As Críticas dos Esquerdistas ao Papa Francisco

A frase acima é de Eclesiastes 10:2, eu acho que é uma ótima passagem da Bíblia para ilustrar o tema do post de hoje.

Durante as celebrações de dois anos de pontificado do Papa Francisco, achei relevante observar o que a esquerda pensa sobre o Papa.

É muito importante isso, especialmente pelo seguinte aspecto. Ainda se debate se o Papa Francisco é esquerdista ou não, mas parece-me claro que doutrinariamente ortodoxo ele não é.  Não é conhecido pela defesa da Doutrina da Igreja, mas sim por uma abordagem chamada de "pastoral", que é basicamente a abordagem teológica usada pela esquerda dentro da Igreja.

Por vezes, especialmente quando se atém ao texto preparado anteriormente, ele defende pontos da Doutrina, como a luta pela vida (contra o aborto e a eutanásia) e também realça a presença do demônio entre nós, coisas "da direita". Mas é bem mais comum, ele ter uma abordagem dita "progressista" que estimula o ecumenismo, a liberdade sexual e reduz a liturgia da missa para "se aproximar do povo".

Bom, se ele é esquerdista, o que mais importa para o Papa Francisco são as críticas de esquerdistas. São estas críticas que ele procurará responder e as que mais atingirão seu ego. O que viria da direita não o incomoda. 

O site Pewsitter coletou o que disseram dois jornais esquerdistas, um americano (Huffignton Post) e outro inglês (The Guardian), sobre os dois anos de pontificado de Francisco.

Observem as seguintes características quando lerem estes jornais: eles não levam em consideração nem os Evangelhos, nem a vida e as palavras de Cristo, nem a Tradição da Igreja e nem a Doutrina da Igreja. Tudo isso é abandonado em nome do "progresso cultural". 

O Huffungton Post está desapontado com o Papa Francisco, pois para o jornal o Papa não tem luta com firmeza pela mudança doutrinária da Igreja. O The Guardian discute se o Papa Francisco é ou não a favor da comunidade LGBT.

Vejamos partes dos textos abaixo. Primeiro Huffungton Post.

Pope Francis Delighted Us When He Embraced People Of Other Faiths -- And No Faith At All ...

Just one month after he was elected, Pope Francis knelt down to kiss and wash the feet of a Muslim man on Maundy Thursday. Since then, he’s made it clear that he’s willing to engage with people of other faiths.

He's reached out to the world's Orthodox Christians, to Hindus and Buddhists and even to atheists. He’s silently prayed inside Turkey’s Blue Mosque, saying soon after that it was wrong to equate Islam with violence.

It’s true that Francis doesn’t believe that non-Christians can attain salvation. Still, his efforts to find common ground with other faiths have been remarkable.

... But He Disappointed Us When He Said “Who I Am To Judge?” And Then Judged Anyway.

While he's willing to reach out to people of other faiths, Pope Francis still hasn't extended a wholehearted welcome to lesbian, gay, bisexual and transgender members of his own church. On the flight back from a trip to Brazil in 2013, Pope Francis spoke the words that LGBT Catholics around the world would immediately take up as a rallying cry.

"If a person is gay and seeks God and has good will, who am I to judge?” he said.

But since then, lesbian and gay members of the church have come to realize that this change in tone did not necessarily signal a change in doctrine.

Last October, Pope Francis gathered Catholic bishops together to talk about family-related issues and to produce a document with recommendations. A first draft of the report from this conference extended an extraordinary welcome to LGBT people -- but that section was later edited. Francis’ bishops couldn’t muster the two-thirds majority needed to keep even the watered-down welcome in the final report.

To his credit, the pope was willing to include the controversial paragraphs in the next round of discussions, showing he's open to continuing the dialogue. He’s also said that the Catholic church should help parents stand with their gay children. But that doesn’t mean that LGBT Catholics in committed same-sex relationships will be welcomed into the fold anytime soon. Francis continues to champion a “love the sinner, hate the sin” approach. He has criticized gay marriage, even showing support for efforts to block marriage and adoption rights for gay couples.

