Precisa Ter Coragem para Protestar contra o Mal.

No Brasil, vivemos dias de gigantescos protestos contra o governo. Parece-me cada dia mais perigoso protestar contra o governo, depois que um sindicalista disse que vai defender o governo "com armas nas mãos". É sempre necessário coragem para se levantar contra governos e injustiças.

E por falar em coragem, li ontem que um grupo resolveu protestar contra o Estado Islâmico nas ruas do Iraque.

Nossa Senhora, isso é uma coragem gigantesca!!

O Estado Islâmico prendeu 70 manifestantes, só Deus sabe o que eles sofrerão.

Não estou comparando os protestos no Brasil, com os protestos no Iraque. Nada se compara à crueldade do Estado Islâmico atualmente. Mas é preciso coragem tanto no Brasil, e ainda muito mais no Iraque, para se lutar contra o mal.

Rezemos por eles e por todos que lutam contra verdadeiras injustiças e desgovernos.

Vejamos texto da Fox News, sobre os protestos no Iraque.

WORLD

ISIS detains dozens in Iraqi town after rare street protest

BAGHDAD –  Islamic State militants moved on Saturday to stamp out dissent in a remote western Iraqi town, detaining at least 70 and tying dozens of residents, including tribal leaders, to streetlight poles as a punishment, security officials said.

The crackdown followed a rare street demonstration on Saturday to protest the extremist group's execution of a local resident, they said. The protest by hundreds of residents in Rutbah, in Anbar province, was triggered by the execution earlier on Saturday of Munir al-Kobeisi, a civil servant, for killing an IS member. The killing was part of a long-running blood feud between two local clans.

Eid Amash, a spokesman for Anbar's provincial government, confirmed al-Kobeisi's execution and the subsequent protest.

Relying on sketchy information from Rutbah, in Iraq's far west near the Jordanian border, the officials said they didn't know the whereabouts of the detained residents. The militants, they said, tied two residents to each light pole and that the town was gripped by fears that the group would carry out mass executions.

Elsewhere in Anbar, much of which is under IS control, a roadside bomb on Saturday hit a border guard convoy making its way to the border crossing of Trebil on the Jordanian border, security officials said.

Five officers were killed in the attack — which bore the hallmarks of the Islamic State group, whose militants are active in the area near the Jordanian and Syrian borders.

The officials also said a pair of roadside bombs killed five people and injured 19 south and west of Baghdad on Saturday. Also in the capital, assailants using pistols fitted with silencers killed two people in the Jihad neighborhood in western Baghdad before they fled in a car.

All officials spoke on condition of anonymity because they were not authorized to speak to the media.

Livro: Guia Completo do Estado Islâmico

O livro é de Robert Spencer. Qualquer um que estude Islã e terrorismo sabe quanto Spencer sabe sobre essas duas coisas. Para mim, ele é disparado o melhor analista de Islã do mundo.

Já comprei este último livro dele, que explica em detalhes o que é o Estado Islâmico, califado, e como o mundo erroneamente tem combatido essa ameaça terrorista.

O livro já é best seller nos Estados Unidos.

Carta Aberta: 190 Generais, Almirantes e Brigadeiros dos EUA contra Acordo com o Irã

Esperei para ver se saía em algum site brasileiro essa notícia. Mas não vi. Então, aqui vai. 190 militares aposentados das mais altas patentes dos Estados Unidos assinaram uma carta aberta contra o Acordo com o Irã, que foi assinado em junho entre o Irã e mais seis países (EUA, Alemanha, França, Rússia, China e Reino Unido).

Os militares dizem que, ao contrário, do que se diz, o acordo vai facilitar que o Irã tenha bomba nuclear.

No mesmo dia, que li sobre essa Carta Aberta, li que a ONU declarou que o Irã continua expandindo sua usina nuclear em Parchin, após o Acordo.

Vejamos o que diz a Carta Aberta, divulgado pelo Washington Post. Não coloquei a lista dos 190 generais, almirantes e brigadeiros, são muitos, vejam no link.

É uma carta histórica. E veio em momento que o Congresso dos EUA discute se aprova ou não o Acordo, por isso é direcionada aos líderes do Congresso e não ao Obama que já aprovou o Acordo.

Crianças como Versão de Windows. Engenharia Genética.

Esta é a capa da The Economist desta semana, trata da ideia de "melhoramento genético" de crianças por pais, para que seus filhos sejam mais inteligentes, mais fortes, mais bonitos, mais altos, tenham mais cabelo, mais....

Rebecca Taylor, bióloga, especialista em questões genéticas, detonou a ideia no blog Creative Minority Report.

Em resumo, ela fala que se o mundo entrar nessa as crianças serão como versão do Windows, haveria uma "corrida genética" sem qualquer moral para conseguir a melhor versão do "pacote genético". Com filhos sendo considerados sempre ultrapassados.  Com seres humanos sendo considerados obsoletos. 

Ai, meu Deus, vou aumentar minhas orações para o futuro que os meus filhos enfrentarão.

Vejam parte do brilhante artigo de Rebecca, leiam todo clicando no link.

The Futility of Enhancing Your Kids

I am sure this is resonating with moms and dads everywhere who are excited about the possibilities of genetic engineering. Parents want the best for their children. We spend money on swimming lessons, piano lessons, tutors, private coaches and the latest gadgets so that they will have an edge over the other kids. We want them to succeed.

But what about going beyond lessons and gadgets and actively giving children a genetic advantage with germ-line genetic enhancements. Sounds fantastic doesn't it? Having the smartest, fastest and best-looking children on the block.

