With the blessing of his leader Pope Francis, Andrew Cuomo, crusader, closes Nassau otb, a public benefit corporation, on Roman Catholic Easter Sunday in preference to the day the Eastern Orthodox church observes Easter sunday! Death to all infidels and any "Christian" who does not believe as Andrew Cuomo does.
New York does not tolerate freedom of religion.
NEW YORK - The New York City Off-Track Betting Corporation defied an order by state regulators to close its parlors on Sunday and now faces fines or other sanctions.
The offtrack betting company, which is owned by New York City, opened 37 of its 75 branches on Sunday in defiance of the New York State Racing and Wagering Board's opinion that parimutuel betting at OTB parlors on Palm Sunday is illegal. Handle at the sites was $1.7 million, compared to OTB's average daily Sunday handle of $2.5 million, according to OTB officials. OTB also took wagers through its telephone and Internet betting operation.
A New York state racing law passed in 1973 prohibits racing associations from holding races and taking bets on three Christian holidays: Palm Sunday, Easter Sunday, and Christmas. Although offtrack betting corporations are not mentioned specifically, the state's six offtrack betting companies had never before opened on those days.
The law has been criticized by racing fans and some racing officials as being archaic. But racing associations and OTB companies have been reluctant to question the law in public under concern that religious groups would be offended.
John Van Lindt, the executive vice president for New York City OTB, said that the law did not apply to offtrack betting companies. He also said that New York City OTB was under pressure to increase revenues to the city because of the budget crisis and the poor winter weather that has wreaked havoc with racing schedules along the Eastern seaboard.
"Our counsel could not find anything in the law that said it was illegal, and with the way things are in the city financially, we have to try to make as much money as we can," Van Lindt said.
According to Stacy Clifford, a spokeswoman for the New York State Racing and Wagering Board, officials from New York City OTB notified the board on Thursday that the company would take bets on Sunday. In response, Bob Feuerstein, the board's counsel, sent a letter to the company on Friday stating that "NYCOTB is prohibited from conducting parimutuel wagering" on Sunday and the other holidays and that "disregard of this prohibition will subject NYCOTB to potential fines and other sanctions authorized by law."
Clifford said the board has not yet decided how to punish the OTB company for opening on Sunday. She said the law allows the board to fine the company "$5,000 for each offense" or to lodge other sanctions, but she said she could not be specific. She said regulators have not determined whether Sunday's action constituted multiple offenses.
"We're looking at the situation now and discussing all of our options thoroughly," Clifford said.
Clifford also said that OTB officials have told regulators that they plan to take bets on Easter Sunday as well.
Van Lindt, however, said that New York City OTB has not yet decided whether to open on Easter. "There is no plan either way," Van Lindt said. "We are still evaluating how the day went."
Van Lindt said that Sunday was probably a profitable day for the company, considering half of the OTB's branches were closed and handle was more than half the average.
The law prohibiting racing on the Christian holidays has become seemingly more archaic due to the explosion of other wagering opportunities for horseplayers through telephone accounts and Internet companies. No out-of-state account-wagering service, for example, prohibits its New York customers from betting on the holidays.
By Angus MacKinnonFeb 5, 2016 1:16 PM
Vatican City (AFP) - Pope Francis will meet Russian Orthodox Patriarch Kirill in Cuba next week in a historic first meeting between the heads of the two largest Christian churches, the Vatican announced Friday.
The gathering will be the first of its kind since a schism in the 11th Century split Christianity into Western and Eastern branches.
The two wings have been estranged ever since with each maintaining for centuries that they are the true heritors of the early Christian church established by the apostles of Jesus Christ.
Relations have warmed of late between Rome and other branches of the Orthodox tradition, but the Russian one, the most influential in the Eastern family, has maintained its distance, until now.
With Pope Francis having adopted an "any time, any place" approach since his 2013 election, the once-in-a-millennium sitdown has been set for Havana's Jose Marti International Airport on February 12.
Francis will stop over on his way to a scheduled visit to Mexico while Kirill is due on the communist island for the first leg of a February 11-22 trip to Latin America which will also take in Paraguay, Chile and Brazil.
A spokesman for the Russian church said the meeting would be principally focused on the persecution of Christians around the world and that a joint declaration would be issued after a private conversation between the two leaders.
- Ukraine fallout -
"The current situation in the Middle East, North and Central Africa and in several other regions where extremists are conducting a veritable genocide against Christian populations, requires urgent measures and real cooperation between Christian churches," the Moscow-based Church said in a statement.
"That is why, despite the obstacles, the decision to organise a meeting between Patriarch Kirill and Pope Francis was taken."
The meeting has been on the cards for some time with Francis having said in 2014 that he had told Kirill to just "call me and I'll come."
Relations between the two churches were framed by the bitter legacy of the Great Schism of 1054 and the recriminations, including mutual excommunications and the violence associated with the Crusades, that followed.
The Orthodox Church's refusal to accept the authority of the Roman pontiff has long been the primary barrier to reconciliation. In the Eastern tradition, all bishops are considered equal with church governance the responsibility of synods.
Culturally-rooted differences over forms of worship and observance, such as the eating of unleavened bread, contributed to the schism although many historians see it as having been primarily driven by the prevailing political forces.
More recently Vatican-Moscow relations have been strained by the fallout from the conflict in Ukraine.
Russian Orthodox officials have accused Catholics in Ukraine, who use Eastern forms of worship but are loyal to Rome, of both evangelism and fomenting Ukrainian nationalism.
There is also a festering dispute over the ownership of church properties confiscated from Eastern Rite Catholics during the reign of Soviet dictator Josef Stalin, some of which were reclaimed from the Russian Orthodox church following the fall of communism.
Since becoming Pope, Francis has met twice with Patriarch Bartholomew, an Istanbul-based cleric who is considered the ecumenical head of the Eastern Orthodox church but does not have the same ecclesiastical clout as Russia's Kirill.
The various Orthodox churches count some 260-300 million followers, with the Russian branch accounting for 165 million of them. In comparison, the Catholic church claims 1.2 billion members around the globe.
Francis has also made a priority of improving relations between Roman Catholicism and other religions.
He has defended Islam as a peaceful faith and the last month has seen him visit the main synagogue in Rome and announce plans to visit Sweden in October for a ecumenical service to mark next year's 500th anniversary of the Protestant reformation in Europe.
No comments:
Post a Comment