Insight Scoop | The Ignatius Press Blog

DOCAT, a catechism for youth of Catholic social doctrine, introduced at World Youth Day

by Catholic World Report Staff

DOCAT, says Pope Francis in the Introduction, "it is like a user’s manual that helps us to change ourselves with the Gospel first, and then our closest surroundings, and finally the whole world."

DOCAT, the follow-up and companion volume to the popular YOUCAT (Youth Catechism), was officially released yesterday at World Youth Day 2016 in Kraków, Poland.

DOCAT (pronounced "do-cat") is a popular adaptation of the social doctrine of the Catholic Church that draws on Scripture, YOUCAT, the Catechism and the Compendium of Catholic Social Teaching, and features a foreword by Pope Francis (see below). As part of the release, a DOCAT app has been made available to all World Youth Day participants. The app helps readers to start groups, participate in discussions, and do acts of justice as a present to the pope, who, in writing the foreword to DOCAT, shared his dream with youth on how to change the world.

DOCAT is published and available in North America through Ignatius Press, which offers this description of the accessible, Q&A-formatted volume:

 DOCAT is written with help from church and business leaders, social activists and young people in a popular Q-and-A, YOUCAT style that guides young people in conscience formation and Catholic action on social and political issues. It shows Catholics how to apply Gospel values to poverty, imbalance of wealth, employment and unemployment, the use of natural resources and environmental concerns, terrorism, immigration and abortion, among other topics
 
DOCAT features inspirational and insightful quotes from Catholic leaders and saints, including St. Pope John Paul II, Mother Teresa, Pope Francis and Pope Benedict; excerpts from Francis’ magisterial teaching; and important statements from his immediate predecessor regarding the four principles of Catholic social teaching: the dignity of the human person, the common good, subsidiarity and solidarity.
 
“DOCAT answers the question: ‘What should we do [as Catholics]?’; it is like a user’s manual that helps us change ourselves with the Gospel first, and then our closest surroundings, and finally the whole world,” says Pope Francis in the foreword of DOCAT. “For with the power of the Gospel, we can truly change the world.”

Mark Brumley, President of Ignatius Press, states in a recent interview with Fathers For Good that DOCAT "shows young people how to use Catholic social teaching — which is really the gospel lived in society in a consistent way — in their daily lives and in their life aspirations." He explains that the volume will help young people become what they are called to be: "enthusiastic, well-formed and well-informed disciples of Jesus, acting by the power of the Spirit."

Ignatius Press has also co-published, with the Augustine Institute, The DOCAT Study Guide, which is an aid for using the DOCAT in a classroom setting, at home, or in small groups. 

An 8-page, full-color flyer offering details about DOCAT and the Study Guide is available in PDF format from the Ignatius Press website.

Below is the full Introduction to DOCAT, written by the Holy Father, Pope Francis:

Dear Young People!

My predecessor, Pope Benedict XVI, put into your hands a Youth Catechism, YOUCAT. Today I would like to commend to you another book, DOCAT, which contains the social doctrine of the Church.

The English verb “to do” is part of the title. DOCAT answers the question: “What should we do?”; it is like a user’s manual that helps us to change ourselves with the Gospel first, and then our closest surroundings, and finally the whole world. For with the power of the Gospel, we can truly change the world.

Jesus says: “As you did it to one of the least of these my brethren, you did to me.” Many saints were shaken to the core by this passage from the Bible. On account of it, Saint Francis of Assisi changed his whole life. Mother Teresa converted because of this saying. And Charles de Foucauld acknowledges: “In all of the Gospel, there is no saying that had greater influence on me and changed my life more deeply than this: ‘Whatsoever you did for one of the least of my brethren, you did for me.’ When I reflect that these words come from the mouth of Jesus, the Eternal Word of God, and that it is the same mouth that says, ‘This is my Body, ... this is my Blood ...’, then I see that I am called to seek and to love Jesus above all in these little ones, in the least.”

Dear young friends! Only conversion of heart can make our world, which is full of terror and violence, more humane. And that means patience, justice, prudence, dialogue, integrity, solidarity with victims, the needy, and the poorest, limitless dedication, love even unto death for the sake of the other. When you have understood that quite deeply, then you can change the world as committed Christians. The world cannot continue down the path that it is taking now. If a Christian in these days looks away from the need of the poorest of the poor, then in reality he is not a Christian!

Can we not do more to make this revolution of love and justice a reality in many parts of this tormented planet? The social doctrine of the Church can help so many people! Under the experienced direction of Cardinals Christoph Schönborn and Reinhard Marx, a team set to work to bring the liberating message of Catholic social doctrine to the attention of the youth of the world. They collaborated with famous scholars and also with young people on this project. Young Catholic women and men from all over the world sent in their best photos. Other young people discussed the text, offered their questions and suggestions, and made sure that the text is readily comprehensible. Social doctrine calls that “participation”! The team itself applied an important principle of the social doctrine from the start. Thus DOCAT became a magnificent introduction to Christian action.

What we call Catholic social teaching today came about in the nineteenth century. With industrialization, a brutal form of capitalism arose: a sort of economy that destroyed human beings. Unscrupulous industrialists reduced the impoverished rural population to the point where they toiled in mines or in rusty factories for starvation wages. Children no longer saw the light of day. They were sent underground like slaves to pull coal carts. With great commitment, Christians offered aid to those in need, but they noticed that that was not enough. So they developed ideas for counteracting the injustice socially and politically as well. Actually the fundamental proclamation of Catholic social doctrine was and is the 1891 encyclical letter by Pope Leo XIII, Rerum novarum, “On Capital and Labor.” The Pope wrote clearly and unmistakably: “To defraud any one of wages that are his due is a great crime which cries to the avenging anger of Heaven.” With the full weight of her authority, the Church fought for the rights of the workers.

Because the needs of the time demanded it, Catholic social teaching was increasingly enriched and re ned over the years. Many people debated about community, justice, peace, and the common good. They found the principles of personhood, solidarity, and subsidiarity, which DOCAT, too, explains. But actually this social doctrine does not come from any particular pope or from any particular scholar. It comes from the heart of the Gospel. It comes from Jesus himself. Jesus is the social teaching of God.

“This economy kills”, I wrote in my apostolic exhortation Evangelii Gaudium, for today that economy of exclusion and disparity of incomes still exists. There are countries in which 40 or 50 percent of the young people are unemployed. In many societies, older people are marginalized because they seemingly have no “value” and are no longer “productive”. Great stretches of land are depopulated because the poor of the earth flee to the slums of the major cities in the hope of finding something left there on which to survive. The production methods of a globalized economy have destroyed the modest economic and agricultural structures of their native regions. By now, approximately 1 percent of the world’s population owns 40 percent of the entire wealth of the world, and 10 percent of the world’s population owns 85 percent of the wealth. On the other hand, just about 1 percent of this world “belongs” to half of the world’s population. About 1.4 billion human beings live on less than one euro [approximately $1.10] per day.

When I invite you all now really to get to know the social doctrine of the Church, I am dreaming not just about groups that sit under trees and discuss it. That is good! Do that! My dream is of something greater: I wish I had a million young Christians or, even better, a whole generation who are for their contemporaries “walking, talking social doctrine”. Nothing else will change the world but people who with Jesus devote themselves to it, who with him go to the margins and right into the middle of the dirt. Go into politics, too, and fight for justice and human dignity, especially for the poorest of the poor. All of you are the Church. Make sure, then, that this Church is transformed, that she is alive, because she allows herself to be challenged by the cries of the dispossessed, by the pleading of the destitute, and by those for whom nobody cares.

Become active yourselves, also. When many do that together, then there will be improvements in this world and people will sense that the Spirit of God is working through you. And maybe then you will be like torches that make the path to God brighter for these people.

And so I give you this magnificent little book, hoping that it might kindle a re in you. I pray every day for you. Pray for me, too!

Yours truly,

Francis

November 6, 2015 

Regensburg Revisited: Ten Years Later, A West Still in Denial

Pope Benedict XVI waves to pilgrims after a 2006 Mass on Islinger Field near Regensburg, Germany. (CNS photo/Kai Pfaffenbach, Reuters)

Regensburg Revisited: Ten Years Later, A West Still in Denial | Dr. Samuel Gregg | CWR

Irrationality not only manifests itself in violence but also in an inability to apply authentic reason to the many pressing challenges of our age.