Logically, this is about as far as most people get before they say, "Sign me and my kids up!" But ask yourself what enhancing our children really means. It means being trapped forever in a dangerous biological game of "Keeping up with the Jones."

Bill McKibben, an environmentalist, in his book Enough: Staying Human in an Engineered Age, outlines the trap we will fall into once we begin to enhance our offspring:

...if germline manipulation actually does begin, it seems likely to set off a kind of biological arms race....  Of course, the problem with arms races is that you never really get anywhere. If everyone's adding 30 IQ points, then having an IQ of 150 won't get you any closer to Stanford than you were at the outset. The very first athlete engineered to use twice as much oxygen as the next guy will be unbeatable in the Tour de France - but in no time he'll merely be the new standard. You'll have to do what he did to be in the race, but your upgrades won't put you ahead, merely back on a level playing field.

...So let's say baby Sophie has a state-of-the-art gene job; her parents paid for the proteins discovered by say, 2005 that, on average, yielded 10 extra IQ points. By the time Sophie is five, though, scientists will doubtless have discovered ten more genes linked to intelligence. Now anyone with a platinum card can get 20 IQ points, not to mention a memory boost and a permanent wrinkle-free brow. So by the time Sophie is twenty-five and in the job market, she's already more or less obsolete - the kids coming out of college just plain have better hardware.

...The vision of one's child as a nearly useless copy of Windows 95 should make parents fight like hell to make sure we never get started down this path. But the vision gets lost easily in the gushing excitement about "improving" the opportunities for our kids. [emphasis mine]

The typical argument is that enhancements are just like gadgets. We are always upgrading those, so what's the problem upgrading our kids. The problem is that people are not gadgets. People should never be considered obsolete. But that is exactly where enhancements will take us.

Now look and that picture on the cover of The Economist again. The thought of that adorable baby as a "useless copy of Windows 95" makes me want to vomit. This is reason why I bother blogging. I am not a trained writer. (That is obvious.) I do not particularly like it. But if no one stands in front of the genetic augmentation train and tries to stop it, I feel the human race is doomed.

Orgulho é o Pecado Favorito do Diabo - Diz Exorcista

Dante Alligheri já mostrou isso que diz o exorcista. Aliás, Dante estudou teologia profundamente e talvez tenha até tido inspiração divina, pois sua Divina Comédia retrata os pecados humanos no Inferno e no Purgatório de maneira profunda, brilhante, bela , espetacular. Ele é o maior poeta de todos os tempos. Eu gosto especialmente da maneira que ele retratou o amor, "semente de todo bem, e fonte de todo pecado".

No seu Purgatório, Dante mostrou que o orgulho é o que mais afasta o ser humano do Paraíso, está na base da montanha do Purgatório (foto acima). Depois vem a Inveja, a raiva, a preguiça, e daí vai (imagem acima)

Eu tenho um verdadeira ojeriza ao orgulho. Por exemplo, apesar de os considerar dois ótimos debatedores e conhecedores dos problemas brasileiros, não consigo ler nem Olavo de Carvalho, nem Reinaldo Azevedo, pois o orgulho que eles demonstram de si mesmos muitas vezes é tamanho que eles não confessam os próprios erros e contradições,  e às vezes negam contradições explícitas.Sem falar em seus erros que afrontam a Doutrina Católica.

Hoje leio que um exorcista disse que o pecado favorito do diabo é o orgulho.

Vejamos o texto que saiu no site Breibart:

EXORCIST SAYS THAT THE DEVIL’S ‘FAVORITE SIN’ IS PRIDE

by THOMAS D. WILLIAMS, PH.D

In an interview Monday for the Spanish daily El Mundo, Father Juan José Gallego, the exorcist for the archdiocese of Barcelona, Spain, said that casting out demons is “a very unpleasant job” and that at first he was “really scared” because of his close contact with Satan.

Sometimes during an exorcism, the devil will address him directly, by name, he said.

With a doctorate in theology from the University of St. Thomas Aquinas in Rome, as well as a degree in Philosophy from the University of Barcelona, the priest seems academically well equipped to take on the forces of evil.

He has been an exorcist for nine years, treating some five cases a day, half of which turn out to be a “mental health problem,” he says.

According to the exorcist, the devil speaks all languages and his favorite sin is pride. The celebrated Christian apologist C.S. Lewis once called pride “the great sin” and wrote that “it was through Pride that the devil became the devil: Pride leads to every other vice: it is the complete anti-God state of mind.”

In Father Gallego’s experience, people who are possessed by the devil often “lose consciousness, speak foreign languages, possess incredible strength and are deeply troubled.”

“You see the most proper ladies vomiting and swearing, saying things like ‘The Virgin Mary is a whore,’” he said.

“One boy would have his shirt set on fire by the devil at night, and the demons told him that if he made a pact with them, it would all stop.”

The exorcist said that the most terrifying case he worked on involved an Ecuadorian lady. He was called in by her husband who said that whenever she saw a religious symbol she would lose consciousness and fall to the ground. The priest said that when he arrived the woman was unconscious, and he put on his stole and picked up some holy water, at which the woman began to crawl across the floor like a snake.

“I threw holy water on her and she writhed as it burned her. Her three-year-old son attempted to approach her and she tried to attack him. We had to take the child away. Then she came at me.”

“I remember another case: a demon-possessed 16-year-old boy with no studies who said to me in perfect Latin: ‘I order you never to say the Lord’s Prayer again.’”

