A woman who dons full burqa and then complains that people on the street related differently to her, in a “less friendly manner.” Hugh Fitzgerald at the New English Review connects the dots for her.
Everyone is beginning to notice that if it walks like a duck, if it talks like a duck, if it looks like a duck, then, by jove, it must be a duck.
Mark Gordon at "Suicide of the West" sums up what is loved and yearned for, as well as what is hated and loathed, about the United States of America, offering a fine quote by presidential hopeful and former POW, John McCain.
HERE IT IS -- the beginning of the end of functional dhimmitude. Honda has produced the Hydrogen Car ahead of schedule. But who is paying attention? You can be certain the Saudis are.
Too good to pass up [HT: Daniel Pipes]:"As the world continues improving in aeroplane designs to give us even better, more reliable and safer aeroplanes, Muslims work in the other direction and continue their own destructive innovation." ("Muslims and Air Travel," islam-watch.org, August 11, 2006)
"Just look at the development within Europe, where the number of Muslims is expanding like mosquitoes. Every Western woman in the EU is producing an average of 1.4 children. Every Muslim woman in the same countries is producing 3.5 children ... Our way of thinking will prove more powerful than yours."
A little late, perhaps, but here are words of Father Raniero Cantalamessa, OFM Cap, on "The Virgin Without Sin," and powerful words they are.Instead of liberation from sin, all efforts today are focused on liberation from regret over sin; instead of fighting against sin we fight against the idea of sin, replacing it with something very different, namely, "guilt feelings." We do precisely that which in every other sphere is considered the worst thing of all, that is, we deny the problem rather than resolve it, we push back and bury evil in the unconscious instead of removing it.
It is similar to believing that we can eliminate death by eliminating the thought of death, or worrying about bringing down the fever rather than curing the sickness when the fever is only a providential revelatory symptom of the sickness. St. John says that if we claim to be without sin, then we deceive ourselves and we make God a liar (cf. 1 John 1:8-10); God, in fact, says the contrary, he says that we have sinned.
Scripture says that Christ "died for our sins" (cf. 1 Corinthians 15:3). If you take away sin, then Christ's redemption itself is made futile, you have destroyed the meaning of his death. Christ would then have been tilting at windmills, he would have spilled his blood for nothing. Read all …
I must begin by telling you that I do not like to preach on Reformation Sunday. Actually I have to put it more strongly than that. I do not like Reformation Sunday, period. I do no understand why it is part of the church year. Reformation Sunday does not name a happy event for the Church Catholic; on the contrary, it names failure. Of course, the church rightly names failure, or at least horror, as part of our church year. We do, after all, go through crucifixion as part of Holy Week. Certainly if the Reformation is to be narrated rightly, it is to be narrated as part of those dark days.Reformation names the disunity in which we currently stand. We who remain in the Protestant tradition want to say that Reformation was a success. But when we make Reformation a success, it only ends up killing us. After all, the very name ‘Protestantism’ is meant to denote a reform movement of protest within the Church Catholic. When Protestantism becomes an end in itself, which it certainly has through the mainstream denominations in America, it becomes anathema. If we no longer have broken hearts at the church’s division, then we cannot help but unfaithfully celebrate Reformation Sunday. Continue reading ...
The New York Times shows its flippant, arrogant, and decidedly vapid soul in the review of The Golden Compass, Philip Pullman's pied piper attempt at atheism on the half-shell. When Pullman shills, as with Rowling's late-blooming perception of Dumbledore's gay-ness (How the hell does she know? She's only the author), the world is diminished from the true, good, and beautiful. Dithering does NOT qualify as reality. It's called "vertigo of the imagination."