A decade ago, a 79 year-old soft-spoken, white-haired German theologian returned to visit a university at which he had spent much of his academic career. On such occasions, it’s not unusual for a distinguished professor-emeritus to offer some formal remarks. Such reflections rarely receive much attention, and are often seen as exercises in reminiscing by scholars whose most substantial achievements are behind them.

In this instance, however, the speech delivered at the University of Regensburg on 12 September 2006 by the theologian Joseph Ratzinger, better known as Pope Benedict XVI, had immediate global impact. For weeks, even months afterwards, newspapers, magazines, scholarly journals, and even entire books attacked, defended, and analyzed the almost 4,000 words which came to be known as the Regensburg Address. Copies of the text and effigies of its author, however, were also ripped up, trampled on, and publicly burnt throughout the Islamic world. Television screens were dominated by images of enraged Muslim mobs and passionate denunciations by Muslim leaders, most of whom had clearly not read the text.

Also noticeable, however, was the frosty reception accorded to Pope Benedict’s remarks in much of the West. Descriptions such as “provocative,” “ill-timed,” “insensitive,” “un-feeling,” and “undiplomatic” appeared in religious and secular media outlets. Certainly the Pope had plenty of vocal defenders in North America and Europe. Among other things, they suggested that some Muslims’ frenzied reaction to the Regensburg Address proved that Benedict’s gentle query about the place of reason in Islamic belief and practice was dead on-target.

Yet there’s no doubt that Benedict’s words at Regensburg touched a nerve—perhaps even several nerves—in the Western world. For while the Regensburg Address received so much attention because of nine paragraphs in which Benedict analyzed a fourteenth-century exchange between a Byzantine Emperor and his Persian Muslim interlocutor, the text’s primary focus concerned deep problems of faith and reason that characterize the West and Christianity today. And many of these pathologies quickly surface whenever and wherever Islamist terrorism rears its head. They continue to enfeeble the West’s response to people whose acts in locations ranging from Brussels to Paris, Beirut to Jakarta, Jerusalem to San Bernardino, Abuja to London, and Lahore to New York reflect many things, including a particular understanding of the nature of the Divine.

The West contra Logos

One of the basic theses presented by Benedict at Regensburg was that how we understand God’s nature has implications for whether we can judge particular human choices and actions to be unreasonable. Thus, if reason is simply not part of Islam’s conception of the Divinity’s nature, then Allah can command his followers to make unreasonable choices, and all his followers can do is submit to a Divine Will that operates beyond the categories of reason.

Most commentators on the Regensburg Address did not, however, observe that the Pope declined to proceed to engage in a detailed analysis of why and how such a conception of God may have affected Islamic theology and Islamic practice. Nor did he explore the mindset of those Muslims who invoke Allah to justify jihadist violence. Instead, Benedict immediately pivoted to discussing the place of reason in Christianity and Western culture more generally. In fact, in the speech’s very last paragraph, Benedict called upon his audience “to rediscover” the “great logos”: “this breadth of reason” which, he maintained, orthodox Christianity has always regarded as a prominent feature of God’s nature. The pope’s use of the word “rediscover” indicated that something had been lost and that much of the West and the Christian world had themselves fallen into the grip of other forms of un-reason. Irrationality can, after all, manifest itself in expressions other than mindless violence.

That irrationality is loose and ravaging much of the West—especially in those institutions which are supposed to be temples of reason, i.e., universities—is hard to deny.

Continue reading at www.CatholicWorldReport.com.

Two Catholic Presidents and the escalation of the Vietnam War

U.S. President Dwight D. Eisenhower and Secretary of State John Foster Dulles (from left) greet South Vietnamese President Ngo Dinh Diem at Washington National Airport in May 1957. (Wikipedia/Department of Defense)

by K. V. Turley | The Dispatch at Catholic World Report

Geoffrey Shaw's The Lost Mandate of Heaven recounts how Ngo Dinh Diem, the first president of the Republic of Vietnam, was taken down and murdered by a military coup sponsored by the U.S. government

Early on November 2, 1963, the then President of Vietnam, Ngo Dinh Diem, and his brother, Nhu, had just heard Holy Mass at a church in a suburb of Saigon. They had fled there the previous evening having received word of a military coup. After Mass, the brothers remained for some time, deep in silent prayer. For Diem, there was nothing unusual in this. He had been a daily communicant for most of his life, and this early morning routine of Mass and private prayer had become an integral part of his life and indeed of his presidency. That morning, however, was to be different.

Soon, there came the sound of American Jeeps and an armored personnel carrier driven by Vietnamese soldiers no longer loyal to the legitimate head of state. They found their president, alongside his brother, still knelt in prayer before an image of Our Lady. Both men were seized and bundled into the back of the personnel carrier. There, awaiting them, was a soldier with bayonet drawn, who proceeded to cut out Diem’s gallbladder. Once this torture had been completed, both brothers were summarily shot. 

Why did the plotting general want Diem and his brother Nhu, a trusted advisor and confidante, dead? One of the generals said later: “They had to be killed. Diem could not be allowed to live because he was too much respected among simple gullible people in the countryside, especially [by] the Catholics and the refugees [from North Vietnam]”. Just over ten years later, the penultimate President of South Vietnam, Tran Van Huong, was to remark as his country’s slid inexorably towards capitulation to the Viet-Cong: “The generals knew very well that having no talent, no moral virtues, no political support whatsoever, they could not prevent a spectacular comeback of [Diem]” if he had been left alive.

A new book from Ignatius Press, The Lost Mandate Of Heaven: The American Betrayal of Ngo Dinh Diem, President of Vietnam by Geoffrey Shaw, examines these events, placing the shocking murder of the two Ngo Dinh brothers in its historical context. Also on display is the part American foreign policy played in this. Furthermore, and more disturbing still, the book points the finger of blame for complicity in these murders not at some shadowy group working outside the bounds of legitimate political control, but at the US President, and fellow Catholic, John F. Kennedy.

From Hanoi in the north, the Communist leader, Ho Chi Minh, reportedly said on hearing of the assassination: “I can scarcely believe the Americans would be so stupid.” What had just taken place was far more than short-sighted stupidity, however, as what had been sanctioned in the murders unleashed upon Vietnam and her neighboring countries of Cambodia and Laos (and, indeed, America herself) a bloody nightmare that haunts to this day.

The Lost Mandate of Heaven is a formidable piece of scholarship. Mr Shaw has left no stone unturned in putting together the pieces of the jigsaw of the last days and final betrayal of Diem by the Vietnamese Generals and their American collaborators. If one wishes to retain a benign view of American foreign policy then it’s best not to read further. If, however, one is not surprised by the political machinations that lead to a just man dying – with its echoes of the call for one man’s death to benefit a whole nation – then this account will only confirm one’s belief in the nature of this fallen world in which global and national politics are but the reflections, for better or worse, of what is in men’s hearts.

Born on January 3, 1901, Diem was raised a Catholic. He came from a family and background that combined Christian faith and Catholic social teaching with the Confucian ideals of serving the common good. It was to prove a formidable combination in his political career.

Continue reading on the CWR site.

Christmas, ISIS, and the Apocalypse

Icon of Nativity (us.fotolia.com | Renáta Sedmáková)

 
Christmas, ISIS, and the Apocalypse | Carl E. Olson | CWR Editorial

While various ideologies pursue power and control through coercion and violence, Christianity points to the humble and life-giving invasion of the Incarnate Word 

Christmas is a reminder that we live in a certain sort of war zone. And the sufferings of those who live in war zones with bombings, physical violence, and killing is a reminder that the deepest roots of all conflicts are spiritual, not simply political.

"God", wrote C.S. Lewis in Mere Christianity, "has landed on this enemy-occupied world in human form.” What was the purpose of this divine invasion behind enemy lines? To simply teach? To punish mankind? No, Lewis wrote, Christians “think the main thing He came to earth to do was to suffer and be killed.” That is true, of course, but there is more—as Lewis himself noted.

God became man in order to reveal the truth about both God and man. "The truth is that only in the mystery of the incarnate Word does the mystery of man take on light", stated the fathers of the Second Vatican Council. "For Adam, the first man, was a figure of Him Who was to come, namely Christ the Lord. Christ, the final Adam, by the revelation of the mystery of the Father and His love, fully reveals man to man himself and makes his supreme calling clear. It is not surprising, then, that in Him all the aforementioned truths find their root and attain their crown." (Gaudium et spes, 22).