The first thing he says during an exorcism is: “Lord Jesus Christ, Word of God the Father, God of all creation, you gave the holy apostles the power to subdue demons in your name and full authority to crush the enemy.”

Asked whether the devil ever laughs, he replied that he does, in the most sarcastic way. “The devil is completely embittered,” he said.

Still, according to the exorcist, the greatest victory of the devil is “making people believe he doesn’t exist.”

Pelo Menos 800 Terroristas Islâmicos Podem Agir Sozinhos na Europa

Recentemente, três americanos (sendo dois militares), um britânico e um francês conseguiram dominar um terrorista islâmico marroquino que atacou um trem que ia de Amsterdã para Paris, armado com uma AK-47. Eles receberam condecoração do presidente francês pelo ato de bravura (foto acima).

Hoje, leio uma reportagem no jornal Daily Mail que aponta que pelo menos 800 terroristas islâmicos estão na Europa, depois de voltar da Síria e do Iraque, e podem atacar a qualquer momento. O cara que atacou no trem, viveu na Espanha, já era conhecido por palavras em favor do terrorismo e frequentava uma "mesquita radical".

Com tudo isso, só se evitou o desastre por causa da divina providência conceder que os militares estivessem no mesmo vagão do trem.

Vejamos parte do texto da reportagem:

At least 800 Islamist extremists are ready to launch attacks in Europe after returning from Iraq and Syria, intelligence services warn

By SIMON TOMLINSON FOR MAILONLINE

Around 800 jihadists have returned to Europe to launch attacks after being trained by extremists in Iraq and Syria, intelligence services have warned.

Counter-terrorism officers said the fanatics had been recruited by the Islamic State or Al Qaeda-linked groups and were waiting for the order to strike on the Continent.

Around half of the 700 Britons who have travelled to fight in the Middle East have also returned, with some believed to be planning attacks in the UK. 

The warning comes after the Moroccan gunman who stormed a high-speed train from Amsterdam to Paris was said to be an 'Islamist returner' who had spent time in Syria.

Ayoub El Khazzani, 25, is believed to have been given instructions by a terrorist network to commit an atrocity, but was overpowered by six passengers, including three Americans and a British grandfather.

Some were being tracked, but others had dropped off the radar. 

The source said: 'These people are not well trained, but they are poised and prepared to do anything. Once they have been indoctrinated, they receive the minimum training.'

A Spanish counter-terrorism source said Khazzani had lived in Spain for seven years until 2014. 

He came to the attention of Spanish authorities for making hardline speeches defending jihad and attending a radical mosque in Algeciras.

Livro: 11 Cardeias contra a "Protestanização" da Igreja Católica.

Depois do livro em que 5 cardeais defenderam a família tradicional, publicado na eminência do sínodo da família do ano passado, agora surge um novo livro, dessa vez escrito por 11 cardeais que lutam contra o que entendem como "prostestanização da Igreja Católica", em defesa do casamento e da família, e que vai ser publicado na eminência da segunda parte do sínodo, que ocorre em outubro.

Os 11 cardeais são:

• Carlo Caffarra, Arcebispo de Bologna;
• Baselios Cleemis, Presidente da Conferência Episcopal da Índia;
• Paul Josef Cordes, Presidente emérito do Consílio Pontifício «Cor Unum»;
• Dominik Duka, O.P., Arcebispo de Praga, Primaz da Boêmia;
• Willem Jacobus Eijk,  Arcebispo de Utrech;
• Joachim Meisner, Arcebispo de Colônia;
• John Olorunfemi Onaiyekan, Arcebispo de Abuja (Nigéria);
• Antonio Maria Rouco Varela, Arcebispo emérito de Madri;
• Camillo Ruini, Vigário emérito da Diocese de Roma;
• Jorge Liberato Urosa Savino, Arcebispo de Caracas, Santiago de Venezuela

O editor é o cardeal alemão Winfried Aymans, que é professor de lei canônica na Universidade de Munique.

O site que detalha o livro está em italiano e diz que o livro ainda é confidencial, e não traz o nome do livro ainda, mas que seguiria na linha do que foi publicado ano passado em defesa da família. Mas eu achei na internet a capa acima, então o livro se chamaria "Onze Cardeais Falam em Defesa do Casamento e da Família", com a informação que o livro será lançado em breve.

O Padre Z afirma que além desse livro, vai ser lançado um só com bispos africanos.

Parece que os bispos estão se levantando contra o que percebem como ataques do Vaticano à Doutrina da Igreja Católica.

Rezemos por nossos "Príncipes da Igreja" (bispos e cardeais), para que eles se levantem e não deixem que as palavras de Cristo sejam abandonadas.


(Agradeço a informação do livro ao site The American Catholic)

Estado Islâmico detalha Plano de Dominação Global em 6 Fases (cumpriram 3).

Foi encontrado um livro no Paquistão, no qual o Estado Islâmico detalha as fases que pretende fazer para chegar à dominação total do mundo. O site Christian Examiner ao ver isso lembrou do livro de Hitler, "Mein Kampf" (traduzido por Minha Luta), no qual Hitler detalha seu racismo e programa de poder.

O Hitler da vez, Abu Bakr al-Baghdadi (foto acima), tem uma ideologia velha, do velho inimigo histórico do cristianismo, o Islã.

Nesta semana, que o Estado Islâmico destruiu mosteiro cristão, matou arqueólogo, além do tradicional (estuprar e matar mulheres por apedrejamento), agora o mundo ver em mais detalhes o "programa de governo" do Estado Islâmico.

