O Que Dizem os Donos do Mundo?

Reuniu-se em Davos esse mês a nata dos líderes mundiais, gente que tem muito, muito dinheiro mesmo e que também tem muito poder para impor suas posições ao redor do mundo. São líderes políticos, da ONU, empresários e artistas reconhecidos e muito bem pagos.

O que será que esse pessoal pensa?

Ao final da reunião desse ano, a organização fez uma seleção do que chamou das 36 "melhores" frases ditas por esses líderes.

A escolha das melhores frases sempre depende de quem escolhe. Então, ou a pessoa que escolheu tem uma cabeça vazia ou os líderes mundiais são vazios, ou ambos. A pessoa que escolheu também tem uma especial predileção por defesa do feminismo, algo que vem destruindo o mundo.

As frases escolhidas ou não dizem nada ou são estúpidas ou são completamente inócuas e vazias.

Além da frase acima de um tal de will.I.am, que eu sinceramente não tenho a menor ideia do que significa, vejam outras frases abaixo. Para ver todas as frases  cliquem aqui, não vou encher meu blog de estupidez expondo essas frases.

Essa estupidez por vez esconde objetivos perversos e desastrosos para o mundo.

Por isso o título do post é o que os donos do mundo dizem e não o que pensam.

Vídeo: 12 Pequenas Histórias Sobre São Tomás de Aquino

Hoje é dia de São Tomás de Aquino. O grande filósofo católico Peter Kreeft nos conta no vídeo acima 12 pequenas histórias sobre São Tomás de Aquino. A história mais definitiva para entender São Tomás de Aquino, segundo Kreeft, é a história que dá nome e também image deste blog, quando São Tomás em resposta a um pergunta do próprio Cristo sobre que recompensa ele mereceria, disse que ele só queria "Thyself, O Lord" (Só a ti, Senhor).

Vejam as pequenas histórias no vídeo, aqui vai um resumo:

1) São Tomás não tinha medo, quando fez uma cirurgia parecia não sentir dor (não havia anestesia na época);

2) São Tomás aos cinco anos fez uma pergunta simples ao seu professor: "O que é Deus?" O professor não respondeu, então Aquino se tornou teólogo para tentar responder.

3) São Tomás brigou com sua família para se tornar dominicano, ele poderia ter sido papa se seguisse os conselhos da família.

4) Os colegas de São Tomás chamavam-no de "Boi Mudo", pois São Tomás era gordo e silencioso, mas quando o professor Santo Alberto Magno ouviu isso disse que ele podia ser um Boi Mudo, mas o mugido dele seria ouvido no mundo todo.

5) São Tomás, diferente dos outros monges, não andava em burros, preferia ir caminhando, talvez com receio de incomodar demais o burro com seu peso.

6) Certa vez, em um jantar com o Rei da França São Luis, São Tomás estava em profunda concentração pensando em uma solução teológica contra o maniqueísmo, quando achou a solução deu um berro e assustou todos na mesa. São Luís não se ofendeu, pelo contrário, mandou buscar lápis e papel para colocar a solução.

7) Quando um monge companheiro de São Tomás avistando uma cidade ao longe disse: "não seria fantástico sermos donos de tudo isso?". São Tomás respondeu que podia ser, mas ele preferia ter uma pagina de manuscrito perdido escrito por Aristóteles.

8) São Tomás fazia seus livros ditando para quatro escribas, cada escriba escrevia um parágrafo por vez, pois São Tomás pensava muito rápido.

9) Meses antes de morrer, São Tomás parou de escrever sua Suma Teológica, ele tinha tido uma visão mística do Paraíso ou de Deus, e disse ao seu ajudante que tudo que ele havia escrito era "palha" diante do que tinha visto. Kreeft ressalta que a Suma Teológica é o maior trabalho filosófico de todos os tempos e Aquino chamou de palha diante da visão.

10) Como professor, São Tomás adorava debates públicos sobre questões teológicas e filosóficas.

11) Quando ele estava perto de morrer, São Tomás se confessou, e padre Reginald depois de ouvir a confissão disse que ele tinha pecados de uma criança de cinco anos.

12) É a história que dá nome e imagem a este blog.

Viva o Doutor Angélico!!

Rezemos para que ele ilumine mais a Igreja.

Vídeo: "Não Tem Mais Macho na Europa"

Jornalista Iben Thronholm diz o que precisa ser dito: homens estão efeminados, com apoio do feminismo. Homens agora se comportam como se fossem mães. Todos com sensibilidade feminina. Cadê os machos alemães em Colônia para proteger as mulheres alemãs sendo atacadas e estupradas por refugiados muçulmanos?

Iben ainda dá a solução: homens se comportarem como homens!!, como costumava ser.

Sensacional. Agradeço o vídeo ao amigo Adilson, comentarista e colaborador do blog.

Iben detona. Parabéns. Ouçam homens, ouçam mulheres.