Those "aforementioned truths" include what the Catholic Church teaches about the nature of God, the work of the Incarnate Word, the mission of the Church, the place of the State and human government, and the divine vocation of men. The Church "has been taught by divine revelation and firmly teaches that man has been created by God for a blissful purpose beyond the reach of earthly misery. ... For God has called man and still calls him so that with his entire being he might be joined to Him in an endless sharing of a divine life beyond all corruption. ... The root reason for human dignity lies in man's call to communion with God" (GS, 18, 19). This is possible because the Son, by becoming flesh and dwelling among us (Jn 1:14), has established his Kingdom. But not a Kingdom of this world, as he explained to Pontius Pilate, and not a Kingdom to be enforced by violence, oppression, and death. 

The great temptation—as seen even in the Gospels—is to establish the Kingdom by force and to establish it today, on earth, by the use of temporal, coercive force. The desire for utopia today becomes the logical creation of the killing fields tomorrow. And as irreligion becomes the new religion of the supposedly non-religious, forms of totalitarianism are both spawned and inspired. "History attests that religion has not encroached upon the temporal sphere," observed Abp. Fulton Sheen in 1946, "but rather jealous temporal rulers have invaded the spiritual. Sometimes these rulers were kings and princes, even so-called 'Catholic defenders of the faith." Today, they are dictators." These various movements of temporal madness—sometimes obscured in the most mundane forms, sometimes demonstrated in madness made mandatory—are apocalyptic. Not in the Christian sense of the much-maligned word, but in the sense of forcing the will of—take your pick—the State, the Caliphate, or the System upon the whole.

The word "will" is key here, for these apocalyptic ideologies are not interested in truth or even reality as it is, but in power.

Continue reading on the CWR site.

The 15 Most Popular CWR Stories of 2015

Carl E. Olson | The Dispatch at CWR

Articles and commentary about Pope Francis, radical Islam, the Shroud of Turin, France, President Obama, the devil, "50 Shades of Grey", and much more

For the third year in a row the most read article on the CWR site was about radical Islamic attacks on innocents. In 2013 it was the account by nuns in Syria about the violence and bloodshed that was becoming increasingly commonplace in that war-torn country. In 2014 it was the story of slain journalist James Foley, who was killed in, yes, Syria. This year it is the story of Pope Francis' response to the beheading of 21 Egyptian Christians by members of ISIS.

Four of the top 15 articles (#1, 6, 7, and 15) were about the Holy Father, while President Obama featured in two others (#4 and 12). Other top topics include The Shroud of Turin (#2), Catholicism in Francis (#3), Cinderella (#13), the terrorist attack in San Bernardino (#11), and liberal theologians (#9). The devil gets two mentions, both times in pieces about spiritual warfare (#5 and 14).

Here are Catholic World Report's 15 most read articles of 2015:

1. “Their blood confesses Christ”: Pope Francis on the murder of Egyptian Christians by ISIS (February 16) by Catherine Harmon. Pope Francis responds to the news that 21 Egyptian Christians were beheaded by Islamic State militants.

2. The Shroud: Not a Painting, Not a Scorch, Not a Photograph (March 27) by Jim Graves. “One of my favorite testimonials as to the authenticity of the Shroud,” says Barrie Schwortz, an expert on the Shroud of Turin, “actually came from my Jewish mother.” 

3. France’s Catholic Revolution (November 23) by Dr. Samuel Gregg. While Mass-attendance rates have steeply declined over the last 30 years, today France is witnessing the rise of an increasingly self-confident—and dynamically orthodox—Catholicism. 

Continue reading at www.CatholicWorldReport.com.

Cdl. Sarah: “Without God, there is nothing but wars, division, and bewilderment”

Cardinal Robert Sarah

Cdl. Sarah: “Without God, there is nothing but wars, division, and bewilderment”

“The real crisis that our world is going through now is not essentially economic or political, but a ‘crisis of God,’” says prefect of the Congregation for Divine Worship and the Discipline of the Sacraments.

The following remarks were delivered by Cardinal Robert Sarah at the November 20 presentation in Rome of his book God or Nothing, published in English by Ignatius Press and translated by Michael J. Miller. Miller also translated Cardinal Sarah’s speech for CWR.

***

Allow me first of all to express my most sincere gratitude to Cardinal George Pell, to His Excellency Abp. Georg Gänswein, and to His Excellency Abp. Rino Fisichella for having accepted the invitation to present my book. In particular I thank you for your kind words of praise in my regard, and especially for what you said about my book, God or Nothing. Moreover I wish to thank those who promoted and organized this fine presentation ceremony: Dr. Paul Badde and Dr. Davide Cantagalli. Finally I wish to thank each one of you for your presence. His Excellency Abp. Georg Gänswein reminded us that today we celebrate the memory of Pope Saint Gelasius. This is a sheer coincidence, because today is my fifth anniversary as a cardinal.

How did the book God or Nothing come about? 

To tell the truth, I had never thought of writing a book, until now. One day Dr. Nicolas Diat came to see me for an exchange of ideas about various questions and, at the end of a second meeting, proposed that I write a book about my life. I replied that it was not at all interesting, that there were so many lives finer and richer than mine, but—I added—by means of an interview we might possibly touch on some current ecclesial and social questions about our increasingly globalized and confused world. Even in the Catholic Church we no longer have a safe doctrinal and moral path. Everyone proclaims his own opinions and value with absolute freedom. I too would like to proclaim my faith and my fidelity to Jesus, to the centuries-old Magisterium of the Church. We began therefore with the first two chapters that relate my personal experience, lived out in a particularly difficult socio-political context—that of the revolution in Guinea with Sékou Touré, with extremely tense relations between the Church and the State of Guinea, difficulties and tensions that resulted in the expulsion of the first archbishop of Conakry, Msgr. Gérard de Milleville, the arrest and incarceration of the second archbishop of Conakry, Msgr. Raymond Marie Tchidimbo, the expulsion of all the missionaries in May of 1967, and 26 years of dictatorship and persecution. I, myself, in April 1984, was put on a list of persons to be eliminated, but was spared death thanks to Divine Providence. When I think back on my life, on my “nomadic” vocational journey—Guinea, Côte d’Ivoire, Guinea again, France, Senegal—I clearly discern in it concrete proof of divine predilection toward me. 

After these first two chapters, there are some reflections on the popes, the Church, Rome, the modern world, Africa, the profound crises in anthropology and faith in the Western world, morality, truth, evil, prayer, etc. But God is truly the heart of God or Nothing. Why this title? Because today we observe an eclipse, an absence of God from the political, economic, and cultural world. The real crisis that our world is going through now is not essentially economic or political, but a “crisis of God.” Of course, people talk today only about the economic one: in the development of the economic power of Europe—although its original orientations were more ethical and religious—the economic interest has become more and more exclusively decisive. The man of yesterday, like today’s man, without distinction as to race, skin color, culture, country, or continent, is oriented almost exclusively toward the possession and use of material goods. And in the more specific cultural context of Western society, it is no exaggeration to say that man works, organizes, and manages human, political, economic, and commercial relations, starts wars, produces weapons of mass destruction, invades and conquers countries solely or almost exclusively to exploit and accumulate their material riches, in support of his own authority and hegemony. Under the pretext of bringing democracy, peace, and freedom, the West has created chaos in many countries, especially in the Middle East. My judgment may be inaccurate or exaggerated, but we cannot deny the present reality. Above all, Western culture has progressively organized itself as though God did not exist: many today have decided to do without God. As Nietzsche declares, for many in the West, God is dead. And we are the ones who killed Him, we are His assassins, and our Churches are the crypts and tombs of God. A lot of believers no longer attend them so as to avoid smelling the putrefaction of God; but in doing so, man no longer knows either who he is or where he is going: there is a sort of return to paganism and idolatry; science, technology, money, power, unbridled freedom, and endless pleasures are our gods.

I maintain that what we are experiencing today, especially but not only in the West, results from the fact that we have abandoned God in order to assign importance to “nothing.” Of course, the economy, politics, science, technology, and major advances in the fields of health care and social communications are not “nothing,” but in comparison to God they truly are “nothings.” 