O livro do Estado Islâmico se chama A Brief of the Islamic State Caliphate (ISC) - The Caliphate According to the Prophet (seria traduzido por Uma Breve História do Califado do Estado Islâmico, O Califado de Acordo com o Profeta).

O livro conta a história do Estado Islâmico, elogia o líder,e traz o roteiro para dominação islâmica mundial.

O site Israel National News relata as fases que o Estado Islâmico pretende executar. São 6 fases, e 3 já foram cumpridas.

Vejamos quais são as fases:

Fase 1 (Despertar 2000-2003): Operação contra os Estados Unidos para provocar uma Cruzada contra o Islã.

Fase 2 (Choque e Espanto 2004-2008): Estado Islâmico realiza ataques em diversas regiões, incluindo ataque cibernéticos. E estabelece organizações de caridade para apoiar terrrorismo.

Fase 3 (Confiança Própria 2007-2010): Estado Islâmico faz ação militar no Iraque e na Síria.

Fase 4 (Extorsão 2010-2013): Estado Islâmico atacará os interesse econômicos americanos e ocidentais e substituirá o dólar por ouro e prata, além de expor a relação de países muçulmanos com Israel.

Fase 5 (Declaração do Califado (2013-2016): O documeno simplesmente diz que é estabelecido o califado de acordo com o profeta Maomé.

Fase 6 (Guerra aberta 2017-2020): Estado Islâmico diz que ocorrerá uma fé religiosa e que Alá garantirá a vitória dos muçulmanos que reinarão sobre a terra.

A Idolatria a um Papa que Impede a Crítica (Papolatria)

O site Rorate Caeli publicou uma importante carta que fala da situação em que um Papa é adorado a ponto de virar um ídolo que não permite crítica. A carta é de 1976, tempos de Paulo VI, e é de autoria de Neil McCaffrey, um editor de livros católicos, que morreu em 1994.

A carta é dirigida a padres e também ao ilustre filósofo católico Dietrich von Hildebrand

McCafrey fala de uma papolatria, método adotado pelos cheerleaders dos papas, que nunca criticam os papas, apenas exaltam. Ele diz que os santos e Dante ficariam assustados com a ideia. 

Papa Paulo VI é reconhecido pela Humanae Vitae, mas também pela sua aproximação com regimes comunistas e pela mudança da liturgia da missa. 

Eu não vou publicar a carta toda aqui, pois foi conseguida de maneira exclusiva pelo Rorate Caeli.

Mas aqui vão algumas partes. Leiam toda no site Rorate Caeli. Vale à pena ler a carta toda e comprar com o atual momento da Igreja.

1. Scripture makes no bones about the weaknesses of the Apostles and especially of Peter; which in any case were well known to the early Christians, whose faith survived the knowledge. Catholic history, from the age of the Fathers on down, provides us with the model. It was only in the 19th century that some Catholics found it necessary to refine the policies of the Holy Spirit.

2. The papacy is given primacy from the earliest years, yet there is little evidence of papolatry until we get to the last century. The papolaters of our day would have been regarded with astonishment by the Fathers, by Dante, by St. Catherine, by Bellarmine, by Suarez, by just about anyone you can name.

3. We can see papolatry in perspective when we put it beside its kin; and we can do that with a flying visit to Moscow or Peking. There too we are allowed to criticize underlings. Pravda does it every day. But the Leader, never.

4. Those orthodox Catholics who feel most comfortable with the spirit of Vatican II are least comfortable with its encouragement of free speech. John [XXIII] and Paul [VI] told us to relax and speak our minds. Perhaps they meant us to make an exception about speaking of themselves, but in fact they didn’t say so. So their admirers hasten to protect the Popes from themselves. (It seems, then, that popes can make mistakes; but only a privileged few are allowed to notice them.)

5. In this connection, the favored few allow themselves, and even an occasional unwashed Catholic, one indulgence. We are permitted to disagree with Paul’s Ostpolitik. I haven’t yet been able to divine why the Pope can be criticized about this but not about Church discipline or the liturgy or ecumania. So paradox piles upon paradox. It is possible to make a plausible (though far from compelling) case for papal policy toward Communism. We might argue that the Church expects to outline today’s tyrants; that she is trying to make life a bit easier for Catholics behind the Iron Curtain; that she no longer has any confidence that the West will defend itself; even that life in Eastern Europe is less lethal to souls than life in the West. Whereas I have never heard a good argument for the new liturgy or for the new laxity in discipline. Even the papal cheerleaders can’t muster an argument, for the excellent reason that there is no argument that would commend itself to the orthodox. All the arguments, such as they are, come from the infidels. The papal cheerleaders can only repeat their incantation: obedience, obedience, obedience. By which, ironically, they don’t really mean obedience. They mean something else. They mean: shut up. Is it necessary, in this circle, to spell out the distinction between obedience and calling black white? (By way of underscoring the bankruptcy of papal policy, have you noticed that nobody ever talks these days about devotion to the Mass? There are no more courses on the Mass, no more books, no more private studies so that we might assist more knowledgeably and devoutly. In fact, if you so much as call it the Mass, you are a reactionary. There is a message here for the apologists of the new liturgy. But they don’t want to hear it. That would be “disloyal”. As long as we polish up the reputation of the present Pope, it would seem, we can forget about what happens to the Mass.)

6. Which leads us ineluctably to the question of charity. I suggest that the papal cheerleaders are pursuing a policy that has the effect of destroying souls, but that masquerades as charity. They want to deny this Pope, or any living pope, the blessing of constructive criticism; and never mind what its absence may do to his soul. 

...

