Good Friday is a Day to Set All Our Gadgets Aside

On Good Friday, our iPhone might pose the greatest distraction ( Yui Mok/PA Wire)

From The Catholic Herald (UK)

This day is a challenge for iPhone owners, bloggers and Facebook users

On Good Friday, in these times, we have to do more than fast from food in order to contemplate properly Our Lord’s agonising death. In the internet age, our iPhone might pose the greatest distraction. We can access entertaining YouTube videos and interesting Facebook statuses that remove us from thinking about Our Lord’s death and even make meditating on Calvary seem like something superfluous when we can amuse ourselves so easily.

For most of us, it’s essential to be wary of Twitter, where following the spat du jour can give an adrenaline rush and make us feel that a bitter quarrel is much more worthy of our attention than giving our minds to reflecting on Our Lord’s sufferings – sufferings that were offered on our behalf.

There is a long list of what not to do. Making the day as holy as possible means having the right to-do list, too. One thing that I’ve learned over the years is to say the Sorrowful Mysteries of the rosary as early in the day as possible. This paints the mind with scenes from Calvary.

While this may sound a bit self-seeking, it can be very motivating to remember the specific blessings that are attached to reciting the rosary, especially those that relate to our own death. Our Lady promised that “whoever shall have a true devotion for the rosary shall not die without the sacraments of the Church”.

Doing the Stations of the Cross may mean that we gain an indulgence for a loved one who has passed away. Some people find it useful to dress in a sombre way by wearing black clothes, or by dressing in an understated way. For youngsters, who may be outliers in their peer groups, they might be avoiding a night out at the pub, in favour of staying at home and fasting. This is a day of mourning, so bloggers might modify their blog template and turn it black for the day.

One meditation proposed by Padre Pio is quite hard to do, but would certainly mean that we are showing our share of gratitude to Our Lord. Padre Pio suggested: “Imagine Jesus crucified in your arms and on your chest, and say 100 times as you kiss His chest: ‘This is my hope, the living source of my happiness; this is the heart of my soul; nothing will ever separate me from His love.’”

Benedict XVI Grasped the Nature of the New Age of Terrorism. Why Did Nobody Listen?

From the Catholic Herald

By Father Alexander Lucie-Smith

Pope Benedict in 2008 (AP)

 

Our leaders' response to his Regensburg address showed they had not only lost their nerve, but also their ability to think

It is almost 15 years since New York was struck by the terrorist gang led by Osama bin Laden. New York was the first city to be attacked in this way, and 9/11 marked the beginning of the new age of terrorism.

We were assured by many that everything would be different from this point onwards, that 9/11 was “a wake-up call”, and that we would respond and our response would be effective.

But since then there have been numerous other attacks on our cities, and numerous other key dates such as 7/7. The roll-call is a dismal one: Madrid, Bali, London, Paris, Bangkok, Ankara, along with many, many others and now Brussels. And yet despite all this, we do not seem to have crafted an effective response. We have been attacked, time and again, but we have not yet worked out how to defend ourselves.

The ineptitude and stupidity of our governments is astonishing. I think this is self-evident: nothing they have done has worked. Indeed, the problem seems to be getting worse.

Our security agencies are doing a good job in preventing plots from coming to fruition, but they are our last line of defence, and they cannot stop every plot getting through. What is needed, and what no one seems to be able to provide, despite all the talk of “draining the swamp”, is some sort of strategy that prevents people plotting in the first place.

The reason for this, one suspects, is because governments do not want to confront the root cause of terrorism, which is not economic, or nationalistic, as in the past, but ideological. The ideology of Islamism has to be uprooted and extirpated, and this can only be done on the level of ideas.

At least 30 people murdered in Brussels (at the time of writing) were victims of an ideology that sees people as expendable and any talk of human rights akin to blasphemy – for how can human rights or any other rights have force if only the Koran is a source of law? Well, we have to challenge that view of the Koran.

Tony Blair told us he had the Koran as his bedside reading. I am not sure what point he was making. But one world leader did show true leadership and the way forward in confronting Islamism, and that was Benedict XVI with his Regensburg speech. The way he was treated for doing so was revelatory of the way the rest of our leaders had not only lost their nerve, but lost their ability to think. Regensburg is the only way. We need dialogue based on sound reasoning rather than wishful thinking.