In God “we live and move and have our being” (Acts 17:28). In him, all things continue to exist. He is the Beginning, the seat of all Fullness, Saint Paul tells us; apart from him, nothing reigns: everything finds in God its own being and its own truth; otherwise it is “God or nothing.” Certainly, there are enormous problems, often painful situations—human life can be difficult and distressing; and yet we must recognize that God is the one who gives meaning to everything. Our worries, our problems, our sufferings exist and preoccupy us, but we know that everything is resolved in him, we know that it is God or nothing, and we perceive this as a self-evident truth that impresses us not from outside, but from within the soul, because Love is not imposed with violence, but by seducing the heart with an interior light. 

With God or Nothing I would like to manage to put God back at the center of our thoughts, at the center of our action, at the center of our lives, in the one place that he should occupy, so that our journey as Christians might revolve around this Rock who is God, around this solid certitude of our faith. 

Without praise, without prayer, without adoration and therefore without God, there is nothing but wars, division, and bewilderment. Without God in the heart of man, there is only hatred, strife, and conflicts, as we see today. I would like to illustrate this assertion of mine with this story taken from the hagiographic legend of the Muslim “saints.” We know from experience that having an unfriendly or bad neighbor can make life unpleasant. But this difficulty can last 20, or at most 50 years, and then death separates us. But living with a bad neighbor for eternity is much more unpleasant, and so it is better to know him first. Abdalwânid Ibn Zeid wanted to know who would be his neighbor in paradise. He was told: “O Abdalwânid Ibn Zeid, you will have as your neighbor Maïmouna la Nera.” “And where is this Maïmouna?” he asked. “She is from Banou un-Tel, in Koûfa.” Abdalwânid Ibn Zeid arrived in Koûfa and inquired about Maïmouna. They answered that she was a madwoman who pastured her sheep near the cemetery. Abdalwânid Ibn Zeid went to the cemetery and found Maïmouna in prayer. Maïmouna’s sheep were grazing by themselves, but what was even more astonishing and marvelous was that the sheep were mingled with wolves, and the wolves were not devouring the sheep and the sheep were not afraid of the wolves. When Maïmouna had finished praying, Abdalwânid Ibn Zeid asked Maïmouna: “How is it possible that the wolves get along so well with the sheep?” And Maïmouna replied: “I improved my relations with God and He improved the relations between my sheep and the wolves.” 

Human efforts, political or diplomatic negotiations alone, will not succeed in attaining unity and reestablishing peace among men, because there is a virus of division, of disunity that is harbored in the hearts of men since original sin. The unity of the sons of God is a work that only Jesus can accomplish through the Holy Spirit, but without prayer the Spirit runs into a closed door in our souls. Let us therefore make more room for prayer and adoration in our lives, and then each one of us will be able to say: “I improved my relationship with God and He improved and pacified the relations among men and among peoples.”  

Concerning the "Ecological" Path to Salvation

(Photo: us.fotolia.com | f9photos)

Concerning the "Ecological" Path to Salvation | Fr. James V. Schall, SJ | CWR

The most problematic issue that Pope Francis’ earth-warming advocacy brings up is its scientific status; at best, it is opinion backed by some evidence 

“For Christians, all creatures of the material universe find their true meaning in the incarnate Word, for the Son of God has incorporated in his person part of the material world, planting in it a seed of definitive transformation.” — Pope Francis, Laudato Si', June 17, 2015.

“But Christian utopia is a spiritual concept, for Christians have the insight to grasp that man, in his earthly existence, is an incorrigibly flawed creature, that his earthly constructs invariably end up in disappointment at best; that he cannot, in fact, attain satisfaction and fulfillment on earth, and that the utopian kingdom is not of this world. Christians, therefore, should be in no danger of first supposing that perfectibility can be attained in human societies, and then advocating the appalling measures which invariably mark efforts to erect earthly utopias… Environmental policies are also on the progressive agenda…. But it is significant that those who have made it their business to wage environmental politics have sought to associate pollution and other anti-social effects of modern industry exclusively with capitalism and the profit motive, and have virtually ignored the often far more serious ravages of state-owned industries in the Communist block and third world socialist states.” — Paul Johnson. “Is Totalitarianism Dead?” (Crisis, Feb. 1, 1989)

I.

The first public reaction that I saw to the new Encyclical was in some web site, I forget where. Two initial comments were identical: “I am leaving the Church”!

“This will never do!” I thought. A New York Times editorial, contrary to its usual practice, chided Catholic politicians for not obeying the Pope now that he appears to agree with policies the Times approves.

In a June 17^th column in the San Francisco Chronicle, Debra Saunders compared organized religion to earth warmers. “Climate change alarmism has always had a lot in common with organized religion. What’s the message of hard-core environmentalists? ‘The end is near’. ‘Repent’!.... To the true believer, the most important thing is not whether people stop contributing to greenhouse gases, but that they believe they should.” A lineal relationship between secular eschatology, the transferal of Christian four last things from transcendence to this-worldly projects has been noticed at least since J. B. Bury’s The Idea of Progress (1920). How this phenomenon worked was the central import of Benedict XVI’s Spe Salvi and Eschatology: Death and Eternal Life.

Whether or not we need church leaders also “believing” this ecological doctrine is probably not so clear. Still, the most problematic issue that Pope Francis’ earth-warming advocacy brings up is its scientific status. At best, it is opinion backed by some evidence. The document does not mention contrary evidence. Satellite readings of the planet’s temperature are different from UN computer generated statistics. The planet’s temperature has not changed in recent decades. Most of the controverted issues can plausibly be explained by natural causes. Climate changes have occurred on this planet since its beginning, long before man. The burning of fossil fuels does not produce any significant change in the already very low percentage (0.035%) of CO2 in the atmosphere.

Not a few observers draw a parallel between the Galileo case and this one. It is a useful caution. The damage potential to the Church’s credibility is great if all the scientific evidence is not in or considered. The best we can say for putting one’s eggs in the climate warmer basket is that many scientists, mostly those dependent on government subsidies to prove it is true, say it is so. The Pope’s own plea for “humility” in this document would seem to apply here concerning scientific questions that are at best hypotheses subject to change.

II.

What are we to make of this document, now that we see it?

Continue reading at www.CatholicWorldReport.com.

How Same-Sex Marriage Won Out in Ireland

How Same-Sex Marriage Won Out in Ireland | Michael Kelly | CWR

Intense pressure from political and cultural elites, together with millions of dollars in foreign funding, resulted in a victory for gay rights activists in the majority-Catholic country.

Ireland, once dubbed “the most Catholic country in the world” by the future Pope Paul VI, has become the first country in the world to adopt same-sex marriage by means of a popular vote.

For months, opinion polls had been consistent is showing huge levels of support for the constitutional amendment to re-define marriage.

On the day, 62 percent of people voted “yes” for same-sex marriage. It was not the absolute landslide pundits had predicted, but it was an emphatic rejection of the traditional understanding of marriage as between one man and one woman.

David Quinn, director of the Iona Institute and de facto leader of the “no” campaign, was magnanimous, conceding defeat just over an hour after the counting of votes began and the pattern was clear.

Archbishop of Dublin Diarmuid Martin described the result as a “social revolution.”

“We [the Church] have to stop and have a reality check, not move into denial of the realities,” Archbishop Martin said. “We won’t begin again with a sense of renewal, with a sense of denial.”

The archbishop—a former Vatican diplomat who has headed Ireland’s largest diocese for more than a decade—had been criticized during the campaign by some for being too timid in presenting the Church’s teaching on marriage. In the final days, he did take to the airwaves to make a plea for a “no” vote. However, he angered some “no” campaigners for refusing to say Catholics ought to vote “no.”

The bishop of Elphin, Kevin Doran, was among the most vocal opponents of the redefinition of marriage in the Irish hierarchy. He led a robust campaign and frequently engaged in media debates in an attempt to have the proposal defeated.

Responding to the result, he said: “The outcome of the marriage referendum is clear and decisive.”

Bishop Doran got to the heart of why the “yes” campaign proved so convincing in the end. “It seems that many people voted ‘yes’ as a way of showing their acceptance and their love for friends and family members who are gay,” he said.

“Large numbers obviously believed that they could vote ‘yes’ without in any way undermining marriage.”

How has it happened that a country in which 84 percent of people describe themselves as Catholic has become the first state in the world to enact same-sex marriage by means of a popular vote?

