Posts with the tag 'Christianity'
Interesting:
Rev. John Hagee, the controversial pastor of Cornerstone Church in San Antonio, Texas, has lauded Pope Benedict XVI in a Washington Times essay and thanked him for the speeches he made during his U.S. visit. Hagee praised what he called Pope Benedict’s “moral vision for America,” especially the Pope’s affirmation of Christian participation in the public square.
In his Washington Times essay, Rev. Hagee also repeated his denial of accusations he has made anti-Catholic statements. Hagee insisted he has been “quite zealous” about condemning what he said was the “past anti-Semitism of the Catholic Church.” However, he claimed his view of the Catholic Church had been caricatured.
Hagee praised Pope Benedict’s many public statements about the role that “our Judeo-Christian faith” can play in contemporary life.
“As an evangelical Protestant I happen to disagree with Pope Benedict on many issues of Christian doctrine and ritual,” Hagee wrote. “But when it comes to his moral vision for America and the world I have one thing to say in response to the Pope’s visit: Amen.”
Hagee said that evangelical leaders believe faith must not be confined to “churches on Sunday morning.” Rather, Christian values can help build a more just and humane society. Hagee said the Pope “speaks for all of us” when he said “any tendency to treat religion as a private matter must be resisted” and called for Christian participation “in the exchange of ideas in the public square.”
My erring brother, Hagee, has made a gracious gesture in keeping with the true Christian spirit - and while I retain many differences of opinion with Hagee, I choose to accept this olive branch and let bygones be bygones. At a time when religion, as a thing, is under full scale assault, those of us who believe must remain as united as possible, and I’m not going to gnaw a bone of resentment just for the sake of keeping angry.
Tags: Benedict XVI, Catholic Church, Christianity, Hagee
May 5th, 2008
Just astounding:
London, Feb 26, 2008 (CNA).- A committee in the British House of Commons will investigate Catholic schools following the Bishop of Lancaster’s instructions to schools to place crucifixes in every classroom and stop “safe sex” education, the Independent reports.
Patrick O’Donoghue, Bishop of Lancaster, had circulated a 66-page booklet instructing Catholic schools to stop “safe sex” education. Bishop O’Donoghue wrote, “The secular view on sex outside marriage, artificial contraception, sexually transmitted disease, including HIV and AIDS, and abortion, may not be presented as neutral information.”
Additionally, he told the schools not to support charities that support abortion. He singled out Amnesty International, which recently renounced its neutrality on abortion and now favors the abortion of children whose mothers were raped in war zones.
The government’s investigating committee is chaired by Labour Party member Barry Sheerman, who is reportedly concerned the Church is adopting a “fundamentalist” line.
“A lot of taxpayers’ money is going into church schools and I think we should tease out what is happening here,” he added. “We seem to have a shift in emphasis on the ground despite what the reasonable voices of the leadership are saying,” Sheerman said.
Why does Sheerman get to decide who is reasonable? This is the thing which is really bothersome about this - a politician is going to bring pressure on a religious body to toe the government line because the politician has arrogated to himself the right to decide what is reasonable, and what isn’t. Now, if Mr. Sheerman thinks the Church wrong; that is fine. If Mr. Sheerman thinks that the Church is so wrong that it should not receive any government funding in Britain, then he may move a bill in Parlaiment to do just that. But to use a government committee as an attempt to browbeat the Church into doing the secularists’ will, that is an abominable infringement upon the rights of the people.
Chesterton said a very long time ago that, in the end, there is the Church, and her enemies - and Mr. Sheerman is demonstrating this to us in very stark terms. It isn’t enough for the Sheermans of the world to have all sorts of taxpayer funded programs to promote the leftist agenda - arrogantly self assured about their moral superiority, lefists insist that no one be allowed to dissent from their worldview. Britain, like the rest of Europe, is far gone down the road to socialist slavery - but this is the sort of world that the left wants to bring to the United States; a government controlled world of enforced political correctness. You want it, you can have it - all you have to do is “hope for change” in 2008, rather than learn and think.
Tags: anti-Christian actions, Catholic Church, Christianity, religious freedom
February 27th, 2008
Geesh:
London, Jan 11, 2008 (CNA).- A British Airways employee who sued her employer after it required her to cover up a cross necklace while she worked has lost her religious discrimination lawsuit, WorldNetDaily reports.
