Catholic Spain Has a New Herald

From acclaimed author to staunch apologist for the Church and the pope, including in "L'Osservatore Romano." His is one of the many stories of conversion from unbelief to the Christian faith, in Europe. Against progressive "tyranny"


ROME, October 2009 – For a few days now, Italian bookstores have been selling a collection of interviews with converts to the Catholic faith, some of whom are very prominent: from Jean-Claude Guillebaud of France to Janne Haaland Matlary of Norway, former deputy foreign minister of her country and an author of books that have been translated into various languages, one of which has a preface written by then-cardinal Joseph Ratzinger.

The collection of interviews, published by Lindau, was written by Lorenzo Fazzini and is entitled: "Nuovi cristiani d'Europa. Dieci storie di conversione tra fede e ragione [New Christians of Europe. Ten stories of conversion, between faith and reason]".

But "L'Osservatore Romano," the newspaper of the Holy See, also has a famous convert among its main contributors.

He is the Spanish writer Juan Manuel de Prada, shown above photographed with the promotional cover of the 2003 novel that definitively sealed his success: "La vida invisible."

In his latest book, de Prada, 39, has collected the combative articles that he has written in defense of Catholicism, not only for the Spanish newspapers "ABC" and "XL Semanal," but also for "L'Osservatore Romano," where he has been a contributor since 2007. In just five months, five editions of the book have been issued in Spain. For one month, de Prada has also been one of the main voices of "Cope," the most important Spanish Catholic radio broadcaster.

Last October 2, "L'Osservatore Romano" translated and reprinted the preface to his book. In it, de Prada recalls how and when his "life changed direction."

It was the spring of 2005, and John Paul II had just died. De Prada found himself in Rome, and he "suddenly" wanted to adhere definitively to that "ancient liberty" which is the religious and cultural treasure of the Catholic Church: a liberty that is "the antidote to all the tyrannies of the world."

The book, in fact, is entitled: "La nueva tiranía. El sentido común frente al Mátrix progre."

The "progressive Matrix" is de Prada's name for the grand deception that he sees at work in the dominant culture in Europe: "The dictatorships of the past stifled personal freedom. The modern ones induce man to worship himself, and thus deny his own nature."

And again, he writes:

"The battle that is joined today tends to restore to men their authentic nature. If it succeeds – if the Matrix is dismantled – men will discover that they do not need to build towers in order to reach heaven, for the simple reason that heaven is already within them, even if the new tyranny seeks to strip it from them."

The following is a translation of de Prada's preface to "La nueva tiranía." The original text is included on the Spanish edition of this page of www.chiesa.

De Prada dedicated his book to his friend Giovanni Maria Vian, director of "the pope's newspaper."

__________



The progressive matrix of the new tyranny
 
by Juan Manuel de Prada


"How can one talk about a 'new tyranny' when never before have men enjoyed so much freedom and so many rights?" It's a question the reader unfamiliar with the subject might well ask. The classical tyrannies, in effect, were characterized by the fact that they stifled freedom and denied rights. Men were aware of this usurpation because, deprived of something that belonged to them by nature, they felt diminished.

The new tyranny of which we are speaking, instead, exalts man to the point of adoration, giving him the opportunity to turn his interests and desires into freedoms and rights, which however are no longer inherent in him by nature, but become the "gracious concessions" of a power that legally ratifies them. And so, turned into a child who contemplates his own whims as these are maximized and satisfied, the man of our time is more than ever the hostage of the assertions of power that guarantee him the enjoyment of all-encompassing liberty and constantly expanding rights. In the classical tyrannies, the subject at least still had the consolation of knowing that he was oppressed by a power that was violating his nature; but those who are subjected to this new tyranny have no consolation other than the protection of the same power that has lifted them up to the altar of adoration. And so without even realizing it man has become a tool in the hands of those who tend to him with painstaking care, as ants tend to aphids before feeding on them.

In exchange for these "gracious concessions," man accepts a hegemonic view of the world that is imposed on him and turns him into an object of social engineering. Let's call this hegemonic view the "progressive Matrix": a mirage, a grand illusion or trompe-l'oeil that is accepted with a gregarious spirit. Those who dare to question the trompe-l'oeil are immediately the target of anathemas, they are considered reprobates or blasphemers, enemies of the worship of man. The progressive Matrix used by the left has also been assimilated by the right, which has declined to join the battle where the confrontation with the adversary would be dynamic and exciting: on the level of principles. In its capitulation, the right limits itself to introducing insignificant variations on the working of the grand machine, but does not dare to use its gears. It's like plowing without oxen.

The progressive Matrix has thus become a sort of Messianic faith; it has instituted a new order, it has imposed unassailable cultural principles, it has established a new anthropology that, while promising ultimate liberation to man, holds nothing for him but future suicide. And standing against this new order is only the religious order, which restores to man his true nature and offers him a correct view of the world that undermines the foundations of the trompe-l'oeil on which the new tyranny is based, dispelling its falsehoods. A vision that power makes a great effort in combating, since the religious order is the only bulwark to be destroyed before its triumph is complete.

Rampant secularism accuses the Church of meddling in politics, citing for support the Gospel passage that is typically flourished by those who do not read the Gospel: "Give to Caesar what is Caesar's, and to God what is God's." But what is it that belongs to Caesar? Temporal things, earthly realities;  but, naturally, not the principles of the moral order that are born from human nature itself, not the ethical foundations of the temporal order. The new tyranny, which is so intent on expanding the "liberties" of its subjects, denies the Church the liberty of judging the morality of temporal actions, since it knows that this judgment would include a radical subversion of the trompe-l'oeil on which its very existence is based. Power longs for a pharisaic, corrupt Church that would decline to restore to humanity its true nature and would accept that "mystery of iniquity" which is the adoration of man; it hopes for a Church brought to its knees before Caesar, transformed into the "whore that fornicates with the kings of the earth" spoken of in Revelation.

Today in the West this great clash is being engaged, which the new tyranny disguises very effectively as an "ideological battle." But if this were truly an "ideological battle," power would not consider this a subversion; because ideology is precisely the fertile ground that favors its supremacy, in that it establishes a "demo-tussle," a "democratic" fight of all against all, capable of turning men into petulant children fighting for their "freedom" and "rights," just as the builders of Babel fought, in the midst of the confusion, to raise a tower that would reach heaven.

The battle that is joined today is not ideological, but anthropological, because it tends to restore to men their authentic nature, permitting them to emerge from the Babelic confusion fomented by ideology, until they reach the road leading to the original principles. If it succeeds – if the Matrix is dismantled – men will discover that they do not need to build towers in order to reach heaven, for the simple reason that heaven is already within them, even if the new tyranny seeks to strip it from them.

The articles collected in this volume are dispatches from this battle, issued from the platforms that the newspaper "ABC" and the magazine "XL Semanal" have given me for more than 13 years, and that "L'Osservatore Romano," "Capital," and "Padres y Colegios" have recently inaugurated. The curious reader will note that these "battle dispatches" combine diatribe and introspection, invective and elegy, reflection of a political nature and artistic digression; he will even find a selection of observations made during a spring in Rome that changed the direction of my life, because it was then – in the days following the death of John Paul II – that I definitively adhered to the "ancient liberty," the antidote to all the tyrannies of the world. In an age of uncertainty that leaves man adrift in a sea of troubles, Rome stood before me, suddenly, like a rock of salvation: I am not referring to religious salvation alone, but also cultural, because I consider the faith of Rome a bulwark that clarifies the terms of our spiritual genealogy and shelters us from the squalls into which the new tyranny would like to toss us. Rejecting this boundless possession means signing an act of social death; claiming it as one's own does not constitute an act of submission, but of proud and joyful freedom.

The eternal revolution of Christianity consists in revealing to us the meaning of life, restoring to us our nature; from this discovery is born a joy with no expiration date. When this joy is combined with a minimum of artistic sensibility, life becomes a feast for the intelligence. Chesterton wrote that joy, which was the small publicity of the pagan, is the gigantic secret of the Christian. I, who am a somewhat immodest Christian, have sought in these articles to make public, or at least provide a glimpse of, this gigantic secret that pervades and transcends me.

Madrid, March 2009
By Sandro Magister

ROME, August 31, 2009 – For a few months, two political leaders of the highest order have been under critical observation by the Church hierarchy in two key countries for worldwide Catholicism: Barack Obama in the United States, and Silvio Berlusconi in Italy.