3. Pope Francis Delighted Us When He Encouraged Open Debate And Conversations ...

Francis has been doggedly enthusiastic about creating spaces for open dialogue -- both within the Catholic Church and outside it. Within the church, he’s circumvented tradition by reaching out to the peripheries of the Catholic world for new cardinals and for advice. Last year, he asked the world’s bishops to survey their local congregations on controversial topics like gay marriage, divorce and birth control to get a clearer picture of what today's Catholics believe.

According to RNS, Francis has “reinvigorated the synod system, calling regular meetings of bishops from around the world to debate issues and set the agenda; previous popes discouraged debate and had the Curia carry out their orders.”

Outside the Catholic Church, Francis has had an impact as well. He brought togetherIsraeli and Palestinian leaders for a special prayer summit for peace. He also played a key role in urging President Barack Obama to normalize relations between the U.S. and Cuba and securing the release of American subcontractor and longtime prisoner Alan Gross.

... But He Disappointed Us When He Refused To Have A Conversation About Women’s Ordination.
The pope is clearly interested in dialogue. But when the topic drifts to the ordination of women to the priesthood, he firmly agrees with his predecessors in saying, “that door is closed.”

In fact, Francis' remarks about women can seem patronizing at times -- like the timehe referred to female theologians as “strawberries on the cake.”

He has said that the church must give women greater responsibility and visibility so that they “will not feel like guests but as full participants in various social and church environments.” But the “freedom of choice” he claims to offer women is counterbalanced by what he calls the “irreplaceable role” of women as mothers in the home. In the past, he’s firmly shot down proposals to invite lay female members into the College of Cardinals. John Allen Jr., a journalist who focuses on the Catholic Church, explains Francis’ reluctance this way:

In [Francis’] mind, conceding that the only way to elevate the role of women is to make them clergy feeds the mistaken notion that clerics are what’s most important about Catholicism, when he sees his mission instead as exalting the role of the laity. When he talks about a “deeper theology” of women, this is likely part of what he has in mind—a sort of Copernican revolution in Catholic consciousness, with laity and women the real protagonists of the Church’s mission in the world and the clergy a supporting cast.

Still, for a pope who appears willing to engage in so many other debates, it is disappointing that Francis is so firmly opposed to even considering the idea of women as priests.

Agora The Guardian:

This all changed on 13 March 2013, when he was selected as pope. I made my way to the cathedral that day, photographing jubilant worshippers flocking to the building, even if their now famous leader was in Rome, waving from a balcony. I myself was struck by the fact that I now knew the man in the Holy See, something I could never have dreamed possible. I assumed that Pope Francis would be the same as Bergoglio, backwards on LGBT and other progressive issues, his church sliding ever more into irrelevance. But was I wrong. Bergoglio as Francis fooled me. Indeed I believe, he fooled us all.

While not changing doctrine, the pope made his famous declaration: “Who am I to judge?” in reference to gay clergy. He has spoken of including the children of gay families and the divorced in communion. He met and embraced a transgender man, Diego Neria Lejarraga. I know through social networks that he has met with members of the Argentine LGBT community, though whether those were merely handshakes or more substantial occasions isn’t clear to me. What is clear is that we could never have imagined Pope Benedict XVI, Joseph Ratzinger, doing the same. Yet nor could I have ever imagined Archbishop Bergoglio, the very same man in different vestments, doing the same either.

However, my own meetings with Italian politicians and gay activists for New York’s Gay City News have shown me they are more sceptical than the rest of the world. They’ve been through the church’s Machiavellian manoeuvres before. Andrea Maccarrone, head of Circolo Mario Mieli, Rome’s main gay rights group, told me the church will pretend to change with the times. “They are very good at this, to adapt to the situation,” he said, explaining that’s how they’ve lasted for more than 2,000 years. Sergio Lo Giudice, an openly gay senator of the Democratic party, thinks the rhetoric is merely image. “There has been no opening on the doctrinal, so homosexuality remains for the Catholic church a sin as well as a moral disorder.”