P.S. What the cheerleaders are really telling us is that this Pope (any Pope?) is too vain, too irascible to accept even constructive criticism; that he is incapable of growth; that he is a crippled human being; and that he must be treated not like a father but like an Oriental despot. Q.E.D.

Livro: Cristianismo Cresce na China Porque pode Explicar o Mundo.

O cristianismo cresce a taxa elevadíssimas na África e na China, o livro acima, de Stark e Wang, tenta uma explicação não-espiritual para isso. Eu costumo achar que Deus usa tudo que é humano para levar o homem a Deus, usa até o mal. Então, não tenho muita preocupação quando alguém explica a evolução de uma religião usando questões materiais e científicas. Apenas acho que essas questões não são mais relevantes do que a sede da alma por Deus.

Os autores do livro dizem que as religiões orientais (xintoísmo, confucionismo, budismo e taoísmo) olham para o passado e não procuram explicar o universo. Enquanto, o cristianismo olha para o futuro e libera a ciência nas análises sobre tudo. Esta característica do cristianismo tem feito intelectuais chineses a se voltarem ao cristianismo.

Isto não explica o crescimento completo, pois é o povo chinês que adere ao cristianismo e não simplesmente intelectuais, mas não deixa de ser verdade o que ele relata sobre as religiões em comparação com o cristianismo. Muita gente antes já disse isso, o cristianismo é melhor para a ciência. Aqui no blog, certa vez, eu coloquei nomes de padres, bispos, papas que foram importantes para a ciência.

O jornal National Ctaholic Register fez um relato do livro de  Stark e Wang, vejam abaixo parte do que relata o jornal.

Why Is Christianity Growing So Quickly in Communist China?
BY CARL BUNDERSON/CNA/EWTN NEWS

FORTH WORTH, Texas — Christianity is spreading rapidly in China, and it could be because of how well the faith fits in with modern scientific technology. According to the renowned sociologist Rodney Stark, the number of Christians in China is growing at an impressive annual rate of seven percent.

Stark and Xiuhua Wang authored the 2015 work A Star in the East: The Rise of Christianity in China. Stark views himself as a social historian and is co-director of the Institute for Studies of Religion at Baylor University.

Stark and Wang estimate that in 1980 there were 10 million Ch

ristians in the People’s Republic of China, and that in 2007 the figure was 60 million. These numbers yield an annual growth rate of 7% — which means that last year, there were nearly 100 million Christians in China.

They hold that this large increase in the number of Christians in China is driven by the conversion of the better educated, who are experiencing “cultural incongruity” between traditional Asian culture and industrial-technological modernity, which results in a spiritual deprivation, which Christianity is able to answer.

China’s intellectuals, Stark told CNA Aug. 14, “are very convinced they’ve got to turn West to understand the world they live in … and they’re convinced by my argument that Eastern religions don’t fit the modern world they’re engaged in, and that they need to look to the West to find philosophies and religions. It’s quite amazing.”

Eastern religions like Taoism, Confucianism, and Buddhism, Stark maintained, “are all anti-progress; they all proclaim the world is going downhill from a glorious past, and that we should look backwards, not forwards. None of them admit that we’re able to understand anything about the universe — it’s something we have to meditate on, not something to try and theorize about, as the physicists and chemists do. And that doesn’t fit with the world that modern Chinese are experiencing having happened around them.”

“Industrial society, and all the science it’s based on, doesn’t fit well with those kind of religious views,” Stark reflected.

“But the question of what does the world mean, and how do we live in it, persists — and so that’s a major motor in the Christianization of China, and it explains why it’s the most educated Chinese who are the most apt to join.”

The spread of Christianity in China, he said, has been possible even “during the worst time of Chinese persecution” under Mao Zedong’s Cultural Revolution of the 1960s and ’70s because “this process of conversion is invisible; the government can’t see it.”

...

Catholic missionaries have been in China since the Jesuits of the 16th century, and in 1949 — when communist forces gained control over the whole of the mainland — there were some 5,700 Catholic foreign missionaries, and a total of nearly 3.3 million Catholics.

The communist government of China expelled foreign missionaries, and later established the Chinese Patriotic Catholic Association, a government-sanctioned Catholic Church. This has existed in opposition to the underground Church in communion with the Vatican, which is persecuted and whose episcopal appointments are frequently not acknowledged by Chinese authorities

.

Stark noted, however, that the Aug. 4 consecration of Auxiliary Bishop Joseph Zhang Yinlin of Weihui is “the most important news from a Catholic perspective to come out of China in years.”

Bishop Zhang was approved of by both the Chinese government and the Holy See — the appointment of bishops has been the two states’ most prominent area of contention throughout the past 60 years, so their agreement is of some import.

...

In light of this new openness to Christianity across China as a whole, Stark supposed a continued 7% annual rate of growth of the religion. At that rate, there will be 150 million Christians in China in 2020; 295 million in 2030; and 579 million in 2040.

“The growth might stop: You never know what’s going to happen in the future,” Stark said. “But at the current rate, there’ll be a whole heck of a lot of Christians in China awfully soon.”

Um Cardeal disse a Verdade sobre a Imigração Muçulmana na Europa

Qualquer um que já viveu na Europa sabe que a presença dos muçulmanos altera fortemente a cultura da região e que eles, na grande maioria, não se misturam com a população. Isto é fato.Qualquer um consegue ver o risco cultural de se receber muitos imigrantes muçulmanos. O impacto cultural já é enorme em países como França, que tem a maior população muçulmana da Europa, onde há cidades com bairros inteiros dominados pelos muçulmanos, onde impera a lei islâmica, onde a justiça comum e a polícia não entram. Da mesma forma, acontece em cidades como Londres e Berlim.

