Pro-Abortion Groups Mobilize to Overturn US/Mexico City Policy
by Austin Ruse
Catholic Family and Human Rights Institute

Editors’ Note: Austin Ruse writes a weekly column which watchdogs international policy that impacts the family. This week he highlights the massive campaign being mounted by pro-abortion groups to fight President Bush’s denying use of US money to fund abortions overseas.

Radical non-governmental organizations are mounting a united and concentrated attack on President George Bush for denying use of US money for their international efforts to spread abortion. By reenacting the Mexico City policy with his first executive order, Bush has so enraged pro-abortion groups that they are mounting an offensive aimed at discrediting his presidency and promoting their own pro-abortion agenda. The Mexico City policy ends US support for family planning programs overseas if they promote or perform abortions.

The Center for Reproductive Law and Policy (CRLP) complains in its monthly column

REXBURG, ID — A new academic building to be named in honor of Ricks College founder Thomas E. Ricks was announced Saturday during commencement exercises at the Rexburg college.

During the final April commencement at Ricks College before it becomes known as Brigham Young University-Idaho, President David A. Bednar announced the new classroom building will be constructed on the southeast side of campus near the demonstration gardens. The exact location of the building has not yet been determined.

The entire area will be called the Thomas E. Ricks Building and Gardens. “It is most appropriate that this new academic building and beautiful garden area bear the name of Thomas E. Ricks as a lasting tribute to his valiant and pioneering educational efforts,” Bednar said. Ricks lived from 1828 to 1901 and was the founder of the Latter-day Saint settlement in 1883 that was named Rexburg and the stake president when …

A Letter from the Highlands, May 2001
by Anne Perry

This is going to be a different sort of letter because it is written in stages from different places. I am beginning in the middle of the month, Easter Sunday, sitting in my cabin on the Queen Elizabeth 2, crossing from Southampton to New York, first day at sea.

It has been an odd month so far, full of ups and downs, and I suppose if this is to the least bit honest, it must include the down as well, or the ups would be of no value. If we have not truth, have we anything real at all? We do not need every thought or feeling, because sometimes the moment after they are expressed we feel differently, and wish we had not burdened other people with them. Perhaps it was only a cry of pain or doubt, anger or

TEMPLE SQUARE – Two hundred years after Brigham Young’s birth, a celebration of his life and accomplishments will be held 1 June at 7:30 p.m. in the Tabernacle on Temple Square. President Gordon B. Hinckley will host the event and speak. A descendant of Brigham Young also will speak during the program. The Mormon Tabernacle Choir will perform several musical numbers.

Friends and members of The Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints are invited to the event. Free tickets will be available at 10:00 a.m. Tuesday, 1 May, at the Conference Center ticket office, door #4. Because the Tabernacle has limited seating, tickets will be given on a first-come, first-served basis for persons eight years and older. The ticket office will provide a maximum of four tickets per person in line.

Ticket holders are encouraged to be seated no later than 6:45 p.m. A small number of people from …

I’m Going on a Mission!
edited by Peggy Proctor

Most young men in the church, plan and dream all their lives for the time to come when they can go on a full time mission. They watch “boys” go out into the field and they see strong, confident young men return home. Paul Christian was not unlike the others. He was a sensitive and obedient boy; he wanted to go on a mission, his two older siblings had gone, but Paul didn’t want to go off to some exotic far flung corner of the globe. He preferred to go somewhere state side [closer to home]. Going across the ocean would be like going to another planet. I don’t know if he thought the umbilical cord wouldn’t reach that far or just that his tender heart would break if he knew that he couldn’t see our chimney from his rooftop.

Paul’s

Re-valu-ing the Family, Part Seventeen: The Cure and Recommitment
by Richard and Linda Eyre
(www.valuesparenting.com)

Note: In this twenty-six part column, Richard and Linda Eyre explore the recent revolution of the family from the honored centerpiece of society to a disrespected and seemingly redundant appendage to the larger corporate and cultural institutions of our new world. Re-valu-ing the family, the Eyres believe, is the only alternative to America’s demise. The sequence of the column is: A. Re-valu-ing the family (part I); B. The “crux” (parts 2 and 3 — why family is the foundation for everything, including happiness); C. The “curse” (parts 4 and 5 — the social problems that plague our society today); D. The “crisis” (parts 6 and 7 — the breakdown and breakup of families that allows and leads to the social problems); E. The “cause” (parts 8, 9, 10, 11 — the reasons our

Celestial Witnesses of Christ Breaking the Bands of Death
by John P. Pratt

Celestial witnesses testify of the accuracy of the New Testament account that Christ broke the bands of death on Easter Sunday, 3 April, A.D. 33. The two morning stars, Venus and Mercury, appeared to be cutting one of the bands in the “Bands of Death” constellation, while the other was being severed by the slowest moving hand on the great Celestial Clock.

The scriptures teach that all things in the heavens testify of Jesus Christ (Moses 6:63). The last two articles in this series have shown how the Venus calendar and the Native American Sacred Round calendars witness to his divinity. This article completes the series by discussing how even the stars themselves act as celestial witnesses to the Resurrection, and even of the New Testament date for that glorious event on Sunday, April 3, A.D. 33.

The Silas Marner Miracle
by Marilyn Green Faulkner

Have you had a life-changing miracle? Share your experience with Meridian’s Best Books Club.

Silas Marner, the lonely miser, returns to his shack one day to find that his precious gold has been stolen from under the hearth of his home. Since the betrayal of his friends and the decline of his faith, the hoarding of gold has become Silas’s reason for being, and the loss of his treasure literally paralyzes him. Standing at the door of his cabin pondering the theft he is seized with a fit of epilepsy and for a crucial moment remains frozen in the “chasm of his consciousnessholding open his door, powerless to resist either the good or evil that might enter there.” (110) In the moment that the door of his home, and his soul, stand wide open, the miracle enters that changes his life

Staying Spotless in a Sea of Slime – Part 4
by Clark L and Kathryn H. Kidd

Just as you do in other areas, it is important that you trust family members to follow your computer rules until they have proven they cannot. Let them know what the rules are, remind them of the rules when appropriate, and then expect them to follow the guidelines. As we mentioned in our last column, we strongly encourage you to draw up a contact of behavior that family members are expected to abide by – and then have each family member sign that contract as an agreement to live by the rules.

Once the contract is signed, give family members the benefit of the doubt, but keep your eyes open at the same time. Human beings – even your family members – are subject to temptation. Your family members may run into Internet

The Truman Show
by Karl Bowman and Jonathan Walker

Ever had the feeling that someone was watching you? Like 5 billion people?

At birth, an entertainment company adopts Truman Burbank (Jim Carrey) to “star” in a television show documenting every moment of his life. The show’s producer, Christof (Ed Harris), fabricates a whole world in an effort to evoke honest human behavior from the unwitting Truman. A series of suspicious events cause Truman to suspect that life is not what it seems and he embarks on a quest for the truth.

Certainly one of the best films of the last few years, The Truman Show has the additional distinction of a powerful, affirming theme. In some ways, it even works as a spiritual allegory for our own lives.

Christof: “Cue the sun!“

As creator of Truman’s world, Christof controls the sun, the weather, the water, and even