In both cases, the Holy See and the respective national episcopacies are not taking the same approach. The Vatican authorities appear more inclined to a peaceful and conciliatory relationship, while the national episcopacies appear more critical and combative.

And in both cases, two Church newspapers are also participating in the conflict: "L'Osservatore Romano," an organ of the Vatican, and "Avvenire," the newspaper owned by the Italian bishops' conference.


1. THE OBAMA CASE


With Barack Obama, the stance of the Holy See diverges so much from that of a significant portion of the American bishops that it has repeatedly induced some of these to lodge lively protests against the Vatican authorities themselves.

Some of the American bishops, for example, were scandalized by the editorial with which "L'Osservatore Romano" commented, on April 30, 2009, on the first hundred days of the new president.

Not only did the newspaper of the Holy See express a mostly positive view of the start of the Obama presidency, but it even saw in this a "rebalancing in favor of motherhood,"  exactly the area in which the bishops' criticisms were, and are, the most biting.

Another element of conflict was the decision of the University of Notre Dame – the most famous Catholic university in the United States – to award Obama an honorary degree on May 17. About eighty of the bishops, one third of the United States episcopacy,  contested the appropriateness of granting the honor to a political leader whose positions on bioethics were manifestly contrary to Church teaching.

The critics of the Obama presidency include figures of great stature in the American hierarchy: from Cardinal Francis George, president of the episcopal conference, to Denver archbishop Charles Chaput. As archbishop of Chicago, George shares a home town with Obama and is successor to Joseph Bernardin, the archbishop and cardinal who died in 1992 and whom the current president of the Unites States often recalls with great warmth and emotion, as teacher of a Christianity not of conflict, but of dialogue.

Before and after the honorary degree from Notre Dame, various American bishops expressed their disappointment at having seen their criticisms virtually ignored by the Vatican.

That isn't all. They were even more irritated by the fact that the Vatican did not stop at overlooking the bishops' criticisms, but even heaped enthusiastic praise on Obama as if he were a new Constantine, head of a modern empire generous toward the Church.

This impression was given by an article by a former theologian of the pontifical household, Swiss theologian and cardinal Georges Cottier, published in advance of Obama's visit to Benedict XVI in a magazine connected to the diplomatic circles of the Vatican curia, "30 Days."

The most critical American bishops were somewhat appeased by Benedict XVI, who, during the audience with the president of the United States on July 10, put the focus on "the defense and promotion of life and the right to abide by one's conscience," and gave him as a gift the documents of the Church on this subject.

But again in the past few weeks, the conflict between the bishops and Obama seems far from dying down. Another matter of dispute has surfaced in the proposal for health care reform, which the bishops fear would include public funding for abortion.

And the controversy sparked by the degree from Notre Dame remains a heated one within the same hierarchy. "America," the "liberal" magazine of the New York Jesuits, has published two contrasting commentaries in its new August issue: the first, extremely critical of Obama and of the bishops who support him, by Bishop John M. D'Arcy of the diocese of Fort Wayne-South Bend, Indiana, where the university is located; the second by bishop emeritus of San Francisco John R. Quinn, a leading proponent of progressive Catholicism, supporter of a "policy of cordiality" with the Obama administration.

The heart of the controversy came to light again at the end of August, on the occasion of the death of Senator Ted Kennedy, a Catholic who – as he himself wrote in a letter to Benedict XVI made public in recent days – fought his entire life for help for the poor, the care of the sick, the welcoming of migrants, the abolition of the death penalty.

"Had this deeply talented man found the means to include the protection of the infant in the womb among the good causes he promoted, had he been able to witness boldly to a consistent ethic of life, I believe the Catholic community’s mourning and prayers would have been even fuller, more whole-hearted," commented a priest and theologian of Boston, Robert Imbelli.

Fr. Imbelli is is also a commentator for "L'Osservatore Romano," and has written similar things in it about Obama. If it were up to him, the critical American bishops would have had no reason to protest against the Vatican newspaper.


2. THE BERLUSCONI CASE


With Italian head of state Silvio Berlusconi, for the past few months there have been two main causes of friction with the Church.

The first is immigration. The Berlusconi government applies very strict rules in deciding admission and keeping out clandestine immigrants. And this provokes critical reactions from many Church organizations, for which "welcome" is the first precept, if not the only one.

The official stance of the episcopal conference, according to which welcome must instead be accompanied and balanced always by legality and security, is therefore accused – by the Catholic clergy and laity most involved in social assistance, and by some of the bishops themselves – of being excessively moderate, or worse, subservient to the Berlusconi government. The same thing happens in the newspaper owned by the bishops, "Avvenire."

But if one compares "Avvenire" with "L'Osservatore Romano," the latter appears by far more respectful of the government's decisions on immigration. Giovanni Maria Vian, the history professor who directs the Vatican newspaper, in an interview with "Corriere della Sera" last August 31 said that some of the articles in "Avvenire" have been so "exaggerated and imprudent" in criticizing the government that they have caused concern at the Vatican. He denounced two of these in particular: an editorial comparing the shipwreck of African migrants in the Mediterranean with the extermination of Jews to the indifference of all; and another article contesting the statement of the Italian foreign minister that Italy is the European country that has helped the most immigrants at sea.

Even at the Vatican itself, there is no lack of voices of disagreement. On the contrary. Archbishop Agostino Marchetto, secretary of the pontifical council for migrants, is extremely critical of the stance of the Italian government, and is the favorite of the opposition newspapers, in spite of the fact that the secretary of state has made it known more than once that he speaks in a personal capacity, and represents only himself.

Another loose cannon against the government's immigration policy in the curia is Cardinal Renato Martino. But he was recently replaced as president of the pontifical council for migrants by Archbishop Antonio Maria Vegliò, who comes from the world of diplomacy and is prudence personified.

In short, "relations between the two shores of the Tiber are excellent," Professor Vian said in the same interview, meaning by the two shores the Italian government and the Holy See.

In confirmation of this, the director of "L'Osservatore Romano" cited and defended his newspaper's total silence on the second element of the current clash between Berlusconi and the Church.

***

This second element concerns prime minister's private life, in particular the escapades that he summed up like this: "In Italy there are so many pretty girls, and I'm not a saint."

The campaign of accusations against Berlusconi's private life was ignited in mid-June by his second wife – from whom he is separating – and above all by "la Repubblica," the leading newspaper of the Italian left, which, paradoxically, has always preached liberation from the bonds of Catholic morality.

Since then, this curiosity about Berlusconi's sex life continually occupies the pages of many newspapers, not only in Italy, but also around the world. Not, however, those of "L'Osservatore Romano." Not even one line. And "for excellent reasons," Vian says, refusing to get the pope's newspaper mixed up with a journalism "that seems to have become the continuation of the political struggle by other means."

At first, it was also this way in "Avvenire," the newspaper of the Italian bishops. Silence. Or at the most, a highly restrained wish that the prime minister eliminate "shadows" and "situations uncomfortable for all."

But in the meantime, among the bishops, clergy, and laity, the impulse to raise a vigorous protest against Berlusconi on account of some of his behaviors contrary to Catholic morality was getting stronger and stronger. And it erupted most of all in "Avvenire."

At the end of June, twice in a row, the newspaper published a pair of opinions side by side: in the first case, by two editorialists for the newspaper, Marina Corradi and Piero Chinellato; in the second case, by two outside commentators, Antonio Airò and Professor Pietro De Marco. The match ended at 3 to 1. Only Chinellato sided with the public denunciation "ad personam." The others, with different arguments, maintained that one should hate the sin but not the sinner, and that a politician must be judged for what he does politically: for employment, the family, education, immigration, etc.; not for his private life, which belongs to the "internal forum."

And what about the publisher of "Avvenire," the episcopal conference? On July 6, the feast of Saint Maria Goretti, a young martyr who died in defense of her virginity, the secretary of the CEI, Mariano Crociata, lashed out against "the display of a gleeful and irresponsible libertinism," which all of the media interpreted – without any denial – as alluding to Berlusconi.

This homily was like the breaking of a dam. What a variety of bishops, priests, and laity had already been doing on their own account – criticizing the prime minister's sex life – also had to be done from that point on by the director of "Avvenire," Dino Boffo, in responding to the increasing pressure from readers, some of them highly placed.

