RUSSIA 5/9/11
Moscow (AsiaNews/Agencies)- Russia is one of the most religious people in Europe. One Russian in two is Orthodox; 4 per cent are Muslim. Few are Catholic, Protestant, Jewish or Buddhist.
– The overwhelming majority of Russians (82 per cent) believe in God, this according to a survey by the Public Opinion Foundation and the Wednesday sociological service, which includes employees of the former sociological service of the synodal Department for Affairs of Youth. This makes Russia one of the most religious nations in Europe. The study was conducted with 1,500 respondents, 18 years of age or older, in 44 regions of the country.
This is astonishing. A country where atheism was taught for generations and which exported it around the world, only 13 per cent said they did not believe in God. The remaining 5 per cent said they had difficulty answering.
Twice as many men as women are atheists (68 vs 32 per cent). Nonbelievers were strong among workers and the poorest respondents ("I do not even have money for food").
Among believers, 27 per cent do not belong to any organised religion, a proportion that rises to 34 per cent for the 18 to 24 group and 38 per cent for students.
Four per cent of respondents said they were Muslim. Few are Buddhist, Catholic, Protestant or Jewish. Half of all believers said they were Russian Orthodox.
Women constitute 62 per cent of the Orthodox group against 38 per cent for men. Forty per cent lived in cities of 250,000 or more.
However, many respondents see Orthodoxy as part of their Russian identity. Only 3 per cent go to church each week (see “Ortodossia russa: identità etnica o religiosa?” in AsiaNews, 2009 3 July 2009).
Compared to another survey released by Interfax-Religiia, Wednesday’s results indicate that Russia is one of the least atheistic nations in Europe. In Switzerland, atheists represent 37 per cent of the population; in Germany, they are 31 per cent; in great Britain, they are 34 per cent, and in Belgium, 36 per cent.
Monday, May 9, 2011
It may not be late to avoid it but Threat of civil war looms over Egypt, an appeal to the international community.
EGYPT - May 9th, 2011
Cairo (AsiaNews) - The spokesman of the Catholic Churches of Egypt calls on the international community to intervene to prevent the rise of an Islamic regime. The army locks down the capital to prevent further clashes between Christians and Muslims. Those who foment religious hatred could be sentenced to death.
"Egypt is at the beginning of a great civil war. And this because of a small group of Islamic extremists who are stifling the ideals of the Jasmine Revolution, fomenting violence across the country”, Fr Rafic Greich, chief press officer for the Egyptian Catholic Church and spokesman for the seven Egyptian Catholic denominations tells AsiaNews. The priest calls on the international community to support the military led government and protect all Egyptians, Muslims and Christians, from discrimination and the advent of a fundamentalist Islamic regime.
After the clashes last May 7 between Orthodox Copts and Muslims left at 12 dead and 189 wounded, this morning the army deployed thousands of troops in the capital and suburbs. To prevent further violence, the security forces have arrested 190 people, Christians and Muslims, threatening the death penalty for all those who foment sectarian hatred.
"The situation is very critical - points out Fr. Greich - the military government is too weak and fears Islamic extremist groups like the Salafis, who are eager to create unrest and chaos everywhere. " The priest also said that the Coptic Catholic Church is in danger, even though "for now, no Catholic church was attacked." However, immediately after the attack on the church of St. Mina Imbada (north-east of Cairo), the Coptic Orthodox priest of the parish took refuge in the nearby Catholic church spared from attacks by Salafists. "During the clashes - Fr.Greiche states - the Salafists retaliated and killed a sixteen year old nephew of the local Catholic bishop, shooting him in the head."
A few months after the fall of Mubarak, the ideals of the popular uprising are in danger of being suffocated by radical Islam and counter-revolutionary attempts carried out by men of the former regime. According to Father Greich latter are using the Salafists to create a climate of terror and fear. He stresses, however, that the ideology of radical Islam is spreading even among the main, once moderate, Egyptian Muslim leaders, who are increasingly drawing closer to fringe elements, figures such as Imam Yusuf al-Qaradawi and other members of Muslim Brotherhood.
For Father Greich the popular revolution of 25 February was a great event, but to date there no are leaders who can represent its values. "On the other hand - he says - the aim of the revolution organized by the young people at Tahrir Square was not to replace one regime with another regime."
Meanwhile, AsiaNews sources in Cairo, anonymous for security reasons, explain that the lay movements born after the revolution are fighting with all their might to transform Egypt into a secular state that respects human rights. But they need the support of the international community which must strongly condemn the acts by extremists and, together with the government draw up an aid plan to help revive the Egyptian economy.
Cairo (AsiaNews) - The spokesman of the Catholic Churches of Egypt calls on the international community to intervene to prevent the rise of an Islamic regime. The army locks down the capital to prevent further clashes between Christians and Muslims. Those who foment religious hatred could be sentenced to death.
"Egypt is at the beginning of a great civil war. And this because of a small group of Islamic extremists who are stifling the ideals of the Jasmine Revolution, fomenting violence across the country”, Fr Rafic Greich, chief press officer for the Egyptian Catholic Church and spokesman for the seven Egyptian Catholic denominations tells AsiaNews. The priest calls on the international community to support the military led government and protect all Egyptians, Muslims and Christians, from discrimination and the advent of a fundamentalist Islamic regime.
After the clashes last May 7 between Orthodox Copts and Muslims left at 12 dead and 189 wounded, this morning the army deployed thousands of troops in the capital and suburbs. To prevent further violence, the security forces have arrested 190 people, Christians and Muslims, threatening the death penalty for all those who foment sectarian hatred.
"The situation is very critical - points out Fr. Greich - the military government is too weak and fears Islamic extremist groups like the Salafis, who are eager to create unrest and chaos everywhere. " The priest also said that the Coptic Catholic Church is in danger, even though "for now, no Catholic church was attacked." However, immediately after the attack on the church of St. Mina Imbada (north-east of Cairo), the Coptic Orthodox priest of the parish took refuge in the nearby Catholic church spared from attacks by Salafists. "During the clashes - Fr.Greiche states - the Salafists retaliated and killed a sixteen year old nephew of the local Catholic bishop, shooting him in the head."
A few months after the fall of Mubarak, the ideals of the popular uprising are in danger of being suffocated by radical Islam and counter-revolutionary attempts carried out by men of the former regime. According to Father Greich latter are using the Salafists to create a climate of terror and fear. He stresses, however, that the ideology of radical Islam is spreading even among the main, once moderate, Egyptian Muslim leaders, who are increasingly drawing closer to fringe elements, figures such as Imam Yusuf al-Qaradawi and other members of Muslim Brotherhood.
For Father Greich the popular revolution of 25 February was a great event, but to date there no are leaders who can represent its values. "On the other hand - he says - the aim of the revolution organized by the young people at Tahrir Square was not to replace one regime with another regime."
Meanwhile, AsiaNews sources in Cairo, anonymous for security reasons, explain that the lay movements born after the revolution are fighting with all their might to transform Egypt into a secular state that respects human rights. But they need the support of the international community which must strongly condemn the acts by extremists and, together with the government draw up an aid plan to help revive the Egyptian economy.
Faith & Reason » YouTube Heresies
Posted by Fr. Robert Barron• May 9, 2011 • Printer-friendly
The Integrated Catholic Life
[Three years] ago I began posting brief reflections on movies, music and culture on YouTube, probably the most watched Web site in the world. This exercise has resembled St. Paul's venture onto the Areopagus in Athens, preaching the Gospel amid a jumble of competing ideas. YouTube is a virtual Areopagus, where every viewpoint-from the sublime to the deeply disturbing-is on display. Never as a Catholic teacher or preacher have I addressed less of the "choir.” The most numerous responses have come to my pieces on atheism and belief. I have made a video called "Why It Makes Sense to Believe in God,” three others answering Christopher Hitchens and, the most popular, a response to Bill Maher's film "Religulous.”
YouTube viewers can post comments the hundreds I've received have been overwhelmingly negative. Some are emotionally driven and rude, but others are thoughtful and have given rise to serious exchanges. As I debate with these mostly young opponents of religion, and Catholicism in particular, I have discerned four basic patterns of opposition that block the reception of the faith. In the second century, St. Irenaeus wrote his classic Adversus Haereses (Against the Heresies) if a contemporary apologist would like to know the heresies of our time, she might consult these YouTube objections. I have identified four: scientism, ecclesial angelism, biblical fundamentalism and Marcionism.
Scientism. In the videos, I have appealed to classical and contemporary arguments for the existence of God, demonstrating that there must be a stable ground for the contingency of the world and an intelligent source for the intelligibility of the world. I am met with some version of the following assertion: Matter, or the universe as a totality, or the big bang, or "energy” is an adequate explanation of all that is. When I counter that the big bang is itself the clearest indication that the entire universe - including matter and energy - radically contingent and in need of a cause extrinsic to itself, they say that I am speaking nonsense, that science gives no evidence of God's existence. I agree, insisting that the sciences deal with realities and relationships within the world but that the Creator is, by definition, not an ingredient in the world he made.
What I am up against here is not science, but the philosophical position that reality is restricted to what the empirical sciences can measure. When one of my opponents asserted that science alone deals with reality, I informed him that he was involved in an operational self-contradiction, for he was making an unscientific remark in support of his claim. I am struck by how philosophically impoverished my YouTube interlocutors are. Though many can speak rather ably of physics or chemistry or astronomy, they are at a loss when the mode of analysis turns philosophical or metaphysical.
The second heresy I call ecclesial angelism. Repeatedly my conversation partners say: "Who are you, a Catholic priest, to be making truth claims, when your church has been guilty of so many moral outrages against the human race: the Crusades, the Inquisition, witch hunts, support of slavery and the clerical sex abuse scandal?” My arguments in favor of religious belief are not so much refuted as ignored, with a "consider the source” wave of the hand.
I respond by insisting that the existence of bad Catholics does not in itself demonstrate that Catholicism is a bad thing. A rare ally on a YouTube forum observed that the use of Einsteinian physics in the production of the nuclear weapons that killed hundreds of thousands of innocents does not amount to an argument against Einstein. As the old dictum has it, bad practice does not preclude good practice.
I do not deny the major premise of their argument. I've told them I stand with John Paul II, who spent years apologizing for the misbehavior of Catholics over the centuries. But Christians have known always that the church, as Paul put it, "holds a treasure in earthen vessels.” In its sacraments, especially the Eucharist, in its essential teachings, in its liturgy and in the lives of its saints, the church participates in the very holiness of God. But in its human dimension, it is fragile. Ecclesial angelism blurs this distinction and allows any fault of church people to undermine the church's claim to speak the truth.
A third heresy is biblical fundamentalism. I hear from my YouTube opponents that the Bible is a mishmash of "bronze-age myths” (Christopher Hitchens) and childish nonsense about talking snakes, a 5,000-year-old universe and a man living three days inside of a fish. I observe in reply that the Bible is no so much a book as a library, made up of texts from a wide variety of genres and written at different times for varying audiences. Just as one would not take "the library” literally, one should not interpret the whole Bible with one set of lenses.
My YouTube conversation partners typically fire back that I am proposing a novelty in order to respond to the attacks of modern critics. I try to steer them to Irenaeus (second c.), Origen (third c.) and Augustine (fourth c.), all of whom dealt with the complexity of the Bible through the exercise of a deft hermeneutic. Some of those who appreciate the library analogy wonder how one would decide which kind of text one is dealing with and hence which set of interpretive lenses to wear. I respond that their good question proves the legitimacy of the Catholic Church's assumption that the church-that variegated community of interpretation stretching over 20 centuries - required for effective biblical reading today. I ask, How do you know the difference between Winnie the Pooh, The Brothers Kara-mazov, the Divine Comedy, Carl Sandburg's Lincoln and Gore Vidal's Lincoln? Then I answer my own question: You have been taught by a long and disciplined tradition of interpretation. Something similar is at play in authentic biblical reading.
The fourth YouTube heresy is Marcionism, which brings us back to one of Irenaeus's principal opponents, Marcion. He held that the New Testament represented the revelation of the true God, but that the Old Testament was the revelation of a pathetic demigod marked by pettiness, jealousy and violence. This ancient heresy reappears practically intact on the YouTube forums. My interlocutors complain about the morally offensive, vain, psychotic and violent God of the Old Testament, who commands that a ban be put on cities, who orders genocide so that his people can take possession of the Promised Land, who commands that children's heads be dashed against stones. In the wake of the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, this complaint becomes more pointed. If I gesture toward the wisdom of the biblical tradition, I am met with this objection.
I urge my respondents to read the entire Bible in the light of Christ crucified and risen from the dead. I tell them of an image in the Book of Revelation of a lamb standing as though slain. When no one else in the heavenly court is able to open the scroll that symbolizes all of salvation history, the lamb alone succeeds. This indicates that the nonviolent Christ, who took upon himself the sin of the world and returned in forgiving love, is the interpretive key to the Bible. It was in this light that Origen, for example, read the texts concerning the Old Testament ban as an allegory about the struggle against sin. The bottom line is this: One should never drive a wedge between the two testaments instead, one should allow Christ to be the structuring logic of the entire Scripture.
What is blocking the preaching of the faith, especially to younger people? Many things. But I would suggest that preachers, teachers, evangelists and catechists might attend with some care to these four.
Please help us in our mission to assist readers to integrate their Catholic faith, family and work. Share this article with your family and friends via email and social media. We value your comments and encourage you to leave your thoughts below. Thank you! - The Editors
The Integrated Catholic Life
[Three years] ago I began posting brief reflections on movies, music and culture on YouTube, probably the most watched Web site in the world. This exercise has resembled St. Paul's venture onto the Areopagus in Athens, preaching the Gospel amid a jumble of competing ideas. YouTube is a virtual Areopagus, where every viewpoint-from the sublime to the deeply disturbing-is on display. Never as a Catholic teacher or preacher have I addressed less of the "choir.” The most numerous responses have come to my pieces on atheism and belief. I have made a video called "Why It Makes Sense to Believe in God,” three others answering Christopher Hitchens and, the most popular, a response to Bill Maher's film "Religulous.”
YouTube viewers can post comments the hundreds I've received have been overwhelmingly negative. Some are emotionally driven and rude, but others are thoughtful and have given rise to serious exchanges. As I debate with these mostly young opponents of religion, and Catholicism in particular, I have discerned four basic patterns of opposition that block the reception of the faith. In the second century, St. Irenaeus wrote his classic Adversus Haereses (Against the Heresies) if a contemporary apologist would like to know the heresies of our time, she might consult these YouTube objections. I have identified four: scientism, ecclesial angelism, biblical fundamentalism and Marcionism.
Scientism. In the videos, I have appealed to classical and contemporary arguments for the existence of God, demonstrating that there must be a stable ground for the contingency of the world and an intelligent source for the intelligibility of the world. I am met with some version of the following assertion: Matter, or the universe as a totality, or the big bang, or "energy” is an adequate explanation of all that is. When I counter that the big bang is itself the clearest indication that the entire universe - including matter and energy - radically contingent and in need of a cause extrinsic to itself, they say that I am speaking nonsense, that science gives no evidence of God's existence. I agree, insisting that the sciences deal with realities and relationships within the world but that the Creator is, by definition, not an ingredient in the world he made.
What I am up against here is not science, but the philosophical position that reality is restricted to what the empirical sciences can measure. When one of my opponents asserted that science alone deals with reality, I informed him that he was involved in an operational self-contradiction, for he was making an unscientific remark in support of his claim. I am struck by how philosophically impoverished my YouTube interlocutors are. Though many can speak rather ably of physics or chemistry or astronomy, they are at a loss when the mode of analysis turns philosophical or metaphysical.
The second heresy I call ecclesial angelism. Repeatedly my conversation partners say: "Who are you, a Catholic priest, to be making truth claims, when your church has been guilty of so many moral outrages against the human race: the Crusades, the Inquisition, witch hunts, support of slavery and the clerical sex abuse scandal?” My arguments in favor of religious belief are not so much refuted as ignored, with a "consider the source” wave of the hand.
I respond by insisting that the existence of bad Catholics does not in itself demonstrate that Catholicism is a bad thing. A rare ally on a YouTube forum observed that the use of Einsteinian physics in the production of the nuclear weapons that killed hundreds of thousands of innocents does not amount to an argument against Einstein. As the old dictum has it, bad practice does not preclude good practice.
I do not deny the major premise of their argument. I've told them I stand with John Paul II, who spent years apologizing for the misbehavior of Catholics over the centuries. But Christians have known always that the church, as Paul put it, "holds a treasure in earthen vessels.” In its sacraments, especially the Eucharist, in its essential teachings, in its liturgy and in the lives of its saints, the church participates in the very holiness of God. But in its human dimension, it is fragile. Ecclesial angelism blurs this distinction and allows any fault of church people to undermine the church's claim to speak the truth.
A third heresy is biblical fundamentalism. I hear from my YouTube opponents that the Bible is a mishmash of "bronze-age myths” (Christopher Hitchens) and childish nonsense about talking snakes, a 5,000-year-old universe and a man living three days inside of a fish. I observe in reply that the Bible is no so much a book as a library, made up of texts from a wide variety of genres and written at different times for varying audiences. Just as one would not take "the library” literally, one should not interpret the whole Bible with one set of lenses.
My YouTube conversation partners typically fire back that I am proposing a novelty in order to respond to the attacks of modern critics. I try to steer them to Irenaeus (second c.), Origen (third c.) and Augustine (fourth c.), all of whom dealt with the complexity of the Bible through the exercise of a deft hermeneutic. Some of those who appreciate the library analogy wonder how one would decide which kind of text one is dealing with and hence which set of interpretive lenses to wear. I respond that their good question proves the legitimacy of the Catholic Church's assumption that the church-that variegated community of interpretation stretching over 20 centuries - required for effective biblical reading today. I ask, How do you know the difference between Winnie the Pooh, The Brothers Kara-mazov, the Divine Comedy, Carl Sandburg's Lincoln and Gore Vidal's Lincoln? Then I answer my own question: You have been taught by a long and disciplined tradition of interpretation. Something similar is at play in authentic biblical reading.
The fourth YouTube heresy is Marcionism, which brings us back to one of Irenaeus's principal opponents, Marcion. He held that the New Testament represented the revelation of the true God, but that the Old Testament was the revelation of a pathetic demigod marked by pettiness, jealousy and violence. This ancient heresy reappears practically intact on the YouTube forums. My interlocutors complain about the morally offensive, vain, psychotic and violent God of the Old Testament, who commands that a ban be put on cities, who orders genocide so that his people can take possession of the Promised Land, who commands that children's heads be dashed against stones. In the wake of the terrorist attacks on Sept. 11, 2001, this complaint becomes more pointed. If I gesture toward the wisdom of the biblical tradition, I am met with this objection.
I urge my respondents to read the entire Bible in the light of Christ crucified and risen from the dead. I tell them of an image in the Book of Revelation of a lamb standing as though slain. When no one else in the heavenly court is able to open the scroll that symbolizes all of salvation history, the lamb alone succeeds. This indicates that the nonviolent Christ, who took upon himself the sin of the world and returned in forgiving love, is the interpretive key to the Bible. It was in this light that Origen, for example, read the texts concerning the Old Testament ban as an allegory about the struggle against sin. The bottom line is this: One should never drive a wedge between the two testaments instead, one should allow Christ to be the structuring logic of the entire Scripture.