Um Homem Tem o Direito de Querer Ter Mais Filhos?

Eu sei, as mulheres vão dizer, que são elas que aguentam os nove meses de gravidez, que são elas que aguentam as dores do parto e em geral são elas que acordam durante as madrugadas para cuidar dos bebês. Eu admito e aceito que são elas que têm a "upper hand", o poder decisório final. Sobra aos homens procurarem mulheres que gostem de crianças (não é tão fácil) e que queiram muitos filhos (mais difícil ainda).

Mas o ponto aqui do post não apenas do direito dos homens e mulheres de terem mais filhos, mas que os homens e mulheres cristãos têm o dever, a obrigação de ter mais filhos.

É tópico de um ótimo artigo do Dr. Taylor Marshall publicado no site MacCabee Society.

Cada vez nasce menos gente no mundo, a taxa de nascimento em países ocidentais não consegue repor a população. São as religiões (cristã, muçulmana ou mórmon) que incentivam que os casais tenham mais filhos, ateus gerados por ateus tendem a desaparecer.

Assim, os homens e mulheres cristãos têm a obrigação de ter mais filhos. Tem mais filhos e educá-los no cristianismo é a grande batalha para levarmos mais Cristo ao mundo.

Marshall não fala sobre isso, mas a luta por mais filhos envolve luta por melhores salários, melhores condições de vida, melhores escolas...

Vejamos parte do texto do Dr. Marshall:

Do Men Have a Duty to Have More than 2.1 Children?

By  Taylor Marshall

Men, the war for Western Society (WestSoc) is far from over. The winner of the culture war will be Christians…because Christians beget Christians. Atheists have the lowest birth rates. We are now observing that Muslim birth rates are crashing to equal or below Christian birth rates:

• the birth rate in Iran has plummeted from 6.92 to 1.92 births per woman (1960 to 2012)
• the birth rate is Syria has plummeted from 7.47 to 3.0 births per woman (1960 to 2012)

While Catholicism (and historic Protestantism) prohibits artificial conception as gravely evil, Islam allows for contraception. Muhammad permitted the use of coitus interruptus. There is nothing prohibiting Muslims from embracing the birth control pill, which will inevitably lead to a birth rate of 1.4-1.8 births per Muslim woman within a generation.

In 30 years, the only people on earth having 4+ children families are devout Christians and devout Muslims (and Mormons).

Fathers, the single best thing that you as a man can do for society is to sire virtuous and godly sons and daughters. Nurture them physically, intellectually, and spiritually. While secularists abort and contracept themselves out of existence, we shall fill the earth.

Take a look at this graph of birth rates in the West:You’ll notice that since the introduction of the birth control pill, fertility levels have plunged under 2.1 children per woman. Does this indicate a just stewardship of life within human families?

If we are to do what is lawful and to give this world its due, are we called upon to have larger families?

Under all three definitions of justice above, a married man is obliged by justice to sire a plurality of children. Here is why:

1. If all men have 2 or less children, simple mathematics reveal that the human race will cease to exist. We are now seeing the develop of “wedge families”: 4 grandparents > 2 parents > 1 baby.
2. It is in accord with natural law that we strive to preserve our own personal lives and that we strive to preserve the human race as a whole. Birth rates under 2.1 are culturally suicidal.
3. Every historical and contemporary example of shrinking populations reveal grave cultural and economic hardship.
4. Large families are a form of political victory. As the world moves toward democracy, birth rates are the single most powerful demographic indicator on the charts. It’s well known that liberals, secularists, and especially atheists are the most sterile demographics on the planet. They are below 1.0 children per woman. Want to see conservative leaders? Grow them at home.
5. The future leaders of human society will come from the traditional family enclaves on planet earth where the home boasted of a mother and a father, along with traditional moral values, religious upbringing, and plurality of siblings.
6. Christian men in particular, faced with secularism and Islamic encroachment, should look to their growing families as the “Noah’s arks” of Christian Civilization. It’s not just “having babies” – it is nurturing sons and daughters who will become charitable and mighty upon the earth.

Most men fear a large family because of the financial burden. “How can pay for all that food? How can I pay for all that college?”

Our answer is that you will have to work harder, earn more, and make financial sacrifices. If men in previous generations were willing to die in the beaches of Normandy or prowl through the jungles of Asia for the common good, we can embrace the “hardship” of forgoing golf, eating out, and car payments on a new truck.

If Christian men tolerate a 1.8 birthrate for the sake luxury, we will have squandered our legacy.

The next war will be won in the bedroom and at the dinner table. Your vocation is to create and nurture a strong family of virtue with beautiful and everlasting souls. Demographics don’t lie.

Polícias da Alemanha e da Suécia Apanham de Refugiados Islâmicos

Que coisa né, os países dão abrigo, dinheiro, comida, cidadania, e o que recebem em troca: ódio.