Boffo would say something, and immediately someone else would tell him that he had to say more. A perfect specimen of this relentless pressure was the letter from a priest in Milan, published on August 12 with the umpteenth response from Boffo.

This performance – unintentionally staged by "Avvenire" – of an episcopal conference devoid of an authoritative and energetic guide, in which control belongs to the one who shouts the loudest against the government despite the fact that it is so attentive to the Church's interests in the life and family, has met with remedial efforts from Vatican secretary of state Tarcisio Bertone, who arranged a meeting with prime minister Berlusconi in Aquila on August 28, on the occasion of the feast of "Forgiveness" instituted by Pope Celestine V.

Ahead of the meeting, Cardinal Bertone gave an extensive interview to "L'Osservatore Romano," in which he was very reassuring in discussing relations between the Church and the Italian government.

On the same day, in "la Repubblica," the editorialist-theologian Vito Mancuso accused the secretary of state of wanting to dine at the table of Herod, instead of denouncing his misconduct. But "L'Osservatore Romano" immediately responded that the Church does not accept "partisan involvement in contingent political matters," because its concern is for "the individual care of consciences," and not the public condemnation of the sinner.

At the last moment, the meeting between Berlusconi and Cardinal Bertone was scrapped by an unexpected attack against the director of "Avvenire," Boffo, by "il Giornale," the newspaper owned by Berlusconi's brother.

This was the full-page headline in the August 28 issue of "il Giornale," directed by Vittorio Feltri: "Sexual incident of 'Avvenire' director. The supermoralist charged with harassment. Dino Boffo, at the helm of the newspaper of the Italian bishops and involved in the fiery press campaign against the transgressions of the prime minister, intimidated the wife of the man with whom he had a relationship."

In the following days, the attack was revealed to be of dubious foundation. Boffo declared his innocence. The current president of the CEI, Cardinal Angelo Bagnasco, defended him completely. And so did his predecessor, Cardinal Camillo Ruini, who had asked for Boffo as director of "Avvenire" and had confirmed his trust in him even after, in 2002, accusations against him began to circulate. The accusations have been made on anonymous fliers, distributed any time there was a desire to attack, through Boffo, the presidency of the CEI, for example during the dispute over the appointment of the rector of the Catholic University of Milan, when Ruini's man, Lorenzo Ornaghi, faced stiff opposition from then-secretary of state Cardinal Angelo Sodano, former president of the Italian Republic Oscar Luigi Scalfaro, former prime minister Emilio Colombo, and the director of the university at the time, Carlo Balestrero, all members of the Istituto Giuseppe Toniolo that oversees the university and of which Boffo is also a member.

Recently, these anonymous fliers have come back into circulation, for the added purpose of changing the direction of the newspapers and television and radio stations of the Italian Church, all of which are currently concentrated in Boffo's hands. Making himself a spokesman of these demands, on August 31 the bishop of Mazara del Vallo, Domenico Mogavero, former undersecretary of the CEI and now president of the legal affairs council, said that "for the good of the Church and of his newspaper," Boffo "might consider whether it is not fitting for him to resign."

The attack against Boffo in "il Giornale" – against the interest of its own publisher, Berlusconi, in a peaceful relationship with the Church – brought only a brief quote from Cardinal Bagnasco in "L'Osservatore Romano."

As for the confusion being seen in the Italian Church, Cardinal Bertone will now be tempted to take back in hand the letter that he wrote on March 25 of 2007 to Cardinal Bagnasco, on the occasion of his appointment to as president of the CEI, in which he asserted "the respectful guidance of the Holy See, as well as my own [. . .] concerning relations with political institutions."

Written when the extraordinary leadership of Cardinal Ruini was still at its peak, that letter was interpreted by the CEI as a slap in the face. And it was marked return to sender.

Now it has become strangely relevant again.
Newsletter of Sandro Magister

Report from Judea and Samaria

A trip among the new generation of Israeli settlers. Anarchical and visionary, they are defying the prohibitions of their government and the hostility, not only of the Arabs, but of the world. "We are the people of the Bible. We have come back home." A major on-site investigation

by Sandro Magister

ROME, August 2009 – They are the children and grandchildren of the first settlers sent by the Israeli government to "make the desert bloom" in the territories disputed after the Six-Day War in 1967. Bible in hand and rifle on shoulder, many children, a life of sacrifices, a nationalist soul and a religious one.

There are about three hundred thousand settlers in all, and American president Barack Obama, in his speech in Cairo, called them the main obstacle on the road to peace between "two peoples and two states," which is also the objective of Vatican policy.

For three fourths of them, the obstacle does not appear insurmountable. They live not far from the Green Line of the old armistice between between Israel and Jordan, east of Jerusalem and in the big settlements of Ariel, Gush Etzion, Ma'aleh Adumim, Givat Zeev, and Latrun, not covering more than five percent of the disputed territories, and negotiable.

And then there are the others. The fifty thousand who live in small or even tiny settlements of a few hundred or a few dozen inhabitants. Or in the outposts.

The outposts, in the most inaccessible and isolated places, are the new reality of the settlements. There are now about one hundred of them. They have multiplied in recent years, together with the Hilltop Youth, the new generation of settlers. All of the outposts are illegal. The young people build them, and the Israeli army dismantles them. But new ones are always springing up.

Who are these Hilltop Youth? How do they live? What biblical vision motivates them? Why do they venture out there? Will they agree to leave?

The following report answers these questions. Its author is Giulio Meotti, already known to the readers of www.chiesa for a shocking survey of Muslim Rotterdam that has been read around the world in multiple languages.

The article was published on August 8, 2009, in the newspaper "il Foglio," with a follow-up article in the same newspaper on August 13. An investigative book on Israel by Meotti will be published in September.

__________



"Our job is to build little paradises"

by Giulio Meotti


"We have come back home," proclaims the placard at the entrance to Givat Assaf, an Israeli outpost named after a Jewish settler killed by the Palestinians. The leader of the community, Benny Gal, explains their presence: "On this exact spot, 3,800 years ago, the land of Israel was promised to the Hebrew people. If they take us away from here, the Ben Gurion international airport will be in danger."

Givat Assaf is one of the key members of the "Hilltop Youth," the second generation of settlers who are organizing the resistance to the evacuation of the settlements ruled to be illegal, the so-called "outposts," at the center of negotiations between Israeli prime minister Netanyahu and the Obama administration.

For these young people, the Jewish resurgence comes, as it did at the beginning of the twentieth century, through a toe-to-toe confrontation with the Arabs. The rules of the peace process do not seem to hold any weight with them. The Israeli soldiers, whose brigades and uniform the settlers share, have to drag them away by force when the evacuation order comes from Jerusalem. Those who stay live a whisper's distance from death. Last April, one of these young people was killed with an ax. In case of conflict, what counts is not the law of the state, but the law of the Lord. It's like the American frontier of the Wild West.

No one should think this is a phenomenon of the extreme right, a category that has no meaning in Israel. With Ariel Sharon as prime minister, 44 outposts were created. Another 39, according to the data of Peace Now, were built under Rabin, Peres, and Barak, the participants in the Oslo negotiations. The Labor governments have done almost nothing to prevent the multiplication of the outposts. Israel does not consider them rebel enclaves, at least judging from the significant security forces sent to protect them. Some of them have paved roads, bus stops, synagogues, even sports fields. The houses range from simple containers placed at the top of a hill, or a few rows of barracks, to genuine settlements made with the kind of prefabricated buildings that are used to rebuild after an earthquake. For prayers on the sabbath, there needs to be a minyam, the necessary quorum of ten men. That's all it takes to make an outpost. Like the ten families of Peruvian converts to Judaism at an outpost just outside of the settlement of Efrat, between Bethlehem and Hebron.