Whether or not doctrine changes in the future, a dialogue that never existed before has begun. During WorldPride 2000, held in Rome, an event that directly challenged the Vatican and Pope John Paul II, I tried writing about gay Italian issues for an Italian-American magazine. At the time, the editor said the topic was untouchable because of conservative “spaghetti pot-stirring grandmothers,” among her readers. I would argue that even without doctrinal change, under Pope Francis those same grandmothers are serving spaghetti and having conversations with gay relatives because of his words.

Yes, as Pope Francis of Rome, the Bergoglio I knew in Buenos Aires has fooled me. The pope still has his conservative leanings on longstanding doctrine, most notably on ordination of women, a particular issue in the United States as nuns take on expanding roles. Conservatives are also cautious, if not worried, about changes the Pope might enact; the New York Times writer Ross Douthat haswarned of schisms in the church and how real doctrinal change contradicts the notion of papal infallibility.

I am not the only LGBT journalist who finds the new pope both refreshing and surprising. Philadelphia Gay News publisher Mark Segal, long aware of the damage the Catholic church has wreaked on the LGBT community, has written a column thanking Pope Francis for his stance, in contrast to “Philadelphia Archbishop Charles Chaput [who] now seems to be leading a campaign of opposition,” against the pope’s progressive attitude. The pope’s views on these issues will become clearer when he visits the city of brotherly love this September for the World Meeting of Families, but perhaps this always was Bergoglio’s true self. There’s no one above him any more telling him how to behave, unless you believe in the big guy in the sky.

Documento da ONU pede Açao Militar para Proteger Cristãos do ISIS, Vaticano apoia

Ontem, foi divulgado um documento foi iniciativa da Rússia, que se preocupa com os cristãos ortodoxos, mas tem co-autoria do Vaticano e do Líbano. Pede intervenção militar para proteger os cristãos e outras minorias no Oriente Médio.

Temos mais uma prova de que a "Consagração da Rússia à Nossa Senhora", pedido de Nossa de Fátima, teve efeito. Rússia reagiu, antes do Vaticano, líder da maioria cristã do mundo.

Bom, demorou. Mas ainda tem problemas, na minha opinião. A mensagem do Vaticano repete um mantra equivocado: 1) Não se pode usar o Islã para fazer atrocidades; 2) Não pedimos intervenção militar apenas porque para há cristãos sofrendo, mas todas as minorias. Duas concepções frágeis doutrinariamente, teologicamente e historicamente, na minha opinião.

Mas tudo bem.

O documento é assinado por diversos países, incluindo Estados Unidos, mas o Brasil não assinou (pelo menos ainda não).

Vejamos que países assinaram:

Russian Federation, Lebanon, Holy See, Andorra, Armenia, Australia, Austria, Belarus, Belgium, Bosnia and Herzegovina, Bulgaria, Canada, Congo, Croatia, Cuba, Cyprus, Denmark, El Salvador, Finland, France, Germany, Greece, Guatemala, Haiti, Honduras, Hungary, Iceland, Iraq, Ireland, Israel, Italy, Liechtenstein, Luxemburg, Malta, Monaco, Netherlands, Panama, Peru, Philippines, Poland, Portugal, Romania, San Marino, Serbia, Slovakia, Slovenia, Somalia, Sovereign Military Order of Malta, Spain, Switzerland, United Kingdom, United States of America


Aqui vai o texto do documento:

“Supporting the Human Rights of Christians and Other Communities, particularly in the Middle East”, sponsored by the Russian Federation, Lebanon and the Holy See.

The Middle East is living in a situation of instability and conflict that recently have been aggravated. The consequences are disastrous for the entire population of the region.

