Mar 2007
GLUTTONY AND ITS REMEDIES
30/03/07 07:57 ChristianityPermalink
The so called
wisdom of the world erroneously concludes that the
cause of our obesity epidemic is food--trans fats,
fast food and soft drinks. However, Godly wisdom
reveals it is our own inordinate love of eating and
drinking aka, old fashioned gluttony.
Thomas Aquinas argued that gluttony could include an obsessive anticipation of meals, and the constant eating of delicacies and excessively costly foods. Aquinas set forth five ways to commit gluttony:
• Praepropere - eating too soon
• Laute - eating too expensively
• Nimis - eating too much
• Ardenter - eating too eagerly
• Studiose - eating too daintily
As we approach Holy Week it seems an opportune time to look at some remedies of gluttony:
"Call to mind that it was a sin of gluttony which brought death into the world, and that it is the first and most important passion to be conquered, for upon the subjection of this vice depends your victory over all others. We cannot successfully battle with enemies abroad when the forces within us are in a state of rebellion. Thus we see that the devil first tempted our Savior to gluttony, wishing to make himself master of the avenue through which all other vices find an easy entrance."
"That you may not be deceived by the snares of this vice disguised by necessities, govern your appetite by reason not by inclination. Remember that your soul can never rule the flesh, if it be not itself submissive to God. This submission will be the rule and foundation of its empire. Let God command our reason, let reason direct the soul, and the soul will be able to govern the body. By observing this wise order decreed by the Creator, the whole man will be reformed. But when the soul rebels against reason, and reason against God, the body will soon rebel against the soul."
If tempted by gluttony, remember that you have already tasted its pleasures and that they endured but a moment. They passed like a dream, except that while the light of day dispels the images of the night, the remorse for gluttony remains long after its pleasure has departed....'If you find difficulty in the performance of a virtuous action, the trouble is soon past and the virtue remains; but if you take pleasure in committing a base action, its pleasure disappears, but its shame continues with you.' (Aul Gel., Noct. Attic, 8,15) "
"Consider also Our Savior's extraordinary fast in the desert and the many rigorous mortifications which He imposed upon His Sacred Body, not only to expiate our excesses, but to give us a salutory example. How then can you call yourself a follower of Christ, if, when He fasts you abandon yourself to the gross pleasures of the table? He refuses no labor, no suffering, to redeem you, and you will do nothing for your own salvation!"
For this miserable body you neglect your soul, which will appear before the tribunal of God as poor in virtues as its earthly companion is rich in sensual pleasures. Nor will the body escape the punishment to which the soul will be condemned. Having been created for the soul it will share its sufferings. Thus by neglecting the nobler part of your being to devote yourself to the inferior, you lose both and become your own executioner."
(From The Sinner's Guide, Venerable Louis of Granada)
Thomas Aquinas argued that gluttony could include an obsessive anticipation of meals, and the constant eating of delicacies and excessively costly foods. Aquinas set forth five ways to commit gluttony:
• Praepropere - eating too soon
• Laute - eating too expensively
• Nimis - eating too much
• Ardenter - eating too eagerly
• Studiose - eating too daintily
As we approach Holy Week it seems an opportune time to look at some remedies of gluttony:
"Call to mind that it was a sin of gluttony which brought death into the world, and that it is the first and most important passion to be conquered, for upon the subjection of this vice depends your victory over all others. We cannot successfully battle with enemies abroad when the forces within us are in a state of rebellion. Thus we see that the devil first tempted our Savior to gluttony, wishing to make himself master of the avenue through which all other vices find an easy entrance."
"That you may not be deceived by the snares of this vice disguised by necessities, govern your appetite by reason not by inclination. Remember that your soul can never rule the flesh, if it be not itself submissive to God. This submission will be the rule and foundation of its empire. Let God command our reason, let reason direct the soul, and the soul will be able to govern the body. By observing this wise order decreed by the Creator, the whole man will be reformed. But when the soul rebels against reason, and reason against God, the body will soon rebel against the soul."
If tempted by gluttony, remember that you have already tasted its pleasures and that they endured but a moment. They passed like a dream, except that while the light of day dispels the images of the night, the remorse for gluttony remains long after its pleasure has departed....'If you find difficulty in the performance of a virtuous action, the trouble is soon past and the virtue remains; but if you take pleasure in committing a base action, its pleasure disappears, but its shame continues with you.' (Aul Gel., Noct. Attic, 8,15) "
"Consider also Our Savior's extraordinary fast in the desert and the many rigorous mortifications which He imposed upon His Sacred Body, not only to expiate our excesses, but to give us a salutory example. How then can you call yourself a follower of Christ, if, when He fasts you abandon yourself to the gross pleasures of the table? He refuses no labor, no suffering, to redeem you, and you will do nothing for your own salvation!"
For this miserable body you neglect your soul, which will appear before the tribunal of God as poor in virtues as its earthly companion is rich in sensual pleasures. Nor will the body escape the punishment to which the soul will be condemned. Having been created for the soul it will share its sufferings. Thus by neglecting the nobler part of your being to devote yourself to the inferior, you lose both and become your own executioner."
(From The Sinner's Guide, Venerable Louis of Granada)
|
CATHOLIC, MUSLIM TURF WARS OVER CATHOLIC CATHEDRAL IN
SPAIN
Hilaire Belloc predicted the resurrection of Islam.
"In Islam there has been no such dissolution of ancestral doctrine --or, at any rate, nothing corresponding to the universal break-up of religion in Europe. The whole spiritual strength of Islam is still present in the masses of Syria and Anatolia, of the East Asian Mountains, of Arabia, Egypt or North Africa.
The final fruit of this tenacity, the second period of Islamic power may be delayed:- but I doubt whether it can be permanently postponed."
Here we have a battle at ground zero. Excerpts from Los Angeles Times:
"The 1,200-year-old architectural wonder that is one of Spain's most renowned landmarks is at the center of a turf war over religious space, cultural recognition and rivalries that are both ancient and contemporary.
Known as La Mezquita in Spanish and the Great Mosque in English, its spectacular forest of striped arches and jasper-and-marble columns constitutes one of ancient Islam's most iconic legacies. But La Mezquita has served as a consecrated Catholic church for nearly 800 years — ever since Spain's Catholic monarchs ejected Islamic forces that had ruled most of the Iberian Peninsula for more than five centuries.
The scuffle over La Mezquita is echoed throughout Spain these days as members of each faith tests the other's tolerance in this overwhelmingly Roman Catholic country with a fast-growing Muslim minority. Tensions were further inflamed when Islamic militants blew up commuter trains in Madrid three years ago, killing nearly 200 people.
The dispute has special resonance in Cordoba, an Andalusian crossroads that beginning more than a millennium ago was the capital of Moorish Spain and one of the Western world's greatest centers of intellectual and artistic culture.
Escudero, a Spaniard who converted to Islam 28 years ago, has been fighting to gain prayer rights here for much of his life. He decided to try again, inspired by the journey to Istanbul last fall of Pope Benedict XVI, who stood alongside an imam in that Turkish city's famous Blue Mosque, faced Mecca and prayed.
Escudero and the Islamic Council of Spain that he heads took the case straight to the Vatican, writing the pope to suggest that the site in Cordoba become a "singular and unique ecumenical space" in which both Christians and Muslims could pray.
The pope did not write back.
However, the bishop of Cordoba, Juan Jose Asenjo, was more than happy to respond. Far from fostering peace, he said, the sharing of places of worship would only "generate confusion" among the faithful.
In an interview afterward, Father Manuel Perez Moya said that because the building was consecrated as a cathedral, it is impossible to permit Muslim worship of any kind. Had it not been converted to a church, he added, the Great Mosque might have suffered the fate of other conquered property and been destroyed.
"It is thanks to this being a living cathedral that such a beautiful reality could be protected," he said.
Church leaders also note that, in a reflection of the centuries' cultural layering, a Visigoth basilica stood on the site before the mosque was built.
What really worries many priests, however, is the specter of Spain's Muslims wanting more than an occasional prayer.
"The problem is you let them pray, and then maybe they will try to take territory," Perez Moya said.
"Sure, let them — the day I can pray in a mosque," Luis Recio Mateo, 61, a self-described historian and tour guide dressed in a dapper gray suit, said as he left Mass. "If I go into a mosque in Morocco or Mauritania or Constantinople, they'll tell me I'm an infidel. Nor should Muslims pray in my cathedral."
Depending on who's counting, at least 1 million Muslims live in Spain (a country of 40 million people), and only about 1,000 Muslims live in Cordoba, a city of 320,000.
In numerous cities, local Catholic groups have protested and in some cases blocked plans to build mosques or expand Islamic cultural centers.
Escudero says that over the years, authorities in Cordoba occasionally allowed a visiting Muslim dignitary to pray in the Great Mosque — including Saddam Hussein in 1974. But in the last decade or so, church officials have been increasingly against the idea, he said, perhaps in reaction to the expanding Muslim presence in Spain.
Whereas Escudero thinks of the pope's appearance in the Blue Mosque, it's another Istanbul landmark that priests here might cite: the Hagia Sophia, a 6th century Byzantine church that was converted to a mosque by the Muslim Ottomans in the 15th century. In theory, it is today a museum and no one is allowed to pray there, although Muslims occasionally do.