David Ha'ivri, originally from Long Island, is one of the leaders of the Hilltop Youth, and lives with his wife and children in Kfar Tapuach. The village is famous for the honey produced there, but above all for the fact that it is mentioned in the Bible, in chapter 12 of the book of Joshua. It is one of the thirty cities conquered by the Hebrews at their arrival thousands of years ago. Today it is one of the most prominent settlements in the West Bank, which the settlers call by the biblical names of Judea and Samaria. The members of Hilltop Youth are the young people born and raised in the settlements who have decided to leave their parents' homes in the huge conglomerates to go nest in the hills. The synagogues they pray in are often made of baked clay. They build their homes with their own hands, they are single or recently married with young children. They believe they are the new vanguard of the settlements. Their motto is, "We will build, and the permission will come." They live a stone's throw from the Arabs. They get around on horseback or by donkey. It is a new generation imbued with a mystical nationalism combined with a pioneering, ascetic spirit; it rejects the consumerism of the big cities on the coast, and lives by ideology and zeal. The women wear the mitpahat, the Jewish equivalent – less concealing and more delicate – of the Islamic chador. The men have tousled hair with long sidelocks, and plaid shirts.

"They are young people who embody the ideology of the Torah and self-sacrifice," explains Ha'ivri. "The salvation of Israel and of the Jewish people cannot come from politicians who think that the battle for the land is a tactical game. We began to create outposts ten years ago. They are very young couples who have decided to be pioneers like their parents, they believe in Zionism, they are idealists, ready to leave any comfortable existence in the big cities or in the big settlements. They want to be self-sufficient, with all the limitations that this involves."

Shani Simkovitz directs the Gush Etzion Foundation. She is American, and has five children. "This is disputed land, to be negotiated, not occupied land," she explains. "More than three thousand years ago our fathers gave us a land, which is not Rome, it is not New York, but this: the Jewish land. They sent us here to build, to plant, to live, they have always supported us, especially Rabin, Peres, and the other Labor leaders. Up until today. My children were born here, but there is no more land on which to build legally, for a long time the government has not given us permission for homes, and this has led to the creation of the outposts. The outposts are extensions of the existing community. But the same thing happens in Jerusalem, where thousands of Israelis live on the other side of the Green Line."

Another leader of the hillside settlements lives in a cluster of trailers clinging to the side of Mount Artis, called Pisgat Yaakov, which means Jacob's hill. It snows so much in the winter that the area is cut off. The thirty families there include that of Yishai Fleischer. Yishai is the founder of Kumah, an organization that promotes alyah, meaning Jewish immigration into Israel, and he hosts a very popular radio program. "We have an idyllic, naturalistic life, this is a beautiful area, in the middle of the mountains," Yishai says. "Our fathers walked here three thousand years ago. We're a little bit like the new hippies. We work the land. There's a lot of music, religion, it's a happy life. We pray, we meditate, we live a spiritual existence. We are the aboriginal people. I was in New York, as a student I believed in Zionism, and I decided that this would be the place where I had to live. We have what we need. We feel like pioneers, we are true Zionists. Many of my friends are extremely religious, and work in the high-tech sector. Our children are growing up with authentic values." It is, Yishai admits, a very dangerous life. "I go around armed. I hate guns, it doesn't mean I have to use them, but I have to protect my family. Our village is mentioned a number of times in the Bible, and for this reason it attracts many people. You live in Rome, a city that is sacred to your people, mine were born and raised in Israel. Here  you feel part of the land and the sky. We have grown up knowing that the next step would be our own."

Yishai is well aware that the settlers are not loved by the Israelis who live on the coast. "We are isolated in public opinion, but we try every day to improve that. Today nationalism is not 'cool', it is not politically correct. I do not expect to win the hearts of people who do not live here. It is simple: this is our land. According to international norms, according to the Bible, according to history. We live in exciting times, in which the Jewish people are returning home. When we wake up in the morning, we are not thinking about peace, but about living a life that is happy, dignified, and full of love. We must be vigilant, there are people here who want to kill us because we are Jews. They have the same ideology as the Nazis. The Europeans were not interested in the fate of the Jews sixty years ago, so they should stay far away from us now. We know why we are here, we have a mission that we carry forward every day. Our place is here."

This is how David Ha'ivri describes the Hilltop Youth: "Many of them are farmers or shepherds, there are students, all of them pioneers living in deserted places, empty, without inhabitants, there are no Palestinians to be deprived of anything. The settlers plant trees, they work the land, they bring water, food, electricity. In the large settlements security is well-organized, but in these communities of a few families the burden of security is enormous. The second generation is much more attached to the land than the first, they were born here, their blood comes from here. They are even more religious than their parents."

Many of these outposts have been created over the years in the places where the Palestinians had killed a settler. Itay Zar lives in an outpost named after his brother, who was killed. Twenty families, a dozen metal boxes, forty children, and a corral for the horses. "We didn't come here to have fun. This was desert, today the land is blooming." The spiritual leader of the outpost, Ariel Lipo, says that their job is to build "little paradises."

Maoz Esther, an outpost of seven corrugated metal barracks and five families, not far from Ramallah, was the first outpost targeted by Netanyahu after he came to power. It has been removed three times. And rebuilt three times. Most recently a few days ago. The leader of the community, Avraham Sandack, came to this hill straight from one of the settlements in Gaza that had been dismantled by Ariel Sharon. He is studying to become a rabbi, and in the meantime he does the cleaning at a synagogue. "Our spirit is the same as that of our fathers," Avraham says. "Two years ago on the feast of Hannukah, we left a nearby settlement and built a stone house. One mother, alone with her three little daughters, moved to the hillside for two months. They had no electricity or water. But they knew that they belonged to the land of Israel. In the Bible, this land is spoken about in the prophecies about the kingdom of God. That gives us strength to continue forward. Yesterday we began to rebuild what the army has destroyed. Here we are able to be at peace with our souls. There is something metaphysical here. God is not in heaven or somewhere else. God is part of us, he is in our whole life."
Newsletter of Sandro Magister

August on Mount Tabor, for Saints and Sinners

On the pope's agenda for this summer, three realities leap to the foreground: the example of the Curé of Ars, the sacrament of confession, the feast of the Transfiguration. Here's how and why

by Sandro Magister

ROME, August – In recent days, the pope and "the pope's newspaper" have given strong and coordinated emphasis to a saint, a sacrament, and a liturgical feast that are usually downplayed or overlooked.

The saint is John Mary Vianney, the Curé of Ars.

The sacrament is that of the forgiveness of sins.

The feast is the one on August 6, of the Transfiguration of Jesus on Mount Tabor, one of the twelve major feasts on the Byzantine calendar, but ignored by most in the Latin Church.


1. THE HOLY CURÉ D'ARS


Benedict XVI dedicated the entire catechesis on Wednesday, August 5 to the Curé of Ars, at the 150th anniversary of the saint's death.

Pope Joseph Ratzinger intended to present him as a model above all for priests, for whom he has proclaimed a special Year for Priests. A model that is not confined to the past, but endowed with extraordinary prophetic power.

This is how Benedict XVI explains the enduring relevance of the holy Curé of Ars, even in the present age of the "dictatorship of relativism":

"Far from reducing the figure of St. John Mary Vianney to an example, as admirable as it may be, of 19th century devotional spirituality, it is necessary on the contrary to grasp the prophetic power that marks his human and priestly personality with the greatest relevance. In post-revolutionary France, which was experiencing a sort of 'dictatorship of rationalism' aimed at eliminating the very presence of priests and of the Church from society, he lived first of all – during his youth – an heroic concealment, traveling for kilometers at night in order to participate in the holy Mass. Afterward – as a priest – he distinguished himself by a singular and fruitful pastoral creativity, capable of demonstrating that the reigning rationalism of the time was in reality far from satisfying the authentic needs of man, and therefore absolutely unlivable.

"Dear brothers and sisters, 150 years after the death of the holy Curé of Ars, the challenges of today's society are no less demanding, on the contrary, they have become more complex. If back then there was the 'dictatorship of rationalism', in the present era a sort of 'dictatorship of relativism' can be seen in many circles. Both appear to be inadequate answers to man's just demand to use his own reason fully as a distinctive and constitutive element of his identity. Rationalism was inadequate because it does not take human limitations into account, and it presumes to elevate reason alone as the measure of all things, transforming it into a goddess; contemporary relativism destroys reason, because in fact it goes so far as to affirm that the human being cannot know anything with certainty beyond the field of positive science. But today, like back then, man 'begging for meaning and fulfillment' goes in constant search of exhaustive answers to the fundamental questions that he does not cease to pose to himself."

But in what did the sanctity of this "anonymous priest from a remote village in the south of France" shine the most? Above all in seeing him celebrate the Mass and hear confession, Benedict XVI answers. The life of the holy Curé d'Ars was completely dedicated to the Eucharist and to the sacrament of forgiveness. He lived "between the altar and the confessional."

