"Show me just what Muhammad brought that was new and there you will find things only bad and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached." Manuel II Palaiologos (Byzantine Emperor from 1391 to 1425) quoted by Benedict XVI at Regensburg September, 2006.To understand much of our present situation, the mess in the Church and in the world it is worth reading this extraordinarily perceptive speech.
Just a few thought going through my mind at the moment - The big one is can the West self destructive low birthrate ever be reversed?
But then - must the Church re-examine its relationship with Islam? Must the West? Where will it lead us? What will be the reaction of the majority, the secularists? How do we evangelise Islamists? Is the Church capable of it?
In many ways I think that this interview with Cardinal Danneels is not unrelated to what happened in Paris last night, it shows the self referential intellectual arrogance of many of Europe's Christian leaders, especially those who dominated the last Conclave.
36 comments:
"How do we evangelise Islamists? Is the Church capable of it?"
Of course she is. We have the power of the Holy Spirit and the intercession of the saints on our side. We will prevail.
Thank you, Father. Prayers indeed. Once again BXVI's lecture comes into it's own (how sad to see that he had to add in those footnotes, as if they were necessary); if only the current Pontiff were capable of being even half as articulate...
This is the problem, father: Islam does not do reason – period. This is what the Western politicians must understand. They cannot be bought off, they will not settle for give and take. Everyone must believe in Islam or die.
It’s also so important to realise that this phenomenon is not new. For a few decades Islam was silent but it is back to normal now. I recall my Philosophy lecture teaching us about Averroes. He tried to instil Aristotelian philosophy into Islam but he was roundly condemned, you just believe so no need for reason. Ironically this is when Aquinas stepped in.
Yesterday the West was cock-a-hoop with glee over the extra-judicial nailing of a Jihadist by Drones piloted from the other side of the World. They seem to have forgotten that these people are not afraid to die.
Pray for France and for the rest of the World to try to find a way to settle our differences peacefully
Who picked the members of the last synod? If the fish smells, look to the head.
As is alluded to in his remarks, Islam is docile when it is not dominate. However, when Islam becomes dominate, it strikes and dominates through physical force. Thus, "submit or die." And yet history shows that the advances of Islam are stopped by opposing physical force. You cannot reason with a terrorist. Reason is not part of their ideology. And, so, Islam is subject to Matthew 26:52 "For all that take the sword, shall perish by the sword."
The late Fr Holloway told me that cultures that practice contraception and abortion will inevitably be overrun by cultures that do not. He didn't live to see it but it is happening.
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The "quote" is from Manuel not Pope Benedict and is being used our of context.
The Pope's lecture (not speech) was in reality a veiled critique of the Anglo Saxon project launched by Bush II and the neocons.
As President Andy Jackson observed, American style democracy only works because its citizens are Christian. The Pope emeritus was, in his convoluted way, agreeing with him.
Benedict did not apologise for any perceived hurt because none was intended.
I feared this in February when Islamic State made their chilling warning, and alas it looks like it was true (as any amount of reason would tell you): at least one of yesterday's butchers appears to be a Syrian who passed into Europe via Greece in October. More to come, folks. Let us brace ourselves---the enemy is within the gates.
I think it would us all well to read Hillaire Bellocs comments on Islam in his book the Great Heresies. The more I read of Belloc the more I see him as a great prophet. His essy defending traditionalism is superb. He wrote about how the old houses prepared for Christmas
I read Fr. James Schall's book, The Regensburg Lecture, together with Benedict XVI's Regensburg Lecture. It was an eye-opener. My respect for, and trust in Benedict XVI grew.
I think the Church as the Mystical Body of Christ, indeed can and will overcome Islam. As for the Church on earth - the Church Militant - well that is doubtful and remains to be seen. Our Church leadership has not been interested in addressing this threat. Why would they start now?
The answer is the consecration of Russia to the Immaculate Heart of Mary by the Pope, in conjunction with the bishops of the world,as requested by Our Lady of Fatima.The problem is that successive Popes have failed to heed this request and too many bishops simply do not believe in the Fatima message.How many priests pray for this? Does it ever get mentioned in a
church near you? How much worse does it have to get before Our Ladys message is heeded?
How can we be expected to love the sinner when Moslem leaders do not condemn these actions admittedly by extremists. Pope Benedict was right
The Islamic idea of God that He is above all concepts of hours, rationality included, means that God is unknowable by reason and not confined to Reason, ie The Word.