Nadia Eweida, a check-in worker at Heathrow Airport and a Coptic Christian, was sent home after refusing to remove the cross necklace. British Airways said the necklace was a violation of the company’s dress code.
Eweida charged her employer with religious discrimination, saying that the company allowed religious employees like those adhering to Islam or Hinduism to wear faith-related clothing, jewelry, religious markings, or other items.
The Reading Employment Tribunal had previously ruled against Eweida, but she appealed the decision.
The 56-year-old Eweida, who was placed on unpaid leave, reacted to the ruling, saying, “I’m very disappointed. I’m speechless really because I went to the tribunal to seek justice. But the judge has given way for BA to have a victory on imposing their will on all their staff.”
The story goes on to note that other religions - Islam, Hinduism, etc - are allowed to display their religious symbols because, supposedly, they can’t be concealed, as a cross can. And so, translation: “Look, we’re a post-Christian corporate body and we really don’t like to be reminded of religion at all…but as the other religions might blow something up or cut of a head or two, we’ve decided that we can only discriminate against Christians…”.
Tags: Christianity, religious discrimination
January 14th, 2008
Just bizarre:
Madrid, Jan. 3, 2008 (CWNews.com) - Spanish government leaders have asked the country’s Catholic bishops to apologize for the massive pro-family rally held in Madrid on December 30, Vatican Radio reports.
Leaders of the Socialist governing party have charged that the Church intervened in partisan political affairs with the rally, which drew nearly 2 million participants. (The government is reporting that only 160,000 took part in the demonstration.) The government has asked the bishops’ conference for an apology.
Although 40 bishops took part in the pro-family event, and the hierarchy gave clear support to the event, the rally was organized primarily by lay Catholic activists. The organizers have consistently argued that the rally was not intended as a partisan political event, but as a public expression of support for the traditional family founded on Christian marriage.
This is what the secular left wants - the Church to be removed from the public square. They’ll kindly allow us to practise our faith, as long as we don’t disturb their worldview by demonstrating publically what we stand for. If we’ll just keep it off the streets, all will be well - until they arrest our priests and pastors for “hate speech” because they teach Christian morality in the pulpit.
Tags: Catholic Church, Christianity, gay rights, government persecution
January 5th, 2008
A very small, yet hopeful sign:
Amman, Dec. 28, 2007 (CWNews.com) - The leader of an Islamic group calling for inter-religious dialogue has responded positively to a papal invitation for talks with the Holy See, Vatican Radio reports.
Prince Ghazi bin Muhammad bin Talal, the president of the Aal al-Bayt Institute for Islamic Thought in Jordan, has indicated that he would like to meet with Pope Benedict XVI early in the new year. The Jordanian prince has been the most prominent figure associated the “Common Word” initiative, in which 138 Islamic leaders signed a public statement, issued in October, calling for broader dialogue between Christians and Muslims. More recently the Common Word participants joined in a Christmas greeting to the world’s Christians, renewing their call for dialogue and cooperation.
Pope Benedict replied to the Common Word initiative in November, with his own invitation for members of the Islamic group to join in talks at the Vatican. Prince Ghazi was responding to this papal invitation.
In his reply — which was conveyed in a letter to the Vatican Secretary of State, Cardinal Tarcisio Bertone — Prince Ghazi said that he hoped to meet with the Pope in February or March 2008.
I’ve linked to that public statement in the quote - and I do recommend that everyone read it. As I said shortly after it came out, it is a brisk and forthright attempt to bridge the gap between Islam and Christianity (and thus bridge the gap between Islam and the West). At that time, I also deplored the wet-noodle response a few weak-kneed Christians made to it; grovelling is not what is needed, or desired. But the Vatican holding a conference - at which I hope that other Christian leaders also attend - is a far better response. To get together and talk can often be an exercise in futility - but it some times can break logjams.
Just as there is a tiny element in Christianity which has forgotten what its all about, so there is a tiny element in Islam which is entirely off the Islamic ranch. Tiny, but still quite large in raw numbers (even if only 1% of Islam is radicalised, that is approximately 10 million people) - and, unfortunately, backed for varied reasons (some base, some just foolish) by politicians and rich people in the Arab/Moslem world. The ultimate key to victory in the War on Terrorism is for the Arab/Moslem world to be transformed into a free society which makes room for the religious dissident and seeks the betterment of the Arab people, rather than the revival of an archaic Caliphate. In this transformation, there is a role for everyone to play - including, not least, religious leaders on both sides who can come together and issue statements which will tend to isolate the Islamo-fascists and bring them into disrepute among the Arab population.