What is blocking the preaching of the faith, especially to younger people? Many things. But I would suggest that preachers, teachers, evangelists and catechists might attend with some care to these four.
Please help us in our mission to assist readers to integrate their Catholic faith, family and work. Share this article with your family and friends via email and social media. We value your comments and encourage you to leave your thoughts below. Thank you! - The Editors
Thursday, April 28, 2011
Two wrong uses of Reason: underestimating the powerful role of Faith and overestimating the role of economic determinism.
Proponents of nebulous relativism have made two fatal miscalculations: first, they have underestimated the powerful role of Faith in the development of a universal culture, permanence of order and peace in society; and, second, they have overestimated the role of economic determinism in the cultural transformation of societies.
Women’s Opinions - What is for a woman a "mature real man"?.
by Natalio A. Yaria
This article is not the result of an academic research; nor does it pretend to be an exhaustive report, or a breakthrough, nor a contribution to the subject of young couples’ sexual behavior today. It is a summary report on group conversations and individual interviews that I organized and conducted with about 60 women from Europe, the United States, and Latin America, evenly distributed, who had started their sexual relationships between 1995 and 2000 at ages 15 and 20 with men a few years older. They were between the ages of 25 and 35 when I interviewed them during 2010 in Buenos Aires, Argentina. All of them were born between 1974 and 1979.
Because of the subject matter, it wasn’t easy to organize the individual interviews and groups. I received the help of many friends and I felt then, as I still do now, that the importance of the subject is not what these young couples did or do, but what the consequences and causes of what they do. I met them individually in cafes and restaurants and in groups of 15 at friends’ offices and schools’ conference rooms.
Here is my report:
My first reaction to these interviews is that, in the last ten years, while other more traditional women were happy to fall in love with a man who could be a good husband and father to their children, another group of women, 60 of them, that I will call the “Beautiful Princesses,” accepted “to experiment on a new way of life” and tried to seduce, or were seduced, by the equivalent of what I will call the “Blue Prince.”
The Blue Prince, as described by these women, is apparently a very self-confident handsome man, with good physical appearance, sometimes bearded, tattooed and casually dressed. In addition, while he seems to exhibit his masculinity with women, he constantly tries to emanate the image of “a modern man.” He would be the prototype of a man who believes that moral values are relative to each individual and , thus, there is no good or bad in this world; who enjoys entertainment nights drinking liquor, hard rock, sex and sometimes drugs; who is an assiduous traveler generally coming from a middle or upper income family; and who usually appears to be pleasing, proper, and of a good heart - but who sooner than later reveals to be immature, selfish, irresponsible, and a social parasite.
The majority of the Beautiful Princesses that tried to “seduce a seducer” suffered painful disappointments while trying to change the behavior of the Blue Prince and wasting years in unattainable dreams. In simpler terms, the lessons learned after their experiences are as follows:
1.The Blue Prince always promises to love, to be loyal and to provide protection; then the Beautiful Princess agrees to live together with the Blue Prince;
2.The Blue Prince always fades away after the first or second washing;
3. The Beautiful Princess ends up having to protect herself from the Blue Prince; and
4. As in the fairy tale - the Beautiful Princess becomes a witch, the Blue Prince turns into a frog, and if there are children, products of their relationship, they may become the real victims of their parents’ transgressions.
The second finding seems to indicate that these women have developed a generalized cynical perception of men:
1. if he is not married, he can be an unbearable bachelor; or
2. if he is separated from his wife, he is usually depressed; or
3. if he is divorced, he has been transformed into a cynical and bitter person.
To this vision should be added that these women are concerned that more men are openly declaring their homosexuality, which doesn’t include those with similar hidden preferences.
The third finding suggests that these women want to find and fall in love again with what they call a mature real man. Half of these women believe that “it is not true that there are fewer men available today”; what happens is that “women are demanding for themselves much more than they did before” which makes their search more difficult. However, the other half of the surveyed women – even if they agree with the second part of the statement - are more prone to accept with concern and resignation that a mature real man is becoming a “very scarce commodity.”
The fourth finding points out that, because of the complex personal characteristics and experiences that led these women to accept such relationships, they are in need of professional advice and family support to help them.
The fifth conclusion is that 82% of the women interviewed believe that their most important task is to reassess their moral principles while almost 70% believe that reestablishing “old fashion values” will aid them to avoid making the same mistakes. Almost 95% agree that they must avoid transferring their pains and resentments to new and more solid relationships with other mature real men in the future.
What do the majority of these women want from what they call a mature real man today?
1.To be of the same religion, to practice it, and to have sex after marriage;
2.To be solid on principles and values, but somehow flexible;
3.To be economically solid, but not to work the whole day;
4.To be generous to his family and those in real need, but not a squanderer;
5.To be at home, but not the whole day;
6.To be neat and clean, but not obsess by order and cleanliness;
7.To be attractive to other women, but not a womanizer;
8.To be a good lover and ready when both are ready;
9.To be protective, but no suffocating;
10.To be touched by the pain of others, but his brains controlling his feelings;
11.To be sociable, but friends will come after his wife and family;
12.To show his love and to be romantic, but not in excess;
13.To sleep together every night;
14.To comply with the family, but not to let his relatives influence him;and
15.To avoid being jealous, but never indifferent.
((()))
My conclusions:
The behavior of both, the Beautiful Princess as well as the Blue Prince, are mostly the direct result of the influence of those who methodically and relentlessly try to replace Judeo-Christian values with the noxious interest in sexual matters rooted in the modern secularism of the 1960’s and 1970’s.
Both are the victims of the more immoral and disreputable characters whose intent was to make people learn or assimilate things, often without fully understanding them. Many of the women interviewed have come to the conclusion that their naiveté, and some degree of arrogance, had left them without defenses falling into the trap that Truth is relative and the Ten Commandments are just old fashion suggestions.
The consequences of accepting the principles of modern secularism should not be a surprise to anybody; for it requires setting aside the moral values and principles of their faith outside of certain activities. Their aim to separate Faith from Reason has resulted in the modern farce of being unscientific and incongruous; this modern farce has ripped this younger generation apart, effectively and purposely removing it from the moral values and principles where it had been firmly set.
This observable fact is not an isolated event. For instance, there is an attempt by modern secularism to propose that the Holy Bible should be relativized, to be dissolved in religious pluralism with the purpose of making it disappear as a cultural normative reference. Throughout history many have tried it from outside the Church - and within it - and failed; suffice to mention Stalin and his emissaries’ attempts in different places around the world in the recent past.
The Prefect of the Congregation for Bishops of the Catholic Church, Cardinal Marc Ouellet said that this crisis "has also penetrated inside the Church, as some new exegesis (biblical interpretation) has taken over the Bible to dissect the various stages and forms of human composition, removing the miracles and wonders multiplying the hypotheses, and seeding, not infrequently, the confusion among the faithful."
The intellectual leaders and followers of modern secularism have succeeded in camouflaging themselves behind the so-called “freedom of expression” and “individuality.” Using a collaborative press and media, they have massively fed this young unperceptive generation with this way of life. Given a choice other than modern secularism they may have rejected it.
This article is not the result of an academic research; nor does it pretend to be an exhaustive report, or a breakthrough, nor a contribution to the subject of young couples’ sexual behavior today. It is a summary report on group conversations and individual interviews that I organized and conducted with about 60 women from Europe, the United States, and Latin America, evenly distributed, who had started their sexual relationships between 1995 and 2000 at ages 15 and 20 with men a few years older. They were between the ages of 25 and 35 when I interviewed them during 2010 in Buenos Aires, Argentina. All of them were born between 1974 and 1979.
Because of the subject matter, it wasn’t easy to organize the individual interviews and groups. I received the help of many friends and I felt then, as I still do now, that the importance of the subject is not what these young couples did or do, but what the consequences and causes of what they do. I met them individually in cafes and restaurants and in groups of 15 at friends’ offices and schools’ conference rooms.
Here is my report:
My first reaction to these interviews is that, in the last ten years, while other more traditional women were happy to fall in love with a man who could be a good husband and father to their children, another group of women, 60 of them, that I will call the “Beautiful Princesses,” accepted “to experiment on a new way of life” and tried to seduce, or were seduced, by the equivalent of what I will call the “Blue Prince.”
The Blue Prince, as described by these women, is apparently a very self-confident handsome man, with good physical appearance, sometimes bearded, tattooed and casually dressed. In addition, while he seems to exhibit his masculinity with women, he constantly tries to emanate the image of “a modern man.” He would be the prototype of a man who believes that moral values are relative to each individual and , thus, there is no good or bad in this world; who enjoys entertainment nights drinking liquor, hard rock, sex and sometimes drugs; who is an assiduous traveler generally coming from a middle or upper income family; and who usually appears to be pleasing, proper, and of a good heart - but who sooner than later reveals to be immature, selfish, irresponsible, and a social parasite.
The majority of the Beautiful Princesses that tried to “seduce a seducer” suffered painful disappointments while trying to change the behavior of the Blue Prince and wasting years in unattainable dreams. In simpler terms, the lessons learned after their experiences are as follows:
1.The Blue Prince always promises to love, to be loyal and to provide protection; then the Beautiful Princess agrees to live together with the Blue Prince;
2.The Blue Prince always fades away after the first or second washing;
3. The Beautiful Princess ends up having to protect herself from the Blue Prince; and
4. As in the fairy tale - the Beautiful Princess becomes a witch, the Blue Prince turns into a frog, and if there are children, products of their relationship, they may become the real victims of their parents’ transgressions.
The second finding seems to indicate that these women have developed a generalized cynical perception of men:
1. if he is not married, he can be an unbearable bachelor; or
2. if he is separated from his wife, he is usually depressed; or
3. if he is divorced, he has been transformed into a cynical and bitter person.
To this vision should be added that these women are concerned that more men are openly declaring their homosexuality, which doesn’t include those with similar hidden preferences.
The third finding suggests that these women want to find and fall in love again with what they call a mature real man. Half of these women believe that “it is not true that there are fewer men available today”; what happens is that “women are demanding for themselves much more than they did before” which makes their search more difficult. However, the other half of the surveyed women – even if they agree with the second part of the statement - are more prone to accept with concern and resignation that a mature real man is becoming a “very scarce commodity.”
The fourth finding points out that, because of the complex personal characteristics and experiences that led these women to accept such relationships, they are in need of professional advice and family support to help them.
The fifth conclusion is that 82% of the women interviewed believe that their most important task is to reassess their moral principles while almost 70% believe that reestablishing “old fashion values” will aid them to avoid making the same mistakes. Almost 95% agree that they must avoid transferring their pains and resentments to new and more solid relationships with other mature real men in the future.
What do the majority of these women want from what they call a mature real man today?
1.To be of the same religion, to practice it, and to have sex after marriage;
2.To be solid on principles and values, but somehow flexible;
3.To be economically solid, but not to work the whole day;
4.To be generous to his family and those in real need, but not a squanderer;
5.To be at home, but not the whole day;
6.To be neat and clean, but not obsess by order and cleanliness;
7.To be attractive to other women, but not a womanizer;
8.To be a good lover and ready when both are ready;
9.To be protective, but no suffocating;
10.To be touched by the pain of others, but his brains controlling his feelings;
11.To be sociable, but friends will come after his wife and family;
12.To show his love and to be romantic, but not in excess;
13.To sleep together every night;
14.To comply with the family, but not to let his relatives influence him;and
15.To avoid being jealous, but never indifferent.
((()))
My conclusions:
The behavior of both, the Beautiful Princess as well as the Blue Prince, are mostly the direct result of the influence of those who methodically and relentlessly try to replace Judeo-Christian values with the noxious interest in sexual matters rooted in the modern secularism of the 1960’s and 1970’s.
Both are the victims of the more immoral and disreputable characters whose intent was to make people learn or assimilate things, often without fully understanding them. Many of the women interviewed have come to the conclusion that their naiveté, and some degree of arrogance, had left them without defenses falling into the trap that Truth is relative and the Ten Commandments are just old fashion suggestions.
The consequences of accepting the principles of modern secularism should not be a surprise to anybody; for it requires setting aside the moral values and principles of their faith outside of certain activities. Their aim to separate Faith from Reason has resulted in the modern farce of being unscientific and incongruous; this modern farce has ripped this younger generation apart, effectively and purposely removing it from the moral values and principles where it had been firmly set.
This observable fact is not an isolated event. For instance, there is an attempt by modern secularism to propose that the Holy Bible should be relativized, to be dissolved in religious pluralism with the purpose of making it disappear as a cultural normative reference. Throughout history many have tried it from outside the Church - and within it - and failed; suffice to mention Stalin and his emissaries’ attempts in different places around the world in the recent past.
The Prefect of the Congregation for Bishops of the Catholic Church, Cardinal Marc Ouellet said that this crisis "has also penetrated inside the Church, as some new exegesis (biblical interpretation) has taken over the Bible to dissect the various stages and forms of human composition, removing the miracles and wonders multiplying the hypotheses, and seeding, not infrequently, the confusion among the faithful."
The intellectual leaders and followers of modern secularism have succeeded in camouflaging themselves behind the so-called “freedom of expression” and “individuality.” Using a collaborative press and media, they have massively fed this young unperceptive generation with this way of life. Given a choice other than modern secularism they may have rejected it.
Monday, March 21, 2011
The Eclipse of Reason
Posted by Dennis Buonafede• February 25, 2011 • http://www.integratedcatholiclife.org
Ideas Have Consequences – The Eclipse of Reason
Pope Benedict’s 2010 Christmas Greeting to the Roman Curia, a Catholic version of the American “State of the Union Address”, was notable for the emphasis placed upon human reason. His Holiness did not so much focus on the loss of Faith occurring in Western Democracies as he did the loss of Reason. At one point in his address he stated:
“To resist this eclipse of reason and to preserve its capacity for seeing the essential, for seeing God and man, for seeing what is good and what is true, is the common interest that must unite all people of good will. The very future of the world is at stake.”
A frequent lament I hear on talk radio is that “common sense” is not as common as it should be. We should not be surprised, however, because no one is teaching “common sense”. Now you would think that “common sense” would not be something that has to be taught, that it is something that arises from simple experience, but in our relativistic and pluralistic culture very little is “common”. This is the point Pope Benedict is trying to make.
Over the last 500 years, a shift from a common worldview has gradually eroded the foundational “common sense” that everyone shared and learned through cultural osmosis. What replaces it is a nebulous relativism where all opinions are held to be equally true and valid, and where there are no universal truths, just different preferences. In short, there are no true/false, good/bad, moral/immoral, but rather an all encompassing and ever changing legal/illegal framework that determines what is permissible.
When it comes to teaching religion and philosophy, this poses a dual problem. Since the faith is not practiced weekly by a majority of students, they lack the experiential commonality needed for any coherent transmission of the elements of the faith.
Simultaneously, since all non-empirical statements are processed by the students as being mere “opinion”, they lack a rational foundation for any body of truth to be conveyed. This state of affairs undermines the attempt in high school to convey a nuanced and mature understanding of the Catholic faith and results in students concluding that it is all myth and thus not “true”.
As mentioned above, it is a sad reality that most of my junior students are non-practicing Catholics for the simple reason that their parents, like the vast majority of Catholics in North America, don’t practice. This does not change as they become seniors; in fact, most seniors work on Sunday. In spite of this lack of religious practice, many students say they believe in God when they start high school in Grade 9. The story changes dramatically starting in Grade 10.
Most of my students went to a Catholic elementary school and received the Sacrament of Confirmation in Grade 8. Granted, many of them did so because it was the expected thing to do and their parents “made” them; they are still at the age where their ‘faith’ is that of their parents. In short, they possess a childish faith that is vague and unreflective.
This “childish faith” does not survive high school adolescence. If students do manage to preserve their faith by the time they graduate high school they most likely won’t survive University.
One student who recently finished a semester of philosophy with the highest mark in the class expressed this reality in a presentation to the class. With her permission I share her insights here.
“As the years of high school have gone by, my faith has gone down a steep slope. Despite being raised in a strongly Catholic family, I came into this course as a non-believer.
Being a logical person, the answers that my parents would give me about my faith were never enough to satisfy me. … Eventually, I stopped asking questions. … With biology being my favourite subject I had come to accept Charles Darwin as a prophet who had brought forth the good word of Evolution.”
She continued to attend Mass weekly out of respect for her parents. When she went off to University she probably would have stopped attending Mass. Religion had become merely a course necessary for graduation; and what it taught was mere opinion to be accepted or rejected as it suited. Like so many of my students, she took Philosophy because she was tired of “taking religion”. Her story is unique only in that she came from a practicing family. For students who do not practice their faith, this switch is almost instantaneous after the first year of high school. The current scandals and oft-repeated “sins” of the medieval church - such as the Inquisition or the Crusades - merely solidify their distrust of the Church.
I learned early on in my career that my real dilemma as a religion teacher was in finding a way to overcome this situation so that what my students learned was not just an academic necessity for graduation, but a life changing reality. I came to realize that it wasn’t so much a lack of faith I was dealing with, it was a lack of reason.
Ideas have consequences...
The first year of my teaching philosophy (the third in my career) was a learning process for both my students and me. The way I taught the subject that first year rendered it too abstract, disjointed and un-engaging. One student described it as worse than watching golf and watching paint dry, simultaneously. Sadly, I only contributed more to the sentiment that there is no right or wrong answer outside of the hard sciences.
While mulling over this dilemma during the summer break I came across the phrase “ideas have consequences”. I had heard this phrase long before, but now the lights went on upstairs. I immediately adopted this phrase as the theme of the philosophy course and set about making a few structural and thematic changes.
Remaining faithful to the mandated curriculum and the provincial expectations, I started to tie the ideas and philosophies we were studying to the consequences that result from these ideas. Human Nature was replaced by Metaphysics as the beginning unit, with Aquinas' warning in mind that a small error in the beginning leads to a large error in the end. Human Nature follows, then ethics and political/social philosophy. A unit on the Holocaust, which is a curriculum requirement, closes up the semester. Providentially, I came across an article by Ray Cotton entitled “The Holocaust: Ideas and their Consequences”. It was a perfect way to tie it all together.
As I started to teach using this framework, I started to notice a small transformation. We spoke of “God” only in a philosophical sense, as the first uncaused Cause, or the first unmoved Mover, or we would examine the argument from Design. I would link philosophy to Catholicism only where reason supported a Catholic doctrine or dogma, such as the Eucharist and Aristotle’s Categories. I would not allow my students to answer any question or dilemma with an appeal to the Commandments, the Bible or Church teaching – it had to be resolved by reason, and reason alone.
Many students came alive with this approach with debates based on substance rather than “feelings”. Several would come up to me and tell me that they started going to Mass, some radically changed their lives for the better. My yearbooks contain statements from students like:
“You drove me crazy! I’d go home ranting to myself, having deep conversations with my sisters like never before!”
“Philosophy is actually more important than I originally thought!”
