring law and order to the West. He participated in many of the important events in western Canadian history, including the North-West Resistance led by Louis Riel and the Klondike Gold Rush, in which he played a pivotal role.
In 1900, during the South African Boer war, he was offered command of Lord Strathcona's Horse, which he regrouped seven years later as a permanent unit in the Canadian Army.
"The collection contains artifacts that will bring Sam Steele alive," says Glenbow president and CEO Jeffrey Spalding, saying the collection includes medals, uniforms, regalia and other personal effects.
"He is so legendary in every way to Western Canada and so central to our story that not to let it slip away is a point of great pride as well as great relief to all of us.".....
By Mark Steyn, MacLeans
...Bill Baergen of Stettler, Alta., wrote:
"I take exception to Mark Steyn's unfounded allegation that the human rights racket is a disgrace. I am proud to say I was one of seven commissioners on the Alberta Human Rights Commission from 1995 to 2006 and never felt I was part of a racket, much less a disgraceful one. Nor do I accept the kangaroo court epithet thrown around by the erudite generalization-manufacturer, Steyn.
"First, why does he place 'human rights' in quotation marks? The Universal Declaration of Human Rights, forged by the General Assembly of the United Nations in 1948 uses the phrase, so it needn't be treated as something foreign to most people."
Well, since you ask, I put "human rights" in scare quotes when I refer to, say, the Alberta "Human Rights" Commission because the "human rights" commissions' notion of "human rights" has nothing to do with real human rights such as those adumbrated in the UN declaration. Indeed, Canada's scare-quote "human rights" — the "human right" to a labiaplasty or to smoke marijuana in another guy's doorway or to not be called a "loser" in the hair salon — explicitly trample over several of the real human rights in the Universal Declaration, notably the right to the presumption of innocence. That's why there's a 100 per cent conviction rate for federal Section 13 cases. So Bill Baergen's pals are in sustained systemic breach of the UN declaration.
As for Mr. Baergen's "pride" in being on the Alberta Human Rights Commission for a decade, chacun à son goût. Personally, I'd be ashamed. Here's why: the Danish cartoons crisis precipitated a lot of predictably craven remarks by European commissioners, U.S. State Department officials, the British foreign secretary, etc., all giving aid and comfort to the thugs and bullies threatening to "behead the enemies of Islam." Yet, for all the Anglo-Euro-American squishiness and generalized anguish about the need for the media to be more "sensitive," only one government agency in the Western world actually hauled a publisher into court for the "crime" of publishing those cartoons — and it was the Alberta Human Rights Commission, which dragged Ezra Levant of the Western Standard into an interrogation room to explain himself before one of Mr. Baergen's colleagues. So, yes, the Alberta HRC is a racket, and a disgraceful one, and that's why the system has so few defenders other than its apparatchiks...
Read the entire MacLean's article HERE
ROME (Reuters) - The body of the mystic monk Padre Pio, one of the Roman Catholic world's most revered saints who died 40 years ago, has been exhumed to be prepared for display to his many devotees.
The body of the Capuchin friar, who was said to have had the stigmata -- the wounds of Christ's crucifixion -- on his hands and feet -- is to be conserved and put in a part-glass coffin for at least several months from April 24.
A Church statement said the body was in "fair condition", particularly the hands, which Archbishop Domenico D'Ambrosio, who witnessed the exhumation in the southern Italian town where Pio died, said "looked like they had just undergone a manicure".
A spokesman for the monastery at San Giovanni Rotondo said he believed morticians would be able to conserve the face of the bearded monk well enough for it to be recognizable.
The body, which had been buried under marble in a crypt, was exhumed during a three-hour service that ended after midnight.
A Catholic magazine once found that far more Italian Catholics prayed to Padre Pio than to any other icon of the faith, including the Virgin Mary or Jesus.
Some 7 million people visit his tomb every year. There are some 3,000 "Padre Pio Prayer Groups" around the world, with a membership of around 3 million.
The friar, born Francesco Forgione, died in 1968 aged 81. Continued...
| A company set up by the Orange Order is receiving almost 250,000 euros in funding from the Irish government. The Republic's first substantial grant to the organisation is being made by the Department of Community, Rural and Gaeltacht Affairs. The minister of the department is Eamon O'Cuiv - grandson of former taoiseach and famous republican Eamon de Valera. The money will be paid out over the next two years in counties Donegal, Leitrim, Cavan and Monaghan. It will go to a company, Cadelmo Ltd, set up to support an initiative in the border counties to promote and organise the Orange institution in the Republic. The funding will support the work of a development officer and will also be available for the repair and refurbishment of Orange halls. "A number of Orange halls in rural areas have been attacked in recent times, activities I totally deplore, so I am delighted to be in a position to provide funding," Mr O'Cuiv said. He added that he hoped the funding would encourage higher levels of participation by Orange Order members in the wider community in the area. Drew Nelson, grand secretary of the Orange Order, welcomed the funding. "Our members in the Republic are much more willing now to engage with civic society," Mr Nelson said. "Prior to this, I would have noticed that their way of survival for the last three or four generations has been to keep their heads down, don't put your head above the parapet, don't engage with the administration in the Republic. "A change has come about in their attitude - there's much more confidence." | ||