In this war of ideas, we must use our armed might, our economic might and our diplomatic might - but we also must make use of well-disposed people in the Moslem and Christian worlds who are willing, often at great personal risk, to come together past the divide. Small results will come from this conference - initially; but with good will and God’s grace, much will be accomplished over time.
Tags: Christianity, Islam
January 2nd, 2008
Just frightening to see this sort of totalitarianism in an allegedly democratic nation:
Another Canadian publication has come under attack for its opinions through the agency of the government-funded Canadian Human Rights Commissions (HRC). Closely following an uproar in the media against government-sponsored censorship via HRC against Maclean’s magazine and columnist Mark Steyn and an Alberta HRC judgment ordering Alberta news media to not publish any comments on homosexuality by a Christian pastor, Toronto’s Catholic Insight magazine has reported they stand accused in an HRC complaint of “targeting homosexuals”.
Catholic Insight is a Catholic political and cultural general interest magazine that regularly and accurately expounds orthodox Catholic teaching, based on the Catechism of the Catholic Church, on homosexuality as well as harmful consequences to individual persons and society of the active homosexual “lifestyle”.
The magazine now reveals that Rob Wells, a homosexual activist associated with the Pride Centre of Edmonton, in February this year filed a nine-point complaint against Catholic Insight. Wells alleges that the magazine made “negative generalizations” about homosexuals; portrayed them as preying upon children, as dangerous and “devoid of any redeeming qualities and…innately evil”.
Catholic Insight (CI), however, bases its editorial policy very strictly on Catholic Church teaching which is at pains to separate what it says is the deviant behaviour and disordered inclination of homosexuality from the person.
In Canada, if you file a complaint against some one or some entity with the Human Rights Commission, your case is carried forward entirely at taxpayer expense - a huge incentive for activists to use the HRC as a tool of intimidation against persons or groups they find offensive for whatever reason. Boiled down, what Catholic Insight did was teach standard Catholic doctrine on the subject of homosexuality - and it now is on trial merely because of this expression of opinion. This is in Canada - but it is the sort of thing the political left wishes to bring here with their campaigns for “hate crimes” laws and changes to anti-discrimination laws to include “sexual orientation”.
Fundamentally, this is what we get when hatred is allowed the free use of lies to get its way - Rob Wells hates the Catholic Church because of the Church’s views on homosexual sex. Because of this unreasoning hatred, Wells wants to lash out at the Church - and his tool of choice is a lie. It is patently absurd for anyone to claim they feel threatened by Catholics stating the Catholic position on homosexuality. One might feel offended by it, but no on has a right to not be offended - Wells doesn’t feel threatened; and he knows he’s lying when he says otherwise. The Catholics under attack by Wells know he’s lying. The members of the Human Rights Commission know he’s lying. His friends and family know he’s lying. You, dear reader, know that he’s lying and, of course, I know he’s lying. But the farce will be maintained - everyone will proceed as if Wells weren’t lying. And in the by and by, we might see the Canadian HRC ruling in Wells favor because they, too, hate the Catholic Church and will use whatever comes to hand - even a transparant lie - to hammer the Church.
If anyone wonders why I fight so ardently against the left it is because of this - because of the hatred and dishonesty in service of hatred so prevalent on the left. The American left has been partially stymied in their attempts to make us a carbon copy of Canada and/or the EU, but it is what they want, and for the same reason - because they hate.
Tags: Canada, Catholic Church, Christianity, free speech, homosexuality, political correctness
December 21st, 2007
Interesting news report - a conference call between Senator McCain and various Catholic leaders. Naturally, McCain emphasised his long-held pro-life views, one of the most crucial issues for devout Catholics. But it was in immigration that I was most impressed:
Sen. McCain also sees his policy on immigration as an issue of human rights and security. Acknowledging that his efforts to pass comprehensive immigration reform had failed, the presidential candidate said that he will focus on securing America’s border first, before pursuing more comprehensive reforms.