“Taking philosophy has been honestly life changing. I truly loved every part of it because it taught me a lot about life and myself.”
These kids are hungry!
Over the years I found the more focus that is placed on the consequences of ideas, the more confident students become with the possibility of there being universal, objective and eternal truths. As the student above put it:
“Classical metaphysics gave me a strong, reasonable foundation to base my reality on. After all, what can I believe in if I don’t believe in common sense? … What I never realized was how Darwin’s logic was flawed and what consequences had come of it … The unit that provoked the most thought in me was that of social philosophy. Here I really saw what “ideas have consequences” meant …
In conclusion, philosophy has taught me to think outside the limits that have been set for me. … I have been dragged out of Plato’s cave and into the sunlight to see both the beauty of truth and how damaged our world has become. … It is up to us to stand up for truth and not fall victim to the “-isms” that have led the world to where it is today. Philosophy is not just another high school course.”
Admittedly, not all of my students were as enthusiastic about philosophy as those quoted above, but it appears that the more comfortable they become with universal truths as grasped by reason, the more confident they become in accepting the proclamation of the Gospel. Good, solid, objective philosophy is not the only solution to the current crisis of faith - nothing replaces good catechesis and personal witness, but it is a necessary component if we are to equip our children to survive this crisis with their faith intact.
This article is a part of the ongoing series; Ideas Have Consequences - by Dennis Buonafede.
Ideas Have Consequences – The Eclipse of Reason
Pope Benedict’s 2010 Christmas Greeting to the Roman Curia, a Catholic version of the American “State of the Union Address”, was notable for the emphasis placed upon human reason. His Holiness did not so much focus on the loss of Faith occurring in Western Democracies as he did the loss of Reason. At one point in his address he stated:
“To resist this eclipse of reason and to preserve its capacity for seeing the essential, for seeing God and man, for seeing what is good and what is true, is the common interest that must unite all people of good will. The very future of the world is at stake.”
A frequent lament I hear on talk radio is that “common sense” is not as common as it should be. We should not be surprised, however, because no one is teaching “common sense”. Now you would think that “common sense” would not be something that has to be taught, that it is something that arises from simple experience, but in our relativistic and pluralistic culture very little is “common”. This is the point Pope Benedict is trying to make.
Over the last 500 years, a shift from a common worldview has gradually eroded the foundational “common sense” that everyone shared and learned through cultural osmosis. What replaces it is a nebulous relativism where all opinions are held to be equally true and valid, and where there are no universal truths, just different preferences. In short, there are no true/false, good/bad, moral/immoral, but rather an all encompassing and ever changing legal/illegal framework that determines what is permissible.
When it comes to teaching religion and philosophy, this poses a dual problem. Since the faith is not practiced weekly by a majority of students, they lack the experiential commonality needed for any coherent transmission of the elements of the faith.
Simultaneously, since all non-empirical statements are processed by the students as being mere “opinion”, they lack a rational foundation for any body of truth to be conveyed. This state of affairs undermines the attempt in high school to convey a nuanced and mature understanding of the Catholic faith and results in students concluding that it is all myth and thus not “true”.
As mentioned above, it is a sad reality that most of my junior students are non-practicing Catholics for the simple reason that their parents, like the vast majority of Catholics in North America, don’t practice. This does not change as they become seniors; in fact, most seniors work on Sunday. In spite of this lack of religious practice, many students say they believe in God when they start high school in Grade 9. The story changes dramatically starting in Grade 10.
Most of my students went to a Catholic elementary school and received the Sacrament of Confirmation in Grade 8. Granted, many of them did so because it was the expected thing to do and their parents “made” them; they are still at the age where their ‘faith’ is that of their parents. In short, they possess a childish faith that is vague and unreflective.
This “childish faith” does not survive high school adolescence. If students do manage to preserve their faith by the time they graduate high school they most likely won’t survive University.
One student who recently finished a semester of philosophy with the highest mark in the class expressed this reality in a presentation to the class. With her permission I share her insights here.
“As the years of high school have gone by, my faith has gone down a steep slope. Despite being raised in a strongly Catholic family, I came into this course as a non-believer.
Being a logical person, the answers that my parents would give me about my faith were never enough to satisfy me. … Eventually, I stopped asking questions. … With biology being my favourite subject I had come to accept Charles Darwin as a prophet who had brought forth the good word of Evolution.”
She continued to attend Mass weekly out of respect for her parents. When she went off to University she probably would have stopped attending Mass. Religion had become merely a course necessary for graduation; and what it taught was mere opinion to be accepted or rejected as it suited. Like so many of my students, she took Philosophy because she was tired of “taking religion”. Her story is unique only in that she came from a practicing family. For students who do not practice their faith, this switch is almost instantaneous after the first year of high school. The current scandals and oft-repeated “sins” of the medieval church - such as the Inquisition or the Crusades - merely solidify their distrust of the Church.
I learned early on in my career that my real dilemma as a religion teacher was in finding a way to overcome this situation so that what my students learned was not just an academic necessity for graduation, but a life changing reality. I came to realize that it wasn’t so much a lack of faith I was dealing with, it was a lack of reason.
Ideas have consequences...
The first year of my teaching philosophy (the third in my career) was a learning process for both my students and me. The way I taught the subject that first year rendered it too abstract, disjointed and un-engaging. One student described it as worse than watching golf and watching paint dry, simultaneously. Sadly, I only contributed more to the sentiment that there is no right or wrong answer outside of the hard sciences.
While mulling over this dilemma during the summer break I came across the phrase “ideas have consequences”. I had heard this phrase long before, but now the lights went on upstairs. I immediately adopted this phrase as the theme of the philosophy course and set about making a few structural and thematic changes.
Remaining faithful to the mandated curriculum and the provincial expectations, I started to tie the ideas and philosophies we were studying to the consequences that result from these ideas. Human Nature was replaced by Metaphysics as the beginning unit, with Aquinas' warning in mind that a small error in the beginning leads to a large error in the end. Human Nature follows, then ethics and political/social philosophy. A unit on the Holocaust, which is a curriculum requirement, closes up the semester. Providentially, I came across an article by Ray Cotton entitled “The Holocaust: Ideas and their Consequences”. It was a perfect way to tie it all together.
As I started to teach using this framework, I started to notice a small transformation. We spoke of “God” only in a philosophical sense, as the first uncaused Cause, or the first unmoved Mover, or we would examine the argument from Design. I would link philosophy to Catholicism only where reason supported a Catholic doctrine or dogma, such as the Eucharist and Aristotle’s Categories. I would not allow my students to answer any question or dilemma with an appeal to the Commandments, the Bible or Church teaching – it had to be resolved by reason, and reason alone.
Many students came alive with this approach with debates based on substance rather than “feelings”. Several would come up to me and tell me that they started going to Mass, some radically changed their lives for the better. My yearbooks contain statements from students like:
“You drove me crazy! I’d go home ranting to myself, having deep conversations with my sisters like never before!”
“Philosophy is actually more important than I originally thought!”
“Taking philosophy has been honestly life changing. I truly loved every part of it because it taught me a lot about life and myself.”
These kids are hungry!
Over the years I found the more focus that is placed on the consequences of ideas, the more confident students become with the possibility of there being universal, objective and eternal truths. As the student above put it:
“Classical metaphysics gave me a strong, reasonable foundation to base my reality on. After all, what can I believe in if I don’t believe in common sense? … What I never realized was how Darwin’s logic was flawed and what consequences had come of it … The unit that provoked the most thought in me was that of social philosophy. Here I really saw what “ideas have consequences” meant …
In conclusion, philosophy has taught me to think outside the limits that have been set for me. … I have been dragged out of Plato’s cave and into the sunlight to see both the beauty of truth and how damaged our world has become. … It is up to us to stand up for truth and not fall victim to the “-isms” that have led the world to where it is today. Philosophy is not just another high school course.”
Admittedly, not all of my students were as enthusiastic about philosophy as those quoted above, but it appears that the more comfortable they become with universal truths as grasped by reason, the more confident they become in accepting the proclamation of the Gospel. Good, solid, objective philosophy is not the only solution to the current crisis of faith - nothing replaces good catechesis and personal witness, but it is a necessary component if we are to equip our children to survive this crisis with their faith intact.
This article is a part of the ongoing series; Ideas Have Consequences - by Dennis Buonafede.
Thursday, March 17, 2011
Coincidences? The Battle of Vienna on September 11, 1683 & the attack in New York on September 11, 2001.
By Natalio A. Yaria on Thursday, March 17, 2011 at 4:09pm.
There are events that become turning points in history which do not probe the theory of economic determinism or class struggle. There are two events that can serve as examples; both coincide on the month and day that took place, but not on the year: the Battle of Vienna on September 11, 1683 and the attack to the Twin Towers in New York on September 11, 2001.
First, there is a time span of three hundred and eighteen years between the first and the second event; second, both attacks were initiated by elements of Islam to the centers of Western Civilization; and third, both attacks were not spontaneous events determined by economics or class confrontations.
The response of Catholic Europe in the Battle of Vienna was a defensive act. The best defense was an implacable counterattack; for if Vienna fell, Rome would have been the next target. The evidence indicates that the Battle of Vienna was intended to impose Islam on Christendom.
If, like some people say, the Battle of Vienna was a clash between two Faiths, they are wrong on two counts: Faith is only given by God to each of us individually, not human was given that power. Second, a person or a religious institution might be a messenger of the will of God, but the message can never be imposed in the Lord’s name to any individual, or nation, or a group of nations.
After Vienna had been besieged by the Ottoman Empire for two months, the Battle of Vienna took place in the morning of September 11 and ended in the evening of 12 of September 1683. The battle marked the turning point in the Ottoman–Habsburg wars, the 300-year struggle between the forces of Christendom and the Ottoman Empire.
It was a battle between The Holy League, led by the Catholic Habsburg dynasty, versus the Ottoman Empire and fiefdoms, which were occupied territories or a sphere of activity controlled or dominated by particular persons loyal to the Ottoman Empire near the Kahlenberg Mountain in Vienna. Even though the Ottomans fought on for another 16 years, they finally gave up; and Christendom regained control of occupied Hungary and Transylvania.
The result was the major strategic military defeat of Islam by the forces of Christendom which marked the historic end of the expansion of the Ottoman Empire into Europe.
The attack to the Twin Towers seems to indicate that it was more a commemorative act of revenge by ever-present extremists than evidence of a continuation of the clash of two civilizations. I believe that there is no coincidence on the dates. Time will probe this hypotheses correct
There are events that become turning points in history which do not probe the theory of economic determinism or class struggle. There are two events that can serve as examples; both coincide on the month and day that took place, but not on the year: the Battle of Vienna on September 11, 1683 and the attack to the Twin Towers in New York on September 11, 2001.
First, there is a time span of three hundred and eighteen years between the first and the second event; second, both attacks were initiated by elements of Islam to the centers of Western Civilization; and third, both attacks were not spontaneous events determined by economics or class confrontations.
The response of Catholic Europe in the Battle of Vienna was a defensive act. The best defense was an implacable counterattack; for if Vienna fell, Rome would have been the next target. The evidence indicates that the Battle of Vienna was intended to impose Islam on Christendom.
If, like some people say, the Battle of Vienna was a clash between two Faiths, they are wrong on two counts: Faith is only given by God to each of us individually, not human was given that power. Second, a person or a religious institution might be a messenger of the will of God, but the message can never be imposed in the Lord’s name to any individual, or nation, or a group of nations.
After Vienna had been besieged by the Ottoman Empire for two months, the Battle of Vienna took place in the morning of September 11 and ended in the evening of 12 of September 1683. The battle marked the turning point in the Ottoman–Habsburg wars, the 300-year struggle between the forces of Christendom and the Ottoman Empire.
It was a battle between The Holy League, led by the Catholic Habsburg dynasty, versus the Ottoman Empire and fiefdoms, which were occupied territories or a sphere of activity controlled or dominated by particular persons loyal to the Ottoman Empire near the Kahlenberg Mountain in Vienna. Even though the Ottomans fought on for another 16 years, they finally gave up; and Christendom regained control of occupied Hungary and Transylvania.
The result was the major strategic military defeat of Islam by the forces of Christendom which marked the historic end of the expansion of the Ottoman Empire into Europe.
The attack to the Twin Towers seems to indicate that it was more a commemorative act of revenge by ever-present extremists than evidence of a continuation of the clash of two civilizations. I believe that there is no coincidence on the dates. Time will probe this hypotheses correct
Wednesday, March 9, 2011
Homosexual priest suspended for defending gay ‘marriage’ legislation in Argentina
by Matthew Cullinan Hoffman. LifeSiteNews.com
Tue Mar 08 10:20 PM EST
BUENOS AIRES, March 8, 2011 () - Nicolas Alessio, a homosexual priest who denies the Catholic Church’s teachings on homosexuality and has publicly agitated for the approval of Argentina’s new homosexual ‘marriage’ law, has been suspended from his priestly functions following a trial by the Archdiocese of Córdoba.
In an interview following the ruling, Alessio said that he was refusing to comply with the suspension, which requires him to cease administering the sacraments, claiming that he owed obedience to his ultra-liberal order, which calls itself the Enrique Angeleli Group of Priests, and openly supports homosexual ‘marriage’. He told a reporter that only force could stop him from continuing in his duties at his parish “I obey my community first, before him [Archbishop Carlos Ñáñez], and his canons and decrees and sanctions,” he said. He noted that the whole group has refused to comply with the archbishop’s order to retract their homosexualist position.
In a videotaped speech posted on YouTube, Fr. Alessio is seen at a rally in support of homosexual ‘marriage’ where he “asks forgiveness” for the Catholic Church for opposing the homosexual political agenda.
“First, I want to ask forgiveness because I belong to an institution that is still converting to the gospel of Jesus, a Jesus who never condemned homosexuality, who never condemned homosexual marriage, and, to the contrary, this same Jesus condemned the proud, the powerful, and those who discriminate.”
“I want to ask forgiveness for this institution that doesn’t want to lose power and still wants to manage our consciences, wants to manage the consciences of Argentineans, wants to dominate the consciences of all of those who want to live in freedom. I want to ask forgiveness for this Church that is not resigned to lose power and wants to impose its truths as if they were unique and absolute.”
Alessio openly acknowledges that he himself is a homosexual, and denies it is an illness based on his own experience. “It not only is not an illness, it not only is not a deviation, much less a sin. Homosexuality is a gift, it is a richness of nature, that must be recognized and respected,” he says in the speech.
In contrast to Alessio’s statements, the Catholic Church teaches that homosexual behavior is “intrinsically evil”—evil by its very nature—and that the homosexual orientation, while not a sin, is an “intrinsically disordered” attraction that must be resisted.
Appearing to endorse polytheism, Alessio goes on to say that “Those who speak, and believe themselves to have the authority to speak in the name of God (...) Please, the gods, the gods are more pluralist than we are. The gods are liberty, the gods are love, the gods are a rainbow of diversity and the gods are with us.”
Argentinean television reports that sources within the Catholic hierarchy say that if Alessio refuses to obey the Church, he will be excommunicated.
Tue Mar 08 10:20 PM EST
BUENOS AIRES, March 8, 2011 () - Nicolas Alessio, a homosexual priest who denies the Catholic Church’s teachings on homosexuality and has publicly agitated for the approval of Argentina’s new homosexual ‘marriage’ law, has been suspended from his priestly functions following a trial by the Archdiocese of Córdoba.
In an interview following the ruling, Alessio said that he was refusing to comply with the suspension, which requires him to cease administering the sacraments, claiming that he owed obedience to his ultra-liberal order, which calls itself the Enrique Angeleli Group of Priests, and openly supports homosexual ‘marriage’. He told a reporter that only force could stop him from continuing in his duties at his parish “I obey my community first, before him [Archbishop Carlos Ñáñez], and his canons and decrees and sanctions,” he said. He noted that the whole group has refused to comply with the archbishop’s order to retract their homosexualist position.
In a videotaped speech posted on YouTube, Fr. Alessio is seen at a rally in support of homosexual ‘marriage’ where he “asks forgiveness” for the Catholic Church for opposing the homosexual political agenda.
“First, I want to ask forgiveness because I belong to an institution that is still converting to the gospel of Jesus, a Jesus who never condemned homosexuality, who never condemned homosexual marriage, and, to the contrary, this same Jesus condemned the proud, the powerful, and those who discriminate.”
“I want to ask forgiveness for this institution that doesn’t want to lose power and still wants to manage our consciences, wants to manage the consciences of Argentineans, wants to dominate the consciences of all of those who want to live in freedom. I want to ask forgiveness for this Church that is not resigned to lose power and wants to impose its truths as if they were unique and absolute.”
Alessio openly acknowledges that he himself is a homosexual, and denies it is an illness based on his own experience. “It not only is not an illness, it not only is not a deviation, much less a sin. Homosexuality is a gift, it is a richness of nature, that must be recognized and respected,” he says in the speech.
In contrast to Alessio’s statements, the Catholic Church teaches that homosexual behavior is “intrinsically evil”—evil by its very nature—and that the homosexual orientation, while not a sin, is an “intrinsically disordered” attraction that must be resisted.
Appearing to endorse polytheism, Alessio goes on to say that “Those who speak, and believe themselves to have the authority to speak in the name of God (...) Please, the gods, the gods are more pluralist than we are. The gods are liberty, the gods are love, the gods are a rainbow of diversity and the gods are with us.”
Argentinean television reports that sources within the Catholic hierarchy say that if Alessio refuses to obey the Church, he will be excommunicated.
Sunday, March 6, 2011
The Opportunity of Lent
Posted by Deacon Mike Bickerstaff • March 6, 2011
For the full article See: www.integratedcatholiclife.org
On Ash Wednesday we will begin our observance of the penitential season of Lent. What better time to turn away from our dependency on the world and towards a life of trust and hope in the Lord! The Lord’s Sermon shows us how. We are to practice a detachment from the attractions of the world. This means that we are to turn away from disordered attractions, not all attractions. Not all who are poor find the blessedness that comes only from God, for even the poor can have a disordered attraction for wealth. Not all who are rich are automatically condemned; some know how to apply their wealth for the common good without having a disordered attachment to it.
During the coming penitential season, we are called to embrace and practice the three pillars of Lent – prayer, fasting and almsgiving. Lent is most of all to be a time of deep conversion for us. These three pillars are central to this conversion and our surrender to the Lord. They are inseparable from one another.
Prayer
There is much interest in prayer, but do we really pray as we should? Do we even know how to pray? It is one of the questions I most frequently hear from Catholics; "Can you help me learn to pray? Can you help me find time to pray?" Admitting there is too little space here to give a detailed answer, let's just commit this Lent to do it. The Church teaches that Christian meditation should be one of our primary expressions of prayer – for a beginner, that means simply thinking about a truth of the faith, a Person of God, an event in the life of Christ, a passage of scripture, etc. Here are some tried and true ways to do this.
•On a daily basis, pray the Rosary. Why not pray the rosary together with your family this Lent? After the evening meal, gather as a family (or with friends) and pray the vocal prayers of the rosary while thinking about (meditating on) the mysteries – those major events in Christ's life.