The existence of many religious communities is seriously threatened. Christians are now especially affected. These days even their survival is in question. Efforts to build a better future for all are frustrated. We witness a situation where violence, religious and ethnic hatred, fundamentalist radicalism, extremism, intolerance, exclusion, destruction of the social fabric of whole societies and communities are becoming the features of a non-viable political and social model, endangering the very existence of many communities, the Christian community in particular.

Millions of people have been either displaced or forced to leave their ancestral lands. Those who stay in conflict zones or areas controlled by terrorist groups live under the permanent threat of human rights violations, repression and abuses. Both communities and individuals fall victim to barbaric acts of violence: they are deprived of homes, driven from their native lands, sold into slavery, killed, beheaded and burnt alive. Dozens of Christian churches, and ancient shrines of all religions have been destroyed. The situation of Christians in the Middle East, a land on which they are living for centuries and have the right to remain, raises deep concerns. There are more and more reasons to fear seriously for the future of the Christian communities that have more than two thousand years of existence in this region, where Christianity has its full place, and began its long history.

The positive contributions of Christians in the different countries and societies of the Middle East are well known and creative. We are confident that Governments, all civic and religious leaders in the Middle East, will join us in addressing this alarming situation by building together a culture of peaceful coexistence. In our globalized world, pluralism is an enrichment. The presence and the contributions of ethnic and religious communities reflect an ancient diversity and a common heritage. A future without the different communities in the Middle East will run a high risk of new forms of violence, exclusion, and the absence of peace and development.

We call upon the international community to support the deeply rooted historical presence of all ethnic and religious communities in the Middle East. Here world religions appeared, including Christianity. Now, they live a serious existential threat from the so-called “Islamic State” (Daesh) and Al-Qaida, and affiliated terrorist groups, which disrupts the life of all these communities, and creates the risk of complete disappearance for the Christians. This support will help the countries of the region to rebuild healthy plural societies and sound political systems, ensuring human rights and fundamental freedoms for all. Therefore we ask all States to reaffirm their commitment to respect the rights of everyone, in particular the right to freedom of religion, which is enshrined in the fundamental international human rights instruments.

(Agradeço a informação ao site Pewsitter)

Será Católico querer Morte Rápida e sem Dor, como quer o Papa?

Hoje vemos inúmeros sites do mundo reportando que o Papa Francisco disse que sente que não ficará muito tempo no pontificado, sugerindo que é por conta de sua saúde.

Os jornais falam disso com alarde. Mas não é a primeira vez que ele diz isso.

Permitam-me uma digressão, mesmo em se tratando do Papa Francisco. Eu analiso este tipo de discurso como alguém que está buscando apoio sentimental, do tipo que se faz quando uma mulher lhe diz: "estou me sentido feia hoje". O Papa dizendo que acha que vai morrer logo atrai sentimentos de compaixão.

Mas vou deixar minhas análises psicológicas de lado, afinal não sou psicólogo (apesar de meu teste vocacional tem dado psicologia e minha tese de doutorado tratar de psicologia do mercado financeiro, hehe).

O que eu gostaria de relatar é um texto muito interessante de Patrick Archbold. Ele comenta sobre outra frase do Papa Francisco, no mesmo sentido da de hoje, no qual o Papa afirmou que deseja uma morte "rápida e sem dor", pois ele tem muito medo de dor.

Eu posso compreender totalmente, tenho verdadeiro pavor de dentista, por exemplo. E eu tambpem já pedi inúmeras vezes que me dê uma morte rápida e sem dor. Apesar de pedir muito mais para morrer antes daqueles que amo.

Mas Archbold contrapõe de forma teologicamente significante.  Ele fala da importância de uma morte "lenta e dolorosa" na teologia católica.

É um belo artigo para refletirmos. Vejamos o texto de Archbold, escrito para o site One Peter 5.