There is an audacity in proposing such a model today. But the fact that this coincides with the heart of the Christian faith, and not with one of its marginal aspects, is confirmed by an article published in "L'Osservatore Romano" on the same day as the pope's catechesis on the holy Curé of Ars.


2. THE SACRAMENT OF FORGIVENESS


The article concerned another saint, and more than that, one of the most illustrious Fathers of the Church, the bishop of Milan in the fourth century, St. Ambrose. The author, theologian Inos Biffi, a leading expert on the Fathers and on medieval theology, begins this way:

"According to St. Ambrose, the merciful Christ or the mercy that comes from him is the reason why God created the world, and man in particular. Forgiveness is the first and last word about the world and about its history."

And further on:

"The most astonishing and most revealing text of Ambrose's theology of mercy as the substance and motive of creation can be read at the end of his commentary on the six days of creation: 'The Lord our God', he writes, 'created heaven, and I do not read that he rested. He created earth, and I do not read that he rested. He created the sun, the moon, the stars, and even then I do not read that he rested. But I read that he created man and that at this point he rested, having a being whose sins he could forgive' (Hexameron VI, IX, 10, 76).

"Man was created by God from the beginning as a being 'to be forgiven'. For this reason, there is rejoicing in heaven wherever mercy is exercised: creation reaches its end and its glory. St. Ambrose would not cease to evoke this divine plan, which would appear as the reason for which the Church and its ministers must be signs of pity. More than all the other Fathers of the Church, he felt the power of the grace that recreates, and through which guilt is absolved."

And how does God's forgiveness reached the repentant sinner, if not in the liturgical, sacramental act?

On the same page of "L'Osservatore Romano" as Inos Biffi's article on St. Ambrose the "merciful confessor," there is another article in which art historian Timothy Verdon illustrates a masterpiece of liturgical art: the marvelous mosaic in the apse of the basilica of Sant'Apollinare in Classe, built in the 6th century in Ravenna (see photo).


3. THE FEAST OF THE TRANSFIGURATION


The mosaic depicts the Transfiguration. But in the place of Jesus is the jeweled cross. Beneath the cross is the bishop and martyr Apollinaris, dressed in Mass vestments and hands raised in a gesture of prayer, surrounded by the sheep of his flock. Further below is the altar of the actual celebration. The earthly liturgy and heavenly liturgy are one and the same, in the light of the transfigured Christ. The significance of the actions of the earthly liturgy is given by the images standing above it:

"The anonymous artist has thus overlaid the meaning of the 'dazzling white garment' in the Gospel account with the significance of the successive 'exodus' – the death of Jesus, which is already a 'raising up' – in the single image of the jeweled cross, and this serves as the key to interpreting the community identity in the liturgical context, the revelation of a future 'transfiguration' of the praying people through the mystery present in the bread and wine changed into the body and blood of Christ."

But that's not all. In a front-page commentary on August 5, written by American theologian Robert Imbelli, "L'Osservatore Romano" also adopts the Transfiguration as the key to interpreting the encyclical "Caritas in Veritate," and therefore the ultimate meaning of man and the cosmos.

The commentary begins like this:

"The Transfiguration, one of the most theologically rich feasts, reveals the true face of the Lord, the beloved Son of the Father, and the destiny to which the disciples and all men are called, revealing the truth of Christ and of all humanity, as St. Mark recounts: 'After six days Jesus took Peter, James, and John and led them up a high mountain apart by themselves. And he was transfigured before them' (9:2).

"Some Fathers of the Church have understood the words 'after six days' as an announcement of the fulfillment of creation. That is, the creation of Adam and Eve by God is fulfilled in the revelation of the true man, the new Adam, Jesus Christ, in whom the glory of God dwells bodily."

And he continues:

"In this light, therefore, the Transfiguration can be celebrated as the feast in which the Church proclaims its vision of comprehensive humanism. Contemplating the beauty of the transfigured Christ makes the disciples desire that the entire world be enveloped by the transfigured light, and act boldly according to this holy desire."

Imbelli cites this passage from "Caritas in Veritate":

"Development requires attention to the spiritual life, a serious consideration of the experiences of trust in God, spiritual fellowship in Christ, reliance upon God's providence and mercy, love and forgiveness, self-denial, acceptance of others, justice and peace. All this is essential if 'hearts of stone' are to be transformed into 'hearts of flesh' (Ezek 36:26), rendering life on earth 'divine' and thus more worthy of humanity."

And immediately after this he writes:

"Paul VI demonstrated this mystery in his life. The image of the transfigured Lord energized the heart of his spirituality and his hope for the Church and humanity. It is a marvelous grace of Providence that this pope died on the evening of the feast, August 6, 1978."

The cause of beatification is underway for the "servant of God" Paul VI, another great figure often undervalued and misunderstood, especially for his encyclical "Humanae Vitae." He is remembered each year on the feast of the Transfiguration, the day of his death. In "Caritas in Veritate," Benedict XVI writes of him:

"Pope Paul VI illuminated the great theme of the development of peoples with the splendour of truth and the gentle light of Christ's charity. [...] Motivated by the wish to make Christ's love fully visible to contemporary men and women, Paul VI addressed important ethical questions robustly, without yielding to the cultural weaknesses of his time."

Nothing different from what the Curé d'Ars did against the "dictatorship of rationalism" of his time. Offering the forgiveness of God. In the light of the Transfiguration.
Newsletter of Sandro Magister

Herod Slaughters Where the Cross Does Not Come

China, with its compulsory one child policy, is not the only country where unborn children and babies are killed. Infanticide was and is a common practice in many civilizations of yesterday and today. Christianity has always been its most radical antithesis. A book and an article document it

by Sandro Magister

ROME, August 14, 2009 – "Better ten graves than one extra birth," preaches a slogan of the one-child campaign in China. And this is also the title of the book in which Harry Wu has described and analyzed the Chinese anti-childbearing policy, made up of sterilization, forced abortion, infanticide.

The book was released in the United States, where Wu lives – in exile from China – and heads the Laogai Research Foundation. And now it has also been released in Italy, just as the parliament approved, on July 15, a motion that requires the Italian government to present to the general assembly of the United Nations a resolution against abortion as a means of population control, and for the affirmation of the right of every woman  not to be forced to abort.

In China, the obligatory one-child policy was introduced in 1979. Wu's assessment of these thirty years is expressed well in the title of his book in its Italian version: "Slaughter of innocents."

The book has been highlighted in Italy mainly by two newspapers: "Avvenire," owned by the episcopal conference, and "Il Foglio," directed by Giuliano Ferrara, a non-Catholic intellectual deeply involved in the defense of unborn life and in promoting an international moratorium on abortion.

The following article appeared in "Il Foglio" on July 29, 2009. The author takes his cue from Wu's book. But he goes farther. He shows that the slaughter of the unborn and of infants is not the sole prerogative of China over the past few decades, but has accompanied many civilizations over the span of millennia. Pagan ancient Rome had it. The China of past centuries had it. Today's India has it. The missionary expansion of Christianity has often found it it on its path.

Not only that. Abortion and infanticide are also regaining ground in the West today. They are common currency in the "new world" promoted by bioethicists like Peter Singer. They emerge in laws like the one providing for the euthanasia of children up to the age of twelve, in Holland.

The successes and failures of the expansion of Christianity are often mirrored precisely by the practice of this slaughter.

 __________



Moratorium against the new pagans

by Francesco Agnoli


Harry Wu's book "Better Ten Graves than One Extra Birth"- in Italy entitled "Slaughter of innocents. The one child policy in China" – demonstrates how today, in the twenty-first century, thousands and thousands of children in that country are killed in their mother's wombs, at any stage of gestation, or are drowned, strangled, left to die in the cold once they are born. Similar things also happen in India.

So then, anyone who loves history knows that what is happening today in these two huge countries, which together constitute almost one third of the world population, has always happened in the past, including in old Europe or in the New World. Up until the coming of Christianity.

One of the ideas that recur most in the writings of the first Christians is in fact their desire to frequently repeat one concept: we Christians are different from the pagans, in part because we do not kill our children, neither within our women's wombs or outside of them.