•On a weekly basis – Friday is an excellent choice – do the same with the Stations of the Cross. There are many good meditations for the Stations, but I particularly benefit from the prayers and meditations of The Way of the Cross by St. Francis of Assisi. A copy of this is easy to find on the internet.
•Don't rush through the prayers. Spend time in them. And make these prayers a priority in your daily schedule. Remember, you were not made for earth, but for heaven. Nothing is more important, other than Christ to Whom you pray, for you to know. And by praying together as a family, you will teach your children What and Who is most important.
Fasting
Fasting and other forms of self-denial, as spiritual practices of materially subduing and controlling the physical appetites of the body, helps us, by God’s grace, to enable the soul to more perfectly and freely pray. I leave it to you to decide what form your fasting will take; reducing consumption of food items, giving up television, going without that unneeded purchase. This is the connection of fasting to prayer and it is the secret to a better, deeper, more joyful life in Christ. But fasting is also connected to almsgiving, for what we save through material fasting and the time saved by giving up a particular activity can be redirected to those who are in greater need. What a wonderful gift to give yourself and your children! If you have children, meet together as a family and explain what you are doing and why? Make it a family project.
Almsgiving
As I mentioned, fasting enables giving, so let us commit to living within our means, not just for our financial well-being, but also for the good of others. Our children best learn who they are to be by seeing who their parents really are. Let them see us doing without excessive spending so as to remain within our budgets. But especially let them see us doing without even things we can afford so as to help those who have less. Let us commit to avoiding occasions of sin such as immoral movies, but also let them see us spending more time in family prayer and service to others and less in excessive entertainment. This opens our hearts to the needs of others.
All for the Love of God
None of these three pillars means anything if not motivated by and through an ever-deepening love for God. Show our children and others what motivates us… the love of God and our love for Him. It is in this practice of the virtues that we overcome, by God’s grace, the practice of vice and possess the blessedness of God. Give ourselves to God, surrender fully to Him, and then we will be rich in what counts.
May you have a blessed Lenten season.
We value your comments and encourage you to leave your thoughts below. Please share this article with others in your network. Thank you! - The Editors
For the full article See: www.integratedcatholiclife.org
On Ash Wednesday we will begin our observance of the penitential season of Lent. What better time to turn away from our dependency on the world and towards a life of trust and hope in the Lord! The Lord’s Sermon shows us how. We are to practice a detachment from the attractions of the world. This means that we are to turn away from disordered attractions, not all attractions. Not all who are poor find the blessedness that comes only from God, for even the poor can have a disordered attraction for wealth. Not all who are rich are automatically condemned; some know how to apply their wealth for the common good without having a disordered attachment to it.
During the coming penitential season, we are called to embrace and practice the three pillars of Lent – prayer, fasting and almsgiving. Lent is most of all to be a time of deep conversion for us. These three pillars are central to this conversion and our surrender to the Lord. They are inseparable from one another.
Prayer
There is much interest in prayer, but do we really pray as we should? Do we even know how to pray? It is one of the questions I most frequently hear from Catholics; "Can you help me learn to pray? Can you help me find time to pray?" Admitting there is too little space here to give a detailed answer, let's just commit this Lent to do it. The Church teaches that Christian meditation should be one of our primary expressions of prayer – for a beginner, that means simply thinking about a truth of the faith, a Person of God, an event in the life of Christ, a passage of scripture, etc. Here are some tried and true ways to do this.
•On a daily basis, pray the Rosary. Why not pray the rosary together with your family this Lent? After the evening meal, gather as a family (or with friends) and pray the vocal prayers of the rosary while thinking about (meditating on) the mysteries – those major events in Christ's life.
•On a weekly basis – Friday is an excellent choice – do the same with the Stations of the Cross. There are many good meditations for the Stations, but I particularly benefit from the prayers and meditations of The Way of the Cross by St. Francis of Assisi. A copy of this is easy to find on the internet.
•Don't rush through the prayers. Spend time in them. And make these prayers a priority in your daily schedule. Remember, you were not made for earth, but for heaven. Nothing is more important, other than Christ to Whom you pray, for you to know. And by praying together as a family, you will teach your children What and Who is most important.
Fasting
Fasting and other forms of self-denial, as spiritual practices of materially subduing and controlling the physical appetites of the body, helps us, by God’s grace, to enable the soul to more perfectly and freely pray. I leave it to you to decide what form your fasting will take; reducing consumption of food items, giving up television, going without that unneeded purchase. This is the connection of fasting to prayer and it is the secret to a better, deeper, more joyful life in Christ. But fasting is also connected to almsgiving, for what we save through material fasting and the time saved by giving up a particular activity can be redirected to those who are in greater need. What a wonderful gift to give yourself and your children! If you have children, meet together as a family and explain what you are doing and why? Make it a family project.
Almsgiving
As I mentioned, fasting enables giving, so let us commit to living within our means, not just for our financial well-being, but also for the good of others. Our children best learn who they are to be by seeing who their parents really are. Let them see us doing without excessive spending so as to remain within our budgets. But especially let them see us doing without even things we can afford so as to help those who have less. Let us commit to avoiding occasions of sin such as immoral movies, but also let them see us spending more time in family prayer and service to others and less in excessive entertainment. This opens our hearts to the needs of others.
All for the Love of God
None of these three pillars means anything if not motivated by and through an ever-deepening love for God. Show our children and others what motivates us… the love of God and our love for Him. It is in this practice of the virtues that we overcome, by God’s grace, the practice of vice and possess the blessedness of God. Give ourselves to God, surrender fully to Him, and then we will be rich in what counts.
May you have a blessed Lenten season.
We value your comments and encourage you to leave your thoughts below. Please share this article with others in your network. Thank you! - The Editors
Friday, March 4, 2011
What’s Mine is Yours
Posted by Charlie Douglas • March 3, 2011
http://www.integratedcatholiclife.org
About the author: Charlie Douglas is a senior vice president with a leading global wealth management institution.
He is the author of two books: "Awaken the American Dream" and "Rich Where It Counts". Charlie also serves as the editor for a national journal on estate and tax planning.
Charlie is a speaker on such topics as the pursuit of God and money and morality in the marketplace.
He is a past Board member for Catholic Charities of Atlanta and is active at St. Brigid's Catholic Church with his wife, Lori and their daughter, Elizabeth.
Send an E-Mail to the authorRead all of Charlie Douglas PostsWe made the finals! Thank you. Please click to vote now for Integrated Catholic Life in each category.
A closer look at “private property” and our obligations to others
My young daughter Elizabeth has a favorite tee-shirt that boldly proclaims, “The Toddler Laws of Property”:
1.If I like it, it’s mine;
2.If it’s in my hand, it’s mine;
3.If I had it a little while ago it’s mine;
4.If it looks just like mine, it’s mine; and
5.If I think it’s mine, it’s mine!
Fittingly, that shirt accurately depicts the way toddlers often treat things in their little world. Children most definitely have their own rules and ideas when it comes to possessing possessions.
Part of parenting then is to disciple our children to take notice of other children’s needs and to openly share. It’s a message that needs to be frequently delivered in a variety of forms as it cuts against a child’s natural inclination. Each of us is made in the image of a generous God, yet being generative is not innate.
As adults, we too, oftentimes struggle to live with a generative spirit. In fact, it is countercultural in our capitalistic society to be faithful to the message found in 1 Timothy 6:18-19: “Tell them to do good, to be rich in good works, to be generous, ready to share, thus accumulating as treasure a good foundation for the future, so as to win the life that is the true life.”
For the most part, private property is viewed as our property. Something to be accumulated, protected, and passed on to our immediate loved ones after we are gone. Even so, private property is far from sinful. In fact, private property acquired by just means is oftentimes a worthy endeavor that advances the common good.
The Good of Goods
Goods that are justly pursued by individuals out of self-interest can lead directly to the increased good of the larger society. Adam Smith long ago observed that an “invisible hand” often guided the unintended actions of individuals toward increased societal wealth.
In addition, the noble pursuit of capitalism through self-interest often yields more than unintended acts of service. A moral free market system can inspire many intended acts of beneficial service, where receiving money/private property as a result of extending constructive goods and services to our neighbors advances God’s creation. Unlike socialism and the community of goods, free market capitalism offers economic incentive to develop our God-given gifts and talents.
Goods and private property, after all, are not a bad thing. There is nothing holy about debt, or not being able to pay your bills, or an economy that cannot afford to manufacture and/or pay for goods. In many ways, we can financially serve the poor better by not allowing ourselves to join their ranks. Economically speaking, humanity is better served by helping to alleviate poverty rather than contributing to it.
Poverty is not a virtue. It has no intrinsic goodness. Only the motive behind poverty may be virtuous if the desire is to help remove the obstacles which stand in the way of working toward spiritual perfection. But goods and private property gained through just means can support a quite holy effort.
Rising standards of living can surely be in concert with the development of human dignity, solidarity, and human rights. It may be just as holy to expand and invest in an honorable business, which employs others and provides worthy goods and services, as it is to give to charitable endeavors.
Jesus’ message enlightens us that having money in our hands is not the problem; it is having money in our hearts. The reason why it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God, is not because a man is materially rich. Rather, it is because the rich may find themselves to be more attached to material wealth than to God.
Unfortunately, when goods are viewed as “our private property” they tend to become our end instead of God. And when we understandably protect our private property from outsiders through security gates and alarm systems we may unknowingly help create a mindset where it becomes difficult to see that the sick, poor, and society’s so-called undesirables are our brothers and sisters too.
Goods have a Global Destination
Our faith instructs us that in the beginning God entrusted the earth and its resources to the common stewardship of mankind. The goods of creation are therefore destined for the whole human race and supersede our right to private property.
As stewards of providence and God’s trustee we ought not to regard material goods as solely our own, but as a universal resource that is to be shared when we see others in need. "If someone who has the riches of this world sees his brother in need and closes his heart to him, how does the love of God abide in him?" (1 Jn 3:17). Saint Ambrose put it this way, "You are not making a gift of your possessions to the poor person. You are handing over to him what is his. For what has been given in common for the use of all, you have arrogated to yourself. The world is given to all, and not only to the rich."
At the end of our lives, we will not be judged by the amount of our private property or the goods we have garnered. When we are judged by God, it will be: “I was hungry and you gave me food; I was thirsty and you gave me drink; a stranger and you welcomed me; naked and you clothed me; ill and you cared for me; in prison and you visited me.” Matthew 25:35
Still, in these trying financial times our focus can easily become turned inward, where our goods and private property are held onto with a firm grasp. Solidarity for the poor can get swept aside over our own financial concerns. Therefore, it is especially during these turbulent economic times that we must be intentional about others in need and our obligations to them.
It is only through making a paradigm shift from “privately owned” to “God owned” that the “Toddler Laws of Property” can be prevailed over by our living out “God’s Law” regarding the global destination of goods. If we are to become rich in the true life that we are called to, what’s mine must also be yours.
We value your comments and encourage you to leave your thoughts below. Please share this article with others in your network. Thank you! - The Editors
http://www.integratedcatholiclife.org
About the author: Charlie Douglas is a senior vice president with a leading global wealth management institution.
He is the author of two books: "Awaken the American Dream" and "Rich Where It Counts". Charlie also serves as the editor for a national journal on estate and tax planning.
Charlie is a speaker on such topics as the pursuit of God and money and morality in the marketplace.
He is a past Board member for Catholic Charities of Atlanta and is active at St. Brigid's Catholic Church with his wife, Lori and their daughter, Elizabeth.
Send an E-Mail to the authorRead all of Charlie Douglas PostsWe made the finals! Thank you. Please click to vote now for Integrated Catholic Life in each category.
A closer look at “private property” and our obligations to others
My young daughter Elizabeth has a favorite tee-shirt that boldly proclaims, “The Toddler Laws of Property”:
1.If I like it, it’s mine;
2.If it’s in my hand, it’s mine;
3.If I had it a little while ago it’s mine;
4.If it looks just like mine, it’s mine; and
5.If I think it’s mine, it’s mine!
Fittingly, that shirt accurately depicts the way toddlers often treat things in their little world. Children most definitely have their own rules and ideas when it comes to possessing possessions.
Part of parenting then is to disciple our children to take notice of other children’s needs and to openly share. It’s a message that needs to be frequently delivered in a variety of forms as it cuts against a child’s natural inclination. Each of us is made in the image of a generous God, yet being generative is not innate.
As adults, we too, oftentimes struggle to live with a generative spirit. In fact, it is countercultural in our capitalistic society to be faithful to the message found in 1 Timothy 6:18-19: “Tell them to do good, to be rich in good works, to be generous, ready to share, thus accumulating as treasure a good foundation for the future, so as to win the life that is the true life.”
For the most part, private property is viewed as our property. Something to be accumulated, protected, and passed on to our immediate loved ones after we are gone. Even so, private property is far from sinful. In fact, private property acquired by just means is oftentimes a worthy endeavor that advances the common good.
The Good of Goods
Goods that are justly pursued by individuals out of self-interest can lead directly to the increased good of the larger society. Adam Smith long ago observed that an “invisible hand” often guided the unintended actions of individuals toward increased societal wealth.
In addition, the noble pursuit of capitalism through self-interest often yields more than unintended acts of service. A moral free market system can inspire many intended acts of beneficial service, where receiving money/private property as a result of extending constructive goods and services to our neighbors advances God’s creation. Unlike socialism and the community of goods, free market capitalism offers economic incentive to develop our God-given gifts and talents.
Goods and private property, after all, are not a bad thing. There is nothing holy about debt, or not being able to pay your bills, or an economy that cannot afford to manufacture and/or pay for goods. In many ways, we can financially serve the poor better by not allowing ourselves to join their ranks. Economically speaking, humanity is better served by helping to alleviate poverty rather than contributing to it.
Poverty is not a virtue. It has no intrinsic goodness. Only the motive behind poverty may be virtuous if the desire is to help remove the obstacles which stand in the way of working toward spiritual perfection. But goods and private property gained through just means can support a quite holy effort.
Rising standards of living can surely be in concert with the development of human dignity, solidarity, and human rights. It may be just as holy to expand and invest in an honorable business, which employs others and provides worthy goods and services, as it is to give to charitable endeavors.
Jesus’ message enlightens us that having money in our hands is not the problem; it is having money in our hearts. The reason why it is easier for a camel to go through the eye of a needle than for a rich man to enter the kingdom of God, is not because a man is materially rich. Rather, it is because the rich may find themselves to be more attached to material wealth than to God.
Unfortunately, when goods are viewed as “our private property” they tend to become our end instead of God. And when we understandably protect our private property from outsiders through security gates and alarm systems we may unknowingly help create a mindset where it becomes difficult to see that the sick, poor, and society’s so-called undesirables are our brothers and sisters too.
Goods have a Global Destination
Our faith instructs us that in the beginning God entrusted the earth and its resources to the common stewardship of mankind. The goods of creation are therefore destined for the whole human race and supersede our right to private property.
As stewards of providence and God’s trustee we ought not to regard material goods as solely our own, but as a universal resource that is to be shared when we see others in need. "If someone who has the riches of this world sees his brother in need and closes his heart to him, how does the love of God abide in him?" (1 Jn 3:17). Saint Ambrose put it this way, "You are not making a gift of your possessions to the poor person. You are handing over to him what is his. For what has been given in common for the use of all, you have arrogated to yourself. The world is given to all, and not only to the rich."
At the end of our lives, we will not be judged by the amount of our private property or the goods we have garnered. When we are judged by God, it will be: “I was hungry and you gave me food; I was thirsty and you gave me drink; a stranger and you welcomed me; naked and you clothed me; ill and you cared for me; in prison and you visited me.” Matthew 25:35
Still, in these trying financial times our focus can easily become turned inward, where our goods and private property are held onto with a firm grasp. Solidarity for the poor can get swept aside over our own financial concerns. Therefore, it is especially during these turbulent economic times that we must be intentional about others in need and our obligations to them.
It is only through making a paradigm shift from “privately owned” to “God owned” that the “Toddler Laws of Property” can be prevailed over by our living out “God’s Law” regarding the global destination of goods. If we are to become rich in the true life that we are called to, what’s mine must also be yours.
We value your comments and encourage you to leave your thoughts below. Please share this article with others in your network. Thank you! - The Editors
Wednesday, March 2, 2011
Islamic extremists assassinate only Christian in Pakistan’s cabinet
Islamabad, Pakistan, Mar 2, 2011 / 11:28 am (CNA/EWTN news). - By Alan Holdren
http://www.catholicnewsagency.com
Shahbaz Bhatti, a leading voice for religious freedom and peace in Pakistan, was assassinated March 2.
The 42-year old Bhatti served as federal minister for religious minorities. He was a Catholic and the only Christian in Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari's Cabinet.
Bhatti was slain by three men as he left his mother's home in Islamabad by car. His usual police escort was not present because Bhatti preferred to keep a low profile while visiting his mother, according to a report by the Associated Press.
Eyewitnesses told the AP that as the vehicle left the driveway, two men pulled Bhatti out of the car while a third fired on him with an automatic weapon.
Archbishop Lawrence Saldanha of Lahore, head of the nation’s bishops, called Bhatti’s slaying “a perfectly tragic example of the unsustainable climate of intolerance in which we live in Pakistan.”
In a statement issued through the Vatican’s missionary news agency Fides, Archbishop Saldanha said, “We call on the Government, the institutions, the whole country to recognize and take decisions about these issues, because there must be an end to this situation, where violence prevails.”
In a separate statement to Fides, Peter Jacob, secretary of the bishops' justice and peace commission, said Christians “are in a state of shock and panic.”
“We feel vulnerable,” he said, “especially the defenders of human rights and religious minorities.
“This murder means that the country is at the mercy of terrorists, who can afford to kill high-ranking personalities. We feel very vulnerable: they are more powerful than defenders of human rights and religious minorities.”
Pakistani Church officials said they have not decided yet how to respond.
At the Vatican, the papal spokesman, Father Federico Lombardi, SJ, recalled that Bhatti was the first Catholic to hold such a high position in Pakistan and that he had met with the Pope last September.
“He bore witness to his own commitment to peaceful coexistence among the religious communities of his country,” the spokesman said of Bhatti.
“Our prayers for the victim, our condemnation for this unspeakable act of violence, our closeness to Pakistani Christians who suffer hatred, are accompanied by an appeal that everyone many become aware of the urgent importance of defending both religious freedom and Christians who are subject to violence and persecution.”
Bhatti had received death threats in recent months from Islamic extremist groups angered by his opposition to the nation’s anti-blasphemy law. The law is designed to prevent any public criticism of Islam or its prophet, Muhammad.
Bhatti and other critics, including Pope Benedict XVI, say the law should be abolished because it is consistently used to harass and intimidate religious minorities, mostly Christians.
The blasphemy law has created deep divisions in Pakistani society, especially after a Christian mother named Asia Bibi was sentenced to death for allegedly violating it. She has been in prison for more than a year despite widespread international protests.
Al-Qaida and the Punjab province-based Pakistani Taliban Movement claimed responsibility for Bhatti’s killing, according to the AP.
