Prayercards2

"I think faith is a personal issue," pResident Bush said. "And
I take great strength from my faith. But I don't condemn somebody in the
political process because they may not agree with me on religion. The
great thing about America is that you should be allowed to worship any
way you want. And if you chose not to worship, you're equally as
patriotic as somebody who does worship. And if you choose to worship,
you're equally American if you're a Christian, a Jew, a Muslim. And
that's the wonderful thing about our country and that's the way it
should be."
--King George offering religious freedom to all

Patron Saint of Failed Marriages

QUESTION: Do you think Mrs Parker-Bowles was a factor in the breakdown of your marriage?

DIANA: Well, there were three of us in this marriage, so it was a bit crowded.

Americans United for Separation of Church and State
said evangelical Christians wield too much power.
"The close relationship between the Air Force Academy and evangelical Christianity
sends a message of exclusion to those of other faiths,"
said Rev. Barry Lynn, the group's executive director.

The Air Force academy's No. 2 officer, Brig. Gen. Johnny Weida,
is a self-described born-again Christian,
and critics say he frequently mixes religion with his official duties.

Patron Saint of Dysfunctional Families

"There is not one particle of direct evidence in this case, from beginning to end, against Lizzie Borden. There is not a spot of blood, there is not a weapon they have connected to her in any way, shape, or fashion. They have not had her hand touch it or her eye see it or her ear hear of it. There is not, I say, a particle of direct testimony in the case connecting her with the crime."

--Andrew Jennings, Lizzie's lawyer

Inter Press Service News Agency, Italy--INTERNATIONAL LABOUR DAY – ITALY:
FORGET UNIONS, TRY THIS SAINT
About half of all jobs offered in 2002 and 2003 were 'precarious,' the independent Italian social research agency Eurispes reports. This has huge social consequences, it says. "No mortgage, no family, no possibility to 'grow up.'" This "precarity" (precariousness), as the activists call it, is a European trend.
Temporary workers, part-timers, those doing shifts at McDonald's and other such stores will join the march to demand new social rights. … The protests take creative forms.
In Italy, the precarious appointed a saint to look after them -- San Precario (St. Precarious).
"San Precario, give us today our paid maternal leave,
protect all employees of commercial chains, and the angels of the call centres," they pray.

Patron Saint of Forgotten Gods

The Path that leads on is lighted by one fire - the light of daring burning in the heart. The more one dares, the more he shall obtain. -Helena Petrova Blavatsky.

In September 1877, a powerful impact was made upon the reading and thinking public by the publication of H. P. Blavatsky’s first monumental work, Isis Unveiled, which was issued by J. W. Bouton in New York City, the one thousand copies of the first printing being sold within ten days. The New York Herald-Tribune considered the work as one of the "remarkable productions of the century," many other papers and journals speaking in similar terms. Isis Unveiled outlines the history, scope, and development of the esoteric sciences, the nature and origin of magic, the roots of Christianity, the errors of Christian theology, and the fallacies of established orthodox science, against the backdrop of the secret teachings that run as a golden thread through bygone centuries, coming up to the surface every now and then in the various mystical movements of the last two thousand years or so.

Already a public figure, H. P. Blavatsky became increasingly well-known after the publication of Isis, and visitors flocked to her New York apartment, nicknamed the Lamasery, to meet the author and to witness the marvelous phenomena that she could perform or that occurred merely in her presence.

Patron Saint of Atheists and Agnostics

"There is no God. There's no heaven.
There's no hell. There are no angels.
When you die, you go in the ground,
the worms eat you."

-- Madalyn Murray O’Hair

"An atheist accepts that a hospital should be built
instead of a church."

Let’s Let Atheists back into Politics
By Mike Whitney
April 26, 2005 -- There’s simple rule for atheists and agnostics
in America; keep your head down and your mouth shut.

O’Hair told Life magazine in 1963 that it would only take one crazy person to end her life:
"These death threats are no picnic...I think sooner or later some night some nut is going to get a message from Jesus Christ
and I'm going to have had it. But as long as I'm still round I'm going to keep on being a squeaking wheel."

One of the most persistent urban legends is the story that Madalyn Murray O’Hair is petitioning the FCC to ban all religious programming. This warning is passed along by e-mail and through church bulletins and no matter how many times the American Atheists and the FCC deny the truth of the rumor, it won’t die.
The FCC reportedly has received millions of letters of protest and continues to receive them.

Patron Saint of War Orphans

As a child in St. Louis, Josephine Baker rummaged for coal behind Union Station and for food behind Soulard Market. At age 13 she waitressed at the Chauffeurs' Club on Pine Street and danced with a minstrel band. In 1925 she went to Paris with the Revue Nègre. She starred in the Folies-Bergère the next season and became one of France's best-loved entertainers. During World War II, she was a heroine of the Resistance, earning the Légion d'Honneur. A French citizen, she was an activist for civil rights in the United States. On her death in 1975, she was given an unprecedented state funeral in Paris.

During World War II Josephine Baker worked with the Red Cross, gathered intelligence for the French Resistance and entertained troops in Africa and the Middle East.
After the war, Josephine Baker adopted, with her second husband, twelve children from around the world, making her home a World Village, a "showplace for brotherhood." She returned to the stage in the 1950s to finance this project.

In 1951 in the United States, Josephine Baker was refused service at the famous Stork Club in New York City. Yelling at columnist Walter Winchell, another patron of the club, for not coming to her assistance, she was accused by Winchell of communist and fascist sympathies. Never as popular in the US as in Europe, she found herself fighting the rumors begun by Winchell as well.

Josephine Baker responded by crusading for racial equality, refusing to entertain in any club or theater that was not integrated, and thereby breaking the color bar at many establishments. In 1963, she spoke at the March on Washington at the side of Martin Luther King, jr.

Josephine Baker's World Village fell apart in the 1950s and in 1969 she was evicted from her chateau which was then auctioned off to pay debts. Princess Grace of Monaco gave her a villa. In 1973 Baker married an American, Robert Brady, and began her stage comeback.
In 1975, Josephine Baker's Carnegie Hall comeback performance was a success, as was her subsequent Paris performance. But two days after her last Paris performance, she died of a stroke.