The Grace of a Slow, Painful Death

 2

The list of things reflective of the gradual but now quickening loss of the Catholic mind is long. Among the things demonstrative that Catholics no longer think like Catholics is the often expressed wish, “I hope I die a quick and painless death.”

Death can be scary, for sure, and I resist and avoid pain as much as the next wimp. But for as long as I can remember, a quick, unsuspecting, and painless death is the specter that haunts my dreams. I cannot count how many people I have heard express the wish, “I hope I die in my sleep.” When a Catholic expresses this wish, I shake my head and offer a prayer that their wish will go unfulfilled.

As Catholics, we should always keep in our prayers the intentions of the Pope. After reading a recent interview of Pope Francis with an Argentinian newspaper in which he addressed the threats to his life from ISIS, I found myself shaking my head, and offering a prayer that the Pope’s intention in this case, is not fulfilled.

According the NY Post:

Speaking to a tabloid newspaper in Buenos Aires nearly a year after the first ISIS plot to kill him was revealed, the pontiff opened up about the frightening possibility of being murdered in cold blood.

“Look, life is in God’s hands,” the pope told La Carcova News, according to the Italian newspaper Gazzetta del Sud.

“I have said to the Lord: take care of me. But if your will is that I should die or that they do something to me, I ask you one favor: that they don’t hurt me. Because I’m a real scaredy cat when it comes to physical pain.”

Now I understand full well that the Pope was not being terribly serious in his comment and likely sought to simply minimize the threat he faces while acknowledging that his fate is ultimately in God’s hands and not ISIS.  But I think that his unfortunate expressed desire for a quick and painless death reinforces the secular notion that all pain is useless and should be avoided at all costs.

As followers of Jesus Christ, we know that our Lord and Savior turned this notion on its head when he willingly entered our world to suffer as we suffer so that we might live.  We also know what Jesus said in Matthew 16, “Then Jesus said to His disciples, “If anyone wishes to come after Me, he must deny himself, and take up his cross and follow Me. “For whoever wishes to save his life will lose it; but whoever loses his life for My sake will find it.…”

For my part, I have always hoped to suffer consciously at my death, suffering sufficiently for the expiation of my many sins. To wish otherwise seems to be a denial of the need of expiation or presumption upon the mercy of God.  That is not the way I wish to die.

Five years ago my brother lost his battle with a brain tumor. He suffered with the knowledge of his ultimate prognosis for seven years and over his last remaining months, he suffered physically and emotionally. Even when he lost his ability to speak, his eyes always told us that his mind was still with us. Through all of it he suffered, accepted, smiled, and prayed.

When he finally passed, I knew that God granted to my brother something much greater than a quick and painless death, a grace of inestimable value, the grace of a conscious, slow, and painful death.  In many ways I think my big brother taught me life’s most valuable lesson.  He taught me how to die well as his Lord taught him.

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Rezemos pelo Papa Francisco.

Como uma Pequena Seita Judia (Cristãos) Conquistou o Mundo Tão Rápido? E como pode Perdê-lo?

O padre Dwight Longenecker recomendou o livro acima do sociólogo Rodney Stark, que busca explicações para a rápida ascensão do cristianismo desde o seu fundador Jesus Cristo.

As justificativas para o crescimento do cristianismo também servem para ver como o cristianismo pode ser destruído.

Longenecker descreve as 10 justificativas encontradas por Stark:

1) Conversão por meio de relações sociais (família, amigos e comunidade);

2) Convertidos eram em grande parte formada por pessoas de classe média e de classes altas, que entendiam os problemas com o paganismo.

3) Boa parte dos convertidos era formada por judeus, que buscavam uma nova ideia de judaísmo adaptável ao mundo.

4) Por conta da relação social forte comunitária dos cristãos, eles conseguiram sobreviver melhor às epidemias que ocorreram durante o Império Romano.

5) Cristianismo cresceu nas grandes cidades do Império Romano.