A leaflet left at the scene charged that Bhatti, an “infidel Christian,” was serving on a government committee working to overturn the blasphemy law. The Pakistani government has repeatedly denied the existence of such a committee.
The note concluded, “with the blessing of Allah, the mujahedeen will send each of you to hell.”
Before his appointment as minister for religious minorities he founded and led the All Pakistan Minorities Alliance and the Christian Liberation Front.
Fides reported last month that the Pakistani Secret Service was “deeply concerned” that an attack on the minister was “imminent.” Pakistani sources said he was a “number one target” for his work to abolish the law prohibiting blasphemy.
Bhatti told Fides he would not change his stance.
“Pray for me and for my life," said Bhatti. “I am a man who has burnt his bridges. I cannot and will not go back on this commitment. I will fight fanaticism and fight in defense of Christians to the death.”
Bhatti is the second prominent government official to be assassinated this year because of his position on the blasphemy law. The Muslim governor of the Punjab region, Salman Taseer, was murdered at the start of the year by a body guard who said he was angered by Taseer’s defense of Bibi.
After the governor's funeral, on Jan. 5, Bhatti told Vatican Radio that Tasee assassination might intimidate other opponents of the blasphemy law.
“But,” he added, “I believe that the discovery of this violence cannot create fear and cannot stop us from raising our voices in favor of justice and the protection of minorities and innocent people in Pakistan."
He was aware that his life was in danger. He had given the Arabic news channel Al Jazeera and the BBC a pre-recorded message to be broadcast in the event he was killed.
In the message, Bhatti said that death threats will not change his opinions and principles. He asserts that he will not stop speaking on behalf of Pakistan's “oppressed and marginalized persecuted Christians and other minorities.”
“I will die to defend their rights,” he said in his message
http://www.catholicnewsagency.com
Shahbaz Bhatti, a leading voice for religious freedom and peace in Pakistan, was assassinated March 2.
The 42-year old Bhatti served as federal minister for religious minorities. He was a Catholic and the only Christian in Pakistani President Asif Ali Zardari's Cabinet.
Bhatti was slain by three men as he left his mother's home in Islamabad by car. His usual police escort was not present because Bhatti preferred to keep a low profile while visiting his mother, according to a report by the Associated Press.
Eyewitnesses told the AP that as the vehicle left the driveway, two men pulled Bhatti out of the car while a third fired on him with an automatic weapon.
Archbishop Lawrence Saldanha of Lahore, head of the nation’s bishops, called Bhatti’s slaying “a perfectly tragic example of the unsustainable climate of intolerance in which we live in Pakistan.”
In a statement issued through the Vatican’s missionary news agency Fides, Archbishop Saldanha said, “We call on the Government, the institutions, the whole country to recognize and take decisions about these issues, because there must be an end to this situation, where violence prevails.”
In a separate statement to Fides, Peter Jacob, secretary of the bishops' justice and peace commission, said Christians “are in a state of shock and panic.”
“We feel vulnerable,” he said, “especially the defenders of human rights and religious minorities.
“This murder means that the country is at the mercy of terrorists, who can afford to kill high-ranking personalities. We feel very vulnerable: they are more powerful than defenders of human rights and religious minorities.”
Pakistani Church officials said they have not decided yet how to respond.
At the Vatican, the papal spokesman, Father Federico Lombardi, SJ, recalled that Bhatti was the first Catholic to hold such a high position in Pakistan and that he had met with the Pope last September.
“He bore witness to his own commitment to peaceful coexistence among the religious communities of his country,” the spokesman said of Bhatti.
“Our prayers for the victim, our condemnation for this unspeakable act of violence, our closeness to Pakistani Christians who suffer hatred, are accompanied by an appeal that everyone many become aware of the urgent importance of defending both religious freedom and Christians who are subject to violence and persecution.”
Bhatti had received death threats in recent months from Islamic extremist groups angered by his opposition to the nation’s anti-blasphemy law. The law is designed to prevent any public criticism of Islam or its prophet, Muhammad.
Bhatti and other critics, including Pope Benedict XVI, say the law should be abolished because it is consistently used to harass and intimidate religious minorities, mostly Christians.
The blasphemy law has created deep divisions in Pakistani society, especially after a Christian mother named Asia Bibi was sentenced to death for allegedly violating it. She has been in prison for more than a year despite widespread international protests.
Al-Qaida and the Punjab province-based Pakistani Taliban Movement claimed responsibility for Bhatti’s killing, according to the AP.
A leaflet left at the scene charged that Bhatti, an “infidel Christian,” was serving on a government committee working to overturn the blasphemy law. The Pakistani government has repeatedly denied the existence of such a committee.
The note concluded, “with the blessing of Allah, the mujahedeen will send each of you to hell.”
Before his appointment as minister for religious minorities he founded and led the All Pakistan Minorities Alliance and the Christian Liberation Front.
Fides reported last month that the Pakistani Secret Service was “deeply concerned” that an attack on the minister was “imminent.” Pakistani sources said he was a “number one target” for his work to abolish the law prohibiting blasphemy.
Bhatti told Fides he would not change his stance.
“Pray for me and for my life," said Bhatti. “I am a man who has burnt his bridges. I cannot and will not go back on this commitment. I will fight fanaticism and fight in defense of Christians to the death.”
Bhatti is the second prominent government official to be assassinated this year because of his position on the blasphemy law. The Muslim governor of the Punjab region, Salman Taseer, was murdered at the start of the year by a body guard who said he was angered by Taseer’s defense of Bibi.
After the governor's funeral, on Jan. 5, Bhatti told Vatican Radio that Tasee assassination might intimidate other opponents of the blasphemy law.
“But,” he added, “I believe that the discovery of this violence cannot create fear and cannot stop us from raising our voices in favor of justice and the protection of minorities and innocent people in Pakistan."
He was aware that his life was in danger. He had given the Arabic news channel Al Jazeera and the BBC a pre-recorded message to be broadcast in the event he was killed.
In the message, Bhatti said that death threats will not change his opinions and principles. He asserts that he will not stop speaking on behalf of Pakistan's “oppressed and marginalized persecuted Christians and other minorities.”
“I will die to defend their rights,” he said in his message
Sunday, February 27, 2011
The Catholic Church, Christendom, and Western Civilization - Facing Satan Again - Part 1 of 4 Notes
By Natalio A. Yaria - Sunday, February 27, 2011
The Catholic Church is facing now not a particular heresy as were the Arian, the Manichean, and the Albigensian in the past; or it is in front of the controversies that separated the Roman Catholic Church with the Eastern Orthodox Church; neither is it struggling today with a generalized division within the Church as it was when it had to meet the Protestant reform around five hundred years ago; nor does it stand in front to anything of the size and violence of the Germanic, Hun or Islamic invasions from the fall of the Roman Empire in the V century to the end of the XVII century.
From the end of the XVIII century, either the Terror of the French Revolution, and its by-product, or the Napoleonic Era and the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution experimented and failed to destryed the Catholic Church. During 70 years, Soviet Communism was also determined to destroy the Church and Christendom and establishe under "the leading role" of the Comunist Party the "socialist paradise" on earth; but close to the end of the XX century the USSR suffered a strategic defeat.
We must admit, however, that after the end of WWII in 1946, we did not know the extent of the area over which the Church would have to survive; our enemies had doubts on the Catholic Church power of revival. We could not identify what was precisely the capacity and power of "dialectical materialism" to push our Church to its last defenses, and sometimes it appeared as though it had come to the final battle.
Throughout many centuries all of Satan's emissaries have attempted to destroy the Catholic Church and all of them have failed. Their worst elements have already been disposed into the cesspool of history.
During all those aggressions, the Catholic Church resisted and confronted its adversaries and during those experiences that lasted for centuries, The Church purified itself from elements even inside the Church. As St. Peter tells us, we must “Stay sober and alert. Your opponent the devil is prowling like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour. Resist him solid in your faith, realizing that the brotherhood of believers is undergoing the same suffering throughout the world.” 1 St. Peter 5
We know, of course, as was promised by our Lord Jesus Christ, that as in the many attempts of the past, the present and future efforts of Satan’s emissaries to destroy the Catholic Church shall not prevail. But make no mistake; Satan’s moral depravity is still around. His emissaries have not given up; they just changed their tactics. We are engaged on a definite line of cleavages, involving the survival of Christendom and Western Civilization - and all of what the Church stands for - not just a portion of its teaching. The enemy of the Faith, camouflaged today in "modern relativism," has launched a wholesale assault upon the fundamentals of the Faith and Christendom and upon the very existence of Western Civilization.
The enemy has already presented and has already begun to implement their “plan of battle” against us. We must agree, however, they have a well thought out plan; they developed highly provocative and no necessarily original perspectives on contemporary society and culture.Their approach is what we shall call here the "gentle seduction strategy" which we will present in Part II of these Notes. Yet, the emissaries are increasingly conscious of the fact that there can be no question of neutrality on our part on their programs on eugenics, population control, birth control, sexual and family law reforms, sex and health education.
This is their battle objective: changing “the subjective conditions of the masses” for a final assault which is already underway. So far they seem to be successful. But, time will prove them wrong; what we are witnessing is a set of very rough skirmishes that eventually they will lose. The final battle is ours because they have made two fatal miscalculations: first, they have underestimated the powerful role of Faith in the development and permanence of order and peace in society; and, second, they have overestimated the role of historical economic determinism in the cultural transformation of societies.
Before we advance any further, here are few Words of Caution:
To those who have no sympathy with Catholicism, who inherit the old doctrinal animosity to the Church and who may think that any attack on the Catholic Church must somehow or other be a good thing, the present attack is on Christendom which includes the Holy Roman Catholic and Apostolic Church, the Greek and Russian Orthodox Churches and the lineal or collateral descendants of former members of the Catholic Church that today call themselves "Christians.” There can be no neutrality in these skirmishes; the lines are drawn, the enemy is facing Christendom.
Now, a few words must be said about the present and future relationship between Christendom and Islam. First of all, we predict that, contrary to the current belief, the clash will not be between these two powerful civilizations; it will be between the joint forces of those who believe in one God’s teachings against those trying to impose Satan’s to the world. Secondly, after the emissaries of Satan are defeated, a new quiet period will arrive and a new world must be rebuilt. Thirdly, it might very well be then that, as Satan regroups new forces, Christendom and Islam may have to guide jointly the process of upgrading human affairs into a new world of order and peace.
((()))
The Catholic Church is facing now not a particular heresy as were the Arian, the Manichean, and the Albigensian in the past; or it is in front of the controversies that separated the Roman Catholic Church with the Eastern Orthodox Church; neither is it struggling today with a generalized division within the Church as it was when it had to meet the Protestant reform around five hundred years ago; nor does it stand in front to anything of the size and violence of the Germanic, Hun or Islamic invasions from the fall of the Roman Empire in the V century to the end of the XVII century.
From the end of the XVIII century, either the Terror of the French Revolution, and its by-product, or the Napoleonic Era and the 1917 Bolshevik Revolution experimented and failed to destryed the Catholic Church. During 70 years, Soviet Communism was also determined to destroy the Church and Christendom and establishe under "the leading role" of the Comunist Party the "socialist paradise" on earth; but close to the end of the XX century the USSR suffered a strategic defeat.
We must admit, however, that after the end of WWII in 1946, we did not know the extent of the area over which the Church would have to survive; our enemies had doubts on the Catholic Church power of revival. We could not identify what was precisely the capacity and power of "dialectical materialism" to push our Church to its last defenses, and sometimes it appeared as though it had come to the final battle.
Throughout many centuries all of Satan's emissaries have attempted to destroy the Catholic Church and all of them have failed. Their worst elements have already been disposed into the cesspool of history.
During all those aggressions, the Catholic Church resisted and confronted its adversaries and during those experiences that lasted for centuries, The Church purified itself from elements even inside the Church. As St. Peter tells us, we must “Stay sober and alert. Your opponent the devil is prowling like a roaring lion looking for someone to devour. Resist him solid in your faith, realizing that the brotherhood of believers is undergoing the same suffering throughout the world.” 1 St. Peter 5
We know, of course, as was promised by our Lord Jesus Christ, that as in the many attempts of the past, the present and future efforts of Satan’s emissaries to destroy the Catholic Church shall not prevail. But make no mistake; Satan’s moral depravity is still around. His emissaries have not given up; they just changed their tactics. We are engaged on a definite line of cleavages, involving the survival of Christendom and Western Civilization - and all of what the Church stands for - not just a portion of its teaching. The enemy of the Faith, camouflaged today in "modern relativism," has launched a wholesale assault upon the fundamentals of the Faith and Christendom and upon the very existence of Western Civilization.
The enemy has already presented and has already begun to implement their “plan of battle” against us. We must agree, however, they have a well thought out plan; they developed highly provocative and no necessarily original perspectives on contemporary society and culture.Their approach is what we shall call here the "gentle seduction strategy" which we will present in Part II of these Notes. Yet, the emissaries are increasingly conscious of the fact that there can be no question of neutrality on our part on their programs on eugenics, population control, birth control, sexual and family law reforms, sex and health education.
This is their battle objective: changing “the subjective conditions of the masses” for a final assault which is already underway. So far they seem to be successful. But, time will prove them wrong; what we are witnessing is a set of very rough skirmishes that eventually they will lose. The final battle is ours because they have made two fatal miscalculations: first, they have underestimated the powerful role of Faith in the development and permanence of order and peace in society; and, second, they have overestimated the role of historical economic determinism in the cultural transformation of societies.
Before we advance any further, here are few Words of Caution:
To those who have no sympathy with Catholicism, who inherit the old doctrinal animosity to the Church and who may think that any attack on the Catholic Church must somehow or other be a good thing, the present attack is on Christendom which includes the Holy Roman Catholic and Apostolic Church, the Greek and Russian Orthodox Churches and the lineal or collateral descendants of former members of the Catholic Church that today call themselves "Christians.” There can be no neutrality in these skirmishes; the lines are drawn, the enemy is facing Christendom.
Now, a few words must be said about the present and future relationship between Christendom and Islam. First of all, we predict that, contrary to the current belief, the clash will not be between these two powerful civilizations; it will be between the joint forces of those who believe in one God’s teachings against those trying to impose Satan’s to the world. Secondly, after the emissaries of Satan are defeated, a new quiet period will arrive and a new world must be rebuilt. Thirdly, it might very well be then that, as Satan regroups new forces, Christendom and Islam may have to guide jointly the process of upgrading human affairs into a new world of order and peace.
((()))
Monday, February 21, 2011
Number of baptized Catholics in the world grows by 15 million
Vatican City, Feb 19, 2011 / 01:38 pm (CNA/EWTN News).-
Catholics in the world continue to increase in number by the millions, according to the latest official statistics from the Catholic Church. Although the number of baptized Catholics in on the rise, Church officials say that with the exception of Asia and Africa, the "crisis remains" in vocations to the religious life throughout the globe.
The 2011 Pontifical Yearbook was presented to Pope Benedict XVI on the morning of Feb. 19 by a delegation led by his “number two,” secretary of state Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone and members of the Central Office of Church Statistics.
The book contains information on all Church jurisdictions and organizations, religious and cultural institutes and structures worldwide. Some information was released about novelties in dioceses and other church jurisdictions created in 2010 yet the main focus is on statistics from 2008-2009.
The standout figure of the new yearbook is the jump in the number of newly baptized Catholics over the two-year period.
In the 2,956 church jurisdictions in the world, the number jumped by 15 million from 2008. The total number of living baptized Catholics on the globe in 2009 reached 1,181,000,000.
North and South America account for a fraction under half of this number. European Catholics amount to 24 percent, Africa rings in at 15 percent and Asia at just over 10 percent; the remaining number, totaling less than one percentage point, live in Oceania.
Growth figures for all continents were not provided for the individual continents in the Vatican statement.
The yearbook also showed that the number of bishops and priests grew in direct proportion to the number of Catholics worldwide. For the 1.3 percent more Catholics in the world, there was 1.3 percent more of both bishops and priests in the period from 2008 - 2009. In 2009, there were 5,065 bishops and 410,593 priests.
The numbers also show a net increase of priests on every continent except Europe, where both religious and diocesan numbers decreased over the two-year period examined.
This increase was perhaps overshadowed, however, by what Church officials called a troubling statistic. Consecrated religious numbers decreased worldwide by nearly 10,000 to 729,371.
"So the crisis remains, notwithstanding Africa and Asia where they increased," read the Vatican statement.
Numbers also show that deacons worldwide increased by more than 1,000 men to a total of 38,155 and seminarians are on the increase led by significantly higher numbers again in Africa and Asia. Decreases were registered in Europe and in the combined total of North and South American dioceses.
The 2011 Yearbook has not yet been released by the Vatican Publishing House to the public, but it will be due out soon.
The Pope traditionally receives the first three copies of the volume bound in white cloth. It is made available to the public with a red-colored binding, which has led to its common name - the "red book of the Church."
According to the statement from the Holy See's Press Office, the Pope thanked the delegation and all contributors for the volume and showed "great interest" in the data it contains.
Catholics in the world continue to increase in number by the millions, according to the latest official statistics from the Catholic Church. Although the number of baptized Catholics in on the rise, Church officials say that with the exception of Asia and Africa, the "crisis remains" in vocations to the religious life throughout the globe.
The 2011 Pontifical Yearbook was presented to Pope Benedict XVI on the morning of Feb. 19 by a delegation led by his “number two,” secretary of state Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone and members of the Central Office of Church Statistics.
The book contains information on all Church jurisdictions and organizations, religious and cultural institutes and structures worldwide. Some information was released about novelties in dioceses and other church jurisdictions created in 2010 yet the main focus is on statistics from 2008-2009.
The standout figure of the new yearbook is the jump in the number of newly baptized Catholics over the two-year period.
In the 2,956 church jurisdictions in the world, the number jumped by 15 million from 2008. The total number of living baptized Catholics on the globe in 2009 reached 1,181,000,000.
North and South America account for a fraction under half of this number. European Catholics amount to 24 percent, Africa rings in at 15 percent and Asia at just over 10 percent; the remaining number, totaling less than one percentage point, live in Oceania.
Growth figures for all continents were not provided for the individual continents in the Vatican statement.
The yearbook also showed that the number of bishops and priests grew in direct proportion to the number of Catholics worldwide. For the 1.3 percent more Catholics in the world, there was 1.3 percent more of both bishops and priests in the period from 2008 - 2009. In 2009, there were 5,065 bishops and 410,593 priests.
The numbers also show a net increase of priests on every continent except Europe, where both religious and diocesan numbers decreased over the two-year period examined.
This increase was perhaps overshadowed, however, by what Church officials called a troubling statistic. Consecrated religious numbers decreased worldwide by nearly 10,000 to 729,371.
"So the crisis remains, notwithstanding Africa and Asia where they increased," read the Vatican statement.
Numbers also show that deacons worldwide increased by more than 1,000 men to a total of 38,155 and seminarians are on the increase led by significantly higher numbers again in Africa and Asia. Decreases were registered in Europe and in the combined total of North and South American dioceses.
The 2011 Yearbook has not yet been released by the Vatican Publishing House to the public, but it will be due out soon.
