eChurch Blog

PRAGUE — Ending a three-day trip here aimed at fighting secularism, Pope Benedict XVI told about 40,000 of the faithful on Monday that the collapse of the Communist system had shown the price paid by those who chase power and deny God.

“The last century — as this land of yours can bear witness — saw the fall of a number of powerful figures who had apparently risen to almost unattainable heights,” Benedict, 82, said during an open-air Mass in Stara Boleslav, a town about 15 miles northeast of Prague where the Czech patron St. Wenceslas was slain in the 10th century.

“Suddenly they found themselves stripped of their power,” he added, in an allusion to the fall of Communism in 1989.

The pope came to this decidedly skeptical nation as part of a Continentwide mission to urge the unbelieving out of their collective apathy.

But while Benedict’s visit has been warmly received by the country’s Roman Catholics, the pope has been faced with the overwhelming indifference of a nation unmoved by religion. According to the latest census, fewer than 3 million of the country’s 10.5 million people identify themselves as Roman Catholics.

During his visit to the Czech Republic, where civil unions between gay men and lesbians have been legal since 2006 and abortion has been permissible for decades, the pope avoided delicate social issues.

Yet many Czechs said his mission here had been futile. “Catholicism is not going to catch on here where cynicism and ‘What’s the point?’ are the national ideology,” said Dominik Jun, 31, a filmmaker. “More Czechs believe in infomercials on television than they do in religion.”

The pope had been expected to broach the issue of church property confiscated under Communism and given to the state, which church officials value at about $15 billion. Prime Minister Jan Fischer said over the weekend that both sides had agreed to put aside the issue for now.

I enjoyed this from Targuman (Hat-Tip Hacking Christianity)

This summarizes a number of religious debates, doesn’t it?

From Catholic Culture

The archdiocese of Hue, in central Vietnam, has been subjected to a campaign of negative propaganda in the state-controlled media, following public protests against the government’s confiscation of a Catholic school there. Almost simultaneously, an ultimatum has been sent by public officials to leaders of the Vinh diocese, ordering the removal of a large statue of Our Lady at a Catholic cemetery. Meanwhile in the northern region, parishioners of Thai Ha in the Archdiocese of Hanoi were told that another plot of land claimed by Catholics as Church property would be put under State’s administration.

Verbal attacks against the Church erupted in Hue after the publication of a statement by Archbishop Stephen Nguyen Nhu The and his auxiliary, Bishop Francis Xavier Le Van Hong in which the prelates strongly objected to the confiscation of a Catholic school in the Loan Ly parish and the brutal violence of police against parishioners who had protested. The school, adjacent to the parish church of Loan Ly, was built by parishioners in 1956. From the beginning, it had been used as a Catholic school until local government officials seized it following the Communist takeover of South Vietnam in 1975. Even since then Sunday catechism classes have still been allowed–under a large picture of Uncle Ho, the Communist leader, rather than a crucifix. Since 1999, however, local officials have sought to convert the school into a hotel– a proposal that has encountered heavy public opposition.

On September 13, authorities and police barricaded the school building. Hundreds of parishioners immediately protested. Protesters started pulling down the fence, prompting thousands of police to rush to the scene, where they attacked parishioners with batons and stun guns.

In their statement issued on September 23, the two bishops of Hue expressed their “shock and frustration with the way the government had unilaterally solve the Church property issue by the employment of violence” and called for “peaceful dialogue.” In response, Hue Television ran a series of interviews in which government agents posing as Catholics verbally attacked against the prelates. Newspapers newspapers in Vietnam have fiercely attacked Father Joseph Ngo Thanh Son, the pastor of Loan Ly parish, accusing him of plotting and directing the protest by his parishioners–although the priest had been in the hospital and was not at his parish at the time the incident took place.

In the Diocese of Vinh, Father John Nguyen Van Huu, the pastor of Bau Sen parish, reported on September 24 that local authorities had sent him an ultimatum to remove a large statue of Our Lady of Lavang which his parishioners built on the top of a mountain in the parish cemetery. The People’s Committee of Bo Trach issued a decree, stating that the statue must be demolished as it was built “outside the premise of a religious premises.” The deadline for parishioners to remove the statue was set to be on Saturday, September 26. A day earlier, however, bulldozers were sent to the site to threaten parishioners. As of Sunday, September 27, thousands of Catholics were still protesting at the site.

