Will the Vatican finally adopt a more realistic posture toward Islam?From the great Sandro Magister in Chiesa, with thanks to Anthony:
ROMA – At the end of his general audience on Wednesday, October 27, John Paul II said in regard to Iraq and in particular for the Christians who live there:"Each day I accompany in prayer the dear Iraqi population, which is intent on reconstructing the institutions of their country. At the same time, I encourage the Christians to continue to offer with generosity their own crucial contribution toward heartfelt reconciliation. Finally, I express my deep sympathy for the pain of the victims’ families and for the suffering of the hostages and all the innocent people struck by the blind barbarity of terrorism."
"L'Osservatore Romano" gave great emphasis to these words from the pope on its front page, in the October 28 edition.
The words contain the Holy See's full support for the process now taking place in Iraq to construct a free, democratic, and safe country.
But there is also encouragement for the Iraqi Christians to collaborate in the reconstruction of the country, not to flee, to resist the "barbarity."
Because, in effect, the Iraqi Christians are also under direct attack from the Islamist terrorists. It is an attack composed of killings, kidnappings, and destruction.
On October 16, the online news agency "Fides" – an instrument of the Vatican congregation "De Propaganda Fide" headed by Cardinal Crescenzio Sepe – published a "list of horror" with the names, places, and dates of the "local Christians killed by Islamic fanatics."
“Since 2003 at least 88 Christians have been killed,” writes "Fides." “The most recent victim was a little Chaldean Christian girl brutally murdered by a group of Islamic terrorists in Baghdad. The group kidnapped the child and demanded ransom money for her release, but the distraught parents were unable to pay the sum. On October the 14 the lifeless body was delivered to the parents home.”
It disgusts and enrages me to think that a little Christian (ANY CHILD) girl is murdered and God knows what else then dumped off dead at the parents house by Muslim savages.
Yet the massacre of Christians worldwide by "insurgents", or "radacals" or "activists" or "Extremists" all have the Islamic fingerprint on them and are generally ho-hummed by the elites of the fourth estate.
The only worldwide criticism that is generated occurs when any act of violence or retribution or defence is perpetrated against Muslums. There's the problem. They get away with the eternal victim bullshit.
The majority of Muslims as far as I am concerned all seem to act in the spirit of Islamic Jihad even if they are not carrying out violence.
Why the hell are we so damn stupid to continue to allow them a giant foothold in this country and Europe? Why is our culture second to every immigrant group appearing at JFK or LAX? And why is there no longer any sembelence of national unity, rather than group rights, multiculturalism and all the rest of the weapons in the arsenal of those wishing to demolish American identity forever?
Every constructed mosque is one step further allong to barbarity in America. Every Muslim casually issued a resident visa or allowed citizenship for nothing more than just showing up is another nail in our Judeo-Christian Cultures casket.
How logical is it to assume that many brutal third world murders, wheather Muslim or otherwise are easily welcomed into our home, America. The Satanist bastards that killed that little girl could probably find their way to America with no major problem I am sure and open up a deli anywhere.
The crisis in American and European socities that will surely result from allowing plague carriers entry into what were beautiful countries is utterly incomphrensible.
Why, why, why is this issue being ignored by those who have the power to confront it?
Please, Your Holiness! We need a little more passion for the cause of our fellow Christians!
A devout Iraqi Shi'ah Muslim blogger writing under the pseudonym Sam Hammorabi had far stronger words against the Baghdad church bombers. Then again, the victims were his neighbors.
The Vatican, of course, harbored Hilarion Cappucci, the gun-runner for the PLO, and it has been remarkably uncunning both in its refusal to stand up for the Maronites, or for the Copts in Egypt, and in its remarkable, and wilful, misunderstanding of the Jihad against Israel -- all decked out in the alluring finery of "two tiny peoples, etc." (which required, post-1967, the "project of constructing a Palestinian identity" -- to use their own gobbledygook against them, that is to say, to fabricate out of the local Arabs in the territories won by Israel an entirely mythical "Palestinian people" who have nothing distinctive, linguistically, religiously, or otherwise, to distinguish them from the Arabs on the other side of the Jordan, or indeed, from the Israeli Arabs.
Those in the Vatican should use their imagination. Do they think that Israel's continued weakening, and disappearance, would enable Christians to have continued free access to the Holy Land, or would not Muslim triumphalism lead to an orgy of destruction all over that area -- that is, what leads one think that Islamic triumphalism would not immediately be so swelled with power that it would not turn on Christans and Christian sites? In this respect, the Christians of black Africa are far more understanding of Islam, and its effect on its adherents.