The Pope traditionally receives the first three copies of the volume bound in white cloth. It is made available to the public with a red-colored binding, which has led to its common name - the "red book of the Church."
According to the statement from the Holy See's Press Office, the Pope thanked the delegation and all contributors for the volume and showed "great interest" in the data it contains.
Saturday, January 22, 2011
Satan may be winning some skirmishes but ...
.by Natalio A. Yaria on Saturday, January 22, 2011 at 12:47am.
Satan knows that he can’t win the final battle. But, it seems that the “evil one” is succeeding in winning some skirmishes. To do that, his emissaries, camouflaged in modern “humanitarian” relativism, have somehow succeeded in convincing many people to take his path.
How do these emissaries do that? Their success rests on a “gentle-seduction" strategy; which means to persuade somebody to do something by making it seem desirable or exciting. In other words, before they corrupt the soul, they first seduce the mind.
The emissaries first step is to convince us to throw away, to free ourselves from “old fashion” moral values as things of the past. Then we are encouraged to proceed with an “open mind” to replace them with the so-called “freedom to express” our most intimate feelings . For these emissaries lapses of morality are an acceptable part of the process since we must "experiment" to learn and perhaps make mistakes. After all, they tell us, "what's no right for others, it may be right for you - all is relative." Button line: in order to reach that much needed happiness, we must strive for self-fulfilling “individuality.”
Warning: This is a seductive evil message to stir up egocentrism – we become selfish, interested only in personal needs and wants; our outlook is limited and confined to ourselves and not caring about other people. Thus, when we lower our guard we are exposed to the trap. When we are hooked by their seduction, they will have control over us: we may become step-by-step, without knowing it at first, another of Satan’s emissaries.
.
Satan knows that he can’t win the final battle. But, it seems that the “evil one” is succeeding in winning some skirmishes. To do that, his emissaries, camouflaged in modern “humanitarian” relativism, have somehow succeeded in convincing many people to take his path.
How do these emissaries do that? Their success rests on a “gentle-seduction" strategy; which means to persuade somebody to do something by making it seem desirable or exciting. In other words, before they corrupt the soul, they first seduce the mind.
The emissaries first step is to convince us to throw away, to free ourselves from “old fashion” moral values as things of the past. Then we are encouraged to proceed with an “open mind” to replace them with the so-called “freedom to express” our most intimate feelings . For these emissaries lapses of morality are an acceptable part of the process since we must "experiment" to learn and perhaps make mistakes. After all, they tell us, "what's no right for others, it may be right for you - all is relative." Button line: in order to reach that much needed happiness, we must strive for self-fulfilling “individuality.”
Warning: This is a seductive evil message to stir up egocentrism – we become selfish, interested only in personal needs and wants; our outlook is limited and confined to ourselves and not caring about other people. Thus, when we lower our guard we are exposed to the trap. When we are hooked by their seduction, they will have control over us: we may become step-by-step, without knowing it at first, another of Satan’s emissaries.
.
Friday, January 14, 2011
US Embassy to Vietnam sees progress in religious freedom despite anti-Catholic incidents
US
Hanoi, Vietnam, January 14 (CNA) .- A leaked U.S. State Department cable on religious freedom in Vietnam says the country has made progress and should not be re-designated as a "country of particular concern," despite significant incidents involving the beatings and arrests of Catholics.
The confidential memo from the U.S. embassy in Hanoi, dated Jan. 20, 2010, was published on Jan. 12 on the website of WikiLeaks, a media organization which has obtained more than 250,000 leaked U.S. State Department cables.
According to CNA's analysis of pre-released cable data, more than 600 of the cables concern Vietnam and religious freedom issues.
In recent years Vietnam's Catholics and its communist government have disputed the ownership of confiscated properties. The embassy cable noted the government's "poor handling" and "excessive use of violence" in situations such as the Dong Chiem Catholic parish incident.
On Jan. 6, 2010, the Vietnamese government demolished a crucifix on Dong Chiem church property. Parishioners who responded to the event with peaceful protest were beaten, arrested and suppressed. A Redemptorist brother was severely bludgeoned by police on Jan. 20 of that year for visiting the church.
Another issue was the eviction of nearly 400 Buddhist monks and nuns affiliated with French-based religious leader Thich Nhat Hanh's Plum Village Order.
Such situations were "troublesome" and indicative of a larger "crackdown" on human rights ahead of the January 2011 Communist Party Congress, the embassy cable said.
However, the embassy characterized the Dong Chiem incident and others as primarily "land disputes." Though more government transparency and a fair process for adjudicating claims are needed, these disputes do not meet the requirements of the 1998 International Religious Freedom Act and the incidents should not divert attention from the "significant gains" in religious freedoms since the CPC designation was lifted in November 2006, the cable said.
"The widespread, systematic religious persecution that existed prior to Vietnam's designation in 2004 does not exist anymore," the author of the cable said.
The embassy recommended the U.S. State Department use "high-level engagement opportunities" to press the Vietnamese government for expanded religious freedom in their country.
Pre-2004, Vietnam's repression of certain religious groups was "systematic and widespread," the embassy's summary said. Thousands of Central Highland villagers and other ethnic minorities were restricted from practicing their religion and many were forced to renounce their faith.
On Catholic issues specifically, the Vietnamese government limited the numbers of new seminarians and the ordinations of new priests below the rate necessary to replace those who left, retired or died. Church requests to create new dioceses, appoint new bishops, or form a new seminary also "languished" without formal government approval.
After Vietnam was designated a country of particular concern, the U.S. embassy reports, the country's government enacted "sweeping changes" to religious freedom policy. Its new legal framework bans forced renunciation of religion and grants citizens the freedom of belief.
Government-conducted training programs tried to ensure compliance with the new laws and central government officials began responding to complaints from religious leaders about their treatment.
Following these measures, religious believers and the Vietnamese government both reported an increase in religious activity and observance in the North and Northwest Highlands. Nearly 1,000 places of worship were legalized in the regions, and the changes also allowed training for hundreds of new Protestant and Catholic clergy.
The U.S. government had listed 45 individuals imprisoned because of their religious beliefs, but all were released by September 2006.
Despite the land disputes, the U.S. cable says, the Catholic Church continues to report an improved ability to gather and to worship. Restrictions on the assignment of clergy have also eased, while the government has approved an additional Catholic seminary and no longer restricts the number of seminary students.
Despite continuing problems, like "isolated" harassment of Christians and some forced renunciations of faith, there are no indications that the Vietnamese government is "backsliding" on its commitment to register and recognize religious groups.
While the U.S. Embassy to Vietnam opposed the designation of Vietnam as a country of particular concern, Members of Congress such as Rep. Chris Smith (R-N.J.) have called for the designation to be re-applied.
In a Dec. 15, 2010 hearing, he cited mounting tensions between the communist government and Catholic parishioners.
A May 2010 funeral procession in the Diocese of Da Nang tried to bury the body of an 82-year-old woman in Con Dau parish cemetery, which had been seized by the local government to build a tourist resort. Police broke up the procession, arrested 59 people and beat over 100 mourners.
Police deliberately beat two pregnant women so as to kill their unborn babies, charged Rep. Smith. In July a pallbearer at the funeral named Nam Nguyen was later kicked and bludgeoned to death by police.
A Dec. 8, 2010 police raid on the Redemptorists' Church of Our Lady of Perpetual Help in Ho Chi Minh City interrupted scheduled liturgical celebrations and ongoing Christmas preparations. Local authorities took provincial superior Fr. Vincent Pham Trung Than in for questioning and the Redemptorists were accused of preaching anti-government sentiment, instigating disorder, inciting riots and violating social media codes.
"Congress, the president, and all those who espouse fundamental human rights ought to be outraged at Vietnam's turn for the worse," Rep. Smith added. "President Obama should re-designate Vietnam as a Country of Particular Concern for its egregious violations of religious freedom."
WikiLeaks is slowly releasing many of the cables it has obtained, giving a partial view of the U.S. government's diplomatic relations and its officials' evaluations of other states.
Hanoi, Vietnam, January 14 (CNA) .- A leaked U.S. State Department cable on religious freedom in Vietnam says the country has made progress and should not be re-designated as a "country of particular concern," despite significant incidents involving the beatings and arrests of Catholics.
The confidential memo from the U.S. embassy in Hanoi, dated Jan. 20, 2010, was published on Jan. 12 on the website of WikiLeaks, a media organization which has obtained more than 250,000 leaked U.S. State Department cables.
According to CNA's analysis of pre-released cable data, more than 600 of the cables concern Vietnam and religious freedom issues.
In recent years Vietnam's Catholics and its communist government have disputed the ownership of confiscated properties. The embassy cable noted the government's "poor handling" and "excessive use of violence" in situations such as the Dong Chiem Catholic parish incident.
On Jan. 6, 2010, the Vietnamese government demolished a crucifix on Dong Chiem church property. Parishioners who responded to the event with peaceful protest were beaten, arrested and suppressed. A Redemptorist brother was severely bludgeoned by police on Jan. 20 of that year for visiting the church.
Another issue was the eviction of nearly 400 Buddhist monks and nuns affiliated with French-based religious leader Thich Nhat Hanh's Plum Village Order.
Such situations were "troublesome" and indicative of a larger "crackdown" on human rights ahead of the January 2011 Communist Party Congress, the embassy cable said.
However, the embassy characterized the Dong Chiem incident and others as primarily "land disputes." Though more government transparency and a fair process for adjudicating claims are needed, these disputes do not meet the requirements of the 1998 International Religious Freedom Act and the incidents should not divert attention from the "significant gains" in religious freedoms since the CPC designation was lifted in November 2006, the cable said.
"The widespread, systematic religious persecution that existed prior to Vietnam's designation in 2004 does not exist anymore," the author of the cable said.
The embassy recommended the U.S. State Department use "high-level engagement opportunities" to press the Vietnamese government for expanded religious freedom in their country.
Pre-2004, Vietnam's repression of certain religious groups was "systematic and widespread," the embassy's summary said. Thousands of Central Highland villagers and other ethnic minorities were restricted from practicing their religion and many were forced to renounce their faith.
On Catholic issues specifically, the Vietnamese government limited the numbers of new seminarians and the ordinations of new priests below the rate necessary to replace those who left, retired or died. Church requests to create new dioceses, appoint new bishops, or form a new seminary also "languished" without formal government approval.
After Vietnam was designated a country of particular concern, the U.S. embassy reports, the country's government enacted "sweeping changes" to religious freedom policy. Its new legal framework bans forced renunciation of religion and grants citizens the freedom of belief.
Government-conducted training programs tried to ensure compliance with the new laws and central government officials began responding to complaints from religious leaders about their treatment.
Following these measures, religious believers and the Vietnamese government both reported an increase in religious activity and observance in the North and Northwest Highlands. Nearly 1,000 places of worship were legalized in the regions, and the changes also allowed training for hundreds of new Protestant and Catholic clergy.
The U.S. government had listed 45 individuals imprisoned because of their religious beliefs, but all were released by September 2006.
Despite the land disputes, the U.S. cable says, the Catholic Church continues to report an improved ability to gather and to worship. Restrictions on the assignment of clergy have also eased, while the government has approved an additional Catholic seminary and no longer restricts the number of seminary students.
Despite continuing problems, like "isolated" harassment of Christians and some forced renunciations of faith, there are no indications that the Vietnamese government is "backsliding" on its commitment to register and recognize religious groups.
While the U.S. Embassy to Vietnam opposed the designation of Vietnam as a country of particular concern, Members of Congress such as Rep. Chris Smith (R-N.J.) have called for the designation to be re-applied.
In a Dec. 15, 2010 hearing, he cited mounting tensions between the communist government and Catholic parishioners.
A May 2010 funeral procession in the Diocese of Da Nang tried to bury the body of an 82-year-old woman in Con Dau parish cemetery, which had been seized by the local government to build a tourist resort. Police broke up the procession, arrested 59 people and beat over 100 mourners.
Police deliberately beat two pregnant women so as to kill their unborn babies, charged Rep. Smith. In July a pallbearer at the funeral named Nam Nguyen was later kicked and bludgeoned to death by police.
A Dec. 8, 2010 police raid on the Redemptorists' Church of Our Lady of Perpetual Help in Ho Chi Minh City interrupted scheduled liturgical celebrations and ongoing Christmas preparations. Local authorities took provincial superior Fr. Vincent Pham Trung Than in for questioning and the Redemptorists were accused of preaching anti-government sentiment, instigating disorder, inciting riots and violating social media codes.
"Congress, the president, and all those who espouse fundamental human rights ought to be outraged at Vietnam's turn for the worse," Rep. Smith added. "President Obama should re-designate Vietnam as a Country of Particular Concern for its egregious violations of religious freedom."
WikiLeaks is slowly releasing many of the cables it has obtained, giving a partial view of the U.S. government's diplomatic relations and its officials' evaluations of other states.
Wednesday, January 12, 2011
Vatican responds to Egypt recalling its ambassador over Pope's remarks
Vatican City, January 11 (CNA/EWTN News) .- The Holy See has no desire to escalate conflict or strain diplomatic relations, Vatican spokesman Fr. Federico Lombardi said Jan. 11 in response to Egypt recalling its ambassador in protest of Pope Benedict's condemnation of the recent violence against Christians in the country.
Fr. Lombardi made his remarks after Egypt temporarily recalled Mrs. Lamia Aly Mekhemar Hamada, ambassador of Arab Republic of Egypt to the Holy See. The action by the Egyptian government took place after Pope Benedict implored ambassadors in a Jan. 9 address to protect Christian minorities.
The Pope's comments followed a bomb attack by Islamic militants on a Coptic Christian church in Alexandria, Egypt on New Year's Eve that killed 23 people.
Hossam Zaki, an Egyptian foreign ministry spokesman, condemned the Pope's Jan. 9 remarks, saying the pontiff committed "unacceptable interference" in the country's "internal affairs."
Zaki also noted that Egypt has asked Ambassador Hamada to return to Cairo for a consultation on the Pope's comments.
In response to the situation, Vatican spokesman Fr. Lombardi said on Jan. 11 that the Holy See has no interest in straining diplomatic relations with Egypt and that the ambassador was able to meet with Archbishop Dominique Mamberti, Secretary for Relations with States of the Holy See, before she left.
Fr. Lombardi said that during her meeting with Archbishop Mamberti, the ambassador was able to receive "relevant information" to report back to her foreign ministry on the recent interventions of Pope Benedict, especially on religious freedom and the protection of Christians in the Middle East. The ambassador was also able to express her government's concerns regarding the current "difficult" situation.
Fr. Lombardi said Archbishop Mamberti stressed to the ambassador that the Vatican experiences the grief the country feels following the recent attack in Alexandria and shares the Egyptian government's concern in avoiding "the escalation of conflict and tension for religious reasons."Archbishop Mamberti also underscored his appreciation for the efforts that the government "makes in that direction."
But tensions within Egypt continue to simmer, with Jan. 11 reports saying a Muslim policeman opened fire on passengers aboard a Cairo-bound train, killing one Christian man and wounding 5 others.
Coptic Bishop Marcos told AFP that witnesses relayed to him how the gunman roamed the train looking for Christians and shouted 'Allahu Akbar!' before opening fire.
The attack is the latest in a string of violence committed against Christians in the Middle East by Islamic militants, adding to the Egyptian Church bombing in Alexandria on Jan. 1 and an attack at Our Lady of Salvation Cathedral in Baghdad, Iraq, on Oct. 31 last year that killed over 50 people.
Fr. Lombardi made his remarks after Egypt temporarily recalled Mrs. Lamia Aly Mekhemar Hamada, ambassador of Arab Republic of Egypt to the Holy See. The action by the Egyptian government took place after Pope Benedict implored ambassadors in a Jan. 9 address to protect Christian minorities.
The Pope's comments followed a bomb attack by Islamic militants on a Coptic Christian church in Alexandria, Egypt on New Year's Eve that killed 23 people.
Hossam Zaki, an Egyptian foreign ministry spokesman, condemned the Pope's Jan. 9 remarks, saying the pontiff committed "unacceptable interference" in the country's "internal affairs."
Zaki also noted that Egypt has asked Ambassador Hamada to return to Cairo for a consultation on the Pope's comments.
In response to the situation, Vatican spokesman Fr. Lombardi said on Jan. 11 that the Holy See has no interest in straining diplomatic relations with Egypt and that the ambassador was able to meet with Archbishop Dominique Mamberti, Secretary for Relations with States of the Holy See, before she left.
Fr. Lombardi said that during her meeting with Archbishop Mamberti, the ambassador was able to receive "relevant information" to report back to her foreign ministry on the recent interventions of Pope Benedict, especially on religious freedom and the protection of Christians in the Middle East. The ambassador was also able to express her government's concerns regarding the current "difficult" situation.
Fr. Lombardi said Archbishop Mamberti stressed to the ambassador that the Vatican experiences the grief the country feels following the recent attack in Alexandria and shares the Egyptian government's concern in avoiding "the escalation of conflict and tension for religious reasons."Archbishop Mamberti also underscored his appreciation for the efforts that the government "makes in that direction."
But tensions within Egypt continue to simmer, with Jan. 11 reports saying a Muslim policeman opened fire on passengers aboard a Cairo-bound train, killing one Christian man and wounding 5 others.
Coptic Bishop Marcos told AFP that witnesses relayed to him how the gunman roamed the train looking for Christians and shouted 'Allahu Akbar!' before opening fire.
The attack is the latest in a string of violence committed against Christians in the Middle East by Islamic militants, adding to the Egyptian Church bombing in Alexandria on Jan. 1 and an attack at Our Lady of Salvation Cathedral in Baghdad, Iraq, on Oct. 31 last year that killed over 50 people.
Monday, January 10, 2011
Vatican - Pope rips anti-Christian tide in major foreign policy speech
By John L Allen Jr.
Created Jan 10, 2011 Published on National Catholic Reporter (http://ncronline.org)
ANALYSIS
Pope Benedict XVI today devoted his most closely watched annual foreign policy address to religious freedom, especially what many observers see as a rising global tide of anti-Christian hostility. He denounced assaults on Christians in Iraq, Egypt, Nigeria, Pakistan and China, as well as a growing “marginalization” of Christianity in secular Europe.
While this was hardly the first time a pope has lauded religious freedom, Benedict’s defense of beleaguered Christians was unusually focused – reflecting a growing conviction in the Vatican that anti-Christian persecution around the world, sometimes referred to as “Christianophobia,” is taking on epidemic proportions.
How much difference Benedict’s language will make on the ground remains to be seen, but it does clearly confirm that religious freedom, and especially the defense of embattled Christians, has become the Vatican’s supreme diplomatic priority.
“Acts of discrimination against Christians,” the pontiff complained, frequently “are considered less grave and less worthy of attention on the part of governments and public opinion.”
The remarks came in Benedict’s annual address to the diplomatic corps accredited to the Holy See, considered the pope’s most important foreign policy speech of the year. The Holy See currently has diplomatic relations with 178 nations and the European Union, as well as special observer status at the United Nations.