Vejam essas duas notícias que saíram hoje:

1) Dez policiais da Alemanha ficaram feridos, quando foram chamados para conter uma briga no asilo para refugiados. A briga começou sobre interpretação do Alcorão, alguns muçulmanos estavam bêbados e outros muçulmanos não aceitaram. Polícia foi chamada e apanhou de todos. 32 viaturas da polícia foram ao local pois a confusão era generalizada.

2) Policiais da Suécia fogem de asilo de refugiados, expulsos pelos muçulmanos. Os policiais estavam lá pra tirar uma criança (menino) de dez anos que havia sido estuprado várias vezes no asilo. Os policiais disseram que achavam que iam morrer.

Rezemos pela Europa.

Mulheres-Soldado Cristãs na Síria Lutando Contra Estado Islâmico

Enquanto o mundo fica pensando em diálogo, elas pegam em armas para defender o cristianismo na Síria.

Vejam parte do texto do site Yahoo News:

Christian female fighters take on IS in Syria

Hasakeh (Syria) (AFP) - Babylonia has no regrets about leaving behind her two children and her job as a hairdresser to join a Christian female militia battling against the Islamic State group in Syria.

The fierce-looking 36-year-old in fatigues from the Syriac Christian minority in the northeast believes she is making the future safe for her children.

"I miss Limar and Gabriella and worry that they must be hungry, thirsty and cold. But I try to tell them I'm fighting to protect their future," she told AFP.

Babylonia belongs to a small, recently created battalion of Syriac Christian women in Hasakeh province who are fighting IS.

They are following in the footsteps of Syria's other main female force battling the jihadists -- the women of the YPJ, the female counterpart to the Kurdish People's Protection Units or YPG.

So far the new force is small, with around 50 graduates so far from its training camp in the town of Al-Qahtaniyeh, also known as Kabre Hyore in Syriac, and Tirbespi in Kurdish.

But the "Female Protection Forces of the Land Between the Two Rivers" -- the area between the Tigris and Euphrates waterways historically inhabited by Syriacs -- is teeming with women eager to prove their worth against IS.

It was actually Babylonia's husband who encouraged her to leave Limar, nine, and six-year-old Gabriella and join the unit whose first recruits graduated in August.

Himself a fighter, he urged her to take up arms to "fight against the idea that the Syriac woman is good for nothing except housekeeping and make-up", she said.

- 'Fear quickly went away' -

"I'm a practising Christian and thinking about my children makes me stronger and more determined in my fight against Daesh," added Babylonia, using the Arabic acronym for IS.

Syriac Christians belong to the eastern Christian tradition and pray in Aramaic. They include both Orthodox and Catholic branches, and constitute around 15 percent of Syria's 1.2 million Christians.

Before the conflict began in March 2011, Christians from some 11 different sects made up around five percent of the population.

The unit's first major action was alongside the newly created Syrian Democratic Forces, a coalition of Kurdish, Arab and Christian fighters, which recently recaptured the strategic town of Al-Hol.

"I took part in a battle for the first time in the Al-Hol area, but my team wasn't attacked by IS," said 18-year-old Lucia, who gave up her studies to join the militia.

Her sister also joined up, against the wishes of their reluctant mother.

"I fight with a Kalashnikov, but I'm not ready to become an elite sniper yet," the shy teenager said, a wooden crucifix around her neck and a camouflage bandana tied round her head.

Al-Hol, on a key route between territory IS controls in Syria and Iraq, was the first major victory for the SDF, which has captured around 200 villages in the region in recent weeks.

It has received air support from the US-led coalition fighting IS, as well as drops of American weapons.

View gallery

Syriac Christian members of the "Female Protection Forces of the Land Between the Two Rivers&qu …

Ormia, 18, found battle terrifying at first.

"I was afraid of the noise of cannons firing, but the fear quickly went away," she said.

"I would love to be on the front line in the fight against the terrorists."

- 'Not afraid of Daesh' -

....

Some women cited what is known as the Sayfo ("Sword") massacres in 1915 of Syriac, Assyrian and Chaldean Christians as reasons for joining the unit.

"We are a community that is oppressed by others," said 18-year-old Ithraa. She joined four months ago inspired by the memory of Sayfo, in which Ottoman authorities are said to have killed tens of thousands of Christians in Turkey and Iran.

She said the community hoped to prevent "a new massacre like that committed by the Ottomans... when they tried to erase our Christian and Syriac identity".

Vídeo: Marcha Pela Vida 2016 nos EUA - Missa no Gelo

O tema da Marcha pela Vida 2016 nos Estados Unidos, que ocorreu no último dia 22, é "Pró-Vida e Pró-Mulheres Andam de Mãos Dadas".

Os manifestantes pró-vida enfrentaram nevascas, padre fez altar de gelo, mas seguiram firmes na defesa da vida.

Abaixo vídeos da passeata de 2016

Rezemos e lutemos com eles.