When Escudero learned of the Cordoba bishop's rejection of his latest plea, he protested. On a gray morning, he stood outside the Great Mosque's Door of Pardon, spread a small carpet on the sidewalk, knelt and prostrated himself in prayer.
News photographers snapped many pictures. And police held a tiny group of yelling protesters at bay.
EARLY CHURCH FATHERS
27/03/07 16:58 ChristianityPermalink
"The Fathers made me a Catholic, and I am not going to kick down the ladder by which I ascended into the Church." Card. Newman
Here is an article from Zenit, Pope's Study of Church Fathers Not Just for Catholics, An Interview With Theologian David Warner. Warner was a former Evangelical Pastor. In the interview he discusses how reading Church Fathers led to his return to the Catholic Church and offers some reflections on the Pope's teachings.
Also here is a Podcast from "THE JOURNEY HOME" on the Early Church Fathers.
AN INFANTICIDE EPIDEMIC
26/03/07 21:29 Abortion, Infanticide --Killing
Babies Permalink
From Timesonline:
‘Dump your children here’ box to stop mothers from killing their babies:
"Desperate mothers are being urged to drop their unwanted babies through hatches at hospitals in an effort to halt a spate of infanticides that has shocked Germany.
At least 23 babies have been killed so far this year, many of them beaten to death or strangled by their mothers before being dumped on wasteland and in dustbins... Experts believe that the true figure is even higher.
Police investigating the murders are at a loss to explain the sudden surge in such cases, which have involved mothers of all ages all over the country.
The drop-off point is usually hidden from view, shielded by trees and away from security cameras. The baby is put on to a tray that slides through a hole in the wall and is gently lowered into a heated cot. An alarm bell alerts nursing staff — but only after the mother has been given sufficient time to make a getaway. The baby can be reclaimed, usually up to three months later, should the mother change her mind.
In Berlin alone 6 babies have been pushed through a slot since they were introduced in 2003. Initial scepticism started to melt after a woman in eastern German was arrested for letting nine of her babies die. Some were buried in plant pots in her garden."
"If a person's death is worthless then his life is worthless too. If man is ultimately jettisoned in death, if he becomes as so much refuse, then he is, even beforehand, one of the things that humanity can jettison and can treat as such. But if man never becomes refuse, if his value is called eternity, then his value is always his and marks his whole life....Only eternity can unite present and future. It always transcends the moment, is always more than we presently have but it is not limited just to the future, it always extends even now into all our days. Those who have talked us out of our belief in heaven, or would like to talk us out of it, have not given us the earth in exchange but have made it desolate and empty, have covered it with darkness. We must find once more the courage to believe in eternal life with all our hearts." Cardinal Ratzinger, CoWorkers of the Truth.
A culture that has been talked out of a belief in heaven is capable of treating its children as refuse.
A VICTIM OF SEXISM OR FEMINISM
26/03/07 11:26 Culture/ Death of the
WestPermalink
Yesterday, I attended a different Catholic Church due to a schedule conflict. The gospel was on the woman who was found in adultery. Rather than take the opportunity to speak of the many aspects of hypersexuality in our culture, the priest spoke about discrimination against women by men. He stated that he was certain that all the women in the congregation at one time or another were a victim of sex discrimination.
His premise was fatally flawed. As a woman who became a lawyer and practiced law for several years, I can honestly say that I have NEVER felt discriminated against as a woman. Instead, I believe that at times, I received preferential treatment BECAUSE I was a woman.
The REAL abuse of women does not take place at the hands of males in the workplace. Instead, women suffer at the hands of other women through feminist lies. Everything I learned from feminists lacked wisdom, truth and was counter to Jesus' teachings. I learned selfishness, self-centeredness, hatred of tradition, that men were the enemy, that children were to be avoided and were "career killers".
A recent study proves that Feminism could also be bad for your health. From Daily Mail:
"A study in Sweden, arguably one of the most egalitarian countries in the world, discovered that men and women who are equal are more likely to suffer illness or disability.
Those who earn the same are also more likely to become unwell or suffer a disability.
People who have management jobs, male or female, were also found to die younger than those with a less pressured lifestyle.
The scientists, from the Swedish National Institute of Public Health, said a possible explanation for the link between equality and illness is that men's health may be adversely affected by a loss of what had been seen as traditional male privileges.
They suggested that women's health could be damaged by greater opportunities for risky behaviour as a result of increased income combined with the stress of longer working hours.
The report said: "The results suggest an unfortunate trade-off between gender equality as we know it and public health.
Now, liberals will inevitably interpret these findings as proof that there is not enough equality- and we just need more. Liberals can't help but "reinvent the wheel" instead of heeding the wisdom of the ages.
THE CONSEQUENCES OF A SOCIETY WITH A SHORTAGE OF
FEMALES
24/03/07 10:50 China -Forced Contraception &
AbortionPermalink
The deadly combination of a nation's preference for boys over girls, and the modern medical technology to carry out this preference, threatens the future stability of the world at large.
History provides an example of the consequences of a sex imbalanced society. From NZ Herald:
"In the middle of the 19th century, an area the size of Germany located between Beijing and Shanghai in central China was run for more than 15 years by the Nian rebels, a 50,000-strong network of bandit groups who lived by pillage and rape.
The Nian bandits were men without women which was long understood in China as the principal stimulus to their rebellion and cause of their violence. They originated in a district in northern China - Huai-pei - where the killing of infant girls to conserve food for more economically valuable boys in response to famine had been particularly terrible.
"By 1850, the official records show there were 129 men to every 100 women, an astonishing imbalance in the ratio between the sexes. Lower-class Huai-pei peasants could not find wives; hungry, economically displaced and, in Chinese terms, "bare branches" - not proper men because they could not marry and father children - they turned to banditry as providing meaning and sustenance." Those womanless bandits cast a long shadow over not just today's China, but the whole of Asia. Asia is estimated to suffer from up to 100 million missing women - aborted as foetuses or murdered in infancy because of their sex.
"In today's China, there are now 119 men for every 100 women. In some areas, the imbalance is greater than it was in Huai-pei in 1850. Earlier this year, an official Chinese report projected that by 2020, one in 10 men between 20 and 45 would be unable to find a wife. Professor Valerie Hudson of Brigham Young University in the United States estimates that by 2020, there will be 28 million surplus Chinese men and 31 million surplus Indian men.
[India and Chinese] governments are becoming more and more worried about the psychological and social consequences, not to mention the sheer criminality of it. As one Indian commentator remarks, the most dangerous period of a woman's life is her first few months in the womb."
Today Pakistan is also undergoing a sex imbalance.
"Fanning the flames of injustice and Islamic fundamentalism is [Pakistan's] sex imbalance. Dispossessed, displaced men with no prospect of ever finding a partner more readily take to the streets like Nian rebels; violence demonstrates masculine meaning."
The Chinese government is miffed as to how to handle the the consequences of its one-child policy yet acknowledge the threat:
"China's President Hu Jintao, remembering the Nian rebellion, has publicly recognised that such a huge population of "bare branches" constitutes one of the biggest potential threats to the communist regime's survival.
History and statistics show that sex imbalance results in violence and crime:
"Real unemployment in China is more than 20 per cent, inequality is growing rapidly and there is plenty of injustice for rootless, violently inclined, womanless men to protest about."
"In both China and India, there is a near complete correlation between the growth of violent crime and those cities and provinces where the sex ratio is worst. It is Indian provinces such as Uttar Pradesh and parts of the Punjab that have the worst sex imbalance and highest levels of recorded crime.
Chinese cities such as Shanghai or Guangzhou report 90 per cent of crime from unmarried migrant men."
Where will these marauding men go to find women. Excessive testosterone, a lack of faith and nothing to lose will naturally cause these nations to invade to obtain what they lack. Add Islam into the mix and the ferocity increases exponentially. As no man is an island --no nation is an island and the fruits of abortion and infanticide throughout the world pose grave consequences. Once again when man plays God the consequences are tyrannical.
GERMAN JUDGE INVOKES QUR'AN TO DENY ABUSED WIFE A
DIVORCE
Imagine a
Christian being denied a divorce based upon Jesus
clear words in Scripture -- it certainly would not
happen in the West. But a divorce can be denied in
"Eurabia" based upon the Koran. Guardian Unlimited
reports:
A German judge who refused a Moroccan woman a fast-track divorce on the grounds that domestic violence was acceptable according to the Qur'an has been removed from the case following a nationwide outcry.
The judge, Christa Datz-Winter, said the German woman of Moroccan descent would not be granted a divorce because she and her husband came from a "Moroccan cultural environment in which it is not uncommon for a man to exert a right of corporal punishment over his wife," according to a statement she wrote that was issued by a Frankfurt court. "That's what the claimant had to reckon with when she married the defendant."
The 26-year-old mother of two had been repeatedly beaten and threatened with death by her husband.
When the woman protested against the judge's decision, Ms Datz-Winter invoked the Qur'an to support her argument. In the court she read from verse 34 of Sura four of the Qur'an, An-Nisa (Women), in which men are told to hit their wives as a final stage in dealing with disobedience. The verse reads: "... as to those on whose part you fear desertion, admonish them and leave them alone in the sleeping places and beat them".