Continue reading at www.CatholicWorldReport.com.

The De-Christianization and Gradual Islamization of France

Firefighters carry a victim on a stretcher at the scene of the deadly shootings at the Paris offices of Charlie Hebdo, a satirical newspaper, on Jan. 7th. (CNS photo/Jacky Naegelen, Reuters)

The De-Christianization and Gradual Islamization of France | Charles Adhémar | CWR

Islamist networks in France and across Europe are increasingly organized and well-armed, but it is France that is sitting on a powder keg

Just before Christmas, as I was walking along the streets of Paris, I happened to see the disgraceful cover of the latest edition of Charlie Hebdo, a failing satirical magazine well known for its insults against religion and general vulgarity. It showed the Blessed Virgin Mary in an outrageous, almost pornographic position.

Such crudeness was not a first for Charlie Hebdo. Although the cover angered me, the spirit of Christmas overrode any hateful thoughts. Two weeks later, on January 7, the Kouachi brothers (of Algerian origin) shot the men behind the irreverent magazine, along with two policemen and a hapless maintenance worker. And a day later, Amedy Coulibaly (of Malian origin) murdered a policewoman and four Jews after taking hostages in a kosher supermarket.

The three gunmen who killed 17 French victims were of French nationality. They had been born in France, raised in France, educated in France, and fed by the French welfare state—before taking an all-too-common and desperate path: crime, prison, Islamism, delinquency, and commitment to global jihad. Along with their henchmen, they were engaged in a war against France, from within and without. Make no mistake: This is a civil war—although one camp is unarmed.

Are we Charlie?

The Charlie Hebdo killings compel us to look frankly at reality—without the hollow rhetoric of our political classes or the complacence of the media. In fact, for a while, a few days after the killings, it seemed like French people were beginning to wake up. When, on Sunday, the 11th of January, Paris and several other French cities witnessed the largest demonstration in the history of France, it seemed that there was a new realization of the threat now within our borders. A “Republican march” of around 4 million people (according to official sources)—more than during the funeral of Victor Hugo in 1885—with thousands of anonymous people following behind almost the entire political class, from France and abroad (including 44 foreign heads of state) seemed to suggest that people were ready to say, “enough is enough”.

The watchword of this moment of national unity was, of course, “je suis Charlie”. But are we really Charlie?

Continue reading at www.CatholicWorldReport.com.

My Ways or Your Ways?

My Ways or Your Ways? | Fr. David Vincent Meconi, SJ | HPR

What do ISIS, the Chinese government, and many Catholics have in common? It begins like a bad joke, I know, but none of them allows Christ’s Church to carry out her mission fully.

Reading the papers these past few weeks only confirms a convergence between the Church’s enemies: ISIS takes 300 of our faithful as hostages and threatens their martyrdom unless they recant the Faith, Beijing rebels against Vatican-appointed bishops, and so many of our so-called Catholic institutions are fighting the removal of abortion coverage from their insurance policies.

In talking about these instances with a dear friend, I learned that all of this reminded her of the line from Ezekiel when the chosen people are grumbling against God: “But the house of Israel says, ‘The Lord’s way is not fair!’ Is it my way that is not fair, house of Israel? Is it not your ways that are not fair?” (Ezekiel 18:29). Who is not being fair? By definition, two contrarily-opposed parties cannot both be right. The bishop who teaches one thing, and the people who demand another cannot both be correct. Who, then, is being fair?

While the popular media are loathe to report it through this particular religious lens, a large part of ISIS’s pattern of violence is unarguably against Christians and particularly Catholics. Most recently, over 300 members of ancient Christian families in Assyria were taken hostage in Northeastern Syria. Extremist groups are slowly, systematically aiming to eradicate all who disagree with their interpretation of the Quran (including other Muslims), and the Church’s faithful are the most obvious targets. God is in no way done in these lands that deny him, and one day, these terrorists will come to see what Tertullian (Apology §50, around AD 197) meant, when he said “the blood of martyrs is the seed of the Church.” These otherwise unknown men, women, and children will hereafter be prayed for and remembered at every Christian liturgy throughout the world as, “blessed Apostles, martyrs, and all the saints …”.

Some 3,500 miles farther to the East, the Chinese government is also helping the Church mystically grow.

Continue reading at www.HPRweb.com.

A View From the International Theological Commission: An Interview with Tracey Rowland

Prof. Tracey Rowland, Dean and Permanent Fellow of the Pontifical John Paul II Institute (Melbourne, Australia) and an expert on the thought of Benedict XVI (middle), was appointed to the International Theological Commission last year by Pope Francis (right). [Photo: CNS]

A View From the International Theological Commission: An Interview with Tracey Rowland | John Paul Shimek | CWR

The Australian theologian discusses Synods, Cardinals, Popes, theological issues—and being called a “strawberry” by Pope Francis

Professor Tracey Rowland is the Dean and Permanent Fellow of the Pontifical John Paul II Institute for Studies on Marriage and the Family in Melbourne, Australia. In 2003, she published Culture and the Thomist Tradition: After Vatican II, establishing herself as a bold, fresh voice in international Catholic theological circles. A member of the editorial board of the North American edition of Communio: International Catholic Review, she is also the author of Ratzinger’s Faith and Benedict XVI: A Guide for the Perplexed. Last September, Pope Francis appointed her to the Sacred Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith’s International Theological Commission.

Recently, I had the opportunity to talk with her about her recent appointment, her work with Australia’s Pontifical John Paul II Institute for Studies on Marriage and the Family, her thoughts about the forthcoming 2015 Synod of Bishops, Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI and Pope Francis, Thomism, Cardinal Pell, the Church in Australia, and other topics.

CWR: In September, Pope Francis made new appointments to the International Theological Commission (ITC). Could you tell us about the ITC and its current projects?

Professor Tracey Rowland: The International Theological Commission was created after the Second Vatican Council in the late 1960s. It comprises 30 members all of whom are professional theologians. The appointments are for 5 years and during those 5 years the theologians work on producing 3 documents covering topics of current theological significance. The three topics for the next 5 years are: (1), synodality, (2) faith and sacraments and (3) religious freedom.

CWR: Synodality seems to be very important to Pope Francis. Already, he has called two Synods of Bishops. And, he has asked the Orthodox to help us understand better the role of syodality in the life of the Church. Was the topic of synodality proposed by Pope Francis himself? As a theologian, what do you make of his sense of synodality? Why do you think it is an important issue for the ITC to discuss?

Rowland: Synods of Bishops are nothing new in the life of the Church. They were held during the pontificates of John Paul II and Benedict XVI as well. None of the topics was proposed by Pope Francis. The topics were chosen by the members of the ITC themselves.

I really haven’t any insightful comments to make about the pope’s sense of synodality. There has been a lot of media interest in it, and people blogging about it, but papal commentary in the present era reminds me very much of Kremlin commentary during the Cold War. Instead of referring to documents or books where people spell out their ideas, in this instance there is no body of work from which to quote. All one can do is to draw inferences from actions and reactions and social data like who the Pope invited to lunch. That’s shaky ground and I would rather remain on the more solid ground of academic work.

CWR: Five women were among the September appointments, including you and Sister Prudence Allen (USA). Was this the first time women were appointed to the ITC?

Continue reading at www.CatholicWorldReport.com.

On the "Reform" of Islam

The Blue Mosque, left, and the Hagia Sophia Museum, right, are pictured at sunset in Istanbul in this Nov. 24, 2008, file photo. (CNS photo/Tolga Bozoglu, EPA)

On the "Reform" of Islam | Fr. James V. Schall, SJ | CWR

If violence, terror, beheadings, forced conversions, subjection of women, and intolerance of others are removed or “transformed” in Islam, is it still Islam?

I.

The President of Egypt, at Al Azhar University in Cairo, recently did everyone a favor by putting on the table, from inside of the Islamic world itself, the question of its public conduct and inner soul as they relate to the Muslim religion. Does its conduct, as manifest in its deeds, flow from its religious beliefs? One and a quarter billion Muslims, President al-Sisi bluntly affirmed, cannot hope to eliminate the other six and a half billion human beings. A May 14, 2014, article in the American Thinker estimated that over the centuries some 250 million people have been killed in wars caused by Islam. The religion itself thus needs, in al-Sisi’s view, a thorough “revolution” or transformation.