In case you have forgotten, here are the key words of Benedict XVI uttered at Regensburg:

Spreading the faith through violence is something unreasonable. Violence is incompatible with the nature of God and the nature of the soul. ‘God’, he says, ‘is not pleased by blood — and not acting reasonably is contrary to God’s nature. Faith is born of the soul, not the body. Whoever would lead someone to faith needs the ability to speak well and to reason properly, without violence and threats… To convince a reasonable soul, one does not need a strong arm, or weapons of any kind, or any other means of threatening a person with death…’

The decisive statement in this argument against violent conversion is this: not to act in accordance with reason is contrary to God’s nature. Editor Theodore Khoury observes: ‘For the emperor, as a Byzantine shaped by Greek philosophy, this statement is self-evident. But for Muslim teaching, God is absolutely transcendent. His will is not bound up with any of our categories, even that of rationality.’
Here Khoury quotes a work of the noted French Islamist R Arnaldez, who points out that Ibn Hazn went so far as to state that God is not bound even by his own word, and that nothing would oblige him to reveal the truth to us. Were it God’s will, we would even have to practice idolatry.

Indeed, the God of the Islamists does command irrationality and idolatry, and events in Brussels are the proof of this. This is what we have to confront, and it can only be done by challenging their religious beliefs and showing them to be false, and indeed anti-religious, in that they contradict the true nature of religion, for faith to be faith must always go hand and hand with reason.

 

Father Alexander Lucie-Smith is a Catholic priest, doctor of moral theology and consulting editor of The Catholic Herald.

Donald Trump's Full Speech at the AIPAC Policy Conference

This may be the first prepared speech I have heard Donald Trump give.  And it was well prepared, well delivered and reasserts the vital and unbreakable alliance between the United States and its ally in the Middle East.  After eight years of pressure, abuse and disrespect toward the State of Israel from the Obama administration and his Secretary of State, Hillary Clinton, will Jewish Americans, like other groups are doing, finally break their blind allegiance to the Democrat Party?  One can hope and pray.

 

The Choir of King's College, Cambridge -- "All Glory, Laud and Honor"

Pat Buchanan: Suicide of the GOP — or Rebirth?

By Patrick Buchanan

“If his poll numbers hold, Trump will be there six months from now when the Sweet 16 is cut to the Final Four, and he will likely be in the finals.”

My prediction, in July of 2015, looks pretty good right now.

Herewith, a second prediction. Republican wailing over his prospective nomination aside, Donald Trump could beat Hillary Clinton like a drum in November.

Indeed, only the fear that Trump can win explains the hysteria in this city.

US Declares that ISIS is Committing Genocide Against Christians

US Secretary of State John Kerry (PA)

US Secretary of State says ISIS is genocidal in both its ideology and actions towards Yazidis, Christians and Shia

The US Secretary of State John Kerry has said that ISIS’s atrocities should be classed as genocide.

His declaration opens the way to much greater involvement from America and other countries in protecting ISIS’s victims and bringing the perpetrators to justice.

In a statement, Kerry said: ‘In my judgment, Daesh [ISIS] is responsible for genocide against groups in areas under its control, including Yazidis, Christians, and Shia Muslims.

“Daesh is genocidal by self-declaration, by ideology, and by actions – in what it says, what it believes, and what it does.”

Read more at The Catholic Herald >>

Timothy Cardinal Dolan: Honoring Saint Patrick

Why do the Irish so enjoy parades?  True, everybody loves a parade, and we’re blessed to have an abundance of them here in New York City, but nothing seems to rival the St. Patrick’s Day Parade.  This year alone I was invited to eleven of them just in the archdiocese alone, and another dozen from around the country!

No doubt about it; while everybody loves a parade, nobody else comes close to the Irish in the diaspora – – people of Irish background whose ancestors emigrated from Ireland to other countries, especially here – – in marching on or near March 17.

I ask once again, why?  Well, I’ve got a theory, which I’m happy to say is shared by observers of Irish ways far more erudite that I am.