And for another -- if the Vatican continues to appease, as it has in the past, what is the likely effect in Europe? Will this help rouse people to stop the growing islamization of their countries, if such an important institution fails to identify, or work against, such a threat? Doesn't Chirac's remark that "Europe owes as much to Islam as it does to Christianity" worry not only Cardinal Biffi, and Cardinal Ratzinger, but others? Do they want the history of the West to continue to be rewritten so as to accommodate the Arab League and Sheikhs Tantawi and Qaradawi, or would they like something like the truth to be taught?
Time to choose. Once to every man and nation. That sort of thing.
It's about time the Pope stopped kissing Qur'ans and started looking after his flock.
I am in complete agreement with Mike - has anyone seen any imam kiss the Bible? or any other sacred text...yeah, right?! so much for islamic tolerance!
The trouble with the EU is that the majority of the Europeans are 2 generations removed from being Christians. They view religion (Christianity that is) as Western cultural imperalism which has been/is responsible for all of the ills in our world today!
Since they (Europeans) are so removed of being people of "faith", they are totally clueless about the importance of faith for the majority of Americans. The Europeans prefer leaders with no faith, leaders remaining completely secular (unless they are Muslim, of coruse!)in comparison to Americans - at least according to the polls - preferring their leaders to have faith.
Great post Hugh. Can you tell me where you got that quote by Chirac; "Europe owes as much to Islam as it does to Christianity"? I want to add it to my collection of dhimmi quotes. Even if it's in French I can still read it.
As for the story, it makes me very sad to see that the removal of Saddam has released such vicious forces against the last representatives of Iraq's pre-Islamic (read: pre-barbaric nightmare) past. We can only hope that in the short run these poor Christians can find sanctuary perhaps in the Kurdish region or the U.S.
Yup. And if Europe is so humanitarianly concerned about asylum seekers from arabia, let arab christina fillup all available slots till all of them are repatriated frm the dark lands!
The Pope is a very sick old man [pity Popes can't be retired] when Catholics NEED a strong, able Leader.Have always deplored the Qur'an kissing episode. Chirac is a foul, corrupt traitor who has helped Europe to become Eurabia and cares about nothing except lining his own pockets. Invite one of our erudite members to write a full Epose on HIM, ALSO BBC - whose propaganda has done as much damage as Jihadists.
Rublev -- go to www.les4verites.com, and look for a piece by Pierre France. OR you can simply google using the terms "Chirac" and "Islam" and "L'Europe" and "autant" -- et voila.
If you are in the mood to be even more dispirited, and there is nothing like being a little dispirited to make you feel good, do google "Jean-Louis Borloo," who is also a French functionary and who has declared that "Paris is part of the Maghreb." Not everyone in France was delighted with that remark, any more than they were delighted by Chirac's remark -- disdain and dismay in many quarters. But not all, not by any means. Not at Le Monde. Not at the television channels. No, no.
How pusillanimous and short-sighted Official France turns out to be.
So let us keep firmly in mind the France of our imagination. Return with me now to those thrilling years with Harry Baur on the screen, and Mistinguett, and Mizrahi's music for Trenet. La guinguette a ferme ses volets -- that may be, but in our imaginations we will simply fling those shutters open again, and turn on the lights, and now here is Charlie Chaplin himself, as the Singing Waiter in that famous scene where he shoots his cuffs too vigorously, and they fly off, along with the words to the song he was supposed to sing, and he has to improvise: le spinash toto busho, le taximeter, and all the rest. And Paulette Goddard is watching, and knows he loves her, and she him.
Mizraki. Isaac Misrahi tripped me up, down Memory Lane.
No, wrong again, Rublev. The composer of "Je chante" which Trenet made famous, and of many other songs, before and then after the war (when he returned) was Paul Misraki. S not Z. Let me pretend it was all a sly allusion to S/Z by Barthes. No,I'm just trying to save face, ou pile. No one tripped me up; the fall, followed by a pratfall, was all my own.
Jihan, you won't see any imams kissing the bible, they are too busy kissing this:
http://www.faithfreedom.org/oped/GrantSwank41028.htm
Gross!
Jihan, you won't see any imams kissing the bible, they are too busy kissing this (scroll down):
http://www.faithfreedom.org/oped/GrantSwank41028.htm
Gross!