The woman's lawyer, Barbara Becker-Rojczyk, protested, saying: "When Christians are arguing for a divorce they don't use the Bible."
Commentators, politicians and Muslim leaders criticised the judge's decision, saying that choosing sharia above civil law was a threat to jurisprudence. Wolfgang Bosbach, of the Christian Democratic Union, said: "One thing must be clear: in Germany only German law applies."
Irmingard Schewe-Gerigk, women's affairs spokeswoman for the Greens, agreed, saying: "This decision is in conflict with the basic law."
The woman applied for divorce before the statutory one-year separation after receiving death threats from her husband. Fast-track divorces can be granted under German law if it is deemed the woman is suffering hardship as a result of marital breakdown. Her husband continued to threaten her despite a restraining order.
Christa Stolle, of the women's rights organisation Terre des Femmes, called the decision "scandalous". She said: "In a democratic country like Germany religious law cannot be drawn on to justify abuse".
The leftwing Tageszeitung ran a headline on its front page "In the name of the people: beating allowed" above the relevant passage from the Qur'an, while the tabloid Bild led its front page with: "Where are we living?".
Germany's Central Council of Muslims was quick to criticise the ruling. In a statement, it said: "Violence and abuse of people are of course naturally reasons to warrant a divorce in Islam as well."
Another judge has already been appointed to the case.
A German judge who refused a Moroccan woman a fast-track divorce on the grounds that domestic violence was acceptable according to the Qur'an has been removed from the case following a nationwide outcry.
The judge, Christa Datz-Winter, said the German woman of Moroccan descent would not be granted a divorce because she and her husband came from a "Moroccan cultural environment in which it is not uncommon for a man to exert a right of corporal punishment over his wife," according to a statement she wrote that was issued by a Frankfurt court. "That's what the claimant had to reckon with when she married the defendant."
The 26-year-old mother of two had been repeatedly beaten and threatened with death by her husband.
When the woman protested against the judge's decision, Ms Datz-Winter invoked the Qur'an to support her argument. In the court she read from verse 34 of Sura four of the Qur'an, An-Nisa (Women), in which men are told to hit their wives as a final stage in dealing with disobedience. The verse reads: "... as to those on whose part you fear desertion, admonish them and leave them alone in the sleeping places and beat them".
The woman's lawyer, Barbara Becker-Rojczyk, protested, saying: "When Christians are arguing for a divorce they don't use the Bible."
Commentators, politicians and Muslim leaders criticised the judge's decision, saying that choosing sharia above civil law was a threat to jurisprudence. Wolfgang Bosbach, of the Christian Democratic Union, said: "One thing must be clear: in Germany only German law applies."
Irmingard Schewe-Gerigk, women's affairs spokeswoman for the Greens, agreed, saying: "This decision is in conflict with the basic law."
The woman applied for divorce before the statutory one-year separation after receiving death threats from her husband. Fast-track divorces can be granted under German law if it is deemed the woman is suffering hardship as a result of marital breakdown. Her husband continued to threaten her despite a restraining order.
Christa Stolle, of the women's rights organisation Terre des Femmes, called the decision "scandalous". She said: "In a democratic country like Germany religious law cannot be drawn on to justify abuse".
The leftwing Tageszeitung ran a headline on its front page "In the name of the people: beating allowed" above the relevant passage from the Qur'an, while the tabloid Bild led its front page with: "Where are we living?".
Germany's Central Council of Muslims was quick to criticise the ruling. In a statement, it said: "Violence and abuse of people are of course naturally reasons to warrant a divorce in Islam as well."
Another judge has already been appointed to the case.
GOD'S CONTINENT: CHRISTIANITY, ISLAM, AND EUROPE'S
RELIGIOUS CRISIS
22/03/07 14:24 ChristianityPermalink
Here is an excerpt of a recent interview with Phillip Jenkins, a professor of History at Pennsylvania State University, about his new book, God's Continent: Christianity, Islam, and Europe's Religious Crisis, that appeared at Virtue. His book is about the religious future of Europe. Portions of the interview follow:
Explain the "rule of ten."
Jenkins: If you're trying to track the decline of institutional Christianity in Europe, you can take a point in 1960 or 1965 and compare that to today. Whether you are looking at vocations or number of seminarians, we are now at one tenth of where we were, across the continent. People are not going to seminaries. They're not choosing vocations in anything like the number they used to.
How effective was the Soviet Union at stomping out religious belief, in Russia and in its satellite countries?
Jenkins: They were very effective in transforming it. What they did was almost a Darwinian process. In some areas, they drove away a lot of the more lukewarm believers and created a very fiery hard core. The great example of that would be in the Caucasus with the Chechens. Middle-of-the-road tolerant people got purged and that just left the very hardcore Sufi-run resistance. Sometimes the scale of the destruction was so total they did uproot the whole apparatus. The Buddhists in Central Asia were basically utterly destroyed-it was a very bad century for Buddhism. But they couldn't be as effective in Eastern Europe, in Poland, where they did a wonderful job of making the Catholic Church the symbol of anti-Communist resistance. They just made going to mass a way of ticking off the Soviets.
Baylor sociologist Rodney Stark has argued that post-Vatican II relaxation of distinctive cultural markers-such as the prohibition against eating meat on Friday-led many Catholics to identify less strongly with their religion. In your opinion, was that a major cause of lowered religious observance?
Jenkins: I think it contributed in a big way. In fact it's interesting to think of an alternate world where Vatican II never happened. A lot of the spiritual upsurge in the 1960s and 1970s would probably have done what it had done in the past-would find its way into the Catholic Church-as opposed to going off in some of the New Agey directions. It contributed [to decline] but I don't think it was enough on its own. I think there were demographic trends already in progress which were contributing. Vatican II just came at the worst possible time because it aligned the Church with a kind of modernity that was already looking dated. Stark is right to say it's important, certainly. But I think the single biggest factor of decline in the 1970s and 1980s was the decline of children.
How does the rate of Christian observance in the U.S. compare to Europe if we count only mainline, well-established denominations?
Jenkins: Well, until you added the last clause, I had a great answer. In terms of church attendance, it's probably about three terms larger. In terms of how people identify and how they assume that religion is part of the landscape, it's even higher. There are obviously regional peculiarities. Much of the West Coast, such as Seattle and San Francisco, tend to look more like Europe. Agnosticism is an option. Generally, American churches are doing better. However, some of the churches which are among the best and oldest established are in steepest decline. One of the strengths of American churches is that they're always falling and always rising at the same time. It's a very dynamic religious landscape.
Why are the rates of religious observance so much higher in America?
Jenkins: There are all sorts of possible answers. Two things I pay attention to. One is the constant history of migration in this country. You continually have new waves of people coming in. They are looking for community. They find it in churches, synagogues, religious institutions. Europe, traditionally, was a much more static society. Linked to that, America is a vastly larger country. It's best to think of it as a subcontinent by European standards. When people move around within the United States, they look for community, they look for somewhere they can send the kids. The obvious place for that is a religious institution. Historically, Europe, a much smaller society, much more compact, much less mobile, has not had those kinds of forces. Belgium is about the same size as Maryland. If you move from one side of Belgium to another, you haven't actually gone all that far. If you move within the United States, then you are cutting yourself off from your older, established community and roots.
Between 1986 and 2000, average births per woman in Iran have fallen from 6 to 2, which is slightly lower than the replacement rate of 2.1. Indeed, birthrates almost everywhere are plummeting. Why is that?
Jenkins: That's right, across the Middle East. The Middle East in the last 15 years is going through the great demographic transition and that is one of the great facts in world politics. What it should mean is that in about 15 years these countries should be vastly more stable. The next 15 years could be a very rocky ride, but the long-term trend is to underpopulation. These countries will have to figure out how do deal with all those old people. Sometimes-and I'm not speaking about Steyn particularly here-when people talk about these astronomical birthrates, they're using pretty dated figures.
You write that the U.S. has managed to "resist the trend of sharply falling fertility" nearly everywhere. What explains that?
Jenkins: Partly, it's very very high immigration rates. People who migrate tend to be the young and the fertile and the ambitious and that creates a particular kind of population profile. Also, you still have this strong religious commitment which is usually reflected in larger families. Increasingly, the U.S. looks like a very weird society on the global stage. On religious affiliation, it's half way between Europe and Africa and in some ways it looks like that in demography too. It's not a European society, it's not a Third World society, it's something very distinctive. So there I am back to American exceptionalism.
After detailing the current state of Christian observance in Europe, you say that "there are intriguing signs of growth within that secular framework." What are some of those signs?
Jenkins: In all the major churches, including the state churches, there are smaller hardcore activist minority movements, like the evangelical congregations within the Church of England, some Lutheran movements, but above all all these new religious movements, new religious orders within the Roman Catholic Church. Opus Dei is probably the most sensational but there are also a lot of different ones. Though they don't include a huge number of members, they do command a lot of influence.
Pope Benedict XVI many years ago was talking about the future of the church and he seems to have this idea in mind.
