QAnon-Canada: How conspiracies like QAnon are slowly creeping into some Canadian churches - by Joel Dryden

Van Sloten said he has received criticism, hate mail and even protests outside his church over the years, and has mostly ignored instances that seemed like trolling.

But he said he's also read about the advent of the baseless conspiracy theory QAnon in American churches, and feels that churches in Canada should be carefully tracking its possible journey north.

"The Christian church has always been exposed to heresies and incorrect thinking historically from the get-go," van Sloten said. "Heresies come and heresies go, and this is the heresy du jour. And I think we ought to treat it like that."

Followers of the QAnon conspiracy theory include members from both secular and religious groups, and aren't made up specifically of those people who participate in the Christian faith.

Read more at: How conspiracies like QAnon are slowly creeping into some Canadian churches | CBC News

Papal resignation leaves Vatican with crosses to bear - by Mehdi Chebil

Some 1.2 billion Roman Catholics around the world are waiting for a new spiritual leader following Benedict XVI’s formal resignation as pope on February 28. As 115 cardinals prepare to hold a conclave to elect the new leader of one of the oldest institutions in the world, FRANCE 24 takes a look at seven crucial issues facing the Vatican.

The latest scandal to hit the Vatican involved claims of a network of senior clergymen who took part in gay sex parties and then faced blackmail. According to a report last week in the Italian daily La Repubblica, the widespread blackmail of this “gay lobby” factored heavily into Benedict XVI’s decision to resign.
The Vatican vehemently denied the allegations, slamming the “false and damaging” reports in the Italian press. But a former Dominican friar, now openly gay, said earlier this week that the issue of homosexuality was a “ticking time bomb” in the Catholic Church. “When you have this culture of secrecy and guilt and repression, you have conditions which foster the potential for blackmail and manipulation,” Mark Dowd told CNN.

Benedict XVI has been praised for condemning paedophilia more strongly than his predecessors, but critics claim that he hasn’t taken any serious steps to change the church’s culture of denial and cover-ups. The Vatican has yet to come clean regarding its response to past child sex crimes and the hierarchy’s role in silencing the victims.

At least one of the cardinals accused of covering up child sex abuse will take part in the conclave to elect the successor to Benedict XVI. The media spotlight in the United States is on Cardinal Roger Mahony, a former Los Angeles archbishop currently under judicial investigation for his alleged efforts to conceal abuses by priests from the secular authorities. A group called Catholics United gathered almost 10,000 signatures against Mahony’s participation in the next conclave.

Times are tough for secretive financial institutions, and the Vatican Bank is no exception. Documents leaked earlier this year by Benedict XVI’s former butler claimed that the Vatican was far from being in line with international standards on preventing money laundering.

Despite the Holy See’s efforts to put the lid on any shady dealings, the US State Department added the Vatican to its 2012 list of countries that merited concern for their “vulnerability” to money laundering. Infighting at the Vatican’s financial arm reached the boiling point last May, when the head of the Vatican Bank was ousted. Moments after storming out of his last bank board meeting, Gotti Tedeschi told Reuters that he had “paid the price for [promoting] transparency”.

Read more: Papal resignation leaves Vatican with crosses to bear - VATICAN - FRAN

China cracks down on doomsday rumor cult

 More than 600 members of the "Almighty God" cult across China have been detained for spreading rumors of an impending apocalypse on December 21.

The cult, established in 1990 in central China's Henan Province, has promised salvation to those who join before "doomsday."

Most of the cult members apprehended by police were detained for 5 to 10 days for disturbing social order, in accordance with the Regulations of the People's Republic of China on Administrative Penalties for Public Security.

Police have detained more than 400 "Almighty God" cult members in northwest China's Qinghai Province. A large number of leaflets, banners, computer discs, slogans, books and printing machines were seized by police.

"Advice before catastrophe: Satan's men will be extinct. Only the 'Almighty God' can save man. Anybody who resists God will go to hell," reads one leaflet.

In east China's Zhejiang Province, police have detained 58 cult members in Lanxi City. The members, aged 18 to 58, were apprehended for spreading rumors and proselytizing.

"The cult is different from other religions. They spread doomsday rumors," said Cao Wei, a police officer with the Shanghua police station of Lanxi City.

Read more: China cracks down on doomsday rumor cult[1]|chinadaily.com.cn

EU-Digest: : Is the Catholic Church a Cult?

A special report on the catholic church

Is the Catholic Church a cult?

To many Christians, the Roman Catholic Church is an enigma -- a mysterious ecclesiastical system of laws, rituals, and religious orders. For centuries there have been angry denouncements from Roman Catholics against Protestantism for the schism created by the Reformation, and from Protestants against Roman Catholicism for its theological errors and its claim to be the only one true church. Out of this controversy, charges have arisen that Roman Catholicism is not truly Christian, but is in fact, the largest and oldest "Christian" cult in the world.

The Christian Research Institute, (CRI), founded by the late Dr. Walter Martin, is regarded by many as the foremost authority on cults and the occult. The also see themselves as experts on what constitutes Biblical theology. CRI has produced position papers on Roman Catholicism, addressing some of the doctrines with which they are in disagreement. They have stopped short, however, of acknowledging Roman Catholicism as a cult. They are, in fact, adamant in their defense of Roman Catholicism as an orthodox Christian religion. In this regard, they have come against others for their insistence that Roman Catholicism meets the criteria of a cult. The Roman Catholic Church claims that salvation is by grace through the shed blood of Christ on the cross. But in practice and other teachings, how true is their affirmation of that crucial doctrine?

Historically, Roman Catholicism has maintained that Jesus merely made the way open for salvation. But to enter into that salvation, one must live in obedience to the authority of the papacy. In addition, Jesus' provision for salvation not being complete, the Church offers other means to assure one's salvation. It is through the Roman Catholic Church alone that salvation in its fullest sense can be attained.

Another sign of a cult is its exclusivity and insistence that it alone holds the authority as God's only true church. Rather than acknowledge that the true Church is comprised of individuals bound to God the Father through faith in the Lord Jesus Christ, a cult looks upon the organization itself -- that is, the hierarchical structure -- as the Church. This is true of Romanism.

Although the Roman Catholic Church admits today that God's grace is active in non-Catholic Christians, non catholics are referred to as "separated brethren" (which the Roman Church, through its ecumenical movement, hopes to some day bring into fellowship under its authority). According to Romanism, unless we acquiesce to this movement toward "unity," we remain outside the graces of the Church, regardless of how much in God's grace we live. "For it is through Christ's Catholic Church alone, which is the universal help towards salvation, that the fullness of the means of salvation can be obtained. It was to the apostolic college alone, of which Peter is the head, that we believe that Our Lord entrusted all the blessings of the New Covenant, in order to establish on earth the one Body of Christ into which all those should be fully incorporated who belong in any way to the people of God" (Vatican Council II, p. 456). "Whatever way we look at the Catholic Church the only thing one can conclude: they are a cult."