Vídeo: Casa Branca Admite - Dinheiro Dado ao Irã vai para Terrorismo

A repórter perguntou se o porta-voz da Casa Branca concordava com a declaração de John Kerry, que é Secretário de Estado do próprio governo Obama, de que uma parte do dinheiro que o Irã conseguiu com o acordo nuclear irá financiar o terrorismo no mundo.

O porta-voz ficou entre o governo e o governo, teve de admitir que era verdade, gaguejando, e até que era uma conclusão lógica.

Mas disse que o acordo era o meio mais eficiente para que o Irã não tivesse bomba nuclear.

Faltou tino para a repórter perguntar: se parte do dinheiro vai financiar terrorismo, parte também não irá financiar a bomba nuclear de alguma maneira? 

Mesmo que o acordo fosse explícito, dizendo que o dinheiro não poderia financiar armas nucleares, o que não é, dinheiro é dinheiro, não tem cheiro, ninguém consegue monitorar completamente os gastos.

Seria essa pergunta que qualquer lógico faria.

Mas repórteres não aprendem lógica, nem porta-vozes.

Papa Francisco é Contra o Papa Bento XVI?

É claro que o Papa Francisco é bem diferente do Papa Bento XVI, as visões de mundo e da Igreja são muito diferentes, as análises teológicas são também enormemente diferentes.

Um artigo de Damian Thompson fez várias perguntas sobre a renúncia de Bento XVI. Uma delas é se ele  teria renunciado se soubesse que Jorge Bergoglio seria eleito Papa Francisco. Outra se Bento XVI aprova a direção que a Igreja está tomando com Papa Francisco. Para a primeira pergunta, ele não responde, mas para a segunda ele diz que não, Bento XVI não estaria feliz.

Thompson responde que Bento XVI não gosta da direção da Igreja, porque o Papa Francisco está exaltando velhos inimigos teológicos alemães de Bento XVI, como o cardeal Kasper.

Motivado por esse artigo de Thompson, eu li um texto que dá outro ponto de vista. O autor, padre Raymond de Souza, foca no que aconteceu na Bélgica e não em cardeais alemães. Padre Raymond aponta as ações de Francisco contra Bento XVI na Bélgica, mas ele também diz que Francisco também mantém decisões de Bento XVI. Na Bélgica, Papa Francisco desonrou uma decisão anterior de Bento XVI, e agiu contra um bispo conservador, em favor de um bispo e um cardeal que haviam atacado publicamente Bento XVI. Mas Francisco manteve cardeal Sarah, apontado por Bento XVI.

Eu acho que a Igreja estava melhor sob Bento XVI e piorou com Francisco. Infelizmente,

Para mim, Bento XVI foi o melhor Papa para a Igreja desde Pio X ou Pio XI.

Se Bento XVI não gosta de como Francisco conduz a Igreja, Francisco não gostava do pontificado de Bento XVI.

Mas se os dois são completamente antagônicos é difícil responder.

Vejamos o texto do Padre Raymond de Souza, publicando no The Catholic Herald.


Is Francis really against Benedict?

by Fr Raymond de Souza

posted Thursday, 21 Jan 2016

In our cover story last week, Damian Thompson asked whether Pope Francis was steering the Church away from the direction charted by Pope Benedict XVI, noting the prominence given to Cardinal Walter Kasper – “Joseph Ratzinger’s longest theological adversary” – and the sacking of Cardinal Raymond Burke. The suggestion is plausible, but the stronger evidence is not from Germany, but Belgium. It was lost amid the attention paid to the opening of the Holy Year, but in December the new Archbishop of Brussels, Jozef De Kesel, was installed. Therein lies a tale.

In 2009, as Cardinal Godfried Danneels was completing 30 years as archbishop of Brussels, he and the apostolic nuncio in Belgium at the time, Archbishop Karl-Josef Rauber, agreed that the successor should be Danneels’s protégé, Bishop De Kesel, auxiliary of Brussels since 2002.

Pope Benedict XVI did not agree that another in the line of Danneels was needed, perhaps remembering that at the 1985 extraordinary synod of bishops on the legacy of Vatican II, it was an exasperated Danneels who protested that far too much attention was being given to The Ratzinger Report, the book-length interview with Vittorio Messori. Benedict chose instead André-Joseph Léonard, then almost 20 years Bishop of Namur, to succeed Danneels in January 2010. Neither Danneels nor the nuncio were pleased.

Indeed, just months after Léonard’s transfer to Brussels, the now retired nuncio, Archbishop Rauber, gave an incendiary interview to Il Regno. In a most unusual breach of diplomatic manners, Rauber strongly opposed Benedict for the succession in Brussels, criticising Léonard as a bad choice, made over his own and Cardinal Danneels’s objections. Rauber further attacked Benedict, revealing that while he was nuncio in Switzerland, Ratzinger had four times complained about him to the Secretariat of State.