In years past, popes have typically used the speech to diplomats as a sort of foreign policy panorama, surveying major global concerns such as economic justice, war and peace, the environment, and equity in diplomatic relations. This year, however, Benedict XVI was focused like a laser beam on religious freedom, and in particular with attacks on Christians.
Benedict began by citing the plight of Christians in Iraq, where two-thirds of what was once the Middle East’s second-largest Christian population has vanished since the first Gulf War in 1991, and Egypt.
“Need we repeat it?” the pope asked rhetorically. “Christians are original and authentic citizens” in the Middle East, Benedict said, quoting the concluding message from the recent Synod of Bishops for the Middle East, who should “enjoy all the rights of freedom of conscience, freedom of worship and freedom of education, teaching and the use of the mass media.”
Benedict pointedly added that it’s not enough to guarantee freedom of worship. Bishops in the region frequently say that while Islamic states generally allow Christians to celebrate religious rituals, they do not respect freedom of conscience – for instance, the right of a Muslim to convert to Christianity without legal fallout. Further, they say, Christians are often discriminated against in housing, employment, and civic life.
Benedict also said he hopes the church will be able to establish “suitable pastoral structures” on the Arabian Peninsula to serve immigrant Christian populations.
(At the Synod of Bishops for the Middle East, participants said that fully half the Christians of the region today are not traditional Arab faithful, but “guest workers,” mostly migrants from Asia and Africa. Saudi Arabia now contains the second largest Catholic community in the Middle East, with what the Vatican estimates at 1.25 million believers, though the country does not permit public expression of any non-Islamic faith.)
While popes typically offer broad moral principles in their foreign policy addresses rather than specific legislative recommendations, Benedict bluntly demanded that the anti-blasphemy law in Pakistan, which the country's small Christianity minority says is used as a tool of intimidation and persecution.
Last July, two Christian brothers accused under the law of writing a blasphemous letter against Muhammad, the founder of Islam, were gunned down outside a Pakistani court. In 2005, another Christian accused of blasphemy was beaten to death in a prison hospital by a guard wielding a hammer.
In November, a Christian mother of four was sentenced to death under the law, a case that has sparked wide international protest. In early December, a pro-Taliban Pakistani cleric offered a reward of $5,800 to anyone who kills the woman in prison, angered by attempts of the local governor to save her life.
Benedict also noted that in other parts of the world, “philosophical and political systems call for strict control, if not a monopoly, of the state over society” – specifically mentioning China and Cuba, both places where the Catholic church has a troubled relationship with an officially Marxist government.
In the West, meanwhile, Benedict warned against what he described as a growing tendency to “marginalize” Christianity. In particular, he cited a case currently on appeal before the European Court of Human Rights which would require Italy to remove crucifixes from its public school classrooms.
The pope also insisted on upholding the “right to conscientious objection” on the part of Christian health care workers and legal professionals.
Benedict concluded by asserting that the “path leading to authentic and lasting peace” necessarily “passes through respect for the right to religious freedom in all its fullness.”
For those foreign ministries around the world (including, of course, the U.S. State Department) seeking to understand the diplomatic priorities of the Holy See in the New Year, Pope Benedict’s speech this morning seems to provide a clear one-word reply: “Christianophobia.”
Taking that concern seriously, it would seem, is the price of admission to collaboration with the Holy See on anything else.
[John L. Allen, Jr. is NCR senior correspondent.]
Created Jan 10, 2011 Published on National Catholic Reporter (http://ncronline.org)
ANALYSIS
Pope Benedict XVI today devoted his most closely watched annual foreign policy address to religious freedom, especially what many observers see as a rising global tide of anti-Christian hostility. He denounced assaults on Christians in Iraq, Egypt, Nigeria, Pakistan and China, as well as a growing “marginalization” of Christianity in secular Europe.
While this was hardly the first time a pope has lauded religious freedom, Benedict’s defense of beleaguered Christians was unusually focused – reflecting a growing conviction in the Vatican that anti-Christian persecution around the world, sometimes referred to as “Christianophobia,” is taking on epidemic proportions.
How much difference Benedict’s language will make on the ground remains to be seen, but it does clearly confirm that religious freedom, and especially the defense of embattled Christians, has become the Vatican’s supreme diplomatic priority.
“Acts of discrimination against Christians,” the pontiff complained, frequently “are considered less grave and less worthy of attention on the part of governments and public opinion.”
The remarks came in Benedict’s annual address to the diplomatic corps accredited to the Holy See, considered the pope’s most important foreign policy speech of the year. The Holy See currently has diplomatic relations with 178 nations and the European Union, as well as special observer status at the United Nations.
In years past, popes have typically used the speech to diplomats as a sort of foreign policy panorama, surveying major global concerns such as economic justice, war and peace, the environment, and equity in diplomatic relations. This year, however, Benedict XVI was focused like a laser beam on religious freedom, and in particular with attacks on Christians.
Benedict began by citing the plight of Christians in Iraq, where two-thirds of what was once the Middle East’s second-largest Christian population has vanished since the first Gulf War in 1991, and Egypt.
“Need we repeat it?” the pope asked rhetorically. “Christians are original and authentic citizens” in the Middle East, Benedict said, quoting the concluding message from the recent Synod of Bishops for the Middle East, who should “enjoy all the rights of freedom of conscience, freedom of worship and freedom of education, teaching and the use of the mass media.”
Benedict pointedly added that it’s not enough to guarantee freedom of worship. Bishops in the region frequently say that while Islamic states generally allow Christians to celebrate religious rituals, they do not respect freedom of conscience – for instance, the right of a Muslim to convert to Christianity without legal fallout. Further, they say, Christians are often discriminated against in housing, employment, and civic life.
Benedict also said he hopes the church will be able to establish “suitable pastoral structures” on the Arabian Peninsula to serve immigrant Christian populations.
(At the Synod of Bishops for the Middle East, participants said that fully half the Christians of the region today are not traditional Arab faithful, but “guest workers,” mostly migrants from Asia and Africa. Saudi Arabia now contains the second largest Catholic community in the Middle East, with what the Vatican estimates at 1.25 million believers, though the country does not permit public expression of any non-Islamic faith.)
While popes typically offer broad moral principles in their foreign policy addresses rather than specific legislative recommendations, Benedict bluntly demanded that the anti-blasphemy law in Pakistan, which the country's small Christianity minority says is used as a tool of intimidation and persecution.
Last July, two Christian brothers accused under the law of writing a blasphemous letter against Muhammad, the founder of Islam, were gunned down outside a Pakistani court. In 2005, another Christian accused of blasphemy was beaten to death in a prison hospital by a guard wielding a hammer.
In November, a Christian mother of four was sentenced to death under the law, a case that has sparked wide international protest. In early December, a pro-Taliban Pakistani cleric offered a reward of $5,800 to anyone who kills the woman in prison, angered by attempts of the local governor to save her life.
Benedict also noted that in other parts of the world, “philosophical and political systems call for strict control, if not a monopoly, of the state over society” – specifically mentioning China and Cuba, both places where the Catholic church has a troubled relationship with an officially Marxist government.
In the West, meanwhile, Benedict warned against what he described as a growing tendency to “marginalize” Christianity. In particular, he cited a case currently on appeal before the European Court of Human Rights which would require Italy to remove crucifixes from its public school classrooms.
The pope also insisted on upholding the “right to conscientious objection” on the part of Christian health care workers and legal professionals.
Benedict concluded by asserting that the “path leading to authentic and lasting peace” necessarily “passes through respect for the right to religious freedom in all its fullness.”
For those foreign ministries around the world (including, of course, the U.S. State Department) seeking to understand the diplomatic priorities of the Holy See in the New Year, Pope Benedict’s speech this morning seems to provide a clear one-word reply: “Christianophobia.”
Taking that concern seriously, it would seem, is the price of admission to collaboration with the Holy See on anything else.
[John L. Allen, Jr. is NCR senior correspondent.]
Sunday, January 9, 2011
Over 2,000 college students spread Gospel in Chile
Santiago, Chile, Jan 5, 2011 / 04:06 pm (CNA).-
More than 2,000 young people from 55 universities in Chile are bringing Christ to Chileans in January.
The college students are participating in a national mission Jan. 3-13 with the theme, “United at your table, Lord, let us enliven the Church in Chile.”
The young Chileans attended a Jan. 3 Mass of commissioning celebrated by Cardinal Francisco Javier Errazuriz, the outgoing Archbishop of Santiago, at the Marian Shrine of Maipu.
Each morning, the young people go door-to-door visiting families and sharing the Gospel, explain organizers of the mission. In the afternoon, the students participate in the “social mission” by visiting hospitals, prisons, orphanages and retirement homes.
The young people also participate in workshops for children, teens and adults in the “family mission.”
The national mission will also include processions, festivals and theatrical works, in which the entire community will participate.
The national mission first began in 2004 at the Pontifical Catholic University in Santiago. Each year it provides young people from across the country the opportunity to “spread the message of Christ” in the service of the Church.
More than 2,000 young people from 55 universities in Chile are bringing Christ to Chileans in January.
The college students are participating in a national mission Jan. 3-13 with the theme, “United at your table, Lord, let us enliven the Church in Chile.”
The young Chileans attended a Jan. 3 Mass of commissioning celebrated by Cardinal Francisco Javier Errazuriz, the outgoing Archbishop of Santiago, at the Marian Shrine of Maipu.
Each morning, the young people go door-to-door visiting families and sharing the Gospel, explain organizers of the mission. In the afternoon, the students participate in the “social mission” by visiting hospitals, prisons, orphanages and retirement homes.
The young people also participate in workshops for children, teens and adults in the “family mission.”
The national mission will also include processions, festivals and theatrical works, in which the entire community will participate.
The national mission first began in 2004 at the Pontifical Catholic University in Santiago. Each year it provides young people from across the country the opportunity to “spread the message of Christ” in the service of the Church.
‘Chilling’ statistics show 41% of New York City babies aborted.
by Patrick B. Craine. Fri Jan 07 4:25 PM EST
NEW YORK, January 7, 2011 (LifeSiteNews.com) – A new report has found that 41% of babies in the womb were aborted in New York City in 2009 – a finding that has spurred local pro-lifers to redouble their efforts to lower the city’s abortion rate.
On Thursday a press conference was organized by the Chiaroscuro Foundation, which supports alternatives to abortion, in response to the report. The Foundation has launched a new campaign and a website at NYC41percent.com, and have pledged $1 million for 2011 to cut the city’s abortion rate.
“Like it or not, the legality of abortion is a settled question in New York for the time being,” said Greg Pfundstein, executive director of the Chiaroscuro Foundation. “That doesn’t mean we have to accept the fact that in parts of the city nearly half of all pregnancies end in abortion.”
At that press conference the Archbishop of New York, Timothy Dolan, reaffirmed the Catholic Church’s desire to welcome and support pregnant women.
“Any woman who is pregnant and in need can come to the Church and we will help you,” said Dolan, quoting a twenty-five year old statement from the late Cardinal John O’Connor.
Bishop Dimarzio of Brooklyn and Rabbi David Zwiebel also joined Dolan.
“So many have said abortion must be rare. 87,000 abortions in this city is not rare. It’s an abysmal failure,” Zwiebel said.
The report, recently released by the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, said that of 225,667 pregnancies in 2009, there were 87,273 abortions.
As is common throughout the country, there was a major racial disparity, with the majority of abortions being from African-American and Hispanic women. About 60% of African-American women’s unborn babies were aborted, 41.3% for Hispanic women, 22.7% for Asians, and 21.4% for Caucasians.
Archbishop Dolan, who serves as president of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, called the statistics “downright chilling” and said they make him “embarrassed” to be a member of this normally “cherished community.”
While New York is known for its hospitality and sensitivity to those in need, the prelate continued, “we are tragically letting down the tiniest, most fragile and vulnerable: the little baby in the womb.”
“We have to do more than shiver over these chilling statistics!” he declared. “I invite all to come together to make abortion rare, a goal even those who work to expand the abortion license tell us they share.”
“Mother Teresa remarked that the worst poverty was to take the life of a baby so we could live, as we want,” the prelate concluded. “New York does not deserve the gravestone, ‘Abortion capital of the world.’ Our boast is the Statue of Liberty, not the ‘Grim Reaper.’”
“Through our Catholic charities, our adoption services, our lobbying on behalf of pregnant women and mothers of infants, our support for life-giving alternatives to the decision all call tragic – abortion – in our education of youth for healthy, responsible, virtuous sexual behavior, our health care, — – we have done our best to keep that promise, … and these haunting statistics only prod us to keep at it,” he said.
NEW YORK, January 7, 2011 (LifeSiteNews.com) – A new report has found that 41% of babies in the womb were aborted in New York City in 2009 – a finding that has spurred local pro-lifers to redouble their efforts to lower the city’s abortion rate.
On Thursday a press conference was organized by the Chiaroscuro Foundation, which supports alternatives to abortion, in response to the report. The Foundation has launched a new campaign and a website at NYC41percent.com, and have pledged $1 million for 2011 to cut the city’s abortion rate.
“Like it or not, the legality of abortion is a settled question in New York for the time being,” said Greg Pfundstein, executive director of the Chiaroscuro Foundation. “That doesn’t mean we have to accept the fact that in parts of the city nearly half of all pregnancies end in abortion.”
At that press conference the Archbishop of New York, Timothy Dolan, reaffirmed the Catholic Church’s desire to welcome and support pregnant women.
“Any woman who is pregnant and in need can come to the Church and we will help you,” said Dolan, quoting a twenty-five year old statement from the late Cardinal John O’Connor.
Bishop Dimarzio of Brooklyn and Rabbi David Zwiebel also joined Dolan.
“So many have said abortion must be rare. 87,000 abortions in this city is not rare. It’s an abysmal failure,” Zwiebel said.
The report, recently released by the New York City Department of Health and Mental Hygiene, said that of 225,667 pregnancies in 2009, there were 87,273 abortions.
As is common throughout the country, there was a major racial disparity, with the majority of abortions being from African-American and Hispanic women. About 60% of African-American women’s unborn babies were aborted, 41.3% for Hispanic women, 22.7% for Asians, and 21.4% for Caucasians.
Archbishop Dolan, who serves as president of the United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, called the statistics “downright chilling” and said they make him “embarrassed” to be a member of this normally “cherished community.”
While New York is known for its hospitality and sensitivity to those in need, the prelate continued, “we are tragically letting down the tiniest, most fragile and vulnerable: the little baby in the womb.”
“We have to do more than shiver over these chilling statistics!” he declared. “I invite all to come together to make abortion rare, a goal even those who work to expand the abortion license tell us they share.”
“Mother Teresa remarked that the worst poverty was to take the life of a baby so we could live, as we want,” the prelate concluded. “New York does not deserve the gravestone, ‘Abortion capital of the world.’ Our boast is the Statue of Liberty, not the ‘Grim Reaper.’”
“Through our Catholic charities, our adoption services, our lobbying on behalf of pregnant women and mothers of infants, our support for life-giving alternatives to the decision all call tragic – abortion – in our education of youth for healthy, responsible, virtuous sexual behavior, our health care, — – we have done our best to keep that promise, … and these haunting statistics only prod us to keep at it,” he said.
Church Leaders Blast NYC Abortion Numbers
Updated: Friday, 07 Jan 2011, 2:54 PM EST
Published : Friday, 07 Jan 2011, 2:54 PM EST
By SUMATHI REDDY / The Wall Street Journal
WSJ.COM/NEWSCORE - Archbishop Timothy Dolan joined other religious leaders Thursday vowing to work to reduce the number of abortions in New York City, The Wall Street Journal reported Friday.
Leaders of various faiths denounced figures that showed that 41 percent of pregnancies in the city were terminated in 2009. They also criticized sex-education programs in the public school system that include distributing condoms.
"That 41 percent of New York babies are aborted, a percentage even higher in the Bronx and among our African-American babies in the womb, is downright chilling," said the archbishop, the leader of the Roman Catholic Church in New York City. "I invite all to come together to make abortion rare," he added.
The numbers were released by the Chiaroscuro Foundation, a not-for-profit supporting alternatives to abortion.
The rate was based on figures from the city Department of Health, which reported a slightly lower abortion rate, 38.7 percent. Foundation officials did not include miscarriages in their total pregnancy number, resulting in the different rates.
The number of abortions in New York City has decreased over the past decade. But religious and civic leaders said the number is still too high.
In a statement, Mary Alice Carr, NARAL Pro-Choice New York's vice president for communications, said, "These men continue to meddle in women's lives and preach a gospel of shame and stigma," adding that pro-choice groups "will never stand quietly by and watch self-proclaimed moral authorities attempt to interfere in the reproductive lives of others."
SOUCE: WSJ.COM
Published : Friday, 07 Jan 2011, 2:54 PM EST
By SUMATHI REDDY / The Wall Street Journal
WSJ.COM/NEWSCORE - Archbishop Timothy Dolan joined other religious leaders Thursday vowing to work to reduce the number of abortions in New York City, The Wall Street Journal reported Friday.
Leaders of various faiths denounced figures that showed that 41 percent of pregnancies in the city were terminated in 2009. They also criticized sex-education programs in the public school system that include distributing condoms.
"That 41 percent of New York babies are aborted, a percentage even higher in the Bronx and among our African-American babies in the womb, is downright chilling," said the archbishop, the leader of the Roman Catholic Church in New York City. "I invite all to come together to make abortion rare," he added.
The numbers were released by the Chiaroscuro Foundation, a not-for-profit supporting alternatives to abortion.
The rate was based on figures from the city Department of Health, which reported a slightly lower abortion rate, 38.7 percent. Foundation officials did not include miscarriages in their total pregnancy number, resulting in the different rates.
The number of abortions in New York City has decreased over the past decade. But religious and civic leaders said the number is still too high.
In a statement, Mary Alice Carr, NARAL Pro-Choice New York's vice president for communications, said, "These men continue to meddle in women's lives and preach a gospel of shame and stigma," adding that pro-choice groups "will never stand quietly by and watch self-proclaimed moral authorities attempt to interfere in the reproductive lives of others."
SOUCE: WSJ.COM
Saturday, January 8, 2011
US lodges strong protest with Vietnam after beating of American diplomat.
By Marianne Medlin, Staff Writer (CNN)
Washington D.C., Jan 8, 2011 / 08:01 am (CNA).- The U.S. State Department lodged a sharp protest with the Vietnamese government after a U.S. diplomat was beaten in the country for attempting to visit an ailing Catholic priest who is under house arrest.
The recent incident joins a string of human rights abuses involving Vietnamese police using violence against the country's inhabitants.
Radio Free Asia reported on Jan. 5 that the U.S. has lodged a "strong protest" with the Vietnamese government after local policemen attacked Christian Marchant – a political officer with the U.S. embassy in Hanoi – while he was trying to visit a Catholic priest.
Marchant, a practicing Mormon who lives in Hanoi, Vietnam with his wife and two children, was allegedly beaten outside a home for retired priests in Hue, where 63 year-old Father Nguyen Van Ly, a pro-democracy activist, is being held under house arrest. Father Ly was released from prison on medical parole last year. The diplomat had a pre-arranged meeting with Father Ly, who later told the RFA that he witnessed Marchant being wrestled to the ground, placed in a police vehicle and driven away. Police reportedly shut a car door numerous times on Marchant's legs.
