Friday, June 19, 2009
Thursday, June 18, 2009
Brave New World
Colson - Who Speaks for the Scimitar
If you watch or read a report on Islam or Muslims in the United States, you will probably come across the acronym CAIR, which stands for the Council on American-Islamic Relations. CAIR is the unofficial voice of Islam in America, mostly because government officials and the media treat it as such.
This leads to the question: Should they? My friend Congressman Frank Wolf says “no,” and he has very good reasons—as he told Congress last Friday.
Wolf’s interest in CAIR was piqued when he learned that the FBI had severed “its once-close ties with” CAIR “amid mounting evidence that it has links to a support network for Hamas.” Since Hamas “is on the current list of U.S.-designated foreign terrorist organizations,” such an allegation, if proven, wouldn’t only warrant the severing of ties, it would also call CAIR’s credibility into question.
That’s because, as Tawik Hamad, a former “Islamist extremist,” wrote in the Wall Street Journal, CAIR persistently accuses it opponents of “Islamophobia.” But if they have ties to Islamic groups, then these accusations can rightly be called a smoke screen ...
Read more here.
Christ Alone Our Hope - Benedict XVI
Wednesday, June 17, 2009
The Catholic Church - Ronald Knox
The Catholic religion is very much more than a creed; it is a life, a warfare, a loyalty, a romance. But it is a creed too; and the assertion of it involves us in an intellectual responsibility. Man's intellect is part of himself, and must be represented, consequently, in the scheme of his salvation.
A hundred years ago our enemies blamed us for thinking wrong; today they blame us for thinking. They hustle the unwelcome metaphysician into the concentration camp, into the gas-chamber.
Every Catholic is to some extent a marked man; in the casual contacts of daily life he is bearing witness, or failing to bear witness, to Jesus Christ ... the point is, not so much that we ought to be better Catholics, but that we ought to be better Christians. That we should be lovers of the truth, fair-minded, ready to believe the best of people, impatient of scandal, considerate towards the unbefriended, generous in our enthusiamss, temperate in our pleasures, discreet in our friendships, that we should have a smile for everybody -- in a word, that we should live in the sunlight of that creed which we profess.
Tuesday, June 16, 2009
Choice You Can Believe In
Read all …APA Admits Homosexuality Also Due to Environmental Factors
By Genevieve Pollock
ENCINO, California, JUNE 15, 2009 (Zenit.org).- A Catholic psychologist who specializes in reparative therapy with homosexuals says it's possible for those with same-sex attractions to change, despite agenda-driven ideologies that state the opposite.
Joseph Nicolosi, founder and director of the Thomas Aquinas Psychological Clinic in Encino, spoke with ZENIT about his experience as a clinical psychologist and the former president of the National Association for Research and Therapy of Homosexuality (NARTH).
NARTH, a "scientific, non-religious and non-political" organization, recently put out an article about the little known revision of the American Psychological Association's (APA) statement on homosexuality, which was highlighted last month in a WorldNetDaily article titled "Gay Gene Claim Suddenly Vanishes."
Monday, June 15, 2009
Quotes of the Day - Forget at Your Peril
- General von Roon in Herman Wouk's "Winds of War"
"When guilty people are struck mad,
their madness knows no guilt."
- Euripides, The Bacchae
"The highest form of hope is despair overcome."
- Georges Bernanos
Magnetotellurics says possibly
Sunday, June 14, 2009
Natural Law - Never Repealed
ROME, JUNE 11, 2009 (Zenit.org).- The objective values of natural law continue serving as the base for universal ethics, according to a new document from the International Theological Commission.
The document, "The Search for Universal Ethics: A New Look at Natural Law," was published on the Holy See's Web page in Italian and French.
L'Osservatore Romano published today a summary of the document in an article by French Dominican Father Serge-Thomas Bonino, a member of the commission.
The commission emphasizes the need for a consensus on objective and universal ethical values, which should be promoted to avoid the ups and downs of public opinion and government manipulation.
"These values can guarantee for human rights, for example, a more solid base than fragile juridical positivism," Father Bonino explained. "They should be founded on what defines human beings as humans and in how human nature is concretized is each person, regardless of race, culture or religion."