O site Manhound Paradise lembrou as palavras de um cardeal italiano, chamado Giacomo Biffi, que falou exatamente sobre o risco cultural islâmico.

Biffi publicou um relatório em 2000 sobre o assunto, condenando a imigração exagerada e sem critérios religiosos.

Sobre o caso dos muçulmanos, ele disse, antes dos ataques às torres gêmeas de Nova Iorque:

The case of the Muslims

It is obvious that the case of Muslims must be treated separately. And it is to be hoped that the people in charge will not be afraid to confront it with eyes wide open and no delusions.

Muslims—the vast majority of them, with few exceptions—come here determined to remain foreign to our “humanity,” whether individual or in groups, in what is most essential to it, most precious and most “secularly” indispensable: more or less openly they come to us determined to remain substantially ‘different,’ in the expectation of substantially remaking us into something similar to them.

They have a different kind of food (not much of a problem in of itself), a different holiday, family laws that are incompatible with ours, a concept of women vastly different from ours (to the point of polygamy). Above all they have a rigorously fundamentalistic view of public life, so much so that the perfect interpenetration between religion and politics is a part of their indubitable and unrenounceable faith, even if they are wise enough to wait until they are a numerical majority before imposing it on us.    

So it is not the men of the Church but the modern states of the West who must do some wise book-keeping in this regard. Further, if our State really believes in the importance of civil liberties (among which is religious freedom) and in democratic principles, it should work on spreading them, having them practiced and accepted more and more, everywhere. A little tool which could be of use to achieve this purpose could be “reciprocity,” a request that this not be just an empty word in the countries of origin of the immigrants who come here. [….]

However foreign to our mentality and even paradoxical it may seem, the only effective way of promoting the “principle of reciprocity” on the part of a truly “secular” State wishing to spread human liberties would be for the authorized institutions to allow  to Muslims here only what Muslim countries actually allow to others over there.

É isso, ele viu que os muçulmanos têm uma visão completamente diferente de família, de mulher, de democracia, de política e de religião. E que não se misturam com os cristãos.

Por que este assunto é importante hoje?  Porque muitos muçulmanos fogem de áreas de conflito e tentam chegar na Europa, que já tem uma enorme quantidade de muçulmanos, onde há países europeus que constroem mais mesquitas que igrejas cristãs.

Muitos muçulmanos que fogem, acabam morrendo no mar, o que é uma desgraça para a humanidade.

O Papa Francisco reagiu ontem dizendo que os países europeus devem abrir suas portas para os imigrantes muçulmanos.

Mas ele infelizmente não ressaltou a necessidade deles se adaptarem à cultura cristã europeia, nem vê que os países europeus já tem sérios problemas com imigrantes ilegais. Uma pequena passeada pelas ruas de cidades como Roma ou Nápoles é suficiente para ver isso. Ele deveria pelo menos dizer que os países ou a ONU deveriam cuidar para que os países de origem dos muçulmanos resolvessem seus problemas e tentar cuidar destes que fogem para que eles retornem a seus países de origem com uma vida melhor.

Imagine se alguém tentasse invadir sua casa fugindo de um conflito nas ruas. Você deveria abrir as portas, mas gostaria que a pessoa saísse logo de sua casa e exigira que a polícia (ONU) cuidasse deles e do conflito. Não gostaria que um estranho, que quer permanecer estranho, ficasse na sua casa.

Por que que a Igreja de hoje não reconhece mais o que significa o islã? Algo que muitos santos já revelaram? Trato disso no livro que estou escrevendo.

(Agradeço os textos ao site Pewsitter)

Fique Calmo, Aprenda Teologia Católica.

Lembrei da expressão Keep Calm..., hoje, ao ler um texto sobre teologia e a crise na Igreja Católica.

Fiz a minha própria expressão, Keep Calm e Aprenda Teologia Católica, hehe.

Continuei um método muito comum hoje em dia de usar a expressão original da Segunda Guerra (Keep Calm and Carry On), usada para acalmar os britânicos que sofriam ataques aéreos dos nazistas em 1940 e modificá-la.

O texto que li é muito bom e fala como aprender a teologia e a tradição católicas ajuda muito a acalmar quando se vê tanto despreparo e crises na Igreja dos dias de hoje.

É verdade, eu procuro fazer isso todos os dias, fico realmente mais feliz com a minha Igreja lendo a Bíblia e vendo o que Santo Agostinho, São Tomás de Aquino, São Roberto Bellarmino, Bento XVI, São Bonaventura, Leão XIII,...ensinaram.

O texto é de David Mills, pena que não tenho mais tempo para traduzir textos para o blog ultimamente. Vou marcar em negrito as partes que mais gostei.

O artigo de Mills foi publicado no excelente site Aleteia.

Only Theology Helps Us Feel Better About the Church

By David Mills.

It’s “the hardest problem for converts to Catholicism — at least those who are theologically informed,” wrote a scholarly friend who had entered the Church about a decade ago. He felt no buyer’s remorse — he had been an Episcopalian, so how could he? — but the wild statements of Bishop X and Cardinal Y still upset him. 
 

I would have thought the opposite from my friend: that Catholic failings is a harder problem for those who are not theologically informed. To put it simply: theology can make you feel better when every day’s news might bring the story of yet another scandal, which someone you know is going to bring up with glee. 
 