Jenkins: Right. [Thus] the "new evangelization." He's very frank about that. He uses the example of the city of Magdeburg and he says, "If eight percent of the population claim to be Christian, in what sense can you be living in a Christian society?" So you have to go back to square one and try again. The analogy I use is the Counter-Reformation. What the Catholics are trying to do is very similar to the Counter-Reformation. If you look at where Benedict comes from in Germany, in that area of Bavaria, I think that's his model.
A substantial subset of recent immigrants to Europe is not Muslim but Christian. What effects are these immigrants having on religious life in Europe?
Jenkins: There is a huge network of immigrant churches, in Britain certainly, but also in basically every country there are some very large congregations. When people look at immigrant areas in France, they tend just to see Muslims, but a lot of the folks are actually black Christians-there are networks of Congolese churches-and they really provide a whole alternative religious structure across Europe. In London on an average Sunday, somewhere between 50 and 60 percent of people in church are nonwhite, and a lot of those are very recent immigrants. The best known congregation is probably that one in Kiev in the Ukraine which claims to be the largest congregation in Europe these days, with 30,000 members. It's Nigerian.
NEW LOOK
21/03/07 19:22 Permalink
A COUNTER CULTURAL PRIEST
21/03/07 15:21 Tridentine Latin
MassPermalink
It is precisely because of counter cultural priests like Fr. Johnson that the Tridentine Rite was kept alive and so many are now anxiously awaiting the motu proprio.
Here is Fr. Johnson's obituary from the L.A. Times:
Father Daniel Johnson, a champion of pre-Vatican II Roman Catholic traditions and the centuries-old Tridentine Mass, has died. He was 77.
Johnson died Sunday at a Duarte hospital after a long illness.
"He was a pioneer in reforming liturgical reform," said Michael J. Sundstedt, a longtime parishioner at St. Mary's by the Sea in Huntington Beach, where Johnson served as pastor for 25 years before retiring in 2004.
When Johnson arrived at the tiny wooden church in 1978, it was in danger of closing because membership had dwindled to about 400 people, church administrators recalled.
Johnson began walking door to door in the neighborhood, sometimes in the rain, inviting people to church. He also visited the Huntington Beach Pier every evening, striking up conversations.
"He touched a great many lives in profound ways," said Suzanne Donnelly, the parish secretary.
Although regarded as stodgy and closed-minded in some quarters, he was a hero to Southern California Catholics who disliked the "peace hugs" and "hootenanny music" of modern services, parishioners said.
Some drove from neighboring Los Angeles County or various Orange County cities to attend his church.
Emphasizing tradition and decorum, Johnson discouraged parishioners from snapping photos at baptisms and weddings — and he resisted Vatican II reforms that allowed people to receive Communion in their hands, Sundstedt said.
In 1992, Johnson revived the all-but-banished Tridentine Mass at his parish. Believed to have originated in the 6th century, the highly choreographed Latin rite was standardized by the Council of Trent in the late 1500s. It remained the only Mass celebrated by Roman Catholics until 1962.
After Vatican II, some priests defied church orders to discontinue the Tridentine rite. But in 1984, Pope John Paul II said Latin services could again be offered — with permission from local bishops.
Johnson's parish wasn't the first in Orange County to bring back the old Mass. In Garden Grove, St. Columban's resumed Tridentine Masses in 1984. The services then migrated to the Serra Chapel at Mission San Juan Capistrano, where they are still offered.
But under Johnson's leadership, St. Mary's by the Sea quickly became a rallying point for conservative Catholics, growing to about 1,400 families.
Born in Michigan to devout Catholic parents, Johnson grew up in Torrance, where he served as an altar boy.
After attending St. John's Seminary in Camarillo, he was ordained in 1954. He served in the Diocese of Los Angeles until 1976, when the Diocese of Orange was created.
During the last decade, Johnson was afflicted with numerous health problems, including a cancer on his ear that required multiple surgeries and radiation treatments. He also developed Bell's palsy, which paralyzed the right side of his face and spurred him to convert his favorite golf putter into a cane.
After retiring at age 75, he returned to Torrance to live with his brother Gerald and play golf (over the years, he had racked up about three dozen holes-in-one). But after a bad fall, he spent most of his final years in a nursing home or hospital.
The Diocese of Orange stopped offering Tridentine Masses at St. Mary's by the Sea after Johnson left. But the Latin service will be briefly resurrected there for his funeral Mass, church officials said. The date hasn't been set.
CHRISTIANS MUST PAY PROTECTION TAX TO MUSLIMS
19/03/07 15:17 Christian Religion Persecution by
Islam Permalink
Asia News
Reports:
Islamic groups impose tax on Christian “subjects”
Islamic militias in Baghdad and Mosul order Christians to pay the jizya, a poll tax which dates back to the period of the Ottoman Empire, which guaranteed non Muslims the right to practise their religion as well as Muslim protection; the groups are ordered “not to reveal their activities” to Iraqi authorities while all contributions are given in alms to the Mosques.
Baghdad (AsiaNews) – “Non Muslim subjects must pay a contribution to the jihad if they wish to be allowed to live and practise their faith in Iraq”. These orders are being imposed on the Christians of Mosul and Baghdad by Islamic militias. Besides these threats of extortion, thousands of non Muslims are also being forced to leave their homes by letters assigning their house to Muslim citizens. The initiative is part of the general campaign to Islamafy the entire country, which begun with the imposition of the veil on all women. The website Ankawa.com was the first to carry news of this latest development; the website has eye witness accounts of Iraqi refugees in Erbil, in the semi autonomous region of Kurdistan.
The fourth anniversary of the US military’s arrival in Baghdad, March 20th 2003, brings with it little improvement in the conditions of the ever decreasing Christian community. Bomb attacks, kidnappings and threats continue to mark the daily existence of those few who so far have not been able to leave. The latest sign of the increasingly worrying situation is news that the community is now being forced to pay the jizya, a “poll tax” requested from non Muslims according to the Koran, guaranteeing “protection” form the Islamic umma. The tax was once extracted by the Ottoman Empire until its collapse in 1918, but now Baghdad and Mosul’s Mosques have ordered it be put in place again, “without revealing it to authorities”.
According to local Christians it really is a contribution to the holy war, which – the jihad maintains - will also protect their community from external aggression. The monies collected are then given over to Mosques, but “without the knowledge of authorities”.
Other accounts tell of letters being left in gardens or the entrance to Christian homes, notifying the families that they must leave their dwellings because they have been assigned to others, whose names and surnames are listed in black and white in the letters.
Islamic groups impose tax on Christian “subjects”
Islamic militias in Baghdad and Mosul order Christians to pay the jizya, a poll tax which dates back to the period of the Ottoman Empire, which guaranteed non Muslims the right to practise their religion as well as Muslim protection; the groups are ordered “not to reveal their activities” to Iraqi authorities while all contributions are given in alms to the Mosques.
Baghdad (AsiaNews) – “Non Muslim subjects must pay a contribution to the jihad if they wish to be allowed to live and practise their faith in Iraq”. These orders are being imposed on the Christians of Mosul and Baghdad by Islamic militias. Besides these threats of extortion, thousands of non Muslims are also being forced to leave their homes by letters assigning their house to Muslim citizens. The initiative is part of the general campaign to Islamafy the entire country, which begun with the imposition of the veil on all women. The website Ankawa.com was the first to carry news of this latest development; the website has eye witness accounts of Iraqi refugees in Erbil, in the semi autonomous region of Kurdistan.
The fourth anniversary of the US military’s arrival in Baghdad, March 20th 2003, brings with it little improvement in the conditions of the ever decreasing Christian community. Bomb attacks, kidnappings and threats continue to mark the daily existence of those few who so far have not been able to leave. The latest sign of the increasingly worrying situation is news that the community is now being forced to pay the jizya, a “poll tax” requested from non Muslims according to the Koran, guaranteeing “protection” form the Islamic umma. The tax was once extracted by the Ottoman Empire until its collapse in 1918, but now Baghdad and Mosul’s Mosques have ordered it be put in place again, “without revealing it to authorities”.
According to local Christians it really is a contribution to the holy war, which – the jihad maintains - will also protect their community from external aggression. The monies collected are then given over to Mosques, but “without the knowledge of authorities”.
Other accounts tell of letters being left in gardens or the entrance to Christian homes, notifying the families that they must leave their dwellings because they have been assigned to others, whose names and surnames are listed in black and white in the letters.
CRIMINALIZING HOMOPHOBIA & THE COMING PERSECUTION
OF CHRISTIANS
18/03/07 12:53 Radical Homosexual
AgendaPermalink
The
consequence of replacing the love that Christianity
requires with the tolerance that secularism requires
will result in the persecution of Christians in the
name of "homophobia".
The practice of genuine Christianity, that is not watered down to please the world and actually adheres to our Lord's commands on sexual morality, is totally incompatible with a culture that reveres, and promotes homosexuality. Thus all speech that speaks the truth about the immorality of homosexuality and the homosexual lifestyle must be silenced. This is taking place in Brazil, once a Catholic nation, but now quickly becoming the homosexual capital of South America.