In due course, Léonard would have been created a cardinal after Danneels turned 80 in 2013. But by that time Benedict was no longer pope, and Francis took a different course. In the consistories of 2014 and 2015, he passed over Léonard for the red hat. Both years he appointed Danneels to the synods on the family – leaving Léonard out, despite him being the most senior bishop in Belgium – indicating clearly that he disapproved of Benedict’s decision in Brussels.

Moreover, in the consistory of 2015, Francis elevated Karl-Josef Rauber to the College of Cardinals as one of the distinguished prelates over 80. In ecclesiastical Rome, the public humiliation of Léonard – and by implication, Benedict – could not have been less subtle. The decision, later in 2015, to appoint De Kesel, the one that Rauber wanted back in 2009, to succeed Léonard simply followed the rewarding of a nuncio who publicly attacked a sitting pope. In his own retirement, Léonard gave a recent interview to Famille Chrétienne in which he defended his more orthodox tenure – including a remarkable tenfold increase in seminarians – but declined to speak of Francis in the way that Rauber spoke of Benedict.

The evidence therefore that, despite their warm public greetings, Francis wishes to undermine what Benedict did, is rather stronger than Damian Thompson suggests.

There is another tale to be told though, one of continuity rather than rupture. Ten years ago this month, Benedict’s first encyclical was released, Deus Caritas Est, in which he wrote: “The Church’s deepest nature is expressed in her three-fold responsibility: for proclaiming the word of God (kerygma-martyria), celebrating the sacraments (leitourgia) and exercising the ministry of charity (diakonia). These duties presuppose each other and are inseparable. For the Church, charity is not a kind of welfare activity that could equally well be left to others, but is a part of her nature, an indispensable expression of her very being.”

The direct continuity here is easy to see. If St John Paul was the great proclaimer, and Benedict the great liturgist, Francis exercises the charitable service of the Church without peer. Indeed, Benedict’s harsh words for the bureaucratic Church have been taken up afresh by Francis.

The latter’s warnings about the Church not becoming a mere NGO echo exactly what the former taught.

Indeed, one of the great battles of Benedict’s pontificate was over the Catholic identity of the Church’s international charitable agencies. Cardinal Robert Sarah, then president of Cor Unum, wanted a more robust Catholic identity, with closer ties to both the local bishops and to the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith in Rome. Cardinal Óscar Rodríguez Maradiaga, then president of Caritas Internationalis, fought him every step of the way. Sarah won a remarkable victory. Though he then occupied a rather marginal Vatican post, he routed Rodríguez with Benedict’s support.

It was Francis who then promoted Cardinal Sarah to be head of the Vatican liturgy and worship office, from where he led the effort against attempts to get the synod to modify the teachings about Holy Communion and marriage.

Of the two tales, the rise of Cardinal Sarah is more consequential than that of Danneels, De Kesel and Rauber, all of whom are utterly marginal regarding the new evangelisation in northern Europe.

So is Francis against Benedict? It is plausible to argue just that, but much evidence points the other way.

Fr Raymond J de Souza is a priest of the Archdiocese of Kingston, Ontario, and editor-in-chief of Convivium magazine

Estado Islâmico destruiu Monastério Cristão de 1400 anos.

A foto acima é do monastério quando da visita feita por tropas americanas. O monastério ficava na cidade de Mosul, no Iraque, chamado de Monastério de São Elias, e tinha 1400 anos, mais velho que o Islã.

O Estado Islâmico o destruiu completamente segundo as fotos de satélites, abaixo.

É a herança cristã e cristãos sendo destruídos por um bando que seria detido facilmente por qualquer exército da Primeira Guerra Mundial, mas o mundo da bomba nuclear é anticristão, assim como o Estado Islâmico.

Vejamos texto do Huffington Post.

Islamic State Militants Destroy The Oldest Christian Monastery In Iraq

St. Elijah's Monastery of Mosul was completely wiped out.

IRBIL, Iraq (AP) — The oldest Christian monastery in Iraq has been reduced to a field of rubble, yet another victim of the Islamic State's relentless destruction of ancient cultural sites.

For 1,400 years the compound survived assaults by nature and man, standing as a place of worship recently for U.S. troops. In earlier centuries, generations of monks tucked candles in the niches and prayed in the cool chapel. The Greek letters chi and rho, representing the first two letters of Christ's name, were carved near the entrance.

Now satellite photos obtained exclusively by The Associated Press confirm the worst fears of church authorities and preservationists — St. Elijah's Monastery of Mosul has been completely wiped out.

In his office in exile in Irbil, Iraq, the Rev. Paul Thabit Habib, 39, stared quietly at before- and after-images of the monastery that once perched on a hillside above his hometown of Mosul. Shaken, he flipped back to his own photos for comparison.

"I can't describe my sadness," he said in Arabic. "Our Christian history in Mosul is being barbarically leveled. We see it as an attempt to expel us from Iraq, eliminating and finishing our existence in this land."