6) A comunidade cristã era a favor da vida, contra abortos e infanticídio, que eram comuns no Império pagão.

7) A comunidade cristã defendia as mulheres, que eram desprezadas no paganismo do Império. Os esposos cristãos deveriam ser fiéis a ela.

8) Os deuses pagãos não eram necessariamente bons e tinham muitos caprichos. Eles não favoreciam a caridade. Cristianismo se tornou atrativo neste ambiente de caprichos pagão.

9) O cristianismo tinha uma estrutura teológica e doutrinária definida, ao contrário do paganismo que era difuso e individualista.

10) Cristianismo era o amor e sacrífico com coragem. E não absurdo e violento como o paganismo.


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Bom, invertam as justificativas e veremos como podemos destruir o cristianismo: pró-aborto, divórcio, destruição da família, individualismo, relativismo moral e destruição da estrutura da Igreja.


(Agradeço o texto de Longencker ao site New Advent)

Mary Wagner - A Canadense Presa pela Indústria do Aborto. E Arcebispo Michalik, processado por Feminista.

O blog Vox Cantoris divulga uma carta de Mary Wagner (foto acima), que foi presa no Canadá por prejudicar os negócios de uma clínica de aborto ao rezar na porta e tentar convencer as pessoas a não abortar.

Por sinal, outro dia eu li que um artista polonês criou um selo (imagem abaixo) em homenagem a Mary Wagner. Você pode comprar o selo se desejar.

A carta de Mary Wagner foi divulgada no site Toronto Catholic Witness. O site pede que a carta não seja copiada, então leiam a carta de Mary Wagner, clicando aqui.

Vox Cantoris também divulga que o arcebispo polonês Jozef Michalik de Przemsyl está sendo processado por uma militante feminista porque  fez pregações contra os males do aborto e da imoralidade sexual.

Vejamos o diz o texto que é também é do Toronto Catholic Witness (dessa vez não há pedido explícito para não copiar).

His Grace, Archbishop Jozef Michalik, of the Archdiocese of Przemysl, will have a Court hearing tomorrow, on the 12th of March. He is being sued by a strident, militant feminist for slander and defamation. The Archbishop's "crime", his "sin"? For daring to proclaim from the pulpit that sin is sin, that God does not change, that evil remains evil. 

From the Archdiocese of Przemysl: 

Archbishop Jozef Michalik in his sermon in Wroclaw on 16 October 2013. Had the right, and when viewed from the perspective of the Church's mission even an obligation, to refer critically to immoral lifestyle trends.

He said : "Many today say and rightly so about the reprehensible abuse of adults against children. This kind of evil you shall not tolerate, but no one dares to ask about the reasons, no television station is fighting against  pornography, with the promotion of false, selfish love between people.

No one is recalling that children suffer the lack of love by divorcing parents, and these are painful and long-lasting wounds.Before our eyes, we see the promotion of a new gender ideology. Already several major universities in Poland introduced lectures on this new and very clear ideology, whose programs are advised by the most aggressive Polish feminists, who for years have scoffed at the Church and traditional ethics, promote abortion and fight with the traditional model of family and marital fidelity. "

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Façamos algumas perguntas relativa ao caso brasileiro, diante do que disse o arcebispo polonês: 

- Tem alguém na CNBB questionando pornografia nas nossas tvs e jornais? 

- Tem algum padre lembrando dos males do divórcio nas crianças? 

- Tem algum bispo falando contra as ações do governo na liberalização do aborto no Brasil?

Rezemos pela grande Mary Wagner (se pudermos vamos escrever para ela também, em apoio). E também pelo Arcebispo Michalik. 

Vídeo: Ateu Desafia Deus, Por que Existe o Mal?

Em um vídeo, padre Robert Barron fala do escritor e comediante inglês Stephen Fry. Fry é ateu, mas disse que se morresse e encontrasse Deus, ele O desafiaria e perguntaria: Como você permite que uma criança nasça com câncer, como você permite tanta maldade a inocentes no mundo....?

