No, this is not a joke.  

Johns Hopkins Hospital is being funded (using our tax money) to administer psychedelic mushrooms to volunteer Catholic priests, Rabbis, Presbyterian ministers, Zen Buddhist priests and others. Why?  To see how these members of clergy react to being on a “trip” and whether the experience will prove helpful to their ministries.

The article states that except for Muslims and Hindus, who have not been persuaded to take part in this experiment, that all other religions and denominations have been covered.  REALLY?  I didn’t see any Evangelical pastors named as participants.  Maybe they knew that asking Franklin Graham or JD Farag to take part in this bizarre experiment would have been futile. They would have been right.

From theguardian.com

A Catholic priest, a Rabbi and a Buddhist walk into a bar and order some magic mushrooms. It may sound like the first line of a bad joke, but this scenario is playing out in one of the first scientific investigations into the effects of psychedelic drugs on religious experience – albeit in a laboratory rather than a bar.

Scientists at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore have enlisted two dozen religious leaders from a wide range of denominations, to participate in a study in which they will be given two powerful doses of psilocybin, the active ingredient in magic mushrooms.

Dr William Richards, a psychologist at Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore, Maryland who is involved in the work, said: “With psilocybin these profound mystical experiences are quite common. It seemed like a no-brainer that they might be of interest, if not valuable, to clergy.”

Despite most organised religions frowning on the use of illicit substances, Catholic, Orthodox and Presbyterian priests, a Zen Buddhist and several rabbis were recruited. The team has yet to persuade a Muslim imam or Hindu priest to take part, but “just about all the other bases are covered,” according to Richards.

After preliminary screening, including medical and psychological tests, the participants have been given two powerful doses of psilocybin in two sessions, one month apart.

The sessions will be conducted in a living room-like setting at New York University and Johns Hopkins in Baltimore with two “guides” present. The participants will be given the drug and then spend time lying on a couch, wearing eyeshades and listening to religious music on headphones to augment their inward spiritual journey.

A full analysis of the outcomes will take place after a one-year follow-up with the participants, whose identities are being kept anonymous. “It is too early to talk about results, but generally people seem to be getting a deeper appreciation of their own religious heritage,” he said. “The dead dogma comes alive for them in a meaningful way. They discover they really believe this stuff they’re talking about.”

There is also a suggestion that after their psychedelic journey, the leaders’ notions of religion shifted away from the sectarian towards something more universal. “They get a greater appreciation for other world religions. Other ways up the mountain, if you will,” said Richards.

“In these transcendental states of consciousness, people seem to get to levels of consciousness that seem universal,” he added. “So a good rabbi can encounter the Buddha within him.”

The notion that hallucinogenic drugs can bring about mystical experiences is not new and was previously studied in a famous Harvard study known as the “Good Friday experiment”. The study involved a group of seminary scholars being given psilocybin during the Easter-season service to see how it altered their experience of the liturgy. The latest work is thought to be the first involving religious leaders from different faiths.

Is this work really science, though? Richards argues that it is, saying that the team is using detailed psychology questionnaires and independent raters in their assessments.

The John Hopkins team are one of several research groups around the world making the case for using psychedelic drugs, such as psilocybin, LSD and MDMA, in psychiatry. Psilocybin has been shown to be remarkably effective at lifting acute anxiety in cancer patients at the end of life, while other current trials are looking at the use of psychoactive drugs in treating conditions ranging from post-traumatic stress disorder to severe depression and alcoholism.

Ben Sessa, a clinical psychiatrist and researcher at Imperial College London, has urged journalists to focus on the “rigorous science”. “Are you going to focus on the tie-dye and the dreads … or are you going to look at the cutting-edge neuroscience here?” he asked. “I can’t tell you how to do your job, but if I was you, I’d not look back to the past, I’d look to the future.”

Others are more openly enthusiastic about the broader, non-medical, uses of psychedelic drugs. “My wild fantasy is that, probably some time after I’m long dead, these drugs are used in seminary training, rabbinical training,” said Richards, who began research into psychedelics in the 1960s. “Why shouldn’t the opportunity be there to explore deeply spiritual states of consciousness in a legal way?” – source

 ^“For the invisible things of him from the creation of the world are clearly seen, being understood by the things that are made, even his eternal power and Godhead; so that they are without excuse:  Because that, when they knew God, they glorified him not as God, neither were thankful; but became vain in their imaginations, and their foolish heart was darkened. Professing themselves to be wise, they became fools“     (Romans 1:20-22)   (emphasis added)

MARANATHA!

If one was to research the history of the popes of the Vatican, eyes would be opened to the evil and the horrors of this demonic institution.  I  will not go into those corruptions through the centuries, but the so-called “Faithful” need to know that the place they call “Holy” is anything but.

The Bible Never Insisted on Celebacy

Paul spoke of this subject and when he did, he said that if a person could be celebate, then it would be good for his ministry. He would be able to devote more time to the Lord if he did not have the cares of a wife and family. But he also said this:

“For I would that all men were even as I myself. But every man hath his proper gift of God, one after this manner, and another after that I say therefore to the unmarried and widows, it is good for them if they abide even as I. But if they cannot contain, let them marry: for it is better to marry than to burn” (1Corinthians 7: 7-9). (emphasis added)

The Catholic Church has little regard for God’s Word

Through the centuries, many man-made rules were established by the Vatican. One of these rules was that all Catholic priests need to be celibate.  Through these last decades, we have witnessed horrific sexual sin by priests against children. I would assume that there is “Nothing new under the sun” so therefore it makes me wonder how long these devilish practices have transpired in this church.