In this case it clearly does. Theology provides an emotionally reassuring distinction between the form and the performance. It tells us exactly what the Church claims for herself and how far she is from claiming any great perfection in her members, from the pope on down. 
 

She doesn’t claim much for herself on the human side. She claims a great deal on the divine side. There’s not a line in magisterial teaching that claims a pope will be a holy, wise, or even a prudent man. It doesn’t even claim he’ll a good man. See among others Alexander VI. What it does claim is that God will use him in certain ways that we can count on. He can even speak infallibly, in certain carefully defined circumstances. Alexander VI could have given an infallible teaching from his mistress’s bed. Strange but true, as the comic strip used to say. 
 

Theology tells us that at the Ascension, God said in effect, “I will be with you to the end of the ages, but I’m putting you in charge.” From the worldly point of view, that seems the worst personnel decision in human history, but as Job had to learn the hard way, God has his reasons. The Church moves through history composed of and led by sinful men, as attracted as any other man by power, fame, sloth, every variety of lust, and the benefits of corruption — and yet God meant it to happen this way and will make sure it all comes out right in the end. God has anticipated the problems and made provisions for them.
 

Here as elsewhere, theology not only explains and directs but comforts. Those who don’t know it are the ones more likely to notice and despair over the gap between the Church’s vision of holiness and her actual corporate life. They believe, and quite rightly, that the gap between them should not be nearly so wide as it is. They believe, and also quite rightly, that bishops and priests should not act like worldly leaders, and particularly shouldn’t hush up crimes and “manage” scandals and accumulate worldly privileges and riches.
 

Without the comfort of theology, those painful feelings can turn into anger and despair. It’s reasonable to believe that the wide gap between form and performance means the thing is not everything it claims, even that it’s a sham. It’s easy to despair over the fact that some men who’ve risen high in the Church are corrupt or incompetent — even though they’re precisely as corrupt or incompetent as the Church expects them to be. 
 

Those of us who do know the theology often feel this way ourselves. “How long will this [rude word] last?” a young scholar I know exploded when he heard the news of yet another bishop caught hiding a child-molester from the law. After all the years of scandal, still a bishop does the one thing you’d think he wouldn’t do, out of fear of the press and the lawyers if not nothing else. You want to bang your head against the wall. 
 

We all like the idea that “God writes straight with crooked lines.” We’re comforted to know that God makes what he wants out of the mess we make. At the moment, God is writing straight with a billion-some crooked lines. Among them are one crooked line pope, 200-some crooked line cardinals, over 5,000 crooked line bishops, and over 400,000 crooked line priests, and all the lay Catholics who for one reason or another could embarrass the Church in public. 
 

Theology tells us that God works his will through sinners, and that even in this world sin does not have the last word, though when the New York Times and its allies are hammering the Church for some scandal, it certainly feels like it. God has the last word, even when his people seem to have failed him. At every second of every day, all over the world, he is working through those billion-some crooked lines to feed the hungry, to comfort the sorrowing, to heal the sick, to encourage the disheartened, to visit the prisoner, to clothe the naked, to preach Christ, to save souls and forgive sins. 


David Mills,  former executive editor of First Things , is a senior editor of  The Stream, editorial director for  Ethika Politika,  and columnist for several Catholic publications. His latest book is  Discovering Mary. Follow him @DavidMillsWrtng.

Com Dia da Criação, Vamos lembrar do Criador e do Paraíso (Nossa verdadeira Casa)

Nós somos brasileiros, de belezas naturais, nós entendemos. Quantas vezes ficamos de frente a espetáculos da natureza e temos vontade de agradecer a Deus? O Papa Francisco resolveu estabelecer o dia mundial da oração pelos cuidados com a criação. Não parece, pelo o que li, que seja oração destinada a agradecimento pela criação, mas oração destinada à criação. Corre-se o risco de estimular a ideia de que a própria criação é Deus. 

O Papa ressaltou que nós somos custodiantes da natureza, isto é, nós tomamos conta de algo que nos pertence. Verdade. Talvez faltou apenas lembrar que Deus disse que devemos usar a natureza em favor do homem. O homem é a mais importante criação divina, pelo simples fato que Deus se fez homem. Deus não se fez anjo ou árvore.

Em todo caso eu li dois ótimos textos sobre o assunto. O primeiro é do bispo-eleito Robert Baron, ele lembra que a natureza não se importa com os homens, Deus sim.

Vejamos abaixo o texto do bispo Barron que foi publicado no National Catholic Register.

Mother Nature is One Unreliable Lady

BY BISHOP-ELECT ROBERT BARRON 08/11/2015

Conservation International has sponsored a series of videos that have become YouTube sensations, garnering millions of views. They feature famous actors - Harrison Ford, Kevin Spacey, Robert Redford, and others - voicing different aspects of the natural world, from the ocean, to the rain forest, to redwood trees. The most striking is the one that presents Mother Nature herself, given voice by Julia Roberts.

They all have more or less the same message, namely, that nature finally doesn't give a fig for human beings, that it is far greater than we, and will outlast us. Here are some highlights from the Mother's speech: "I've been here for over four and a half billion years, 22,500 times longer than you; I don't really need people, but people need me." And "I have fed species greater than you; and I have starved species greater than you." And "my oceans, my soil, my flowing streams, my forests-they all can take you or leave you."