The Arizona senator does not want to stop at securing the borders. Pairing himself with Sen. Brownback, he said, “Sam and I and others, understand that we have to secure the borders”. At the same time, McCain sees the treatment that some illegal immigrants have received from as inhumane. “I don’t think that it’s the proudest chapter in American history, what we’re going through right now.”
“We’ve got to raise the level of dialogue,” he continued. “We’ve got to understand that these are God’s children. And we need to address the issue with compassion and love,” said McCain. When asked about the issue of reuniting families separated by deportation, the presidential aspirant said that he favors efforts to promote reunification.
Why does this particularly concern Catholics? Lots of reasons:
1. Catholicism bore the brunt of the first demands for border security, as it were. This was back in the 1840’s and 1850’s as the first large numbers of Catholics (mostly Irish at that time) started to arrive in America. The most infamous example of this was the Know Nothing movement which, while it had a lot of things in it, was mostly founded to keep Catholics out. There is an inherent suspicion about calls for border security - especially as, once again, most of the illegals coming in are Catholic.
2. Catholicism - like all of Christianity - has a moral obligation to be generous with strangers and aliens. We cannot square our morals with any program to willy-nilly round up and deport all of the illegals currently in country without any regard to their particular circumstances. Certainly, enforce the laws - but Catholics can’t agree to the deportation, without so much as a hearing, for someone who may have been in this country for years and fully established himself as a solid member of the American community - especially since over the last 20 years there has been a de-facto bind eye turned to illegal immigration.
3. While there are legitimate concerns that “family reunification” is being abused - sometimes with uncles and cousins coming in under what should be a program to get parents and children back together - the basic concept of family reunification is a moral imperitive. If you allow Person A in, then you have to allow spouse, children and, perhaps, parents and siblings to come in.
4. It is mostly poverty which drives people to come to the United States - so any immigration reform would have to make provision for the needs of the poor. What this means, in practical terms, is that there should be a guest-worker program of some sort.
Bottom line, most Catholics have no problem with border security being the top priority - but a top priority doesn’t mean a sole priority. In the end, there does need to be a comprehensive immigration reform law. The law Senator McCain pushed - with White House help - earlier this year might not have been the ideal solution, but whatever good was in the proposals was drowned out by a chorus of shouts about the very concept of reform - from both ends; open border people and deport-em-all people were unified in their opposition. But, as Senator McCain stated, we must remember that the illegals are, indeed, children of God and whatever we decide to do, we must keep love for the illegals in our hearts, and work with justice and mercy as our constant companion.
Tags: Catholic Church, Christianity, GOP Nomination, John McCain
December 20th, 2007
The view from one of the strongest Catholic and religious voices in America today:
It was a powerful speech powerfully delivered. I don’t do political endorsements but am on record as saying that I think Mitt Romney is in many ways well qualified to be president. There is nothing in the speech that prompts a change of mind on that.
Note the title “Faith in America.” That has an obvious and, I expect, intended double meaning: Faith as it is practiced in America, and faith in America, i.e., America as an object of faith. The entire address is a skillful weaving together of those two themes.
I strongly suggest reading the whole thing. Fr. Neuhaus points out that we Catholics - as well as Jewish Americans - are less likely to have trouble with a President Romney than our Evangelical brothers and sisters may have. Aside from John Kennedy - who, Neuhaus points out, wasn’t much of a Catholic - all American Presidents have been Protestants from the Protestant mainstream of American life. We’re used to it, you see? Having, that is, a President we consider wrong on some fundamental religious issues. Given this, having a Mormon as President isn’t disturbing to us, regardless of what we feel about some particular theological aspects of the Mormon faith. For Evangelicals, it is a bit different.
While Mormons will stoutly assert they are Christian, Christians are mostly unwilling to accept this assertion. The Mormon faith grew out of the Christian faith (especially the Protestant branch of it), but it can’t be said to be in direct line descent from the early Church of the Apostles. Mormons have an answer for this objection, but the answer isn’t really relevant - the fact of Christianity considering Mormonism to be outside the Christian Church won’t be changed by Mormons explaining themselves, certainly not in time for the 2008 election. Whatever may happen in the future to reconcile the Mormons with Christians, for now it is just something to be dealt with, as is. Romney’s speech, at bottom, was an attempt to deal with it by stressing the shared values between Mormons and traditional Christians.