In a different part of the country, Father Matthew Vu Khoi Phung and representatives of Redemptorists and parishioners of Thai Ha parish, in Hanoi, were summoned by the People’s Committee of Dong Da to be told that their lot of land at Ba Giang Lake would be confiscated and placed under State control. After the conversion of one lot of parish land into a public park last October, in April local authorities bulldozed another lot of land, preparing to sell it to private investors.

“Blasphemy Day”…mmm…should be like any other day for them then!

Previous related Post:-

Why Do the Heathen Rage? — International Blasphemy Day

‘They are all such phonies. So who have they chosen to mock? You guessed it —Christians.’

NEW YORK, NY (Catholic League) – The Center for Inquiry will launch the first International Blasphemy Day on September 30, the anniversary of the 2005 publication of the Danish cartoons that so inflamed Muslims worldwide.

Billed as a free speech event designed to oppose such things as a Muslim-sponsored U.N. resolution banning criticism of religion, the day has drawn the support of people like PZ Myers.

Myers, a professor at the University of Minnesota known for intentionally desecrating a consecrated Host, says the day was established to “mock and insult religion without fear of murder, violence, and reprisal”; he wants every day to be Blasphemy Day.

Catholic League president Bill Donohue spoke to this event today:

“The Center for Inquiry is factually incorrect to say that “Free speech is the foundation on which other liberties rest.”

“Freedom of conscience is the first liberty, and it is inextricably linked to freedom of religion. Moreover, the whole concept of inalienable rights presupposes a belief in the Creator.

“In other words, atheists have the right to mock religion because our Christian Founding Fathers afforded them human rights.

“They are all such phonies. The stated purpose of Blasphemy Day has nothing to do with any religion but Islam, yet there is not one scheduled event insulting Muslims. We can only guess why. So who have they chosen to mock? You guessed it—Christians.

“Artist Dana Ellyn will wander to Washington, D.C. to show her masterpiece, “Jesus Does His Nails,” a portrait of Jesus polishing a nail jammed into his hand.

“In Los Angeles, there will be a film about a gay molesting priest and another about a boy who is so angry about being sent to bed that he asks God to kill his parents. Oh, yes, American Atheists will conduct “De-Baptisms” in New Jersey.

“Nice to know that even the atheists know that Christians can be counted on to react to their antics like good Christians. Which is why there will be no violence.”

The Christian Institute

By Hilary White

NEW YORK, September 28, 2009 (LifeSiteNews.com) – In an interview prior to his first address, the UN General Assembly’s new president said that homosexuality is “not really acceptable.”

Ali Abdussalam Treki, a veteran diplomat from Libya, was responding to a journalist’s question about his position on the UN’s “Declaration for the Universal Decriminalisation of Homosexuality” at a press conference prior to the opening of the 64th session of the General Assembly.

“It is a very thorny argument,” he said. “As a Muslim, I do not agree with it. My opinion is not in favor of this matter at all.

“I believe it is not acceptable for most of the world, and it is totally unacceptable for our tradition and religion. And there are some countries that allow that, thinking it is a kind of democracy … I think it is not,” he added.

The response of the international homosexualist movement was swift, with one group saying that Treki’s comment was contrary to the principles of the founding Charter of the United Nations. The International Lesbian & Gay Association (ILGA), one of the leading international homosexualist lobby groups, this week issued a statement demanding an explanation from Treki for his “failure to consider the protection of the life and safety of lesbians, gay men, trans, intersex and bisexual people all over the world.”

ILGA continued: “The worrying and serious implications of this attitude, coming from the new head of an institution which is supposed to regard human rights – all human rights – as the most sacred value, cannot be overstated.”

The UN declaration was opposed by a group of Arab countries and was signed only by a total of 66 of the UN’s 192 member states, including all 27 European Union members as well as Japan, Australia, Mexico and three dozen other countries. Until the election of Barack Obama as president, the US was the only western country that had refused to sign.