The issue that I bring up here, in the light of these observations, is this: “Is such a revolution possible without, in effect, eliminating the basic content of what we know as Islam?” If violence, terror, beheadings, forced conversions, bad treatment of women, and intolerance of others are removed or “transformed” in Islam, so that they are no longer parts of the religion but condemned by it, is it still Islam? Would it not be something totally unrecognizable as the same Islam faithfully loyal to its founding by Mohammed? If so, it would follow that something is radically disordered in the founding itself and its development to its present form.

No one thought that communism could fall except, perhaps, Reagan and John Paul II. Some elements of it still strive to hang on, to be sure, but its evils have generally been acknowledged as inhuman. Is there a similar hope about an unexpected turn in Islam? Could it almost miraculously morph into something else? Or, if it changes in any basic way, does it not have to change into something already known, such as Christianity? Or Hinduism? Or even modernism? Are the violent manifestations within Islam towards itself and others simply an aberration? Or, are they essential to the mission to which Islam is committed, namely, to conquer the world for Allah? The authors of Charlie Hebdo hoped that Islam would become as “harmless” as Christianity has become. But is a “harmless” Islam an irrelevant Islam?

In 2011, I called attention to the work of scholars (mostly German) in establishing a critical edition of the Qur’an. It becomes evident that the text of this famous book could not be what it is claimed to be—that is, a revelation in pure Arabic delivered directly from the mind of Allah in the seventh century through Mohammed. Moreover, it is said to be unchanged in any way, not only from its first appearance, but also from eternity.

My assumption, of course, is that the Muslim mind—or any mind—when faced with facts, can recognize a contradiction in its own origins or practices if pointed out. If the Qur’an cannot be what it said it was, how can anyone uphold it? If it is a correlation to previously existing texts, its origin is not what it said it was. The effort to eliminate the scholars who even dare to wonder about this issue is not an argument in favor of the Qur’an, but against it, a sign of unwillingness to examine the evidence. One can only suspect that the failure of any source in Islam itself to produce a critical edition of the Qur’an, combined with the efforts to impede anyone else from doing so, is an indirect proof that many in Islam know there is something strange about the original text that is not explained by the theory of direct revelation.

II.

Muslim thinkers, in the light of contradictory statements in the Qur’an, have had to devise a philosophical thesis about Allah’s nature that would, supposedly, defend the text from incoherence.

Continue reading at www.CatholicWorldReport.com.

“Do Not Grow Bored with Christ:" A Week with the Dominicans in Poland

Dominican community at evening vespers (Krakow, Poland) [Photo: Dr. Anthony E. Clark]

“Do Not Grow Bored with Christ:" A Week with the Dominicans in Poland | Anthony E. Clark, Ph.D. | CWR

On a bitterly cold Sunday morning in mid-December I approached the basilica church attached to the Dominican Priory in Krakow’s Old Quarter. The church and priory are named after the Most Holy Trinity, and upon entering I saw a dense crowd of faithful flooding through the three main doors below the remarkable church façade. Fr. Ireneusz Wysokiński, OP, warned me that Masses throughout the day would all be crowded, but I was not prepared for what I encountered—extra chairs had to be set out to accommodate the overflow.

Sunday Masses in the Dominican church run all day, with a brief pause from 3-5:00 pm; the rest of the day is animated with Mass attendees. Even as I walked by other nearby churches I could see large crowds entering and leaving for Mass. The reports I had heard that Poland is a vibrantly Catholic country are true, and the ninety Dominican friars who serve in the Krakow priory are part of the central heartbeat of the city’s Catholic culture. Earlier that morning, Bro. Grzegorz Kuraś, OP, took me into the elegant church sacristy to show me historic vestments with beautiful needlework, painstakingly made by sisters as a gift to God for use in Holy Mass. The liturgy celebrated in Poland is a sumptuous feast for the senses that elevates the soul; a choir of friars intones chants throughout the Mass, and an assembly of Dominican habits surrounds the altar during the words of Consecration in a cloud of incense. No wonder their church is full—they know how to transport one’s heart and mind to God, which is what, as St. Augustine tells us, we were created for.

The long history of the Dominican priests and brothers who live in Krakow is punctuated with some of the world’s most turbulent events: two World Wars, Nazi occupation, and the harsh, anti-Christian Communist invasion of Catholic Poland. Illuminating the dark shadow of these eras is the memory of Poland’s spiritual hero, Karol Józef Wojtyła, or Pope St. John Paul II, whose image is seen in almost every part of Krakow. This holy son of Poland once said, “I kiss the soil as if I placed a kiss on the hands of a mother, for the homeland is our earthly mother,” and this love of his native country is returned to him by the thousands of young Poles I joined for Mass in Krakow’s Dominican church. On my final day in Krakow I reflected on the many countries I have visited; none has left a stronger impression of Catholic devotion and spiritual maturity as Poland, and the flourishing vocations and filled liturgies of the Dominican community there remain, at least in my mind, the best example of the “hermeneutic of continuity” discussed by Pope Benedict XVI.

For an entire week I was enfolded in the Dominican community, joining them for meals, Masses, daily prayers, and even an evening with the brothers at a local pub, where we discussed their observations of Catholic life in America. Comparing Poland, with its history of Nazi and Communist horrors, to America, with its history of economic triumph and materialism, Bro. Grzegorz Kuraś, OP, said that his largest concern for the US is that it is “growing bored with Christ.” “To all Americans,” he remarked, “I would simply say, do not grow bored with Christ.” Perhaps we Americans can learn something from the Dominican’s of Krakow, who are anything but bored with Christ, and their love of God is contagious. I cannot remember a single Mass in their huge basilica that was not filled with faithful, a very different scene than I am accustomed to in my native city.

Fr. Reginald Wiśniowski, OP

In preparation for this report I was introduced to the oldest Dominican priest in Poland, Fr. Reginald Wiśniowski, OP, who is now ninety-four years old, and has lived through Nazi and Communist occupations, and has worn the Dominican habit since 1939.

Continue reading at www.CatholicWorldReport.com.

“What is Islam?” Revisited | Fr. James V. Schall, SJ

Firefighters carry a victim on a stretcher at the scene of a shooting at the Paris offices of Charlie Hebdo, a satirical newspaper, Jan. 7. (CNS photo/Jacky Naegelen, Reuters)

“What is Islam?” Revisited | Fr. James V. Schall, SJ CWR

Within Islam, the world is divided into a zone of war and a zone of peace. Those who are in the zone of war or sympathize with it are enemies who deserve death.

“An aspect of the attack (in Syria) that was not often reported in the media was the way the Islamist invaders tried to remove not only the Christians but the Christianity from the town, a phenomenon that is common now when Islamism expands in the Middle East and in the greater Muslim world. It is not enough that Christians should leave, convert, or die, but all traces of Christianity should be removed as well.” — Michael Coren: Hatred: Islam’s War on Christianity (Plattsburg, N. Y. McClelland & Stewart/Random House Canada, 2014), 48

“Seventeen-year-old Ismael said he was ordered this summer by his Islamic State superiors to help behead every male ages 14 to 45 from an enemy Syrian tribe in Deir Essour. The teenager said he balked, but his 10-year-old brother took to the job with zeal. Activists said hundreds were killed.” — Maria Abi-Habib, “The Child Soldiers Who Escape Islamic State: Boys, Teenagers Tell of Lessons in Beheading, Weaponry at Training Camps,” Wall Street Journal, December 26, 2014

“The Islamic State stormed unimpeded through Mosul, Qaraqossh, and the smaller towns of Nineveh province last summer, marking Christian homes with the letter ‘N’ for ‘Nazarene’ and giving residents an ultimatum: renounce Jesus Christ and convert to Islam, or die. The 200,000 Christian faithful in Nineveh, many of whom still pray in Aramaic, refused. For that, they had to flee en masse one August day with little more than the shirts on their backs. Some, including children, were slaughtered, and some may have been enslaved.” — Nina Shea, “Christians on the Run from Iraq,” National Review Online, December 24, 2014

I.