And there is a lot of that - and God grant that we Christians emulate the Mormons in their devotion to their faith in such things as tithing and mutual support amongst the members of the community. Think about it - aside from that crackpot, polygamist Mormon sect, have you ever heard of a Mormon running afoul of the law? They work hard, raise their families, pay their taxes, obey the laws and in all manner of actions make our nation the better for their being in it. Given the practical results of the Mormon faith as demonstrated by Governor Romney and his faimly, it should only be on matters of policy that a person votes for, or against, Romney. But it may not be like that at all.
While Governor Romney’s speech did a lot of good things, only time will tell if Evangelical voters have been convinced to support Romney in the primaries. One hopes that each GOP primary voter is weighing things entirely on rock-solid policy issues, but there’s no way to tell what will factor into a person’s actual vote. Its a subjective thing, and it might not be resolved in a lot of minds until the voter is in the voting booth, making the actual vote. All Governor Romney can do from this point on is argue his positions, and hope that he’s crafted the right set of policy proposals to offset any lingering doubts on the religion issue.
Tags: Christianity, Mormon, Republican Nomination, Romney
December 10th, 2007
What is A Common Word? An open letter penned by some Moslem scholars detailing some of the similarities between Islam and Christianity and asking that we all come together for the peace of the world? It is an admirable statement in every sense of the word. What is the common cowardice? This response by some Christian scholars:
As members of the worldwide Christian community, we were deeply encouraged and challenged by the recent historic open letter signed by 138 leading Muslim scholars, clerics, and intellectuals from around the world. A Common Word Between Us and You identifies some core common ground between Christianity and Islam which lies at the heart of our respective faiths as well as at the heart of the most ancient Abrahamic faith, Judaism. Jesus Christ’s call to love God and neighbour was rooted in the divine revelation to the people of Israel embodied in the Torah (Deuteronomy 6:5; Leviticus 19:18). We receive the open letter as a Muslim hand of conviviality and cooperation extended to Christians worldwide. In this response we extend our own Christian hand in return, so that together with all other human beings we may live in peace and justice as we seek to love God and our neighbours.
Muslims and Christians have not always shaken hands in friendship; their relations have sometimes been tense, even characterized by outright hostility. Since Jesus Christ says, “First take the log out of your own eye, and then you will see clearly to take the speck out of your neighbour’s eye” (Matthew 7:5), we want to begin by acknowledging that in the past (e.g. in the Crusades) and in the present (e.g. in excesses of the “war on terror”) many Christians have been guilty of sinning against our Muslim neighbours. Before we “shake your hand” in responding to your letter, we ask forgiveness of the All-Merciful One and of the Muslim community around the world.
It is, indeed, right and proper that we ask our Moslem brothers and sisters to forgive us for any sins we have done against them - but the open letter from the Moslems wasn’t asking for us to beg forgiveness, and neither did the Moslems beg forgiveness for their many sins against Christians. It was a manly (if we’re permitted to use such a word in 2007), straightforward appeal to shared values…and it was responded to in the manner a lickspittle slave would use towards his master. Any wise Moslem - like any wise Christian - knows there are unsettled accounts between Christianity and Islam; but it is not a requirement that anyone deal with them. If we owe an apology for what happened in Jerusalem in 1099, Islam owes an apology for what happened in Constantinople in 1453 - and so on and on and on. Offering their absurd apology up front entirely defeats any real good designed by A Common Word. There will be a curl of contempt on the lips of Islamo-fascists everywhere as they see Christians abase themselves before even moderate Moslems…the Islamo-fascists can dream about what we’ll do for them when they become our masters, as they are sure they’ll eventually be, given our unwillingness to be forthright about ourselves.
This is the time for real men and real women to act properly and as is fitting for stern times - it is time we firmly set aside the soft sludge of late 20th century political correctness. Our brothers and sisters in Islam don’t want to deal with slaves, they want to deal with men and women who have some spirit in them. If we’re to act like slaves, then we might as well become slaves - but if we act like we’ve got some guts, then the people of the Moslem world will meet us on the level and, differences aside, we’ll find a way develope a workable relationship. I hope some Christians who are better grounded in Our Lord’s teachings will re-respond to those fine Moslem scholars, and let them know that we’re not entirley a bunch of milksops over here.
Tags: Christianity, Islam, political ideology
December 3rd, 2007
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