In chapter XXX, paragraph 2 of his "Octavius," the second-century apologist Minucius Felix, comparing the teaching of Christ with that of the pagans, writes: "you expose your newborn children to wild beasts and to birds; or strangling them you crush with a miserable kind of death. There are some women who, by drinking medical preparations, smother in their very bowels the seed destined to become a human creature, and thus commit a parricide before they bring forth. And you learn these things from your gods, for Saturn did not simply expose his children, but even devoured them."

For his part, the great Tertullian, in his "Apologeticum," chapter IX, states: "For us Christians murder is expressly forbidden, and therefore it is not even permitted for us to destroy the fetus in its mother's womb. Preventing birth is murder in advance. It doesn't matter at all whether one destroys a life already born or crushes it at birth: what is about to be born is already a human being. Every fruit is already contained in its seed."

Another very important document from second-century Christianity, written in Asia Minor, the Letter to Diognetus, reiterates the same ideals in this rather concise manner: "Christians marry like everyone else and produce children, but they do not throw away their newborns."

On this same theme of infanticide, the historian A. Baudrillart has written: "There may be no matter on which ancient pagan society and modern Christian society are in more stark opposition than in their respective ways of thinking about children."

In effect, if we look at the ancient world, we note that abortion and infanticide are fairly widespread. "Seneca," recalls the American sociologist Rodney Stark in 'The Rise of Christianity, "regarded the drowning of children at birth as both reasonable and commonplace. Tacitus charged that the Jewish teaching that it is 'a deadly sin to kill an 'unwanted child' was but another of their 'sinister and revolting' practices. It was common to expose an unwanted infant out-of-doors where it could, in principle, be taken up by someone who wished to rear it, but where it typically fell victim to the elements or to animals and birds."

So in Rome just as in Greece, children were casually killed, or sold, or exposed and left to die of hunger and cold when there was no one to rescue them, usually in order to make them slaves. We know of the discovery, in the Roman sewers, of piles of bones from  infant children who were abandoned and then thrown away like trash or garbage.

The victims of infanticide were usually girls, as in China and India today, while abortion, in addition to killing the fetus, often killed the mother as well, or left her sterile.

The first Christians' refusal to resort to abortion and infanticide, which was connected to a high rate of fertility among them, was not only a great victory of humanity, but also one of the elements that, together with conversions, allowed the first Christians to expand more and more, to the point of surpassing the pagans in numbers.

But infanticide was not practiced only in Rome, as demonstrated in part by the legend of Romulus and Remus, or in Greece, but in the entire ancient world.

The famous bioethicist and animal rights supporter Peter Singer forcefully upholds the idea that this ancient practice should be rediscovered today, together with legal abortion.  In fact, if it is true that only Christians forcefully rejected it – Singer argues – why should we believe that they alone were right, while all the other peoples and religions of the past were wrong?

"Killing unwanted infants or allowing them to die has been a normal practice in most societies throughout human history and prehistory. We find it, for example, in ancient Greece, where disabled infants were exposed on the mountainside. We find it in nomadic tribes like the Kung of the Kalahari Desert, whose women will kill a baby born while an older child is still too young to walk. Infanticide was also common on Polynesian islands like Tikopia, where food supplies and population were kept in balance by smothering unwanted newborn infants. In Japan before westernisation, 'mabiki' – a word that has its origins in the thinning of rice seedlings so that there is room for each plant to flourish, but which came to be applied to infanticide too – was very widely practiced, not only by peasants with limited amounts of land, but also by those who were quite well off."

With the spread of Christianity over much of the world, abortion and infanticide became much more rare and isolated phenomena, while legislation, beginning with Constantine, intervened in defense of infants, and works of charity and assistance were developed for abandoned children and for families in difficulty.  Up until the return of abortion in communist and Nazi legislation in the twentieth century, and of infanticide with the new law on euthanasia for children up to the age of twelve, in Holland.

***

If we turn our minds now to the two huge countries in which abortion, even forced abortion, and infanticide are mass phenomena, it is easy, after this brief excursus, to understand the reason for all this: China and India are among the countries least penetrated by the Gospel of Christ, and Western culture with it, which intentionally or not is a bearer of this message, or at least of part of it.

When the first Jesuit missionaries reached China, they were rather impressed by this great civilization. But what made the biggest negative impression on the great Matteo Ricci, when he set foot in the Celestial Empire in 1583, was the widespread prostitution, the rampant corruption, the frenzy for money, and above all, the extent of the practice of infanticide. The communist regime, which is capable of planning millions of forced abortions, mass sterilizations, mass killing of infants, still has a long way to come, but respect for children, in that country which is admirable in other ways, is entirely missing.

 As J. J. Matignon would write at the beginning of the twentieth century in "Superstition, crime e misère en Chine," the Chinese often sell their daughters as prostitutes, or kill them, because of poverty but also because of their magical superstitions, their obsessive ancestor worship: "As it always has in China, superstition plays a key role: in fact, the eyes, nose, tongue, mouth, brain of children are believed to be organic materials endowed with great therapeutic power. It can happen that after giving birth the mother falls ill, and then, in order to appease the spirits, the girls or in certain cases the boys are destroyed. There are women who have the specific task of bringing about the death of newborn girls . . . The newborns are destroyed by tossing them into a corner of the house or a garbage bin, where the dust and filth will not take long to block the child's respiratory tract." Other times the children are drowned or smothered with pillows, although the influence of the Europeans, Matignon concludes, seems to have a certain limiting effect on these customs.

 During Matignon's own time, two missionaries were saying the same things about China. The first was a Jesuit, Saint Alberto Crescitelli, who was later decapitated and disemboweled at the age of 37, on July 21, 1900, during the Boxer Rebellion. The second was a Divine Word missionary from Val Badia, in Trentino Alto Adige, Saint Giovanni Freinademetz. Having arrived in the country that he would love his entire life, to the point of dying of typhus there, he wrote to his loved ones, on more than one occasion, that the Chinese have "the custom of exposing their own children, or simply exchanging or selling them . . . One of our best Christians, before his conversion, had killed his daughter by throwing her against the rocks, simply because she was crying too much" (Sepp Hollweck, "Il cinese dal Tirolo", Athesia, 2003).

In another letter, written from Hong Kong on April 28, 1879, Freinademetz recounts how the Catholic nuns had built two orphanages, where they received more than a thousand children per year. The Chinese "give them away for nothing or for a few pennies, and don't give it another thought."

So the missionaries – he wrote from Puoli on July 2, 1882 – went through the streets looking for them, baptizing thousands of them at the point of death, and saving the ones they could: "Many souls have already been saved since we arrived here, many children of  pagans who died after being baptized, and again yesterday we had the solemn burial of a little girl of just over a year old, who had died. Her mother had wanted to strangle her in order to be able to breastfeed another woman's child for money, she then heard that we accept  all sorts of children, and we raise them well; so she brought her to us more than two months later. The girl became ill, and died after being confirmed by us half an hour before her death. We wanted to bury her with great ceremony in order to demonstrate to the pagans how we honor their own children whom they throw away. The pagans here do not use coffins for little children, but as soon as they are dead they dig a hole and throw them in. We made the girl a beautiful little casket painted red, we dressed her in a beautiful blue dress and brought her to the church, all of us missionaries accompanied by the Christians, who had never seen anything like it. Many pagans came to see . . ." (G. Freinademetz, "Lettere di un santo," Imprexa).

***

As in China, where today infanticide is nothing less than state business, a similar situation is found in India. In the huge country dominated by the Hindu religion as  well, killing, especially of girls, is very widespread, for economic and other reasons. The missionary agency "Asia News" recently reported this story: "Among tribal populations female children are regarded as a burden and social attitudes permit both foeticide and infanticide.  In 2006 eleven newborn girl babies were starved to death by their parents in a tribal hamlet of Ranga Reddy district, 80 km from Hyderabad.   It is a long-standing practice to wrap the unwanted girl child in a cloth and leave them to die. According to local press reports Jarpula Peerya Nayak, a 27 year old father said 'My wife gave birth to a female baby for the third time, a daughter is a burden and we decided not to feed her. So she died. It is very difficult to bring up girls and marry them off'. On February 25, his cousin J. Ravi and wife Sujatha let their newborn baby starve to death. 'My daughter died two days after birth since we did not feed her,' admitted Ravi. 'We already have two girl children and can’t afford to have one more.' A tribal leader outlines the dowry he is expected to give for his daughter in marriage 'a scooter, five to six tolas of gold and Rs 50,000 cash to a good groom.' After starving and killing the girl children, the tribals dig a grave in their fields and bury them. Then they put a stone on the grave. Villagers said that dogs had eaten parts of the body of Ravi’s daughter and he had to bury her again.  Most of the 40-odd families in the village have either witnessed such killings or have performed it themselves over the years. Jarpula Lokya Nayak has starved to death two daughters."