The Islamic State group, which broke from al-Qaida and now controls large parts of Iraq and Syria, has killed thousands of civilians and forced out hundreds of thousands of Christians, threatening a religion that has endured in the region for 2,000 years. Along the way, its fighters have destroyed buildings and ruins historical and culturally significant structures they consider contrary to their interpretation of Islam.

Those who knew the monastery wondered about its fate after the extremists swept through in June 2014 and largely cut communications to the area.

Now, St. Elijah's has joined a growing list of more than 100 demolished religious and historic sites, including mosques, tombs, shrines and churches in Syria and Iraq. The extremists have defaced or ruined ancient monuments in Nineveh, Palmyra and Hatra. Museums and libraries have been looted, books burned, artwork crushed — or trafficked.

"A big part of tangible history has been destroyed," said Rev. Manuel Yousif Boji. A Chaldean Catholic pastor in Southfield, Michigan, he remembers attending Mass at St. Elijah's almost 60 years ago while a seminarian in Mosul.

"These persecutions have happened to our church more than once, but we believe in the power of truth, the power of God," said Boji. He is part of the Detroit area's Chaldean community, which became the largest outside Iraq after the sectarian bloodshed that followed the U.S. invasion in 2003. Iraq's Christian population has dropped from 1.3 million then to 300,000 now, church authorities say.

Suzanne Bott, who spent more than two years restoring St. Elijah's Monastery as a U.S. State Department cultural adviser in Iraq, teared up when the AP showed her the images.

"Oh no way. It's just razed completely," said Bott. "What we lose is a very tangible reminder of the roots of a religion."

Army reserve Col. Mary Prophit remembered a sunrise service in St. Elijah where, as a Catholic lay minister, she served communion.

"I let that moment sink in, the candlelight, the first rays of sunshine. We were worshipping in a place where people had been worshipping God for 1,400 years," said Prophit, who was deployed there in 2004 and again in 2009.

"I would imagine that many people are feeling like, 'What were the last 10 years for if these guys can go in and destroy everything?'" said Prophit, a library manager in Glenoma, Washington.

This month, at the request of AP, satellite imagery firm DigitalGlobe tasked a high resolution camera passing over the site to grab photos, and then pulled earlier images of the same spot from their archive of pictures taken globally every day. Imagery analyst Stephen Wood, CEO of Allsource Analysis, reviewed the pictures for AP and identified the date of destruction between Aug. 27 and Sept. 28, 2014. Before it was razed, images show a partially restored, 27,000-square-foot religious building. Although the roof was largely missing, it had 26 distinctive rooms including a sanctuary and chapel. One month later, "the stone walls have been literally pulverized," said Wood.

"Bulldozers, heavy equipment, sledgehammers, possibly explosives turned those stone walls into this field of gray-white dust. They destroyed it completely," he said. "There's nothing to rebuild."

ASSOCIATED PRESS

Before it was razed, the partially restored, 27,000-square-foot stone and mortar building stood fortress-like on a hill above Mosul. Although the roof was largely missing, it had 26 distinctive rooms including a sanctuary and chapel.

Fatores para Segurar Casamento: Amigos, Religião, Simplicidade, Tempo de Namoro e Lua de Mel

O site do The Atlantic divulgou uma pesquisa para prever divórcio. Os autores da pesquisa, Andrew Francis e Hugo Mialon, analisaram diversos aspectos e encontraram que fatores diminuem a chance de divórcio, quais sejam:

1. Casal ter religião e realmente seguir essa religião. Se seguir apenas mais ou menos aumenta muito a chance de divórcio;

2.  Tempo de namoro maior que 3 anos;

3. Ser rico ajuda, mas
A) não pode gastar demais com casamento, nem com anel de noivado.
B) Riqueza nem beleza podem ser importantes para ter casado.

3. Ter muitos amigos na cerimônia de casamento.

4. Ter tido lua de mel.

Em suma, o casal deve respeitar o casamento como instituição feita por Deus, e por isso os gastos com casamento são feitos para amigos e não para ostentar.

Vejam gráficos abaixo da pesquisa sobre a chance de divórcio.


 Riqueza e Beleza

Tempo de Namoro

Riqueza

Frequenta Igreja

Gastos com casamento

Lua de Mel

Papa Francisco vai Silenciar diante do Casamento Gay na Itália, diz Sandro Magister

A Itália está prestes a aprovar o casamento gay, o que dirá e recomendará o Papa Francisco? A expectativa é que ele repita o que fez na Argentina, quando mandou que os católicos que planejavam fazer uma vigília de oração contra o casamento gay fossem para casa. Assim diz o jornalista Sandro Magister.

A desculpa é que o Papa não que ser político.

Uau, vejam a foto acima. Ela revela um momento em que o Papa pediu para que o carro que vinha parasse, perto de fotógrafos, para rezar em Belém em um muro que diz "liberdade para palestinos". Pode uma Papa agir de forma mais política do que essa?