.- Baptists leaders from around the world met with Pope Benedict XVI this morning at the Vatican as the second round of Baptist-Catholic talks continued. Saying that the lack of unity among Christians contradicts Christ’s will, Benedict XVI told the Baptist delegation that the world needs “our common witness to Christ and to the hope brought by the Gospel.”This meeting in Rome is the second round of ongoing discussions that Members of the Baptist World Alliance are holding with the Pontifical Council for Promoting Christian Unity. The theme for this meeting is: "The Word of God in the Life of the Church: Scripture, Tradition and Koinonia." Continue reading …
Catholic farmers who remember and fear armed-conflict panic hearing that Philippine government expands Muslim homeland near them. Wonderful. Naive politicians see new voters but know nothing and don't care about expansionism of dar al-Islam.Father Bautista: Apostle in the Desert
Joe Burns, War Stringer
A few weeks ago, I returned to the U.S. after spending a week with Army troops in Iraq. More specifically, I spent six and a half days with my son’s outfit, the 63rd Ordnance Company stationed at Al Taqaddum. Al Taqaddum is a former Iraqi airbase, nicknamed TQ, and lies about 50 miles west of Baghdad in the Anbar Province near Ramadi. My son Mike and I spent the first three days in Baghdad while I was processed for my press pass and then waited for a helicopter to become available to take us to TQ.
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On the second day at Al Taqaddum, I was privileged to attend Mass said by Fr. Jose A. Bautista-Rojas, a Navy chaplain who ministers to the Marines and soldiers at TQ and in the Ramadi area. It was a hot, dry, windy and desolate day.
[ ... ]The events of that morning for Fr. Bautista included a Mass he had just conducted in Ramadi at a Marine detachment. What made the Mass unique, was that his “congregation” consisted of one lonely Catholic Marine. When Father Bautista arrived in Ramadi along with his personal bodyguard, a strong young, well-armed Marine, he visited a detachment of eight men, only one of whom was Catholic. Undeterred, he told the Marine he would be happy to say Mass for him.
The young Marine confided to him, “You know Father, back in the States, I didn’t go to Mass that often, but out here I find myself longing to go to Mass again. But I’ve been here for seven months and you’re the first Catholic chaplain I’ve seen.” Fr. Bautista spent some time listening to his story and asking questions about his family. Then he said Mass for this single Marine, in the presence of countless angels and saints who rejoiced with them.
As Fr. Bautista continued speaking with us, he described the fascinating story of a young Muslim woman who was entering the Church under his guidance through the RCIA process. Her story was moving. While working with Americans, this woman, who must remain anonymous, was touched deeply when she realized that the U.S. medical personnel not only treated wounded Americans and Iraqi civilians, but also treated wounded enemy combatants, including one who was known for having killed U.S. Marines. As she put it, “This cannot happen with us.”
This dramatic extension of mercy even to enemy soldiers caused her to take the next cautious step. She asked Father Bautista to “tell me more about Jesus.” As Father described Jesus and his life in the Gospels, one thing stood out among the rest for the Muslim woman he called “Fatima” (not her real name) and that was how kindly Jesus had related to, as she put it, “the two Mary’s.” Fatima was moved to see how Jesus deeply loved Mary, his mother, who was sinless, but also how Jesus deeply loved Mary Magdalene, who was “a great sinner.” As these discussions continued, Fatima reached a point where she said to Father Bautista, “I want to become a Christian.” (My emphases) Keep reading Father Bautista, Two Mary’s, and “Do you give up so easily on Jesus?”
A fine essay by Rabbi David Dalin appears at First Things, John Paul II and the Jews.Growing up in the small Polish town of Wadowice, where Jews and Catholics mingled with relative ease, Karol Wojtyla, according to biographer Tad Szulc
As Carl Bernstein and Marco Politi have pointed out, “had Jewish playmates and classmates with whom he enjoyed easy camaraderie.” John Paul’s closest friend was Jerzy Kluger, whose father was a prominent local attorney and president of the local Jewish community and its synagogue. About fifteen hundred Jews lived in Wadowice, more than 20 percent of the town’s population, during Karol Wojtyla’s childhood. When Karol was a teenager, the town’s synagogue, which had had a full-time rabbi for many years, hired its first cantor, who was renowned for his splendid voice. On the festival of Yom Kippur, the Jewish Day of Atonement and the holiest day in the Jewish year, Karol was taken to the synagogue by his father to hear the Kol Nidre, the central prayer of the Yom Kippur worship service, chanted by the new cantor. In later years, Karol Wojtyla, as bishop and pope, would often remark on how moved and inspired he was by that memorable Yom Kippur service.
Pompeii - Before 79 A.D.