Late last year, the Vatican’s representative at the UN, Archbishop Celestino Migliore, told a French news agency that those opposed to the declaration were concerned that it would place even more pressure on countries to adopt or expand same-sex “marriage” or civil unions and would generally fuel the movement to normalize homosexuality.

“States which do not recognize same-sex unions as ‘matrimony’ will be pilloried and made an object of pressure,” he said.

By Mark Woods- Associated Baptist Press

A pastor in Pakistan has asked his fellow Baptists around the world to pray for the nation’s beleaguered Christian community as it faces increasing pressure from the Muslim majority.

In an e-mail to the Baptist World Alliance, Pervaiz Khokhar said prayers are needed after a series of violent incidents in the summer threatened the community’s tenuous safety. In late July, Khokhar said, hundreds of members of Sipah-e-Sahaba, a Muslim group banned by the Pakistani government, killed Christians in the city of Gojra and in the nearby village of Korian. The murders stem from allegations that Christians had been defiling a copy of the Koran.

Between 60 and 70 Christian homes were torched. Khokhar said it is thought that at least nine Christians were burned alive, four of whom were children.

He said the allegations apparently stem from an incident in which a young boy attending a wedding ceremony was accused by Muslims of burning pages of the Koran. Local Christian and Muslim leaders established that the accusation was false, but Sipah-e-Sahaba urged Muslim villagers to attack Christians anyway.

Khokhar asked for prayer from the worldwide family of Baptists. “These people need your support and prayers. Please remember them in your prayers and if possible support them,” he wrote.

He also referred to a similar incident from earlier in the summer, when a mob attacked the homes of Christians after charges of blasphemy in another part of Punjab province.

In yet another Pakistani incident, Christians are protesting against official accounts of the death of a 19-year-old Christian man being held in a jail cell. Fanish Masih was arrested on blasphemy charges after he fell in love with a Muslim woman. According to the local police superintendent, he committed suicide 24 hours later.

But Victor Azariah, general secretary of the National Council of Churches of Pakistan, accused the police of killing him. “The boy did not commit suicide,” he told Ecumenical News International.

“Media reports say he was tortured and his ribs were broken…. The situation is dreadful,” he said. “We condemn this heinous act carried out on a Christian in jail.”

Catholic and Protestant leaders in Pakistan have made plans to call an emergency meeting of all church leaders to organize protest action in the face of what they believe is a worsening situation for Christians.

Pakistan, with approximately 180 million residents, is home to fewer than 3 million Christians.

OI,? TEACHA! LEAVE THEM KIDS ALONE! And they wonder why parents want to opt for home-schooling?

The Christian Post

Sex ed lobby: teach kids sexual pleasure

Post from Harry’s Place

According to the BBC:

An uproar has broken out after two police officers were told they had acted illegally by caring for each other’s children.

Detective Constables Leanne Shepherd and Lucy Jarret cared for each other’s children when they were working shifts, but Ofsted said they were breaking the law.

Now obviously it’s insane for the law to molest parents who come to these reciprocal agreements. In most cases, the person who can be trusted the most to make the correct judgement about a child’s needs, interests and safety is the child’s parent, not the state. When I was growing up, my parents – like most – had reciprocal arrangements about lifts and after-school care with my friend’s parents, and this seemed to work very well for all concerned. I can’t imagine when or why ’The State’ decided they needed to interfere.

But it isn’t this specific example that I’m most interested in. It’s more the general question: when do we have enough legislation?

For almost a century now, we’ve enjoyed modern liberal democratic government. Our laws have steadily been evolving and improving. It is self-evident that a point will be reached where there are enough sufficiently clear and sensible laws for any society to function by. In short, one might ask, will there be a time when the best thing a government can do is nothing?

“Don’t just do something, stand there”, as the inversion of the old adage goes, might be the correct approach.

Certainly, we’ll need government to enforce the laws, to make sure that they’re justly and fairly implemented and that the administration of the country is carried out. From time to time a new law, or a revision to an existing law, might be needed. But do we need our parliamentarians to persistently legislate?

Isn’t it this manic need to legislate that creates situations so counter-intuitive and so at odds with the public’s common sense, that the law seems like an ass and our law-makers are held, deservedly, in contempt?

From Jihad Watch