Zenit reports:
BRASILIA, Brazil, MARCH 18, 2007 (Zenit.org).- Debate continues over so-called homophobia legislation, which seeks to criminalize anything considered a condemnation of homosexuality, including priests who speak against the practice in homilies.
Priests could face two to five years imprisonment for preaching against homosexuality. And a rector of a seminary who refuses admission to a homosexual student could face three to five years.
Thursday, Brazil's Senate declined to vote on the legislation. Instead, the senators decided to form a work group, which will organize public audiences to hear specialists on the subject.
According to ZENIT sources, a number of citizens voiced opposition to the law, motivating in part the senators to form the study group.
Specialists say the "homophobia law" would essentially imply a legal frame for religious persecution.
One source told ZENIT: "In addition to the rights established in the constitution for all people, the homosexual, by the simple fact of being homosexual, would gain privileges."
Maria das Dores Dolly Guimarães, lawyer and president of the Paulist Federation of Movements in Defense of Life, explained: "Whoever dared to criticize such behavior would be treated as a delinquent."
The practice of genuine Christianity, that is not watered down to please the world and actually adheres to our Lord's commands on sexual morality, is totally incompatible with a culture that reveres, and promotes homosexuality. Thus all speech that speaks the truth about the immorality of homosexuality and the homosexual lifestyle must be silenced. This is taking place in Brazil, once a Catholic nation, but now quickly becoming the homosexual capital of South America.
Zenit reports:
BRASILIA, Brazil, MARCH 18, 2007 (Zenit.org).- Debate continues over so-called homophobia legislation, which seeks to criminalize anything considered a condemnation of homosexuality, including priests who speak against the practice in homilies.
Priests could face two to five years imprisonment for preaching against homosexuality. And a rector of a seminary who refuses admission to a homosexual student could face three to five years.
Thursday, Brazil's Senate declined to vote on the legislation. Instead, the senators decided to form a work group, which will organize public audiences to hear specialists on the subject.
According to ZENIT sources, a number of citizens voiced opposition to the law, motivating in part the senators to form the study group.
Specialists say the "homophobia law" would essentially imply a legal frame for religious persecution.
One source told ZENIT: "In addition to the rights established in the constitution for all people, the homosexual, by the simple fact of being homosexual, would gain privileges."
Maria das Dores Dolly Guimarães, lawyer and president of the Paulist Federation of Movements in Defense of Life, explained: "Whoever dared to criticize such behavior would be treated as a delinquent."
School Bus Terrorism
I have never
been comfortable with the notion of putting my
children on a school bus, let alone handing
them over to the public school system. Many
would call me an extremist for homeschooling --is it
a coincidence that these are the same people who
can't see the threat that Islam poses to Western
civilization?
Here is another example of genuine extremism.
Fox News reports:
FBI Puts Local Officials on Notice About Extremists Trying to Sign Up to Be School Bus Drivers
The FBI has issued an "informational bulletin" to state and local officials saying to watch out for people tied to extremist groups trying to earn licenses to drive school buses.
The Associated Press reports that members of the unnamed extremist groups have succeeded in gaining the drivers licenses, but a Department of Homeland Security official told FOX News that "at this time there is no evidence that any of these individuals have got these jobs, or got hold of school buses."
"There is no plot. There is no threat. And parents and children can feel perfectly safe," FBI spokesman Richard Kolko told FOXNews.com.
The Department of Homeland Security official said the bulletin was sent to state and local law enforcement officials, and "some school districts have reported an increased number of foreign nationals seeking school bus driver positions and a number of other unusual events."
The official said that, out of an abundance of caution, FBI shared the information.
An unnamed counterterrorism official told The Associated Press that the bulletin — sent Friday to state and local law enforcement agencies — did not say how often foreign extremists attempted to get licenses or drive school buses, and did not specify where this might have happened.
The bulletin noted "recent suspicious activity" by foreigners who either drive school buses or are licensed to drive them, the official told The Associated Press.
Foreigners under recent investigation include "some with ties to extremist groups" who have been able to "purchase buses and acquire licenses," the bulletin says.
But the Homeland Security Department and the FBI "have no information indicating these individuals are involved in a terrorist plot against the homeland," it says. The memo also notes: "Most attempts by foreign nationals in the United States to acquire school bus licenses to drive them are legitimate."
It was not immediately clear whether the extremists intended to do with the school buses. One counterterror official, who spoke with The Associated Press on condition of anonymity, said it was likely that the foreigners investigated were merely employed as bus drivers, and did not intend to use them as part of any terror plot.
"I hate to characterize this as a warning," Kolko said, calling it an "informational bulletin." He said this was part of routine information sent to local law enforcement agencies that they should use only as background information while doing their normal duties.
"This is just an awareness issue for local law enforcement. ... It just makes them smarter," he said.
Kolko said that if he knew which extremist groups were involved in the report, he would not identify them.
Here is another example of genuine extremism.
Fox News reports:
FBI Puts Local Officials on Notice About Extremists Trying to Sign Up to Be School Bus Drivers
The FBI has issued an "informational bulletin" to state and local officials saying to watch out for people tied to extremist groups trying to earn licenses to drive school buses.
The Associated Press reports that members of the unnamed extremist groups have succeeded in gaining the drivers licenses, but a Department of Homeland Security official told FOX News that "at this time there is no evidence that any of these individuals have got these jobs, or got hold of school buses."
"There is no plot. There is no threat. And parents and children can feel perfectly safe," FBI spokesman Richard Kolko told FOXNews.com.
The Department of Homeland Security official said the bulletin was sent to state and local law enforcement officials, and "some school districts have reported an increased number of foreign nationals seeking school bus driver positions and a number of other unusual events."
The official said that, out of an abundance of caution, FBI shared the information.
An unnamed counterterrorism official told The Associated Press that the bulletin — sent Friday to state and local law enforcement agencies — did not say how often foreign extremists attempted to get licenses or drive school buses, and did not specify where this might have happened.
The bulletin noted "recent suspicious activity" by foreigners who either drive school buses or are licensed to drive them, the official told The Associated Press.
Foreigners under recent investigation include "some with ties to extremist groups" who have been able to "purchase buses and acquire licenses," the bulletin says.
But the Homeland Security Department and the FBI "have no information indicating these individuals are involved in a terrorist plot against the homeland," it says. The memo also notes: "Most attempts by foreign nationals in the United States to acquire school bus licenses to drive them are legitimate."
It was not immediately clear whether the extremists intended to do with the school buses. One counterterror official, who spoke with The Associated Press on condition of anonymity, said it was likely that the foreigners investigated were merely employed as bus drivers, and did not intend to use them as part of any terror plot.
"I hate to characterize this as a warning," Kolko said, calling it an "informational bulletin." He said this was part of routine information sent to local law enforcement agencies that they should use only as background information while doing their normal duties.
"This is just an awareness issue for local law enforcement. ... It just makes them smarter," he said.
Kolko said that if he knew which extremist groups were involved in the report, he would not identify them.
MUSLIMS IN NIGERIA KIDNAP, CONVERT CHRISTIAN CHILDREN
15/03/07 12:50 Christian Religion Persecution by
Islam Permalink
My family had
the pleasure of befriending a Nigerian Priest.
He had plenty of stories to tell about the Muslim
militant domination in Nigeria. He always said
that Africa needed to be re-colonized while the West
needed to be re-evangelized. He ended up
returning to Nigeria out of a sense of obligation to
his people who were suffering under muslim
oppression.
Journal Chretian is reporting:
Beginning in November of last year, 13-year-old Victor Udo Usen, a member of the Christ Apostolic Church in this northern Nigeria city, went missing.
On February 20, news that young Victor was spotted in a Muslim neighbor’s house jolted his family. A young Christian girl had raced to the Usens’ home in the Mabera area of Sokoto city with the news.
Victor’s mother, Esther Udo Usen, told Compass that she ran to the house where her son had been seen. She met him, however, even as he was making frantic efforts to escape from the house where he has been held incommunicado for six months.
“I quickly held his hands and dragged him along with me towards our house,” she said. “But within a twinkle of an eye, I heard shouts of ‘Allahu Akbar ! Allahu Akbar ! Allahu Akbar [God is great] !’ I was shocked as I saw a large number of Muslims rushing towards us.”
The mob surrounded them and snatched her son away from her, she told Compass with tears in her eyes.
Before she could send for her husband, who was not home at the time, members of the mob told her that her son was now a Muslim and that she and her husband were no longer his parents.
“They abducted him in November last year, and I only saw him today,” she told Compass. “How can someone force my son into his religion ?”
Victor’s father, Udo Usen, told Compass that when he received the distressed call from his wife, he rushed home only to discover that the boy had been abducted anew.
“I thought, ‘If I force myself into the house of that Muslim to get my son, I will not only be placing the lives of my family at risk but also creating room for them to attack other Christians in Sokoto,’” Usen said.
Instead, Usen contacted his pastor, and together they reported the matter to other Christian leaders – as well as to police and the state security service.
“The police told us that they cannot do anything at the moment until the Sultan of Sokoto, the leader of Muslims in Nigeria, returns from his trip,” he said. “They have held this boy for six months without our consent. They have forced him into Islam. How can they do this to a 13-year-old child ?”