Magister não lembra desse fato, mas ele lembra outros, como quando o Papa pede insistentemente que os países forneçam casa, terra e trabalho para todos. Ou quando sugere que a culpa do terrorismo islâmico é da pobreza propagada pelo Ocidente.

O silêncio do Papa é seletivo e quando ele se entrega a fazer política tem agido de forma confusa, em geral em defesa de valores caros ao esquerdismo global.

Eu detesto o silêncio da Igreja, quando ela deve ser a luz. Cristo disse para a Igreja ser a luz do mundo. E São Paulo ressaltou que os cristãos devem pregar Cristo em tempos oportunos e também em tempos inoportunos.

Vejam texto de Sandro Magister.

When It Comes To Gay Unions, Bergoglio Doesn’t Say No

by Sandro Magister

ROME, January 15, 2016 – Jorge Mario Bergoglio likes his crowds festive and prayerful, never politically aggressive.

In Buenos Aires, in 2010, he sent back home the Catholics who had gathered in front of parliament for a prayer vigil against the imminent approval of homosexual marriage. He persuaded them to “avoid the impasse.”

Of course, in that law Bergoglio saw in action nothing less than “the father of lies who has the presumption to confound and deceive the children of God,” but in public he did not say a word. He only released a letter that he had written to cloistered Carmelite nuns, in which he blamed the devil and asked for prayers.

Today as well, now that a law on homosexual unions is on the way in Italy, Pope Francis is not swerving from this stance.

He has thundered against “the new ideological colonialisms that seek to destroy the family” and against “that error of the human mind which is gender theory.” But he did so while he was on his way to Manila and to Naples, both times out of context, never in the heat of political combat.

Last June, at the announcement of a “Family Day” in Rome against the legalization of homosexual unions, secretary of the Italian episcopal conference Nunzio Galantino, the pope’s go-between with the bishops, did everything he could to make it a stillbirth. And when the demonstration went ahead anyway and saw massive public attendance, Pope Francis was careful not to give it his public blessing.

The faithful may indeed act in the field of politics, the pope said the following November to a gathering of Italian Church leaders in Florence, but they can forget about having "bishop-pilots.”

The “Family Day” of 2007, the one that stopped the approval of de facto unions, was in effect organized by the CEI. But even among those who participated in it there are some who take Bergoglio’s new stance, and no longer refer to it as a success but as a “failure” not to be repeated: the words of Cardinal Gualtiero Bassetti and of the new president of the Catholic Family Forum, Gianluigi De Palo.

*

Easygoing and viewed favorably by secular opinion when it comes to the new laws on homosexual unions, Pope Francis instead takes a more dissonant stance on other crucial geopolitical questions: from immigration to poverty to Islamic radicalism.

On immigration flows, for the pope it all boils down to a single word: “acceptance,” and to the consequent disapproval of all those who do not conform to it.

Francis carefully avoids calling the reproved by name, including states and public institutions. In Lampedusa, on the small island where he made his first journey as pope, he raised a vague cry: “Shame!” But if one looks at what the rulers are saying and doing in Europe and in the world, the distance between them and the pope appears to be measureless.

“Acceptance is needed, but rigor is also needed,” said Italian president Sergio Mattarella, a Catholic and a leftist, in his year-end message to the nation. “Common rules are needed to distinguish those fleeing from wars or persecutions, who therefore have a right to asylum, and other migrants who must instead be repatriated.” They are words that Francis would not endorse.

As for poverty, the solution that the pope systematically invokes is that of giving land, homes, jobs to all men. But the political scientist Angelo Panebianco is right when he objects that “there is in Francis the idea that all the resources are already available and that their scarcity, rather than an objective barrier, is instead the effect of a conspiracy of the dominant classes at the expense of the planet’s poor.”

Last July 12, questioned point-blank by a German journalist on the flight back from Paraguay, Francis admitted the “mistake” of overlooking the middle class in his analyses, but he added that this “is becoming smaller and smaller,” crushed as it is by the increase in inequality between rich and poor. Evidently it escaped the pope that the numbers say the opposite, starting with the giants India and China.

And as for radical Islamism, it is astonishing that Francis should say this is the offspring of Western aggression and poverty, “structural” in the Marxist sense, instead of that of a native religious choice, of an interpretation of the Quran firmly rooted in it. Here as well the pope’s political narrative appears detached from reality. And as a result ineffective.

Papa Francisco se Rebaixa para China, Acusa Cardeal Zen Ze-Kiun.

A Igreja Católica, sob o Papa Francisco, voltou a adotar com ênfase a política conhecida como Ostpolitik,que se rebaixa a regimes autoritários, especialmente comunistas, e que resultou no passado em prisões de defensores da fé católica, como o cardeal polonês Stefan Wyszynski, o cardeal húngaro Jozsef Mindszenty, e o cardeal theco Josef Beran. Todos esses três defensores da fé estão em processo de canonização. Mas a Igreja continua se comportando contra aqueles que seguem o caminho deles. E até ataca quem segue esses três prováveis santos da Igreja.