In India as well, the efforts of the missionaries and of the Christian minorities is aimed, in addition to the attempt to break down the boundaries of caste and of social inequalities, to the defense of unborn life and of childhood, in the name of the God who became a child. Just one example is enough: that of Mother Teresa of Calcutta.

Everyone knows that the mission of this woman was that of helping the poor of India, the marginalized, the weak, the least. Among these, Mother Teresa never forgot to mention the children in their mother's womb, whom she called "the poorest of the poor." In the book "Dateli a me. Madre Teresa e l'impegno per la vita", Pier Giorgio Liverani presents the thought of this holy woman, expressed in a thousand circumstances and with great power, as in these words of hers: "Abortion is the greatest destroyer of peace today. Because if a mother can kill her own child – what is left for me to kill you and you kill me – there is nothing between. This is what  I ask in India, and everywhere: What have we done for the child? We are fighting abortion by adoption, we have saved thousands of lives, we have sent words to all the clinics, to the hospitals, police stations – please don't destroy the child, we will take the child."

The fight on behalf of children, against abortion and infanticide, has been conducted by Mother Teresa and her sisters, sometimes to the point of martyrdom, with great force, clashing with a culture unaware of the sacredness of life from its beginning. For the Hindus, for example, the children who are abandoned or rejected by their parents, if they survive, are and remain pariahs, outcastes making up for previous sins. Women in general, and girls even more so, are expensive because of their dowries, and are considered inferior to males, "to the point that they are not infrequently poisoned at the breast, which is sprinkled with poison while they are sucking their mother's milk."

So it sometimes happens that there is a very high number of births, in the effort to have a boy at all costs, and as a result a high number of female infanticides: selective abortion is used until the child desired, a boy, is obtained. Mother Teresa and her sisters founded many houses of charity, schools, and orphanages, receiving great appreciation, but also the opposition of prime minister Morarji Desai, who in 1979 accused them of helping children with schools and orphanages for the sole purpose of baptizing and converting them. Mother Teresa responded to him: "It seems to me that you do not realize the evil that abortion is causing for your people. Immorality is on the rise, many families are breaking apart, there is an alarming increase in the cases of insanity among mothers who have killed their own innocent children. Mr. Desai: it may be that before long you will find yourself face to face with God. I do not know what explanation you will be able to give him for having destroyed the lives of so many children who were unborn, but certainly innocent, when you find yourself before the judgment seat of God, who will judge you for the good you have done and for the evil you have caused from your high position in government."

And Mother Teresa added how over the previous year the 102 centers that she operated in Calcutta had seen 11,701 Hindu families, 5,568 Muslim families, and 4,341 Christian families who had been taught the meaning of the family, respect for life, the necessity of responsible procreation, reducing births without recourse to abortion or infanticide! The cry of the unborn children, of the slain infants, Mother Teresa said, echoing in another way the concepts expressed centuries and centuries before by Minucius Felix, Tertullian, and many others, "hurts the ear of God."
Newsletter of Sandro MagisterN

Christians Hit by Islamic "Purity" Pogroms

Nine dead in one village put to fire and sword. It is the latest in a series of attacks against those whose only fault is that of not being Muslim. To the silence and disinterest of the rest of the world

by Sandro Magister

The Two Roads of the Archbishop of Canterbury

The first for the traditionalists, the second for the modernists. This is the solution that Rowan Williams has devised in order to keep together both those who accept and those who reject sacred orders for gays and lesbians. The Vatican is offering him support

by Sandro Magister

While at the Vatican they are discussing whether or not democracy is compatible with Islam, the Arab television channels are dominated by reality shows and soap operas. A major survey analyzes their messages. And ambiguities

by Sandro Magister

ROME, July 27, 2009 – Just as Great Britain is giving the go-ahead in its territory, in the name of multiculturalism, to about eighty Islamic alternative tribunals that are adopting not British common law but sharia – with everything that entails in matters of polygamy, divorce, the subordination of women, and lack of religious freedom – at the Vatican they are discussing whether or not democracy is compatible with Islam.

The news coming from Great Britain would seem to prove the pessimists right. But at the Vatican, there is a predominantly positive view about the possibility that Muslim states could evolve into fully formed liberal democracies, with the recognition of fundamental liberties and of equal rights for men and women.

This is what can be gathered from the lead article of the latest issue of "La Civiltà Cattolica," the journal of the Rome Jesuits that is printed after review by the Vatican secretariat of state.

The article was written by Jesuit historian Giovanni Sale, and is entitled "Islam and democracy."

After positing that as of today there are only two Islamic countries, Lebanon and Turkey, in which elements of democracy can be seen, Fr. Sale systematically surveys the competing viewpoints in the West:

"On this delicate matter, Western analysts are divided into three categories: the so-called optimists, who are further divided into 'gradualists' and 'realists', (the proponents of the demands of Realpolitik on the international level), the pessimists, and the skeptical-possibilists."

In Fr. Sale's view, the gradualist optimists have their leading representative in Bernard Lewis, a historian at Princeton.

The realist optimists are the neoconservatives who came into prominence with the Bush presidency, determined to transplant democracy to Muslim countries but also ready to ally themselves with friendly despotic regimes.

The pessimists have their prophet in Samuel Huntington, according to whom there is an irreparable discord between the Muslim world and democracy, which produces a clash of civilizations.

The skeptical-possibilists, finally, maintain that democracy must not be transplanted into Arab countries from without, but can only emerge and grow from within them. But there are many obstacles to this development, one of which is precisely the religious element.

In drawing its conclusions, the article in "La Civiltà Cattolica" rejects both the viewpoint of the clash of civilizations and the neoconservative stance of exporting democracy even by means of armed force.

It instead expresses agreement with the gradualist optimist outlook of Bernard Lewis, and also with the concerns of the skeptical-possibilists about the obstacles that must be overcome, that of religion first among them:

"Islam and democracy can become compatible on the condition that the religious element, with all of its richness of content and experience, act as a simple point of ethical and moral reference for the normative role of social science, without presuming to dictate the rules for the state and for politics."

 In the article, Fr. Sale highlights the analysis that Daniel Pipes, a White House adviser during the Bush years, makes of the Islamic world. In this Pipes sees, together with a large pool of radical fundamentalists, an even larger segment of Muslims who are against America and the West more as a result of the social environment in which they live than out of deeply rooted conviction, and another segment of "moderate" Muslims who are not hostile to Western values. Although he is considered a "hawk," Pipes emphasizes the importance of "a cultural and civil effort that would encourage moderate Muslims to work for profound democratic and civil change in Islamic societies."

***

But while those in the West and among the leadership of the Catholic Church ponder the possible democratic evolution of Islam, what is happening within the Muslim world itself? What image do Muslims have of the West? How do they see it?

A highly interesting answer to this question is given by a study conducted recently on the programs broadcast by television networks in Arab countries.

The study, which was very thorough, was coordinated by Donatella Della Ratta with the collaboration of Roberta Nunnari and Naman Tarcha. The results are in a volume published in Italy by Gangemi Editore, entitled: "Media arabi e cultura nel Mediterraneo."

There are a number of surprises, which a 2002 Gallup poll had already foreshadowed: while the viewers of Al Jazeera – despite the anti-American slant of this famous broadcaster – show themselves to be the most favorable to Western lifestyles, those most against these turn out to be the viewers of entertainment television channels, the ones with Western-style programs and reality shows.

Of the roughly five hundred Arab television channels studied by Donatella Della Ratta and her team, the ones most free from state control are the Lebanese stations, which are received in many other countries. There's a little bit of everything on them: from the fiercely anti-American and anti-Israeli programs of Al Manar, Hezbollah's station, to the reality shows of LBC, the first Arab network to broadcast programs like "Star Academy," "Survivor," and "The Farm."