That maybe why Paris is possible.
The problem for Belgium (and the rest of the original EEC 6) was the post-war settlements. These settlements would eventually include the 1965 cultural revolution from which nobody has recovered. The main source of the revolution was the USA upon whom a perceived political dependency had emerged since 1945.
The result is that this poor Belgian Cardinal is unable to think straight and seems incapable of understanding why Africans find him so ridiculous. He retaliates with irrational straw man arguments. His defeatism is incompatible with the faith.
Some thoughts on my part, Father.
Contraception and other forms of birth control/destruction are the great evils of the 20th/21st century. These alone will eliminate the Church, without the need for Islam. And the clergy bear responsibility for this, since never have I heard a priest until now say so.
And yes, the Church should examine its relationship with Islam and recognise Islam for what it is. It is an evil, aggressive, expansionist, destructive, Pagan/Judeo/Christian heresy, thought up by a deranged mind, which seeks to dominate and suppress the world .
Once we and the Secularist world accept this again, as our ancestors did, then maybe, just maybe, will we be able to suppress it, Islam, again for a few centuries until the next upsurge.
But I am not sure we have the will and certainly not the manpower and women power, because of birth control to do this.
But maybe, just as in previous crises when other have come to save Christendom and Catholicism, this time some will.
Perhaps it will be Africa!
To say that Pope John Paul II failed to consecrate Russia is quite absurd. Sr Lucia said it was accomplished and on the evening of the day she wrote to St John Paul to confirm it, 9 November 1989, the Berlin Wall fell.
Now you can go to www.pravda.ru, originally the apothesis of communist propaganda, and now see Christianity defended and propagated in a way no western newspaper would consider. e.g. http://www.pravdareport.com/opinion/columnists/23-12-2013/126457-americans_god-0/
The fact is Russia is converted and is a Christian country again. It dosen't mean Russia is or will ever be perfect, but if you were a Christian in the Middle east, who would you look to now, Russia or the west? It is interesting to note that the Russia Orthodox Church has declared the Russian intervention in Syria to be a "Holy War". "Archpriest Vsevolod Chaplin, a spokesman for the Russian Orthodox Church said "Russia cannot turn its back on Christians and other minority groups being wiped out by Islamic State militants and other extremist forces....
"The fight against terrorism is a holy struggle and today our country is perhaps the most active force in the world to combat terrorism," the Russian Orthodox Church spokesman said. http://www.christiantoday.com/article/russian.orthodox.church.supports.putins.holy.war.in.syria.to.protect.christians/66312.htm
Can you imagine that happening in the Soviet union - or the modern west for that matter?
I agree with Jacobi that Africa may well be our salvation. I believe that Pope Pius XII urged increased missionary activity in Africa especially just after WW II. He saw that Africa might well be a great boon to us all. Indeed, I read only in the last few days that a Nigerian bishop is offering to send priests to Ireland to re-evangelise the Irish. The claim was made that Ireland would probably have no priests at all in 30 years time.
I can see building resentment to Isalm within Europe and armed conflicts breaking out. The time is surely comming when groups will start bombing mosques and blowing them up during Friday prayers. Even secularists don't exactly like being blown up and shot in concert halls and on trains. When the general populace is living in fear, the people will strike back.
The Church is partly responsible for this. Its project of "social justice" has created a climate in which you find a Pope of Rome welcoming the invasion of Europe by Muslims because they are "refugees" or "the poor." When Christendom was alive --and who is so arrogant as to hold that post Vatican II Catholics are "better" Catholics than their ancestors?-- these invaders would never be seen first of all as "poor refugees" but as infidels and threats to The Faith, which was then essential to European identity.
The Church has been infected by its own illegitimate child of post-Enlightenment Liberalism and so the monster of "social justice" now actively promotes the invasion of both Europe and America by savages because of "the dignity of the human person" and such liberal claptrap. Cry all you like, but Rome --and this Pope worst of all of them-- is complicit in the suicide of Europe.
I have sympathy with Gungarius' view.
These interminable wars and their consequences are creating a divide in Europe. The "West" is starting to lose the "East' as well as Africa.
The Pope needs to dump the Western advisors who are damaging his papacy. These include the emeritus Archbishop of Brussels. As I write, it is apparent that the Belgian Church has far more important issues to address than a few frustrated middle class divorcees and their vulgar lobbying.