“The United States Government, both here in Hanoi and in Washington, has lodged a strong, official protest with the Government of Vietnam,” said U.S. Ambassador Michael W. Michalak at a press conference concluding his three year term in the country on Jan. 6. “We are waiting for an official response from the Government of Vietnam.”
Mark Toner, a spokesman for the U.S. State Department, reported in a Jan. 6 briefing that although Marchant was “injured during that incident,” the diplomat was “up and walking around now.”
The U.S. State Department has summoned the Vietnamese ambassador in Washington to protest the incident, Toner said.
Officials from the Vietnamese embassy to the U.S. in Washington, D.C. did not respond to a request for comment from CNA.
Reports on human rights abuses in Vietnam – particularly against religious minorities such as Catholics – have caused an outcry among U.S. political leaders.
Rep. Chris Smith (R-N.J.) recently condemned violence against Catholics by the Vietnamese government and appealed to President Obama for a resolution designating Vietnam as a Country of Particular Concern.
Beatings, Church raids, arrests – and even deaths – are some of the violent incidents that have been inflicted on Catholics by authorities in Vietnam over increased conflict related to property rights. Throughout the last several decades, in provinces throughout the country, tensions have mounted between the Communist government and local parishioners as officials have repeatedly attempted to claim land where Catholic churches and facilities are situated.
Rep. Smith said in his remarks to Congress in Dec. 2010 that although Vietnam was listed as a Country of Particular Concern in 2004 and 2005 – with demonstrable progress for Catholics in the area during that time – the country has since been removed. He claimed that the Vietnamese government promising concrete actions as well as a major trade agreement with the U.S. led to Vietnam being taken off of the CPC list.
After this, he said, many “religious believers who expected a thaw and reform and openness were arrested or rearrested and sent to prison.”
He added that the Country of Particular Concern designation – and the penalties described by the International Religious Freedom Act – have in the past and “can be again a useful tool in performing reform in Vietnam.”
“Congress, the president, and all those who espouse fundamental human rights ought to be outraged at Vietnam's turn for the worse,” he added. “We should stand with the oppressed, not the oppressor.”
Washington D.C., Jan 8, 2011 / 08:01 am (CNA).- The U.S. State Department lodged a sharp protest with the Vietnamese government after a U.S. diplomat was beaten in the country for attempting to visit an ailing Catholic priest who is under house arrest.
The recent incident joins a string of human rights abuses involving Vietnamese police using violence against the country's inhabitants.
Radio Free Asia reported on Jan. 5 that the U.S. has lodged a "strong protest" with the Vietnamese government after local policemen attacked Christian Marchant – a political officer with the U.S. embassy in Hanoi – while he was trying to visit a Catholic priest.
Marchant, a practicing Mormon who lives in Hanoi, Vietnam with his wife and two children, was allegedly beaten outside a home for retired priests in Hue, where 63 year-old Father Nguyen Van Ly, a pro-democracy activist, is being held under house arrest. Father Ly was released from prison on medical parole last year. The diplomat had a pre-arranged meeting with Father Ly, who later told the RFA that he witnessed Marchant being wrestled to the ground, placed in a police vehicle and driven away. Police reportedly shut a car door numerous times on Marchant's legs.
“The United States Government, both here in Hanoi and in Washington, has lodged a strong, official protest with the Government of Vietnam,” said U.S. Ambassador Michael W. Michalak at a press conference concluding his three year term in the country on Jan. 6. “We are waiting for an official response from the Government of Vietnam.”
Mark Toner, a spokesman for the U.S. State Department, reported in a Jan. 6 briefing that although Marchant was “injured during that incident,” the diplomat was “up and walking around now.”
The U.S. State Department has summoned the Vietnamese ambassador in Washington to protest the incident, Toner said.
Officials from the Vietnamese embassy to the U.S. in Washington, D.C. did not respond to a request for comment from CNA.
Reports on human rights abuses in Vietnam – particularly against religious minorities such as Catholics – have caused an outcry among U.S. political leaders.
Rep. Chris Smith (R-N.J.) recently condemned violence against Catholics by the Vietnamese government and appealed to President Obama for a resolution designating Vietnam as a Country of Particular Concern.
Beatings, Church raids, arrests – and even deaths – are some of the violent incidents that have been inflicted on Catholics by authorities in Vietnam over increased conflict related to property rights. Throughout the last several decades, in provinces throughout the country, tensions have mounted between the Communist government and local parishioners as officials have repeatedly attempted to claim land where Catholic churches and facilities are situated.
Rep. Smith said in his remarks to Congress in Dec. 2010 that although Vietnam was listed as a Country of Particular Concern in 2004 and 2005 – with demonstrable progress for Catholics in the area during that time – the country has since been removed. He claimed that the Vietnamese government promising concrete actions as well as a major trade agreement with the U.S. led to Vietnam being taken off of the CPC list.
After this, he said, many “religious believers who expected a thaw and reform and openness were arrested or rearrested and sent to prison.”
He added that the Country of Particular Concern designation – and the penalties described by the International Religious Freedom Act – have in the past and “can be again a useful tool in performing reform in Vietnam.”
“Congress, the president, and all those who espouse fundamental human rights ought to be outraged at Vietnam's turn for the worse,” he added. “We should stand with the oppressed, not the oppressor.”
Thursday, January 6, 2011
Does homeschooling violate Vatican II?
The Divine Life Why We Were Created; a blog by Eric Sammons
Unless you’ve been living under a rock for the past decade, you are aware of the meteoric rise in homeschooling during that time. What was formally the reserve of a few fundamentalists and hippies has now gone mainstream. Just this week it was reported that over 2 million children are homeschooled, which constitutes approximately one in every 25 children currently in school today.
Catholics have not missed this bandwagon, as many Catholic families (including my own) have decided that homeschooling is the best way to educate their children. But what does the Church have to say in her magisterial documents about homeschooling? Is it allowed or prohibited? If no definitive word has been pronounced, is it encouraged or discouraged?
The first place to look to answer this question is Gravissimum Educationis (GE), Vatican II’s “Declaration on Christian Education.” In this document the Council Fathers address the importance of education and the need for every child to be educated. At first glance, it appears that homeschooling is clearly approved:
Parents who have the primary and inalienable right and duty to educate their children must enjoy true liberty in their choice of schools (GE 6).
If parents have the “primary and inalienable right and duty to education their children” and they must “enjoy true liberty in their choice of schools,” then surely they should be able to educate their own children in the home, correct? However, another passage should be examined as well:
The Council also reminds Catholic parents of the duty of entrusting their children to Catholic schools wherever and whenever it is possible and of supporting these schools to the best of their ability and of cooperating with them for the education of their children (GE 8 emphasis added).
In the context of GE and other contemporary Church documents related to education, it is clear the Council is thinking of traditional Catholic schools here; in other words, it is not thinking of a Catholic family homeschooling as a “Catholic school.” So what does this mean? Are homeschoolers violating Vatican II by not “entrusting their children to Catholic schools wherever and whenever it is possible” and not “supporting these schools to the best of their ability and of cooperating with them for the education of their children”? Should all Catholics send their children to Catholic schools if they are available to them?
To answer this question we must first consider what the Church considers proper education. According to GE, a true education aims at the formation of the human person in the pursuit of his ultimate end and of the good of the societies of which, as man, he is a member, and in whose obligations, as an adult, he will share (GE 1).
But this is not the only objective of education. All the baptized also have the right to a Christian education, which does not merely strive for the maturing of a human person as just now described, but has as its principal purpose this goal: that the baptized, while they are gradually introduced the knowledge of the mystery of salvation, become ever more aware of the gift of Faith they have received, and that they learn in addition how to worship God the Father in spirit and truth (cf. John 4:23) (GE 2)
So parents, who have a “primary and inalienable right and duty to education their children,” must take into consideration both of these aspects when determining their choice of schools – they must both consider a child’s formation as a human person as well as his formation as a Christian. But this also means that Catholic schools need to fulfill these two aspects of a Christian education – if they do not, then they are not truly “Catholic schools,” thus making it impossible for parents in their area to send their child to an outside Catholic school, as GE hopes every parent will do.
But I think we can go a step further than just saying that homeschooling is an option when the local Catholic schools are failing in their mission to offer a Christian education. To do this, we must consider the context in which Vatican II occurred. At that time, there was, for all intents and purposes, no such thing as Catholic homeschoolers as we would define them today. Homeschooling as a movement didn’t really start until the 1970’s and it didn’t become “mainstream” until this century. So the Council Fathers had no way to consider homeschooling as even an option. It should be remembered that ecumenical councils are protected by the Holy Spirit from error, but they are not given the gift of precognition. Faced between the choice of public, government schools and Catholic schools, it is no surprise that they urged that Catholic parents send their children to Catholic schools “wherever and whenever it is possible.” That was the only possible way for a child to receive a true Christian education as the Council Fathers envisioned it.
However, since the time of Vatican II, it has become clear that Catholic homeschooling has become a viable type of “Catholic school”, offering a fully Christian education as defined by the Council Fathers. Thus, I would argue that homeschooling can be a legitimate response to Vatican II’s call that Catholics entrust their children to “Catholic schools wherever and whenever it is possible” – even if there are good Catholic schools in the area. In today’s world, this fulfills the Council’s wishes that children receive a Christian education and that parents enjoy “true liberty” when choosing a school for their children.
It should be clear that I am not saying that all Catholics should homeschool their children. Each family is different and every child unique – what works for one situation might not work for others. But I do believe that Catholics who choose to homeschool their children – even if there is a good Catholic school available – are not violating the intention of the Council Fathers behind their desire that parents entrust their children “to Catholic schools wherever and whenever it is possible.”
Unless you’ve been living under a rock for the past decade, you are aware of the meteoric rise in homeschooling during that time. What was formally the reserve of a few fundamentalists and hippies has now gone mainstream. Just this week it was reported that over 2 million children are homeschooled, which constitutes approximately one in every 25 children currently in school today.
Catholics have not missed this bandwagon, as many Catholic families (including my own) have decided that homeschooling is the best way to educate their children. But what does the Church have to say in her magisterial documents about homeschooling? Is it allowed or prohibited? If no definitive word has been pronounced, is it encouraged or discouraged?
The first place to look to answer this question is Gravissimum Educationis (GE), Vatican II’s “Declaration on Christian Education.” In this document the Council Fathers address the importance of education and the need for every child to be educated. At first glance, it appears that homeschooling is clearly approved:
Parents who have the primary and inalienable right and duty to educate their children must enjoy true liberty in their choice of schools (GE 6).
If parents have the “primary and inalienable right and duty to education their children” and they must “enjoy true liberty in their choice of schools,” then surely they should be able to educate their own children in the home, correct? However, another passage should be examined as well:
The Council also reminds Catholic parents of the duty of entrusting their children to Catholic schools wherever and whenever it is possible and of supporting these schools to the best of their ability and of cooperating with them for the education of their children (GE 8 emphasis added).
In the context of GE and other contemporary Church documents related to education, it is clear the Council is thinking of traditional Catholic schools here; in other words, it is not thinking of a Catholic family homeschooling as a “Catholic school.” So what does this mean? Are homeschoolers violating Vatican II by not “entrusting their children to Catholic schools wherever and whenever it is possible” and not “supporting these schools to the best of their ability and of cooperating with them for the education of their children”? Should all Catholics send their children to Catholic schools if they are available to them?
To answer this question we must first consider what the Church considers proper education. According to GE, a true education aims at the formation of the human person in the pursuit of his ultimate end and of the good of the societies of which, as man, he is a member, and in whose obligations, as an adult, he will share (GE 1).
But this is not the only objective of education. All the baptized also have the right to a Christian education, which does not merely strive for the maturing of a human person as just now described, but has as its principal purpose this goal: that the baptized, while they are gradually introduced the knowledge of the mystery of salvation, become ever more aware of the gift of Faith they have received, and that they learn in addition how to worship God the Father in spirit and truth (cf. John 4:23) (GE 2)
So parents, who have a “primary and inalienable right and duty to education their children,” must take into consideration both of these aspects when determining their choice of schools – they must both consider a child’s formation as a human person as well as his formation as a Christian. But this also means that Catholic schools need to fulfill these two aspects of a Christian education – if they do not, then they are not truly “Catholic schools,” thus making it impossible for parents in their area to send their child to an outside Catholic school, as GE hopes every parent will do.
But I think we can go a step further than just saying that homeschooling is an option when the local Catholic schools are failing in their mission to offer a Christian education. To do this, we must consider the context in which Vatican II occurred. At that time, there was, for all intents and purposes, no such thing as Catholic homeschoolers as we would define them today. Homeschooling as a movement didn’t really start until the 1970’s and it didn’t become “mainstream” until this century. So the Council Fathers had no way to consider homeschooling as even an option. It should be remembered that ecumenical councils are protected by the Holy Spirit from error, but they are not given the gift of precognition. Faced between the choice of public, government schools and Catholic schools, it is no surprise that they urged that Catholic parents send their children to Catholic schools “wherever and whenever it is possible.” That was the only possible way for a child to receive a true Christian education as the Council Fathers envisioned it.
However, since the time of Vatican II, it has become clear that Catholic homeschooling has become a viable type of “Catholic school”, offering a fully Christian education as defined by the Council Fathers. Thus, I would argue that homeschooling can be a legitimate response to Vatican II’s call that Catholics entrust their children to “Catholic schools wherever and whenever it is possible” – even if there are good Catholic schools in the area. In today’s world, this fulfills the Council’s wishes that children receive a Christian education and that parents enjoy “true liberty” when choosing a school for their children.
It should be clear that I am not saying that all Catholics should homeschool their children. Each family is different and every child unique – what works for one situation might not work for others. But I do believe that Catholics who choose to homeschool their children – even if there is a good Catholic school available – are not violating the intention of the Council Fathers behind their desire that parents entrust their children “to Catholic schools wherever and whenever it is possible.”
On abortion, same-sex ‘marriage’ the Church cannot compromise
by The Editors, Breakpoint.org. Wed Jan 05 6:16 PM EST
January 5, 2010 (Breakpoint.org) - July 27, 1945. London is still slowly recovering from six years of war with Germany. Hundreds of thousands of British soldiers are dead. British cities are in ruins. As newsreels expose fresh horrors from the Nazi death camps, the British people wonder, “Is there no end to German atrocities?”
Thus, it was not surprising that many Brits recoiled when they heard about a memorial service at London’s Holy Trinity Church—not for England’s war dead, but for a German. The service would be broadcast on the BBC. Many wondered: Could there be such a thing as a good German, worthy of such an honor?
The answer was emphatically yes. The service was for Pastor Dietrich Bonhoeffer, executed by the Nazis three weeks before the war’s end. Bonhoeffer is often remembered for his resistance to Hitler, in fact taking part in the plot to kill him. But Bonhoeffer is also celebrated for his role in a significant event in the life of the Church—the drafting of the Barmen Declaration.
After Hitler rose to power, the Nazis tried to co-opt the German church, mixing Christian truth with Nazi doctrine. Some church leaders allowed themselves to be drawn into this deal with the devil. Others, like Karl Barth and Bonhoeffer, refused.
As my former colleague Eric Metaxas writes in his inspiring new book, Bonhoeffer, in May of 1934, “the leaders of the Pastors’ Emergency League held a synod in Barmen. It was there, on the Wupper River, that they wrote the famous Barmen Declaration, from which emerged what came to be known as the Confessing Church.”
The Declaration boldly declared independence from both the state and a co-opted church. It made clear that the signers and their churches were not seceding from the German church; instead, it was the co-opted German church that had broken away.
To Bonhoeffer, writes Metaxas, the Barmen Declaration “reclarified what it—the legitimate and actual German Church—actually believed and stood for.” It rejected the “false doctrine” that the Church could change according to “prevailing ideological and political positions.”
This rejection is an essential part of what it means to be the Church. Caesar, in all his guises, will urge us to compromise and tailor our message to meet his agenda. Our situation isn’t as dire as Bonheoffer’s, but government today is attempting to force the church to bow to the prevailing political winds—like, for example, so-called same-sex “marriage” and sanctity of life issues like abortion and end-of-life decisions.
Like Bonhoeffer and his colleagues, we must constantly remember where our ultimate allegiance lies. We must also be willing to practice the great virtue of civic courage.
We, the church, must declare where we stand. That’s why we, motivated by the Barmen example, wrote the Manhattan Declaration — and why a half a million believers have signed it. But making a declaration is one thing. Living up to what we declare, as Bonhoeffer did, is another.
And that will require courage in the coming years. A lot of it.
January 5, 2010 (Breakpoint.org) - July 27, 1945. London is still slowly recovering from six years of war with Germany. Hundreds of thousands of British soldiers are dead. British cities are in ruins. As newsreels expose fresh horrors from the Nazi death camps, the British people wonder, “Is there no end to German atrocities?”
Thus, it was not surprising that many Brits recoiled when they heard about a memorial service at London’s Holy Trinity Church—not for England’s war dead, but for a German. The service would be broadcast on the BBC. Many wondered: Could there be such a thing as a good German, worthy of such an honor?
The answer was emphatically yes. The service was for Pastor Dietrich Bonhoeffer, executed by the Nazis three weeks before the war’s end. Bonhoeffer is often remembered for his resistance to Hitler, in fact taking part in the plot to kill him. But Bonhoeffer is also celebrated for his role in a significant event in the life of the Church—the drafting of the Barmen Declaration.
After Hitler rose to power, the Nazis tried to co-opt the German church, mixing Christian truth with Nazi doctrine. Some church leaders allowed themselves to be drawn into this deal with the devil. Others, like Karl Barth and Bonhoeffer, refused.
As my former colleague Eric Metaxas writes in his inspiring new book, Bonhoeffer, in May of 1934, “the leaders of the Pastors’ Emergency League held a synod in Barmen. It was there, on the Wupper River, that they wrote the famous Barmen Declaration, from which emerged what came to be known as the Confessing Church.”
The Declaration boldly declared independence from both the state and a co-opted church. It made clear that the signers and their churches were not seceding from the German church; instead, it was the co-opted German church that had broken away.
To Bonhoeffer, writes Metaxas, the Barmen Declaration “reclarified what it—the legitimate and actual German Church—actually believed and stood for.” It rejected the “false doctrine” that the Church could change according to “prevailing ideological and political positions.”
This rejection is an essential part of what it means to be the Church. Caesar, in all his guises, will urge us to compromise and tailor our message to meet his agenda. Our situation isn’t as dire as Bonheoffer’s, but government today is attempting to force the church to bow to the prevailing political winds—like, for example, so-called same-sex “marriage” and sanctity of life issues like abortion and end-of-life decisions.
Like Bonhoeffer and his colleagues, we must constantly remember where our ultimate allegiance lies. We must also be willing to practice the great virtue of civic courage.
We, the church, must declare where we stand. That’s why we, motivated by the Barmen example, wrote the Manhattan Declaration — and why a half a million believers have signed it. But making a declaration is one thing. Living up to what we declare, as Bonhoeffer did, is another.
And that will require courage in the coming years. A lot of it.
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