Michael Coren, the Canadian journalist and TV host, has written a sober and frank book, titled Hatred: Islam’s War on Christianity. Its basic intent is to survey and accurately recount the extent of Islamic persecution of Christians in particular in every area of the world from the Mid-East, to Africa, Indonesia, Asia, the Philippines, Europe, and America. Others besides Christians are also attacked, but Christians have become the prime target. The goal, now almost achieved in many areas, is the total elimination of Christians from Muslim-held areas. No doubt, for many, this startling phenomenon has certain apocalyptic overtones. As Coren himself stated, one needs a strong stomach just to read about the mind-numbing, brutal Islamic atrocities that regularly occur in every part of the world—beheadings, stabbings, rapes, throat-slittings, eye-gougings, knifings, burnings, and killings of every imaginable sort.

These scenes are not figments of anyone’s imagination. They are often recorded live in various media. Most people cannot even imagine them even when they see them. If the extent and inhumanity of this persecution of Christians are at all reported in the West, they are played down or unstated because of political presuppositions, ecumenical or liberal presuppositions, or because of cowardice and very real fear of Muslim retaliation—the murder of 12 in Paris yesterday being a timely and horrifying example. While Walid Phares, Robert Spencer, Laurent Murawiec, and Andrew Bostom, among others, have presented earlier graphic accounts of Muslim-originated atrocities, Coren has brought this bloody record up-to-date, as the violence has increased measurably in recent months.

When Robert Royal finished his book Catholic Martyrs in the Twentieth Century in 2000, I recall being especially struck by his observation that so many of these martyrs died quietly, unknown except to God.  Usually they lived good lives. In no way were they the cause of their fate, other than for their being Catholics or Christian. A reading of the Coren book leaves one with the same agonizing impression. Catholics and Christians of every denomination are now being slaughtered on a regular basis in various Muslim-dominated lands for no other reason than that they are followers of Christ.

Continue reading at www.CatholicWorldReport.com.

The Holy See Commemorated a Trio of Anniversaries in 2014

Left: Pope Paul VI addresses the General Assembly at the United Nations in New York Oct. 4, 1965. (CNS file photo); right: William A. Wilson, the first U.S. ambassador to the Vatican, is greeted by Pope John Paul II at the Vatican in this 1985 file photo.(CNS photo) (Dec. 7, 2009)

The Holy See Commemorated a Trio of Anniversaries in 2014 | Vincenzina Santoro | CWR

This past year witnessed the 85th anniversary of the Lateran Pacts, the 50th anniversary of the Holy See presence at the UN, and the 30th anniversary of the restoration of full diplomatic recognition by the US

In 2014, the Holy See observed three major historical milestones, all of which were virtually ignored in the global press. This past year marked the 85^th anniversary of the Lateran Pacts establishing sovereignty for Vatican City State, the 50^th anniversary of the Holy See presence as Permanent Observer at the United Nations and the 30^th anniversary of the restoration of full diplomatic recognition by the United States.

These key historical events are very important in the life of the Catholic Church as they helped to spread the influence of the Vatican as a force for morality and reason while maintaining neutrality in political affairs. The three milestones have helped provide the Church with complete and universally recognized sovereignty, to accompany her unique blend of temporal and spiritual power.

The historical setting

On February 11, 1929, Vatican City State became a full sovereign state under Pope Pius XI as his Secretary of State, Cardinal Pietro Gasparri, and Italian Prime Minister Benito Mussolini, signed the Lateran Pacts. It put an end to the “Roman Question” that arose with the annexation of the Papal States in 1861 at the time of Italian unification and the subsequent fall of Rome in 1870.

The three Pacts took their name from the Lateran Palace where they were signed. They included a political treaty with Italy recognizing the sovereignty of the Vatican, a Concordat to regulate religion and the Church in Italy, and a financial convention to settle financial claims stemming from the loss of temporal power in 1870.

Previously, relations between the Church and Italy were covered by the “Law of Guarantees” approved by the Italian Parliament on May 13, 1871, but not recognized by any of the Popes. Under the new treaties, the Vatican was recognized as an independent territory, taking its place in the global roster of nations. Thus the Vatican gained sovereignty over a territory of 109 acres (44 hectares).

The Pope acquired complete jurisdiction over St. Peter’s Basilica and Square, the Vatican Gardens, the palace at Castel Gandolfo and assorted properties scattered about Rome that were given “extraterritoriality” status. Vatican City State is governed as though it were a monarchy with the Pope as Head of State. The pontiff holds executive, legislative and judicial powers.

Vatican City has its own flag, issues its own euro coins and stamps (both prized by collectors), owns radio and TV stations, and participates in various international organizations such as the Universal Postal Union (UPO) and the International Telecommunication Union (ITU).

Vatican City State is the independent, territorial base for the Holy See. An important distinction is in order:

Continue reading at www.CatholicWorldReport.com.

Pope Francis the Economist

Pope Francis is greeted by 13 new ambassadors to the Holy See as they present their letters of credential at the Vatican Dec. 18. (CNS photo/L'Osservatore Romano via Reuters)

Pope Francis the Economist | Michael Severance | Catholic World Report

The Pope is not interested in validating the right or left on any specific policy, but rather reminding us of more transcendent principles.

Where, exactly, does Pope Francis stand on economic matters? While the Pontiff’s pronouncements are abundant, they are far less systematic and scholarly than they are pastoral in nature. Thus, we are frequently left wondering what economic science, if any, underpins his pastoral teaching on issues such as wealth disparities, development, job creation, and increased solidarity with the poor.  

Is Francis a socialist? Does he trust the free market and its invisible hand to bring about economic flourishing? Neither, really. From a secular standpoint, he actually seems to advocate a little of both. Francis acknowledges the legitimacy of business and entrepreneurship on one hand, but frequently seems to call for more government economic action on the other.

Indeed, sometimes Francis appears to be market-friendly, yet in the same speech or document he follows with a “but” or “so long as.” At other times he can sound like a proponent of government welfare and regulation, while also mentioning the good that private business does in job creation and the role it has in mitigating a culture of dependency. Putting labels aside, Francis is nonetheless quick to talk and write about the economy, especially when it involves human suffering and sin.    

Neither party boss nor CEO

Seem confused? You are not alone.

Whatever his economic leanings are, it would be unwise to “spin” the Bishop of Rome’s economically-related pronouncements to satisfy one’s own worldview. 

Francis, as the supreme pastoral leader of the world’s largest Christian population, is much more interested, like his predecessors, in getting the anthropology and the moral-theological foundation right, rather than presenting any specific policy prescription or political-economic platform.

He is the pope, after all—not a political party boss or the economically enlightened CEO of Roman Catholicism Incorporated. 

As the Holy Father intends not to focus his pastoral attention on any political-economic categories of “left” and “right,” “liberal” and “conservative,” his objective as a spiritual and pastoral leader is to inspire a need for personal conversion and holiness. He is also well aware that public policy prescriptions aiming at the common good of human society will be errant if built on a false anthropology of man and a flawed moral-theological framework.

Contradictory statements on economic matters

A snapshot of Francis’ commentary, including some of very recent date, illustrates just how difficult it is to “frame” him economically.

Continue reading on the CWR site.

What Replaces Christianity?

(© Rawpixel/fotolia.com)

What Replaces Christianity? | Fr. James V. Schall, S.J. | CWR

A general outline of what is replacing Christianity as the public order of the old Christendom and its overseas enclaves

We often hear expressions like “the post-Christian era” to describe the time we live in. Just as Christianity preserved many pagan practices, a “post-Christian era” will retain many Christian customs and ideas. They will usually be disguised under different names or explanations. We will notice a pseudo-heaven and hell, an explanation for sin not based on free will, an inner-worldly immortality of sorts, an evil and a good in Manichean fashion. 

But a post-Christian age will invent new names and explanations for them. It will logically “develop” ideas into a new form or synthesis that is anything but Christian. To know what a post-Christian era might mean, no doubt, it is helpful to know what Christianity is and maintains. And this knowledge, in spite of the General Catechism, is not easy to come by today. We used to talk of Christian “heresies”. These were explanations of one or other Christian idea in a different, erroneous, or inaccurate way. But the heretic generally did not disagree with the whole corpus of Christian ideas. In fact, he thought he was giving a better explanation of those ideas and beliefs.

What “replaces” Christianity, we can assume, will want to appear to itself, at least, to be logically coherent. It will claim to explain human life and its earthly condition, usually in what is called a “scientific” way. Indeed, that will be one of its basic propositions, namely, that everything can be explained by scientific method. What cannot be so explained will be said not to exist, or not to be worth studying. Scientific method itself depends on quantity and mathematics based on it. If reality also contains things that are not quantifiable, that can be reached by other methods, these facts will be denied or ignored.