Msgr. Lefebvre, endowed with great experience in Moslem areas, opined, upon a visit to the UK, that without power they were very amiable. With power, or sufficient numbers, in a community, they became oppressive beyond belief. That must have been all of thirty years ago, I heard him preach such in Preston.
Clarification: BC may eliminate local churches, but not the Church. She is certainly being sifted and tried, but will prevail. And Africa is indeed a great source of hope ...
My comment may seem absurd to some, but why should I pray for Paris?
I pray for the dead, the wounded and for the Catholic Church
Sorry you do not know the teachings of Islam which is very beautiful.
see also victims in Palestine, Syria, Afghanistan and Iraq.
how many victims are falling.
how many bombs in blast
The tricolour is being paraded as the remedy. A remedy, an aggiornamento, prescribed by VII.
@hadi. What is beautiful about calling the Most Holy Trinity 'excrement'? What is beautiful/true about confusing the sister of Moses with the Mother of God?
What is beautiful about denying the Blood of Christ?
@Hadi Istanto
Pope Benedict meant no insult to Islam by his lecture nor to the Muslim people, quite the reverse: he was critiquing the Anglo-Saxon project in the Middle East. If you recall, it was the BBC and the New York Times which gleefully abused the Pope over his quotation from a Christian Emperor.
Pope Benedict was reminding his audience that Western style democracy is predicated on its Christian origins. For that reason, it could not be readily translated into the Islamic World. He also demonstrated that it was possible for a robust (but respectful) dialogue could take place between our two civilizations. A dialogue not based on the bomb nor the bullet.
Think of St Francis (from whom our present Pope takes his name) who wanted to meet the Sultan and share the faith with him in enthusiasm and love.
Many of the Christians killed for their faith in Syria are former Muslims who left the Muslim religion because of what it's not associated with, like in Aleppo, so they became Christians. So one can evangelize Muslims if one seeks to.
Source:
http://www.christianaid.org/News/2015/mir20151001.aspx
In Western Europe Christianity and the Church has been decaying for decades, it's not a new thing. But I hope and pray EU leader won't take this opportunity to make another of her uber-humanitarian non-committal speeches to bring people back in hope and failing so, because it's a bad time to self-analyze. Now what - be scared AND feel guilty?
I think God has not forgotten Europe's long lasting faith in its lands. It's us who has to remember His faith in us.
Maybe Pope Francis tries to use Card. Daneels by hope of trying to break in Bruxelles. But Belgium is just headquarters for EU Parliament, it doesn't run EU.
As the editors of What's Wrong with the World put it,
"Let us have none of the slinking cant which suggests that this perfidy does not arise out of the authentic doctrines of the Islamic religion. “By their fruits ye shall know them.” The rottenness of this particular fruit exceeds the most capacious power of verbal description."
PS. Sorry. Murder as an excuse for murder, and falsehood as an excuse to more murder is...Fr Blake ... what excuse?
PS. I hope tragedy allows time for truth. Death is near whoever, whatever; and it means?
Viterbo mentions that the tricolor is being paraded as a remedy.
I watched the Sunday Mass from Notre Dame on KTO which was celebrated for the victims and was shocked to see the blue white and red lights installed just behind the statue of Our Lady shining from the floor to the cathedral vaulting above. There were political dignitaries present so I suppose this was done with them in mind but when you remember the descecration of the cathedral which took place during the Revolution I thought this most inappropriate.
The Star Trek vestments of the celebrants completed the appalling spectacle.
Hadi
If you want to see something really beautiful get a copy of the New Testament and read the teachings of Our Lord Jesus Christ. There you will find the one true God you are looking for and the salvation you seek.
As one commentator has already said, there is nothing remotely beautiful in rejecting the Blessed Trinity.
"On communion for the divorced and remarried, it is already known how the pope thinks. As archbishop of Buenos Aires, he authorized the “curas villeros,” the priests sent to the peripheries, to give communion to all, although four fifths of the couples were not even married. And as pope, by telephone or letter he is not afraid of encouraging some of the faithful who have remarried to receive communion without worrying about it, right away, even without those “penitential paths under the guidance of the diocesan bishop” projected by some at the synod, and without issuing any denials when the news of his actions comes out." (Sandro Magister)
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