Kidnapped and Converted
Esther Thomas Tambari, a Christian neighbor of the Usens, corroborated the facts of the abduction to Compass. “The Muslims, we learned, have changed Victor’s name to Abdulkarim,” she said.
Tambari said the Muslims had also threatened her son, Simon Thomas Tambari, several times.
“When the Usens had their son abducted, as a Christian I had concern for them and decided to help in any way I can to enable them to find their son,” Tambari said. “I took Victor’s mother to my pastor, who in turn asked her to report the matter to the police. Now the Muslims are after my son, Simon, and me. My landlady, who happens to be a Muslim, has threatened me with ejection from her house, and my son’s life is at stake.”
The Usens are not the only Christian family in Sokoto who have had one of their children abducted and forced into Islam ; Christian leaders there say abduction of teenage Christian boys and girls has become a common phenomenon in majority-Muslim Sokoto state.
“Sometimes Muslims force our young boys and girls into Islam,” said Kevin Aje, Roman Catholic Bishop of Sokoto. “These are some of the challenges facing Christians here in Sokoto.”
The Rev. Reuben Yaro, chairman of the Sokoto district of the Evangelical Church of West Africa, has received reports of child abduction. In one case, Muslims forcefully took away a son and a daughter from a family in his church because the mother was a convert from Islam, he said.
“She gave her life to Christ, eventually got married to a Christian man and the marriage was blessed with the two kids,” Yaro said. But intense persecution followed, he said, with Muslims abducting the children and placing them in the custody of a Muslim cleric.
“The two children have been forced into Islam and are receiving Islamic education,” he said.
The Islamists also seized the mother of the two children – her fate is unknown – and forced the father to leave Sokoto in order to save his life, Yaro said.
Yaro said he has reported another case of kidnapping and forced conversion to the Christian Association of Nigeria, Sokoto state chapter, which is investigating it.
Pastor Tayo Atiniku, Secretary of Pentecostal Fellowship of Nigeria, Sokoto state chapter, also corroborated claims of abductions of teenage Christian boys and girls in Sokoto. He cited two examples.
“Grace, a girl, 17 years old, was three years ago abducted by the Muslims here,” Atiniku said. “Her parents are members of the Redeemed Christian Church of God here in Sokoto, and her whereabouts are still unknown.”
Another Christian girl, daughter of a Christian police officer in Talata Mafara town, also was recently abducted, forced into Islam and married off to a Muslim man without the consent of her parents, he said.
“It took the father the use of a gun for him to rescue her from these Muslims,” Atiniku added.
Christian leaders are worried that the kidnapping trend is on the increase, creating tensions between Muslims and Christians. The Nigerian government, they concur, knows of the abductions but has done nothing to protect Christian children from religious predators.
Journal Chretian is reporting:
Beginning in November of last year, 13-year-old Victor Udo Usen, a member of the Christ Apostolic Church in this northern Nigeria city, went missing.
On February 20, news that young Victor was spotted in a Muslim neighbor’s house jolted his family. A young Christian girl had raced to the Usens’ home in the Mabera area of Sokoto city with the news.
Victor’s mother, Esther Udo Usen, told Compass that she ran to the house where her son had been seen. She met him, however, even as he was making frantic efforts to escape from the house where he has been held incommunicado for six months.
“I quickly held his hands and dragged him along with me towards our house,” she said. “But within a twinkle of an eye, I heard shouts of ‘Allahu Akbar ! Allahu Akbar ! Allahu Akbar [God is great] !’ I was shocked as I saw a large number of Muslims rushing towards us.”
The mob surrounded them and snatched her son away from her, she told Compass with tears in her eyes.
Before she could send for her husband, who was not home at the time, members of the mob told her that her son was now a Muslim and that she and her husband were no longer his parents.
“They abducted him in November last year, and I only saw him today,” she told Compass. “How can someone force my son into his religion ?”
Victor’s father, Udo Usen, told Compass that when he received the distressed call from his wife, he rushed home only to discover that the boy had been abducted anew.
“I thought, ‘If I force myself into the house of that Muslim to get my son, I will not only be placing the lives of my family at risk but also creating room for them to attack other Christians in Sokoto,’” Usen said.
Instead, Usen contacted his pastor, and together they reported the matter to other Christian leaders – as well as to police and the state security service.
“The police told us that they cannot do anything at the moment until the Sultan of Sokoto, the leader of Muslims in Nigeria, returns from his trip,” he said. “They have held this boy for six months without our consent. They have forced him into Islam. How can they do this to a 13-year-old child ?”
Kidnapped and Converted
Esther Thomas Tambari, a Christian neighbor of the Usens, corroborated the facts of the abduction to Compass. “The Muslims, we learned, have changed Victor’s name to Abdulkarim,” she said.
Tambari said the Muslims had also threatened her son, Simon Thomas Tambari, several times.
“When the Usens had their son abducted, as a Christian I had concern for them and decided to help in any way I can to enable them to find their son,” Tambari said. “I took Victor’s mother to my pastor, who in turn asked her to report the matter to the police. Now the Muslims are after my son, Simon, and me. My landlady, who happens to be a Muslim, has threatened me with ejection from her house, and my son’s life is at stake.”
The Usens are not the only Christian family in Sokoto who have had one of their children abducted and forced into Islam ; Christian leaders there say abduction of teenage Christian boys and girls has become a common phenomenon in majority-Muslim Sokoto state.
“Sometimes Muslims force our young boys and girls into Islam,” said Kevin Aje, Roman Catholic Bishop of Sokoto. “These are some of the challenges facing Christians here in Sokoto.”
The Rev. Reuben Yaro, chairman of the Sokoto district of the Evangelical Church of West Africa, has received reports of child abduction. In one case, Muslims forcefully took away a son and a daughter from a family in his church because the mother was a convert from Islam, he said.
“She gave her life to Christ, eventually got married to a Christian man and the marriage was blessed with the two kids,” Yaro said. But intense persecution followed, he said, with Muslims abducting the children and placing them in the custody of a Muslim cleric.
“The two children have been forced into Islam and are receiving Islamic education,” he said.
The Islamists also seized the mother of the two children – her fate is unknown – and forced the father to leave Sokoto in order to save his life, Yaro said.
Yaro said he has reported another case of kidnapping and forced conversion to the Christian Association of Nigeria, Sokoto state chapter, which is investigating it.
Pastor Tayo Atiniku, Secretary of Pentecostal Fellowship of Nigeria, Sokoto state chapter, also corroborated claims of abductions of teenage Christian boys and girls in Sokoto. He cited two examples.
“Grace, a girl, 17 years old, was three years ago abducted by the Muslims here,” Atiniku said. “Her parents are members of the Redeemed Christian Church of God here in Sokoto, and her whereabouts are still unknown.”
Another Christian girl, daughter of a Christian police officer in Talata Mafara town, also was recently abducted, forced into Islam and married off to a Muslim man without the consent of her parents, he said.
“It took the father the use of a gun for him to rescue her from these Muslims,” Atiniku added.
Christian leaders are worried that the kidnapping trend is on the increase, creating tensions between Muslims and Christians. The Nigerian government, they concur, knows of the abductions but has done nothing to protect Christian children from religious predators.
ABORTION REGRET & FEEL GOOD E-CARDS
11/03/07 12:50 Abortion, Infanticide --Killing
Babies Permalink
"I think you're strong, smart, thoughtful and
caring. I believe in you and your ability to
make the best decision. I think you did the
right thing."
From NEWSMAX:
Group Launches Post-Abortion
E-Cards
A nonprofit
organization has unveiled a series of electronic
greeting cards that concerned friends and relatives
can send to a woman after she chooses to have an
abortion.
Like Exhale's confidential talk line for women who
have had abortions, the six e-cards available on the
group's Web site were designed to be nonpartisan and
encompass the range of someone's potential responses
to going through an abortion.
"Women having abortions are calling our line because
often they don't have someone to talk to — it's a
stigmatized issue," said Aspen Baker, founder and
executive director of Oakland-based
Exhale.
One card expresses sympathy, offering the gentle
reminder that, "As you grieve, remember that you are
loved." Another provides encouragement for someone
who "did the right thing." Yet another strikes a
religious tone with the thought that "God will never
leave you or forsake you."
An E-card and a
nonjudgmental hotline is the world's answer to the
pain and torture that comes from abortion and mortal
sin. No amount of confessions via a secular
hotline will relieve these women of the burden of
such a heinous sin. They need divine
intervention. Only Jesus through His Church can
loose these women from their sins.
THOSE WHO ARE MOST TEMPTED & THOSE WHO ARE
FRIENDS OF THE DEVIL
10/03/07 12:49 ChristianityPermalink
The folllowing is excerpted from a sermon by the Cure d' Ars, St. John Vianney.
"[T]emptation is necessary for us, because it teaches us to know ourselves.
“Now what does God do to bring us to a knowledge of ourselves, to make us conscious of our unworthiness? He allows the devil to approach us....O my brethren, how little are we, and how wrong it is for us to rely upon our fine resolutions!”
