Truth Or Consequences

@Contra Mundum@ Volume XV, Issue 12 July 2013 The Congregation of St. Athanasius A Congregation of the Pastoral Provision of Pope John Paul II for the Anglican Usage of the Roman Rite http://www.locutor.net TRUTH OR CONSEQUENCES N May 12th Pope its readers the pope’s OFrancis canonized remarks were “ill- more than 800 Catholic conceived.” men who were residents Dialogue with of the southern Italian Islam is difficult. Just port city of Otranto. In understanding Islam is 1480 those 800 men had difficult. That is because been beheaded en masse Islam is ambiguous. for refusing to convert When fanatics in Mali kill to Islam after their city Christian men, women, had been captured by a and children, in the name Turkish Muslim fleet. For of pure and authentic some reason I had missed Islam, no one can tell knowing about the Otranto the 14th Century Byzantine emperor them they are wrong. The most that atrocity. I did know about the Ninth Manuel II Palaiologos on Islam. can be said is that although tolerance Century martyrs of Cordoba, where “There you will find things only evil is a part of Islam, it is also possible to 48 men and women were publicly and inhuman, such as [the Prophet choose violence. Mayor Ousamane decapitated for refusing to convert Mohammed’s] command to spread Halle of Timbuktu was quoted as to Islam when most of Spain was by the sword the faith he preached.” saying, “I deplore the departure under Muslim rule. The Cordoban The Holy Father was seeking a of the Christian community. But I emirate is often held up as a model of minimum basis of conversation in cannot guarantee their safety. And peaceful coexistence. But tell that to ordinary decency. The way forward, these are people that have lived side the Christians there whose churches Benedict was urging, must be found by side with us for centuries.” But were destroyed, who were required in an explicit rejection of the use of neither Mayor Halle nor anyone else to pay the jizya poll tax on infidels, violence as an act that has religious can tell the Salafist Muslim terrorists and who as djimmi (the euphemism sanction. But the Pope’s remarks they are wrong. After all, the title means “protected” but also “guilty”) th deeds of Islam call the whole world were treated as inferior in Shariah (which quoted a 14 century ruler) provoked a fatwa against Benedict outside of Islam “the sphere of war.” law. The Ninth Century Cordoba Because in Islam the will is the tactics would be very familiar to in Pakistan, church burnings and bombings in the West Bank, threats dominant factor in experience rather Christians in Northern Nigeria than the intellect, any means used to today. of jihad from al Qaeda, and the murder of a nun in Somalia. Most of advance Muslim hegemony can be In a 2006 academic lecture the Muslim intellectual world was understood as the will of Allah. in Regensburg, Pope Emeritus silent, but not the Catholics! The As you know, Muslims hold that the Benedict XVI quoted a remark from liberal magazine Commonweal told Page 90 Contra Mundum Qur’an came directly from God and Prior to his becoming Supreme allows no interpretation. That makes Pontiff, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger it nearly impossible for Islamic published a collection of lectures he intellectuals to make distinctions or titled Truth and Tolerance: Christian derive different interpretations from Belief and World Religions. Our SUMMER ALTAR points of the law. And since in Islam (Ignatius Press, 2004) The Cardinal FLOWER CHART is available there is no consideration of natural asked, “Does the question of truth for sign up and may be found law, non-Muslims have no common belong in religion?” And he went on Sundays at the coffee hour. ground apart from religion upon on to remind us that Moses changed Choose any dates appropriate for which to even begin discussion. the game plan. Prior to Exodus, the family anniversaries, etc. Two We all see those multicultural notion of a religion being untrue arrangements of a substantial bumper stickers on automobiles was foreign to ancient peoples. size are needed for the high proclaiming COEXIST. The They could consider religion pure altar. If you prefer, sign up for message is that Christianity, and impure, or sacred or profane. one smaller arrangement for the Judaism, and Islam, and all But Moses went after false gods. Marian altar. Or both! Flowers religions, believe in the “same” When the rebellious Hebrew people may be from your local florist, or God by different expressions. But in the desert desired to return to the your own garden, and you may Chesterton warned us that although fleshpots of Egypt, it was a yearning take them home with you after most religions may be alike in some for religion without respect for truth. Mass. But be sure to sign up to external ways, they differ in what It is relativism, Cardinal