But the Catholic church, by and large, has traded the written Word of God for their own ordinances. And this has led to unspeakable sin and broken lives of thousands of people.

In these last days

The newest revelations of priests and their homosexuality and drug use has surfaced.  How can the so-called “faithful” turn a blind eye to the horrific behavior of leadership?

From lifesitenews.com

High-ranking priest caught in cocaine-fueled gay orgy in Vatican apartment

ROME, July 5, 2017 (LifeSiteNews) — A high-ranking Vatican monsignor who is a secretary to one of Pope Francis’ closest collaborators was arrested by Vatican police after they caught him hosting a cocaine-fueled homosexual orgy in a building right next to St. Peter’s Basilica.

Monsignor Luigi Capozzi, 49, was caught by Vatican gendarmerie in a raid some two months ago that took place in the former Palace of the Holy Office.

While the top Vatican officials have been mute about the raid, Italian media broke the story last week after receiving inside information.

Vatican police allegedly caught the monsignor, whom Italian media called an “ardent supporter of Pope Francis,” after tenants in the building complained repeatedly about constant comings and goings of visitors to the building during all hours of the night. The building is currently being used by various high-ranking churchmen, including prefects, presidents, and secretaries to the Roman Curia.

Capozzi, who on his LinkedIn page calls himself an “expert in canon law and dogmatic theology,” managed to evade suspicion from Italian police by using a BMW luxury car with license plates of the Holy See, which made him practically immune to stops and searches. This privilege, usually reserved for high-ranking prelates, allowed the monsignor to transport cocaine for his frequent homosexual orgies without being stopped by the Italian police.

Italian news service Il Fato Quotidiano wrote that the building’s separate entrance into Vatican City from outside the Vatican walls made it “perfect” for clandestine activity.

“Its main entrance, in fact, opens out directly onto the piazza of the Holy Office that is already Italian territory and is outside of the control of the Swiss Guard and of the Gendarmerie. Anyone, by day and by night, can freely enter into the Vatican by this entry without undergoing any inspection and without, of course, being put on record. A perfect location to enjoy the privileges of extraterritoriality but without having to be subject either to the inspections of the Italian State or to those of Vatican City,” the news service wrote.

At the time of the arrest, Capozzi was allegedly so high on cocaine that he was hospitalized for detoxification for a short period in the Pius XI clinic in Rome. He is currently in an undisclosed convent in Italy undergoing a spiritual retreat, Italian media reported.

“One thinks one is dreaming: in the most deplorable of ways, the Rome of today seems to have fallen lower than the Rome of the Borgias,” reported Riposte Catholique.

Capozzi’s arrest comes on the verge of him being appointed a bishop on the recommendation of his superior Cardinal Francesco Coccopalmerio, the Vatican’s top canonical official.

Coccopalmerio, President of the Pontifical Council for the Interpretation of Legal Texts, is one of Pope Francis’ closest collaborators and ardent supporters.

Earlier this year, the Vatican’s own publishing house released a book by the Cardinal with much fanfare that defended Francis’s 2016 Exhortation Amoris Laetitia as allowing civilly-divorced-and-remarried Catholics living in adultery as well as unmarried cohabiting Catholics living in fornication to receive Holy Communion. Coccopalmerio maintained that the book was his own personal reflection on the matter and carried no legislative weight.

The Cardinal later defended his interpretation of Amoris, even though it contradicted perennial Catholic teaching, stating that what he wrote was no different from conversations he had had with the Pope on the subject.

“I spoke with the Pope at other times about these questions, and we always thought the same,” he said.

Coccopalmerio’s book was later praised by U.S. Cardinal Blase Cupich, who, in a foreword to the English edition of the book, said that it “fully complies with traditional Church teaching on marriage but is also in conformity with accepted standards of a pastoral approach that is positive and constructive.”

The fact that it was Coccopalmerio’s trusted secretary who was behind the orgies makes the Cardinal’s past declarations on the “positive elements” of gay couples take on pressing significance.

In a 2014 interview with Rossoporpora, the Cardinal said that while homosexual relationships are deemed “illicit” by the Church, Catholic leaders, such as himself, must “emphasize” the “positive realities” that he said are present in homosexual relationships.

“If I meet a homosexual couple, I notice immediately that their relationship is illicit: the doctrine says this, which I reaffirm with absolute certainty. However, if I stop at the doctrine, I don’t look anymore at the persons. But if I see that the two persons truly love each other, do acts of charity to those in need, for example … then I can also say that, although the relationship remains illicit, positive elements also emerge in the two persons. Instead of closing our eyes to such positive realities, I emphasize them. It is to be objective and objectively recognize the positive of a certain relationship, of itself illicit,” he said at that time.

When the interviewer noted that some attendees at the Synod on the Family were tending in such a direction towards homosexuals, Coccopalmerio agreed. He then immediately went on to criticize those who feared that “valuing the positive elements” of homosexual relationships would be “undermining” the Church’s doctrine on marriage and sexuality, saying such a conclusion was “problematic.”

Bishop Athanasius Schneider of Kazakhstan highlighted in a talk given in Washinton D.C. last October the moral principle that “heresy” always goes hand-in-hand with an “unchaste life.” Where there is heresy, there is also sexual immorality, he said.