What are the most obvious tenets to a world-view that replaces Christianity? I would begin by pointing out that other world-views like Islam, which also intend to replace Christianity, have remained pretty much consistent with themselves over the centuries. It is true that Islam can be considered a New Testament, or better Old Testament heresy. Most of its ideas were present in some form before its arrival on the scene in the seventh century. And Islam is indeed one of the major candidates to replace Christianity in many parts of the world, as it did in the early years of the Muslim conquest of Persia, North Africa, the Holy Land, and across the central Asian plains to parts of India.

One way to look at this issue would be to consult birth-rates among various nations and peoples.

Continue reading at www.CatholicWorldReport.com.

The Global Sexual Revolution and the Assault on Freedom and Family

German sociologist Gabriele Kuby is the author of "The Global Sexual Revolution: The Destruction of Freedom in the Name of Freedom" (Photo courtesy of Dr. Benjamin J. Vail)

 The Global Sexual Revolution and the Assault on Freedom and Family | Dr. Benjamin J. Vail, OFS | CWR

German author and sociologist Gabriele Kuby discusses “gender mainstreaming”, the new totalitarianism, and being called a "homohater"

In early April 2014, German author Gabriele Kuby visited the Czech Republic to give a number of public presentations promoting her new book, The Global Sexual Revolution: The Destruction of Freedom in the Name of Freedom, recently translated to Czech. During her visit to Brno, I had a chance to interview Kuby about her book and ask how her Catholic perspective helps her understand one of the most important issues of our time: the continuing sexual revolution that is leading not only to private lifestyle changes but a new legal understanding of sexuality and the family.

Kuby warns that the global trend of “gender mainstreaming” threatens the fundamental understanding of our very human nature, with dire consequences for children, families, and society as a whole. For example, until 2014 users of Facebook had to indicate their sex – whether they are a man or a woman. But now the popular internet social network gives users 58 different options to indicate their gender. Also in 2014, the winner of the popular “Eurovision” song contest was an Austrian man named Thomas Neuwirth, known by his stage name Conchita Wurst, who attracts curiosity by cross-dressing in women’s clothing while wearing a thick beard. Kuby points out that these kinds of situations create confusion and real psychological and spiritual harms for individuals and society.

CWR: For the benefit of our readers, would you please summarize the main thesis of your new book?

Gabriele Kuby: After my conversion to the Catholic faith, and given my background in the study of sociology and interest in political and social developments, I began to realize that sexuality is the issue of our time. We live in a time when sexual norms are being turned completely upside down, which is unique in human history. No society does has done this. No society has ever said, “Live out your sexual drive any way you like,” but our society does. I think this issue of sexuality is the main attack on the dignity of the human being, and on society as a whole, because if a society lets go of its morality in general, and especially in the area of sexuality, it tumbles into anarchy and chaos, and this can result in a new totalitarian regime by the state.

CWR: A main theme of your book is “gender mainstreaming.” Can you educate our readers about gender mainstreaming, and explain why it is dangerous?

Kuby: The term “gender” was a grammatical term used to differentiate the genus of a word, before it was used for a political agenda. Then radical feminists discovered this word and used it to create a new ideology. I marvel at the strategic far-sightedness of knowing that you need a term to promote a new idea, and this is the term “gender.” Gender now means there is a “social sex” which can differ from you biological sex. Of course, there are cultural and historical differences in the ways people live their masculinity and femininity. But the feminist theory is, there is a social construction of sex which can be different – indeed, need not be identical to – your biological sex. And if we give up our identity as a man or a woman, and say there is no such identity, then of course the whole sexual order collapses, and anybody can have sex with anybody – which is not just a theoretical claim, but a practical claim of this movement: there are not two sexes, or two genders; there are many genders, like heterosexual men and women, homosexuals, bisexuals, transsexuals, transgender, intersexual and queer people (“queer” being a term for any kind of sexual deviance from heterosexuality).

Gender theory says our sexual orientation is the main criterion for our identity. The main value by which this is promoted is freedom. Our hyper-individualized society claims that we have freedom to choose our sex, whether we are man or woman, and it is our freedom to choose our sexual orientation. Society must not only tolerate but positively accept any kind of sexual orientation. But in fact, heterosexuality is the natural condition of our human existence, and more than 97 percent of the population of this earth is heterosexual and has an instinctive rejection of homosexuality. The people who push the gender agenda around the world of course have to start with very young children and teach them that any kind of sexual orientation is equally valid.

The whole thing is “sold,” so to speak, as ever more rights for women.

Continue reading at www.CatholicWorldReport.com.

Francis and South Korea

A woman prays during Mass at a church in Seoul, Korea, Feb. 12, 2013. (CNS photo/Kim Hong-Ji, Reuters)

 

Francis and South Korea | John Paul Shimek | CWR

 

In his first international visits, the Pope looks to “the ends of the Earth” and to the young.

It’s official. The volo papale, or papal airplane, will take off from Rome’s Fiumicino Airport in mid-August. This time it will be headed for the heart of Asia. Pope Francis will visit Daejeon, South Korea from August 14 to 18. Father Federico Lombardi, director of the Vatican Press Office, made the announcement in a statement issued March 10. The official comunicato reads:

Welcoming the invitation from the President of the Republic and the Korean bishops, His Holiness Francis will make an Apostolic Trip to the Republic of Korea from 14 to 18 August 2014, on the occasion of the Sixth Asian Youth Day, to be held in the diocese of Daejeon.

The trip will mark the first papal visit to the Korean peninsula in more than two decades. Pope John Paul II visited there on two separate occasions: in the spring of 1984 and again in the autumn of 1989. For his part, Pope Benedict XVI did not elect to visit South Korea during almost a decade as pope.

Both of Pope John Paul II’s visits attracted record numbers of pilgrims. Traveling to Seoul in 1989 for the International Eucharistic Congress, he led one of the largest outdoor gatherings on the Asian continent: some one million Catholics attended the congress’ closing liturgical celebration on October 8, 1989. However, that record was broken in 1995 when he visited Manila, Philippines on the occasion of the Tenth International World Youth Day. More than five million individuals attended that event—the largest outdoor gathering in human history.

A vibrant Church

Like Pope John Paul II, Pope Francis could attract record-setting numbers of pilgrims. After all, the Catholic Church is alive and well in South Korea. In fact, over the last decade, Catholicism has witnessed an incredible growth spurt there. Church enrollment has swelled some 70 percent. Now, more than five million South Koreans—about 11 percent of the population—are members of the Roman Catholic Church. That number continues to increase.

Continue reading at www.CatholicWorldReport.com.

The Longest Battle

A member of the Third U.S. Infantry Regiment places flags on graves in Section 60 during a "Flags-In" ceremony May 22 at Arlington National Cemetery near Washington. The soldiers placed American flags in front of more than 220,000 graves. (CNS photo/Kevin Lamarque, Reuters)

The Longest Battle | John Burger | CWR

Veterans struggle in aftermath of recent wars, but friendship and structures of faith help the process of healing

Post-traumatic stress. Amputations and brain injuries. High suicide rates. Can any good news come out of the Iraq and Afghanistan wars?

The effects of our recent military engagements in the Middle East are long-lasting. Though today’s veterans come home to a friendlier reception than their Vietnam-era forebears had, thousands of men and women who served in Operation Enduring Freedom and Operation Iraqi Freedom carry scars physical, mental, emotional, and spiritual that are deep and abiding.

Will they recover? Can they recover? What can be done for them? Is the Veterans Affairs (VA) system adequate? Is spiritual help being offered for those who need it? What difference is it making?

As America celebrates another Memorial Day and Congress questions whether the VA system of medical centers is doing enough, the veterans who have served this country continue to fight a battle—often a tough one—to reintegrate into “normal” American life.

The Unseen War

According to some, problems like post-traumatic stress disorder (PTSD) and suicide among veterans have gone through the roof.USA Today reported that 50,000 new veterans were diagnosed with PTSD during 2012. That figure reflects little progress over the previous four years: a 2008 RAND Corporationstudy estimated that approximately 20 percent of returning active duty troops—about 300,000 of the 1.64 million who served in the recent wars—suffer from PTSD, accompanied by major depression.

Suicide is another issue.

Continue reading at www.CatholicWorldReport.com.