The prototype for reality shows around the world, "Big Brother," was broadcast a few years ago on a channel in Bahrain but was canceled after the first episode, following a storm of protest. But the other reality shows have met with growing success. With unexpected political repercussions.

For example, when the Lebanese semifinalist of "Star Academy" was eliminated instead of his Syrian competitor, Beirut was flooded with protest demonstrations against Syria.

And when the finale of "Superstar" saw contestants from Syria and Jordan go head to head, the state-run telephone companies of these two countries raced to hand out discounts and bonuses to their subscribers, so they would telephone in support of their own "national hero."

According to some Arab analysts, the cell phone voting for reality shows "represents the first real form of participatory democracy in the Arab world, a trial of free elections."

But there's more. The reality show "Star Academy" has generated a satirical spinoff entitled "Irhab Academy," terrorism academy. Here the contestants are actors representing various kinds of terrorists in grotesque form, each with his diabolical specialty. The creator of the program is Abdallah Bijiad Al Otibi, a former extremist who has dedicated himself to fighting terrorism through television.

Other television programs that are extremely successful in Arab countries are the musalsalat, drama series. Discussion of the hottest questions, which is totally banned on the official television news programs, finds room in the drama series: from polygamy to divorce, from violence against women to homosexuality, from terrorism to relations with the West.

Syria ranks first in their production. One of the most important directors is Najdat Ismail Anzour, the son of Syria's first silent film director. One of his drama episodes broadcast during the month of Ramadan in 2007 – the month with the largest number of viewers – touched on the question of the caricatures of Mohammed. At one point, one of the characters says to another who is highly scandalized by the caricatures:

"Please, tell me what offends our religion more: a foreigner who draws silly caricatures like these? Or a Muslim who blows himself up with an explosive belt in the midst of innocent people?"

Naturally, it should not be overlooked that there are dramas that are fiercely hostile to the West and Israel.

Just as it should not be forgotten that the advertisements also do their part to transmit Western models. One that has made a big impact is a very sexy, flirtatious Coca-Cola commercial with Nancy Ajram, the hottest and highest paid female Arab pop star of the moment.

In the view of some analysts, all of this is evidence that a process of secularization is spreading through the Muslim world. Taboos are falling, ideas are circulating, lifestyles are changing, Western models are being imitated.

However, there has been no real corresponding renewal of civil society, no move toward pluralism, no democratization.

An "Islamic road to democracy" is possible: this is the conclusion of the article in "La Civiltà Cattolica." But it is "a road that has yet to be studied and taken."
Newsletter of Sandro Magister

Diplomatic courtesies with the Vatican, a hard line with the Church at home. Half a million Catholics march in peaceful processions. They pray amid the ruins of the churches requisitioned by the government. Beaten and imprisoned, they still aren't giving in

by Sandro Magister

ROME, July 31, 2009 – Vietnam is one of the very few countries in the world, together with Saudi Arabia and China, that do not have diplomatic relations with the Holy See. It is also a country in which the Catholic community has a vivid recent memory of persecution, and continues to be mistreated. And yet it is almost certain that communist Vietnam will be one of the main stops on the trip to Asia that Benedict XVI intends to make in 2010.

The invitation to visit Vietnam was extended to the pope by the archbishop of Dalat and president of the Vietnamese episcopal conference, Pierre Nguyen Van Nhon, during the "ad limina" visit the country's bishops made to Rome at the end of June. There has not yet been an official invitation from the government. But there is no doubt that this will come soon. Just before departing for Rome, the archbishop of Hanoi, Joseph Ngo Quang Kiet, received a "recommendation" to invite the pope from the office for religious affairs. Kiet is secretary of the Vietnamese episcopal conference.

It is likely that the official invitation will be presented to Benedict XVI by the president of Vietnam, Nguyen Minh Triet, during his audience at the Vatican next December. This will be the second time one of the country's authorities has met with the pope since reunification under communist rule in 1975. The previous visit was made on January 25, 2007, by prime minister Nguyen Tan Dung.

Next November, moreover, a delegation will go to Rome, created by the Vietnamese government in agreement with Vatican authorities, for the express purpose of discussing the establishment of diplomatic relations. This will be the second round of talks between the two sides. The first round was held in Hanoi on February 16 and 17 of this year. The Vatican delegation was headed by Monsignor Pietro Parolin, Holy See  undersecretary for relations with states. The Vietnamese delegation was headed by the deputy minister for foreign affairs, Nguyen Quoc Cuong.

One key point of the discussions concerns the appointment of bishops. In Vietnam, the Holy See does not have full freedom to choose the new bishops. The current procedure is that Rome presents three candidates for each vacant diocese, and the Vietnamese authorities exclude the ones they don't want.

The latest batch of appointments – of three bishops and one auxiliary – was made last July 25. One of the dioceses concerned, that of Phat Diem, had not had a bishop since April 14 of 2007: a sign of the  difficulty in coming to an agreement.

Currently in Vietnam, none of the 26 dioceses is vacant. There are more than 6 million Catholics, 8 percent of the 84 million inhabitants. And they are growing: in Ho Chi Minh City alone, there were 9,000 adult baptisms last year. Religious and monastic vocations are also increasing. There are now 270 monks in the country's four Benedictine monasteries. There were 11 in the Huê abbey in 1975, and today there are 79, with about twenty novices each year.

In addition to being religiously vibrant, the Vietnamese Catholic community is also increasingly active in the public sphere. In his address last June 27 to the bishops on their "ad limina" visit, Benedict XVI dedicated a passage to relations with political authority, emphasizing that "religions do not represent a threat to the nation's unity," and on the contrary act "generously and impartially at the service of their neighbour."

But the idea that these words might be enough to reassure the authorities has been disproven by the events of recent weeks.

***

The catalyst has been the same for some time now. It is the desire of the bishops, priests, and faithful to restore to their original purpose the churches, convents, schools, and property that belonged to the Church before it was confiscated by the communist authorities.

The battle has been fought by peaceful means. With prayers, processions, vigils, candlelight marches, and by planting a cross on the disputed sites. Since December of 2007, there has been a crescendo of such demonstrations, obstructed and dispersed by security forces each time.

In some cases, the protests have been successful, and the authorities have agreed to give the Church its property back. In others they haven't.

In terms of their frequency and participation, these demonstrations by Vietnamese Catholics have been more substantial than the ones organized some time ago in Burma by the Buddhist monks. But while the latter of these were widely publicized by the Western media, the former have been almost completely ignored.

The epicenter of the latest protest was what remains of the historic church of
Tam Toa (in the photo), 300 kilometers south of Hanoi, built in the seventeenth century, rebuilt at the end of the 1800's and partially destroyed by American bombings in 1968. The faithful continue to worship outdoors there, but in 1996 the area was requisitioned with the intention of turning it into a memorial of the war with the United States.

Last July 20, thousands of Catholics reoccupied the area, erecting a cross and an altar at the center of the ruins. The procession was dispersed by force, with arrests and beatings of priests and faithful.

Bishop Paul-Marie Cao Dinh Thuyen of the diocese of Vinh, where the church of Tam Toa stands, immediately called for the release of those arrested. The following Sunday, July 26, there were prayers and a minute of silence in all the churches of Vietnam.

That same day, half a million Catholics marched peacefully in the diocese of Vinh. It was the largest religious demonstration in Vietnam in living memory.

And the response was violent this time as well, falling with particular force on two priests, Paul Nguyen Dinh Phu and Pierre Nguyen The Binh, who were attacked while they were preparing to celebrate Mass in Tam Toa together with other priests. The first was seriously wounded. The second, who was hospitalized after the attack, was ambushed at the hospital and beaten again, and was finally thrown from the third story window. He is in a coma. When the news came out, more silent protest marches were held in various cities in Vietnam. There were numerous arrests.

They are following these events with great apprehension at the Vatican. They see the protests by Vietnamese Catholics as an obstacle to the desire of both sides – the Holy See and the communist authorities – to establish satisfactory diplomatic relations between them.

The Church authorities on the ground are more skeptical in their view of their own leaders. Cardinal Jean Baptiste Pham Minh Man, archbishop of Ho Chi Minh City, stated in a recent interview:

"The Church's policy is based on a dialogue founded on truth, justice, and charity. But this word, dialogue, doesn't even exist in the communist vocabulary, just as the term solidarity doesn't exist."