“[T]emptation is necessary to convince our mind of our unworthiness, and to prevent pride from becoming master over us. Now, you may think that the people who are the most tempted, are the drunkards, the slanderers, the unchaste, who wallow in the mire of their shame, or perhaps the misers. No my brethren, these are not the people who are tempted the most. On the contrary, the devil may even try to restrain them, for fear that they may not live long enough to do evil and help cast souls into hell by their bad example. St Augustine teaches us that the devil does not tempt such people particularly: he rather despises and neglects them.
“But, you will say, who is it that is most tempted? I will tell you and please give me your whole attention. It is those who are willing, with the grace of God, to sacrifice everything for their poor soul, who are willing to renounce all those things which are generally striven for with great eagerness in this world.
“The first temptation, my brethren, which the devil prepares for those who have begun to be more zealous in the service of God is the fear of man. They are afraid to show themselves. They shun those persons whose society they formerly frequented. If they are told that they have changed very much, they are ashamed! The question “What will be said of me?” haunts them so, that they have no more courage to do good before the world.
“If the devil is unable to win them over through fear of man, he excites in them extraordinary scruples. They are afraid that their confessions were not good; that their confessor does not understand them; that they are working in vain; that they will be lost anyhow; that they will gain just as much if they did not take any trouble.”
“Why...is a person not tempted as long as he lives in sin and never thinks of his soul’s salvation, while, on the other hand, as soon as he changes his life...hell is let loose upon him? Listen to St Augustine: This is the behavior of the devil toward a sinner: He acts like a jailer who has several prisoners shut up in his prison. He leaves them quietly alone, because he has the key in his pocket, and he is convinced that they cannot break out. He does not trouble himself to tempt them.
“[H]e lets them live in peace, if one in mortal sin can have any peace. He hides their condition from them...But a person who has decided to change his way of living, and to give himself to God that is quite another matter.”
“While St Augustine lived in a state of sin, he hardly knew what it was to be tempted. He thought he was in peace, as he relates of himself; but, from the moment that he wanted to turn his back on the devil, he had to struggle with the devil until he nearly lost his breath.... ‘I struggled with him in my imprisonment. At one moment I thought I was victorious; the next day I was defeated. This cruel and stubborn fight lasted five years . Then God gave me the grace to triumph over my enemy.’
“These are the struggles which God permits his saints to undergo....how much are we to be pitied when we are not violently tempted by the devil! According to all appearances, we are friends of the devil. He lets us live in a false peace. He lets us slumber under the pretense that we have accomplished so much good, that we have given alms, and that we have practiced less wickedness than others. ....This is the worst of all temptations: Not to be tempted; that is the state of the soul which the devil has prepared for hell.
“[A]n old sinner who has...been wallowing in sin ...will tell you he is not tempted. Well, ...so much the worse for you! That fact alone ought to make you pause, that you do not know what it is to be tempted; for to say that you are not tempted is as good as to say there is no longer a devil, or he has lost his power over Christians.
EXTERMINATION OF THE IMPERFECT & DISABLED
07/03/07 12:48 Abortion, Infanticide --Killing
Babies Permalink
From LIFENEWS: Italy Baby Boy Dies When Doctors Do Erroneous Abortion After Bad Test
The baby boy who became the victim of an abortion after doctors failed a disability test on him died over the weekend. Physicians advised his mother to have an abortion after they had misdiagnosed a physical deformity but the boy survived the procedure.
Doctors at the teaching hospital Careggi performed two ultrasounds on the boy and his mother and they said he had a defective esophagus. That's a disorder that surgery could have corrected after birth in some cases.
However, when they went to abort the baby boy, they discovered he was healthy and desperately tried to resuscitate him.
The boy was born healthy and lived for six days following the failed abortion, which was done at 22 weeks into the pregnancy.
Italy's abortion law allows abortions up to 24 weeks of pregnancy in certain cases but it also requires doctors to do all they can to save the life of a baby who survives a botched abortion attempt.
Doctors today heavily promote these diagnostic tests on pregnant women. So many of these tests are inaccurate and have a very high false positive rate.
I had first hand experience with false positive results when I was pregnant with my first child. I was completely uninformed and agreed to every blood test available. One day at work I received a call from a nurse who informed me: "Your child tested positive for Down's syndrome." The test turned out to be wrong.
Countless pregnant women have these tests every day and based upon the results-- whether accurate or not--abort their children. These tests cause abortions.
Look around-- where have all the Down's Syndrome children gone? Mothers were tested, Down's Syndrome detected and babies were exterminated.
A LUCIFERIAN CONSPIRACY AGAINST THE TRUTH
05/03/07 12:47 Fr
John Hardon S.J.Permalink
Fr John A.
Hardon S.J. said the modern media are engaged in
a "Luciferian conspiracy against the
Truth". He read no newspapers and did not watch
television so as not to partake in the manipulation
of truth and lies that were spread in the name of
news gathering and journalism.
This week we had a supreme example of Luciferian hypocrisy and manipulation of the Truth by Sean Hannity, who in one sentence claims to be a "devout" Catholic and in the next defends birth control. His so called "interview" of Fr Thomas Eutenuer of Human Life International was nothing more than a defensive and vicious attack.
I had the naivete to hope that as a declared "conservative" and a Catholic, Hannity understood the societal and moral blight that birth control has been to the West, or at a minimum to opt out of the "Luciferian conspiracy".
Fr. Eutenuer issued a beautiful response to Hannity--it follows:
In an age of sophisticated dissent against Christ and His Church, the purity of the Ancient Faith needs defense so that people do not put their faith in "another gospel," says St. Paul (Gal 1:7). In the face of modern challenges to the Faith, Catholics who have a high profile in media, culture and government have a very grave responsibility to witness it correctly; otherwise, they will be held accountable in heaven for their anti-witness which affects the faith of millions.
For example, last Friday Sean Hannity took a few moments out of his afternoon radio show to make an apology. When I heard that the rather brash Hannity was actually going to apologize for something I was interested to find out what that would be. At first he sounded very sincere in saying we have to take responsibility for our mistakes. Fine so far. Then he went on to tell his hearers that he had taken two bites of a chicken sandwich that day because he had been traveling and literally forgot it was a Friday of Lent. He stopped eating it when he realized it was a Friday, but he used the opportunity on the show to make a fairly big deal about the "eat meat on Friday and you can go to hell" issue.
Well, even though he claims to be a "good Catholic," Hannity is hardly a credible commentator on Catholic matters. The chicken sandwich scandal was fairly trivial in the overall scheme of his show, but it said much more about the depth of his faith than anything else. I suspect that a great number of Catholics live their faith in the same way—rule-bound and juvenile—but we need something better from a public "Catholic" like Hannity. We need a vibrant witness of someone who knows and embraces his Faith as deeply as he articulates his political passions.
Just for the record, he did not commit a sin when he ate the chicken sandwich—he had no intention to violate the Church precept, and he corrected himself immediately when he realized what he did. That's not a sin, and issuing a dramatic "apology" for doing that is, well, entertainment, not witness. This, unfortunately, is what passes for a deep discussion of the Catholic Faith in the public forum nowadays.
If apologies are the order of the day, then the repentance I would like to hear out of Sean Hannity's mouth is for his shameless—even scandalous—promotion of birth control. Yes, I have heard him personally say, "I have no problem with birth control. It's a good thing." (Another bit of profound theological reasoning.) Given the size of his audience and the importance of his status in pop culture,
Hannity's anti-witness to a fundamental tenet of Catholic moral doctrine is just devastating for the faith of others who may be weak or vacillating in this area. His impact is greater, and so his judgment will be stricter. "To those who have been given more, more will be required…"
The moral of the story is that Catholic men and women in the media need to be truly Catholic or at least stop being hypocrites. We have enough pretenders to the title of Catholic in public life without being treated to superficial assessments of profound moral issues. Rules are important, but Lent is not about rule-breaking, it's about conversion of heart; and on the most important moral issues of our day, public Catholics like Hannity have no right to profess "another gospel," or the faith of millions—and indeed their own souls—are in serious jeopardy.
Sincerely Yours in Christ,
Rev. Thomas J. Euteneuer
President, Human Life International
This week we had a supreme example of Luciferian hypocrisy and manipulation of the Truth by Sean Hannity, who in one sentence claims to be a "devout" Catholic and in the next defends birth control. His so called "interview" of Fr Thomas Eutenuer of Human Life International was nothing more than a defensive and vicious attack.
I had the naivete to hope that as a declared "conservative" and a Catholic, Hannity understood the societal and moral blight that birth control has been to the West, or at a minimum to opt out of the "Luciferian conspiracy".
Fr. Eutenuer issued a beautiful response to Hannity--it follows:
In an age of sophisticated dissent against Christ and His Church, the purity of the Ancient Faith needs defense so that people do not put their faith in "another gospel," says St. Paul (Gal 1:7). In the face of modern challenges to the Faith, Catholics who have a high profile in media, culture and government have a very grave responsibility to witness it correctly; otherwise, they will be held accountable in heaven for their anti-witness which affects the faith of millions.