Ratzinger avoid duplication of flowers one they believe God to be. urged, that is the most profound week and none the next. difficulty of our age. When religious “To proclaim that Christians and faith is more a personal experience Muslims have the same God, and than a matter of humanity seeking the truth. Journalist/broadcaster to hold to that, believing thereby a truth greater than itself, faith Tom Brokaw certainly comes down that one has brought the debate to itself is relegated to the realm of on the side of relativism when he its term, denotes only a superficial make-believe. Ratzinger likens it to asserted on “Meet the Press” that approach. Their Gods do not “the thesis of 20th century German American drone warfare be linked partake in the same discourse, do theologian Rudolf Bultmann that to the Boston bombings. How not put forward the same values, believing in a God who is Creator of can drones, which are employed do not propose for humanity the heaven and earth does not mean that to protect peace-loving civilians same destiny, and do not concern we believe that God really created from terrorists (but which also themselves with the same manner heaven and earth but only that we can occasionally go astray and kill of political and legal organization understand ourselves as being his innocent people) be equated with in human society. The comparative creatures and thereby live a more Tamerlan Tsarnaev who in cold- reading of the Gospel and the Koran meaningful life.” And Bultmann blooded calculation designed and by itself demonstrates that the two was accepted hook-line-and-sinker deployed anti-personal shrapnel universes are unlike. From Christ, in modern Catholic seminaries. bombs with the specific intention who refuses to punish the adulterous of killing and maiming civilians woman by stoning, one turns to see Islamist jihad is alive and well! The watching a marathon race? Mohammed ordaining, in the same Coptic Catholic men who pump gas Influential people will obfuscate. circumstances, the putting to death for me at the old Texaco station on Catholics should listen to Ratzinger, of the unfaithful women. One cannot the VFW Parkway in West Roxbury not Brokaw! follow Jesus and Mohammed.” can tell you what you do not read [Sylvain Gouguenheim, writing in in The New York Times! Regarding One who did not obfuscate was The Brussels Journal in 2009. Dr. Islam we must follow the dictum John Quincy Adams (1767–1848) Gouguenheim, born in 1960, is a of St Thomas Aquinas: We must sixth president of the United States. French medieval historian.] understand a position urged against He wrote, Contra Mundum Page 91 “In the seventh century of the Christian era, a wandering Arab of the THE VERY FIRST RIGHT lineage of Hagar [i.e. Mohammed] the Egyptian, combining the powers ODAY we are celebrating th of transcendent genius, with the Tthe 234 anniversary of the preternatural energy of a fanatic, and Declaration of Independence, the fraudulent spirit of an imposter, the political turning point in the proclaimed himself as a messenger establishment of the United States from Heaven, and spread desolation of America, the Birth of Our and delusion over an extensive Nation. There are many beautiful portion of the earth. Adopting from expressions in the Preamble of the the sublime conception of the Mosaic Declaration of Independence. One law, the doctrine of one omnipotent of these expressions speaks about God, he connected indissolubly with “certain inalienable rights” which it the audacious falsehood, that he have been endowed on us by the failed to stand firm on the matter of was himself his prophet and apostle. Creator, and among these are the innocent human life. Adopting from the new Revelation of rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit Some how or other, our nation has Jesus, the faith and hope of immortal of happiness. It is a sad fact of history indulged in an abuse of freedom, life, and of future retribution, he that the very first right explicitly which has led to the establishment humbled it to the dust by adapting written down by the Founders of of the culture of death. This abuse all the rewards and sanctions of our country, the right to life, has of freedom, however, seems his religion to the gratification of been and continues to be whittled to have been based on a basic the sexual passion. He poisoned away and compromised in this time misunderstanding. It seems to be the sources of human felicity at the in which we live. Sad to say, the old based on the idea that freedom fountain by degrading the condition axiom has proven true with regard of the female sex, and the allowance means that I am free to do what of polygamy; and he declared to the right to life—”might makes I choose to do, regardless of the undistinguishing and exterminating right”.

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