Bom, se trata do velho, velhíssimo, debate chamado "Problema do Mal", tratado por praticamente todos os teólogos da Igreja. O questionamento de Fry é tão antigo quanto o judaísmo, pelo menos.

Já me fizeram a mesma pergunta, quando eu disse que era cristão. E para mim, a resposta disso está clara na Bíblia, no Livro de Jó. Pois Jó, depois de muito sofrimento, também desafiou Deus no mesmo sentido e Deus o respondeu.

Fiquei feliz que o padre Robert Barron deu a mesma resposta, lembrou do Livro de Jó, quando Deus responde a Jó sobre isso nos capítulos 38 ao 42.  Mas Barron é ainda mais didático, usando como exemplo, o livro Senhor dos Anéis de J.R.R. Tolkien e a Sexta-Feira Santa. 

Imagine que fosse tirada uma página do livro de Tolkien e jogada ao vento. E alguém pegasse e lesse apenas esta página. A página poderia ser a descrição de um momento terrível, ou de um momento feliz do romance, ou significar nada. Mas qualquer uma dessas ocasiões só poderia se entendida sabendo todo o contexto, que, no caso do sofrimento, apenas Deus conhece.

Barron também faz uma analogia com a Sexta-Feira Santa. Em Inglês, a Sexta-Feira Santa é chamada de Good Friday. Barron pergunta: Como podemos chamar de Good Friday o dia em Nosso Senhor é humilhado, chicoteado, esbofeteado e morto na Cruz? A resposta é que a Sexta-Feira Santa não é o final. Temos a Ressurreição, temos outra vida.

O Vídeo é sensacional. É o padre Barron no melhor da sua forma. Espero que saibam inglês para entender.





Em resumo, ateu não sabe mesmo nada sobre religião, faz perguntas tão antigas quanto o homem e nem procura as respostas.


(Agradeço o vídeo ao site Big Pulpit)

Budistas em guerra contra Muçulmanos

Certa vez, folheando em uma livraria o livro Guia Politicamente Incorreto da História do Mundo, abri justamente na página relativa ao Tibete. O autor descreve o período em que o Dalai Lama, Tenzin Gyatso, patrocinava amputações, mortes e orgias com meninos (!).  Não estou recomendando o livro, não li todo, nem sou especialista em Tibete.

Bom, atualmente, o Dalai Lama é a imagem da mansidão e da paz. Ele parece que não comeria uma mosquito, como os jainas.

Mas leio hoje que os budistas estão se levantando contra os muçulmanos em diversas partes do mundo. Vale lembrar que, assim como acontece com os cristãos, esta luta não é nova.

Vejamos parte do relato de Raymond Ibrahim:

West Misses Point—and Lesson—of Buddhist Anti-Muslim Sentiment

By Raymond Ibrahim

Ongoing reports decrying “anti-Muslim” Buddhists seem to miss the point: this antipathy did not appear out of thin air but rather in response to Islamic aggression—the same Islamic aggression the rest of the world is trying to cope with.

Ashin Wirathu: spiritual leader of the anti-Muslim movement in Burma

A Financial Times editorial titled “Buddhist militancy triggers international concern” opens by describing the “traumatic first-hand view” of a Muslim woman whose home was attacked and possessions plundered by Buddhists in Sri Lanka.   Says the woman: “If I could meet those responsible, I would ask: ‘Sir, does your Lord Buddha teach this?’”

Some paragraphs down, readers discover that her home was attacked during the course of “two days of clashes with Muslims,” which were “sparked by a street-corner disagreement between a Buddhist monk and a young Muslim,” and which left three people—religious identity unstated—dead.

