[continued from previous message]   
      
   [67] Here one must keep in mind that there is often a wide gap between theory   
   and accepted practice with respect to both sets of laws. So, for example, in   
   Italy abortion is officially legal at the discretion of the doctors, but   
   doctors usually refuse to    
   perform abortions due to the social pressure still existing as a consequence   
   of Church dogma. On the other hand, although the Catholic Church officially   
   opposes abortion for any reason, still a very large percentage of Catholic   
   laity and priests    
   privately accept the practice as a social necessity or as an individual right.   
   Thus, those Italian women who have an abortion still generally get it on the   
   streets rather than in the hospital, but nowadays both the secular and the   
   clerical authorities    
   tend to look the other way.   
      
   [68] Romans 13:1-7.   
      
   [69] In the news recently, a dispute was aired between the exiled Soviet   
   author, Alexander Solzhenitsyn, and the Protestant Evangelist Billy Graham.   
   The point of controversy was a press statement attributed to Graham that,   
   during his May 1982 visit to    
   Russia, he had not noticed any persecution of religion in the U.S.S.R.   
   Generally speaking, Billy Graham lost face in the public eye due to his   
   ill-considered remark but, ironically, his statement is really quite   
   believable. There is amazingly little    
   religious persecution in the U.S.S.R., despite Karl Marx's dire condemnation   
   of religion as ultimately nothing more than an “opiate of the people”. On   
   deeper contemplation one can well understand that Communist societies are no   
   less in need of “opiate(s)    
   of the people” to maintain their corrupt system of exploitation than are the   
   capitalist societies which they replaced. Naturally the Politburo carefully   
   monitors all religious leaders to ensure that their doctrines and activities   
   do not conflict with the    
   interests of the State, but really there is nothing so unusual about that. In   
   the U.S.A. the F.B.I. kept a close watch on the Rev. Martin Luther King, Jr.   
   If we search back through history we find that the Church generally has not   
   objected to such    
   supervision. In fact the early Church was not just ready but in many respects   
   eager to be dominated by the Roman Emperors. At the time of the Reformation,   
   Martin Luther ended his career openly upholding the need for a secular   
   authority over the head of    
   the Church. Even today, in countries like England and Norway, the monarch is   
   still titular head of both state and Church. Knowing this history, it is hard   
   to conceive of current conditions in Russia as anything out of the ordinary.   
   Consider carefully the    
   following two additional pieces of news:   
      
   On 3 April 1983, an open letter to President Reagan from Patriarch Pimen, head   
   of the Russian Orthodox Church, was printed in the Sunday edition of the New   
   York Times as an advertisement. In his letter Pimen strongly attacked Reagan   
   for his hostility    
   towards Russia, and he openly supported the foreign policy of the Russian   
   Government, especially with respect to its efforts at nuclear disarmament. The   
   Patriarch took pains to declare that the Russian Orthodox Church is able to   
   operate “without state    
   interference into her life”. He made a similar claim on behalf of the other   
   Christian Churches, as well as the Moslem, Buddhist and Jewish communities,   
   though the additional claim carries very little weight.   
      
   On 13 June 1983, the international Herald Tribune reported that the Russian   
   news agency, Tass, had announced on 11 June 1983 that the Soviet government   
   would soon be returning to the Orthodox Church Moscow's oldest monastery,   
   which had been seized by    
   government authorities immediately following the 1917 revolution. According to   
   the Herald Tribune, “The decision to return (the monastery) to the Moscow   
   Patriarchate reflected increasingly warm relations between the Communist   
   leadership and the Orthodox    
   Church. Senior churchmen have won Kremlin approval by actively supporting   
   Soviet foreign policy goals and campaigning for nuclear disarmament. Tass said   
   Patriarch Pimen, head of the Orthodox Church, had sent a letter to Prime   
   Minister Nikolai A. Tikhonov,   
    thanking him for the decision to return the monastery and saying that it   
   'testifies to the benevolent attitude of the Soviet state to the Church.'”   
      
   [70] Luke 11:17.   
      
   [71] Mark 8:15; Luke 13:31-32.   
      
   [72] Mark 12:13-40.   
      
   [73] Mark 12:13-17; Luke 2:1-5.   
      
   [74] Matthew 10:34-35; Luke 12:51-53.   
      
   [75] Matthew 2:1; Luke 2:4-7; John 7:40-43.   
      
   [76] Matthew 2:1-23.   
      
   Herod I died in 4 B.C. He was much reduced mentally by the time of his death.   
   The paranoid murder of the infants of Bethlehem just before he died, though   
   not historically verified, is nonetheless consonant with the last years of his   
   reign wherein Herod,    
   himself, passed sentence of death on several of his own sons who were in line   
   for the throne. In view of Herod's behavior, the contemporary Roman Emperor,   
   Augustus Caesar, is reputed to have remarked that it was better to be Herod's   
   pig than Herod's son.   
      
   [77] Luke 2:1-7.   
      
   In 6 A.D. Judaea was for the first time incorporated into the Roman Empire;   
   and, in consequence, P. Sulpicas, Legate of Syria, was ordered to conduct a   
   census for taxation purposes.   
      
   [78] Matthew 1:1-17; Luke 3:23-38.   
      
   [79] Matthew 5:1 - 8:1.   
      
   [80] Luke 6:17-49.   
      
   [81] Matthew 13:53-58; Mark 6:1-6; Luke 4:16-30.   
      
   [82] Matthew 27:46-50; Mark 15:34-37; Psalms 22:1.   
      
   [83] Luke 23:44-46.   
      
   [84] John 19:28-30.   
      
   [85] Matthew 27:32; Mark 15:21; Luke 23:26.   
      
   [86] John 19:16-18.   
      
   [87] Matthew 27:55-56; Mark 15:40-41; Luke 23:49.   
      
   [88] John 19:25-27.   
      
   [89] John 19:32-35.   
      
   [90] Mark 15:21; Romans 16:13.   
      
   If Simon the Cyrene was not acquainted with Jesus and his followers, naturally   
   he would be unable to make a positive identification of the person who was   
   crucified. It comes then as no surprise that he is never again mentioned in   
   the New Testament,    
   either before or after the crucifixion. However, the fact that Simon the   
   Cyrene is specifically identified, even to the fine detail of naming his sons,   
   inclines one to believe that at least some of the followers of Jesus knew him,   
   and he presumably knew    
   them. According to Mark, Simon had two sons, Rufus and Alexander. In his   
   epistle to the Romans, Paul sends his greetings to a Rufus and his mother.   
   This may well have been the same Rufus who was one son of Simon the Cyrene. If   
   so, then Simon must have    
   died or disappeared soon after Jesus' crucifixion, for Paul sends his greeting   
   to Rufus' mother but not to his father. From all this, one can reasonably   
   surmise that if Simon the Cyrene was, in fact, an acquaintance of Jesus, then   
   something deceptive    
   about the crucifixion made it necessary to dispose of him.   
      
   [91] Luke 1:1-4, 2:18-19, 2:51-52; Acts 12:25, 13:5, 13:13, 15:36-40; 2   
   Timothy 4:11.   
      
      
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