I must confess that when I first came across these videos I thought, "just more tree-hugging extremism," but the more I watched and considered them, the more I became convinced that they are fundamentally right and actually serve to make a point of not inconsiderable theological significance. That nature in all of its beauty and splendor doesn't finally care about human beings came home to me dramatically many years ago. I was standing in the surf, just off the coast of North Carolina, gazing out to sea and remarking how beautiful the vista was. For just a moment, I turned around to face the shore, and a large wave came up suddenly and knocked me off my feet and, for a few alarming seconds, actually pinned me to the ocean floor. In a moment, it was over and I got back on my feet, but I was shaken. The sea, which just seconds before had beguiled me with its serenity and beauty, had turned on a dime and almost killed me.

The ancients knew this truth, and they expressed it in their mythology. The gods and goddesses of Greece, Rome, and Babylon were basically personifications of the natural necessities: water, the sky, the mountain, the fertile earth, etc. Like the natural elements that they symbolized, these divine figures were fickle in the extreme. One minute, Poseidon smiles on you, and the next minute he sinks your ship; now Zeus is pleased with you, now he sends a thunderbolt to destroy you; Demeter can be a gentle mother, and Demeter can be an avenging enemy. And indeed, so it goes with the ocean, with the weather, and with the soil. But this is precisely why the worship of these natural necessities is always such a dicey business, for the best one can hope for is to mollify these finally indifferent divinities to some degree through worship and sacrifice.

Biblical religion represents something altogether new, a fact signaled in the opening verses of the book of Genesis, where it is emphatically stated that God creates earth, sky, the stars and planets, the animals that move upon the earth and the fishes that inhabit the ocean depths. All of these natural elements were, at one time or another, worshipped as divine. So even as he celebrates them, the author of Genesis is effectively dethroning them, desacralizing them. Nature is wonderful indeed, he is telling us; but it is not God. And the consistent Biblical message is that this Creator God is not like the arbitrary and capricious gods of the ancient world; rather, he is reliable, rock-like in his steadfast love, more dedicated to human beings than a mother is to her child. The entire Scriptural revelation comes to a climax with the claim, in the fourth chapter of John's first letter, that God simply is love. St. Augustine celebrated this Biblical departure from the ancient worship of nature in a lyrical and visionary passage in his Confessions. He imagines the natural elements coming before him, one by one. Each says to him, "Look higher," and then, in a great chorus, they gesture toward God and then shout together, "He made us!"

As classical Christianity came to be questioned by some of the intellectual elite in the early modern period, the ancient worship of nature made an unhappy comeback. One thinks of Baruch Spinoza's blithe equation Deus sive natura (God or nature) and then of the many forms of pantheism that it spawned, from Schleiermacher's "infinite" to Emerson's "Oversoul" to George Lucas's "The Force." In fact, the return to the classical sense of divinity is on particularly clear display in the "dark" and "light" sides of the Force that play such a vital role in the Star Wars narrative. Though it can be used for good or ill, the Force is finally as indifferent to human beings as is Mother Nature.

And this is why the Julia Roberts video functions as an effective antidote against all forms of nature worship. It vividly reminds us that when we make Mother Nature our ultimate concern, we are turning to an exceptionally cruel and unreliable lady. Though I don't think this was her intention, Ms. Roberts is urging us to "look higher."

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O segundo lembra qual é a nossa verdadeira casa, o Paraíso com Deus. O texto é de Philip Kosloski e foi publicado também no National Catholic Register.

Creation Is a Gift, But Heaven Is Our Home

BY PHILIP KOSLOSKI

With the recent announcement of the “World Day of Prayer for the Care of Creation,” we are again reminded that we have a duty to preserve what God has given to us. It reminds us that we are to be stewards of creation instead of masters, but what does that really mean? What does it mean to be a “steward?”

The typical definition of steward is, “a person who manages another's property or financial affairs; one who administers anything as the agent of another or others.” The key distinction here is that it denotes a person who is put in charge of “another’s property.” Being a steward means that we have been given the duty to manage something that is not ours.

This means that the earth is not somehow ours for the taking. We do not have ownership over it. Instead, we are “stewards” of God’s creation and must rightly “manage” what He has given us. This also means that there are right and wrong ways to “manage” it, as we are not the ones who make the rules. We must abide by the rules of the true Master of Creation, God Himself.

Another helpful term that describes our role in the world (and our care of creation) is “pilgrim.” Often we forget that the earth is not to be our “kingdom” that will last forever. Our kingdom will be in Heaven, where we will inherit what God desires to give to us. We are simply pilgrims on this earth, always striving to draw closer to our ultimate destination.

This beautiful image of being a “pilgrim” on this earth is often portrayed when we speak about the Church being a “ship” or the “barque of Peter.” A ship is not destined to always be at sea, but must be directed to some sort of port or final destination. Many saints have favored this analogy and it greatly helped them in their spiritual lives. For example, Saint Thérèse of Lisieux wrote, “[T]he symbol of a ship always delights me and helps me to bear the exile of this life. Does not the Wise Man tell us—”Life is like a ship that passeth through the waves: when it is gone by, the trace thereof cannot be found”? 

Also, we are reminded about being pilgrims every time we visit our local “parish” church. The Greek roots of this word stem from a Hellenistic term “paroikos” meaning “sojourners.” This term reminds us that we are called to live our lives as “strangers and pilgrims” (1 Pet. 2:11 Douay-Rheims) in a land that is not ours.

Put in this context, a pilgrim realizes that everything is a gift. Creation is a gift from God and we have been put in charge over it for the time being. However, it is only temporary. The final destination is Heaven and so the created world around us is only to be used in accord with that end. We are not meant to “master” or “subdue” creation for our own selfish purposes. Instead, we must realize how our care of creation is meant to propel us further along the path to Eternal Shores.