So even this centerpiece story meant to demonstrate Buddhist intolerance begins with a quarrelsome “young Muslim” who may have been the one to initiate hostilities (unlike, for example, thehabitual and unprovoked persecution millions of Christians and other minorities experience in the Muslim world.)  But FT does not allow for that interpretation, arguing instead that the incident “is part of a wider trend: the rise of a new generation of militant anti-Muslim Buddhist organisations.”  At no point does the editorial point out that Muslim minorities regularly provoke Buddhist backlashes.

An Al Jazeera report titled “Myanmar’s Buddhist terrorism problem” cites major clashes that erupted in May 2012 and which displaced numerous Muslims.  But, as one digs further, one realizes that these clashes were sparked after Muslims raped and slaughtered a Buddhist woman.

And a New York Times article tells of how

Ashin Wirathu, a Buddhist monk with a rock-star following in Myanmar, sat before an overflowing crowd of thousands of devotees and launched into a rant against what he called “the enemy”—the country’s Muslim minority.  “You can be full of kindness and love, but you cannot sleep next to a mad dog,” Ashin Wirathu said, referring to Muslims. “I call them troublemakers, because they are troublemakers.”

While all such reports are meant to highlight Buddhist intolerance, for those who can read between the lines—or who are familiar with Islamic teachings, history, and current events—it is clear that Buddhists are responding to existential threats posed by the Muslims living among and around them.

Consider the words of Fr. Daniel Byantoro, a Muslim convert to Orthodox Christianity:

For thousands of years my country (Indonesia) was a Hindu Buddhist kingdom.  The last Hindu king was kind enough to give a tax exempt property for the first Muslim missionary to live and to preach his religion. Slowly the followers of the new religion were growing, and after they became so strong the kingdom was attacked, those who refused to become Muslims had to flee for their life to the neighboring island of Bali or to a high mountain of Tengger, where they have been able to keep their religion until now. Slowly from the Hindu Buddhist Kingdom, Indonesia became the largest Islamic country in the world. If there is any lesson to be learnt by Americans at all, the history of my country is worth pondering upon. We are not hate mongering, bigoted people; rather, we are freedom loving, democracy loving and human loving people. We just don’t want this freedom and democracy to be taken away from us by our ignorance and misguided “political correctness”, and the pretension of tolerance.(Source: Facing Islam, endorsement section).

The fact is, as in other countries where they are minorities, Muslims in Buddhist nations often initiate violence and mayhem.  In Buddhist-majority Thailand, where Muslim minorities are concentrated in the south, thousands of Buddhists—men, women, and children—have been slaughtered, beheaded, and raped, as Muslims try to cleanse the region of all “infidel” presence. (Click here for graphic reports and images that shed light on why Buddhists are becoming increasingly anti-Muslim.)

Accordingly, Wirathu, the “radical” Buddhist monk cited by FT, NYT, and Al Jazeera—the latter simply calls him the “Burmese bin Laden”—is on record saying: “If we are weak, our land will become Muslim.”  The theme song of his party speaks of people who “live in our land, drink our water, and are ungrateful to us”—a reference to Muslims—and how “We will build a fence with our bones if necessary” to keep them out.  His pamphlets say “Myanmar is currently facing a most dangerous and fearful poison that is severe enough to eradicate all civilization.”

Idade Média e Dias de Hoje, Direitos de Deus e Direitos Humanos.

Nos dias que vivemos, em que se acha lindo um casamento de três homens (foto acima), eu tive o privilégio de ler uma frase brilhante do grande filósofo Edward Feser. Ele compara a luta moderna pelos "direitos humanos" contra a luta medieval pelos "direitos divinos".

Diz Feser:

"If medieval people talked less about their own dignity, it is because they were more concerned about God´s dignity; if modern people talk more about it, it is because they are more concerned with themselves"

Esta argumentação de Feser, vai para minha lista de frases, que ficam na coluna da direita do blog, que já conta com outra frase de Feser.

Para um leitor assíduo de livros que comparam o pensamento medieval com os tempos modernos, esta frase sintetiza muita filosofia.