For example, last Friday Sean Hannity took a few moments out of his afternoon radio show to make an apology. When I heard that the rather brash Hannity was actually going to apologize for something I was interested to find out what that would be. At first he sounded very sincere in saying we have to take responsibility for our mistakes. Fine so far. Then he went on to tell his hearers that he had taken two bites of a chicken sandwich that day because he had been traveling and literally forgot it was a Friday of Lent. He stopped eating it when he realized it was a Friday, but he used the opportunity on the show to make a fairly big deal about the "eat meat on Friday and you can go to hell" issue.
Well, even though he claims to be a "good Catholic," Hannity is hardly a credible commentator on Catholic matters. The chicken sandwich scandal was fairly trivial in the overall scheme of his show, but it said much more about the depth of his faith than anything else. I suspect that a great number of Catholics live their faith in the same way—rule-bound and juvenile—but we need something better from a public "Catholic" like Hannity. We need a vibrant witness of someone who knows and embraces his Faith as deeply as he articulates his political passions.
Just for the record, he did not commit a sin when he ate the chicken sandwich—he had no intention to violate the Church precept, and he corrected himself immediately when he realized what he did. That's not a sin, and issuing a dramatic "apology" for doing that is, well, entertainment, not witness. This, unfortunately, is what passes for a deep discussion of the Catholic Faith in the public forum nowadays.
If apologies are the order of the day, then the repentance I would like to hear out of Sean Hannity's mouth is for his shameless—even scandalous—promotion of birth control. Yes, I have heard him personally say, "I have no problem with birth control. It's a good thing." (Another bit of profound theological reasoning.) Given the size of his audience and the importance of his status in pop culture,
Hannity's anti-witness to a fundamental tenet of Catholic moral doctrine is just devastating for the faith of others who may be weak or vacillating in this area. His impact is greater, and so his judgment will be stricter. "To those who have been given more, more will be required…"
The moral of the story is that Catholic men and women in the media need to be truly Catholic or at least stop being hypocrites. We have enough pretenders to the title of Catholic in public life without being treated to superficial assessments of profound moral issues. Rules are important, but Lent is not about rule-breaking, it's about conversion of heart; and on the most important moral issues of our day, public Catholics like Hannity have no right to profess "another gospel," or the faith of millions—and indeed their own souls—are in serious jeopardy.
Sincerely Yours in Christ,
Rev. Thomas J. Euteneuer
President, Human Life International
Nihilism and Faith
02/03/07 12:40 ChristianityPermalink
The following is an excerpt from Salt Of The Earth, an interview with Joseph Cardinal Ratzinger, before he became Pope.
“[I]t seems generally easier not to believe than to believe. It is paradoxical: on the one hand faith is present in principle, man is a religious being; on the other hand he has to struggle with it constantly.
The ease of unbelief is nonetheless relative. It exists in the sense that it is easy to throw off the bonds of faith and to say, I am not going to exert myself; this is burdensome; I’m leaving that aside. This first stage is what you call the easy part of unbelief. But to live with this is not at all so easy. To live without faith means, then, to find oneself first in some nihilistic state and then, nonetheless. to search for reference points. Living a life of unbelief has its complications. If you examine the philosophy of unbelief in Sartre, Camus, and so forth, you see that readily.
The act of faith as a new start and acceptance, may be complicated, although at that moment when faith really hits me - “you may rejoice”- it has in turn its great interim ease. So we mustn’t unilaterally emphasize the toil. The ease of unbelief and the difficulty of belief lie on different planes. Unbelief too is a heavy burden, and in my opinion even more so than faith is. Faith also makes man light....we can fly because we no longer weigh so heavy in our own estimation. To become a believer means to become light, to escape our own gravity, which drags us down, and thus to enter the weightlessness of faith.”
SECULARISM, LOSS OF LIBERTY & THE DEATH OF THE
WEST
"Liberty
will ever be more free and secure in proportion as
license is kept in restraint."
Pope Leo XIII
Secularists condemn
Christianity as the foe of all liberty, most
especially in the realm of intellectual and social
liberties. They believe that the West will only
be free when all vestiges of Christianity are removed
from our culture.
The secularists are wrong. The abandonment of
Christianity as a basis for our laws will eventually
destroy our liberties. It is precisely because
the West embraced Christianity that we have enjoyed
freedom so consistently and extensively throughout
history.
A delicate balance
between authority and liberty is necessary for the
proper functioning of a society. Too much
liberty leads to anarchy, while too much authority
leads to tyranny. The excess of either leads to
a backlash toward the other.
Liberty increases or decreases depending on how a
society views the nature of man and the value of
human life. The hallmark of all pagan cultures
throughout history has been the lack of belief in the
inherent dignity of human life. Man in the
eyes of a socialist or a communist state is merely a
means of support for the State and little more.
On the other hand, Christian societies view
man as an eternal soul uniquely created in the image
and likeness of God with a free will.
Every human life is to be valued. The
state exists to serve man.
The state’s estimation of itself in relation to man
is like a sliding scale. The less human life is
valued the greater the state becomes and vice
versa. Since Christianity presumes the inherent
value of every human life, no man-made laws can
compete with the liberty that Christian based laws
provide. Thus, only Christianity guarantees a
proper balance between liberty and
authority.
Rome was one of the first civilizations to guarantee
its citizens’ rights. It did not, however,
recognize any inherent rights to human life outside
man’s role as a citizen. All rights came from
the state and resulted from the subjective
benevolence of the rulers. Man existed for the
State--not the other way around. Rome
sanctioned slavery and infanticide. A contempt
for human life was seen in the public games where the
destruction of human beings became
amusement.
It would take a radical new way of thinking to confer
upon human beings the dignity that would elevate the
life of every man above the
state. Christianity transformed man from a
slave of the state to a uniquely created individual
who was created in the image of God.
Christianity rescued man from the meaningless
repetitive drudgery of daily life and gave him a
personal destiny, not simply a tribal, cultural or
national destiny. His actions now had eternal
consequences, and the State was no longer the
ultimate authority. Instead there now existed a
higher authority under which he was no longer a
slave, but rather a child of God. Man suddenly
had not only a purpose for living but also for
dying.
Death was no longer man’s sad end and enemy.
The belief in eternal life gave the West a courage
which was unmatched at the time. It ennobled
the West to do battle with all those who would
destroy liberty. The belief in the eternal life
of the soul cannot be separated from the will to
fight to the death for liberty.
In Christianity man was endowed with “free
will”. Even his Creator would not tread on
man’s free will-- even unto his own
destruction.
Christianity was also the great equalizer among
classes, races, and yes, even the sexes. It
brought an equality like no other man-made, social or
intellectual idea ever could or will. The king
of the land was no more important in the eyes of God
than a slave.
The West seems to have come full circle since the
pre-Christian pagan days of Rome. Our lawmakers
and governments of the West have now largely
dispensed with Christianity as the influence of laws,
and work at a frenzied pace to create new laws to
make society more fair, free and less
objectionable. These secular laws, too often,
not only strip us of our liberties but deny the
inherent dignity of human
life.
“Choice”, unfortunately, is the operative word rather
than liberty or freedom. The West is less
concerned about liberty than “license”. License
is a laxity and an abandonment to all
moderation. License sanctions all “choices” and
must silence those that seek to inhibit their
exercise. Liberty does not and cannot derive
from license. It is a false freedom since it
robs the moderate of their liberty, lessens the
dignity of human life and creates a slave of the
licentious.
Licentiousness has become the false freedom of the
West. So many of our laws are based upon
justifying our hypersexuality and comforting the
licentious. We legalize prostitution in order
to elevate and dignify the woman and the
“profession”. We enshrine fruitless sex as a
right and call it “reproductive freedom”.
Strip clubs and pornography are an exercise of the
“freedom of expression”.
None of these so called freedoms elevate
man, rather they destroy his dignity.
They make man an object for use by
another. We mistakenly believe that we
love our fellow man and dignify him by legalizing and
protecting his favorite sin. Instead we have
simply dignified sin and degraded and demeaned man.
The ultimate in the denial of liberty is the denial
of life. The West has killed millions upon millions
of its own offspring through abortion under the
banner of “choice”. Many nations have also
passed laws that take the life of its elderly and
disabled. Secular governments will soon
realize the financial incentive for eliminating those
that “drain” society and the right to die will fast
become the duty to die. China recently made headlines
by harvesting organs from living human beings who
were
imprisoned.
In the name of tolerance the secular governments
probe the minds of citizens to ensure the absence of
intolerant thoughts. Should one express a
thought that is subjectively determined to be
intolerant-- punishment awaits. Homosexual
intolerance is the ultimate secular mortal sin.
Many “enlightened” countries of the West have
justified the forced silencing of their people so
that homosexuals won’t be made to feel uncomfortable
about their “choices”. This however liberates
sin and not man. It also results in the loss of
human dignity and liberty.
Liberty is also lost when we cannot raise our
children in a manner that is in keeping
with God's laws. We are no
longer free when we are at war with our culture to
retain innocence and purity in our children.
Our hard earned money is taken in the name of public
education where birth control is passed out to
children without their parents knowledge or consent
and they are force fed deviant ideas in the name of
tolerance.
The subjectivism and relativism embodied in the
secular laws of the West are flawed and cannot
produce true fairness, liberty, and
equality. When we make way for the
practice of every
sin then man's dignity and liberty is lost.
We have become pagan
by dignifying sin and demeaning human life.