Agora temos o caso da China, que continua destruindo igrejas e seminários cristãos, além de querer determinar quem sãos os bispos da Igreja. Bento XVI lutou contra isso, a frase abaixo é dele. A frase diz: "A autoridade do Papa em apontar quem são os bispos da Igreka foi dada pelo fundador da Igreja, Jesus Cristo, não é uma propriedade do Papa, nem pode ser transferida a outros".

O cardeal Zen Ze-kiun  (foto acima) de Hong Kong que ataca o comportamento da Igreja sob Papa Francisco, que manda aqueles que lutam contra da interferência do estado ateu chinês se calarem.

O Cardeal Zen Ze-Kiun não mede palavras, diz que a Igreja de hoje "dialoga com Herodes".

As declarações do cardeal estão no site DICI, leiam parte abaixo:

China: Cardinal Zen Ze-kiun interprets Vatican diplomacy

On January 11, 2016, EDA published a letter from the blog of Cardinal Joseph Zen Ze-kiun, aged 84, Bishop Emeritus of Hong Kong, dated December 31, 2015. Cardinal Zen recounts the events of the past year without diplomatic doublespeak: “Over a thousand crosses have been taken down from churches (and in some cases the churches were demolished as well.) After so much time, we can no longer cherish the illusion that this campaign against the cross is only an excess of zeal on the part of some local authority. Several seminaries are no longer open. The students of the National Seminary of Beijing were forced to sign a declaration of fidelity to the independent Catholic church, also promising to concelebrate the Mass with illegitimate bishops (or they would not obtain their diploma at the end of their studies). The government is building, little by little, a Church that is now objectively separate from the Universal Catholic Church. With attractive promises or with threats, it incites the members of the clergy to carry out acts in opposition to the doctrine and the discipline of the Church, against their conscience and their dignity.”

On October 28^th, Cardinal Pietro Parolin, Secretary of State of the Holy See, confirmed to the press that a Vatican delegation, including six persons from the Secretariat of State and the Congregation for the Propagation of the Faith, had visited Beijing from October 11^th to 16^th, 2015, in order to negotiate with the Chinese government. “It was Fr. Jeroom Heyndrickx who passed on the news in detail. He stated,” writes Cardinal Joseph Zen Ze-kiun, “’Certain sensitive issues were not dealt with, such as the situation of the bishop of Baoding, Bishop Su Zhemin, still incarcerated, or that of Bishop Ma Daquin, bishop of Shanghai, under house arrest for over three years.’ (Should these problems not have been resolved before beginning any other negotiation? In absence of such a resolution, it can certainly not be affirmed that Beijing has shown proof of goodwill.) ‘Both parties were focused on the problem of the nomination of bishops.’ (Using what model? That of Anyang, where this process includes “democratic election,” the reading of the “decree of nomination from the so-called Chinese Bishops’ Conference,” and the unclear canonical status of a co-consecrating bishop?) ‘After this meeting, the delegation visited the bishop of Beijing, Bishop Li Shan, and the National Seminary where they met Bishop Ma Yinglin.’ (Fr. Heyndrickx claims that these are signs of goodwill from Beijing; I think on the contrary the visits were acts of homage imposed by Beijing.)”

Cardinal Joseph Zen Ze-kiun concludes by imparting all the concern he feels at the diplomatic relations of the Secretariat of State with Beijing: “Our clandestine communities are nonexistent in the eyes of the government. But the Vatican itself does not take them into account in negotiations. Is this to grant a request from the Chinese Party? To save the situation, these brothers and sisters are to be abandoned? But they are the healthy members of the Church!” The cardinal recalls that “in early September, some of the faithful from Shanghai who had spent a long time in prison went on a pilgrimage to Rome, accompanied by their relatives, to commemorate the 60^th anniversary of the beginning of the Great Persecution, September 8, 1955. They were told, ‘Don’t draw too much attention to yourselves, the past is past, we must look to the future!” And he adds, “What concerns me is the sight of our illustrious Secretary of State still intoxicated by the miracle ofOstpolitik. Last year, in a eulogy of Cardinal Casaroli, he acclaimed the fact that his predecessor had succeeded in guaranteeing the existence of the Catholic hierarchy in the Communist countries of Eastern Europe. He stated, ‘When choosing candidates for the episcopate, let us choose pastors, not persons who will systematically oppose the regime, who act like gladiators, who love to make a splash on the political stage.’ I wonder, who did Cardinal Parolin have in mind when he made this description? I fear he was thinking of Cardinal Wyszynski, Cardinal Mindszenty and Cardinal Beran. But these were the heroes who defended the faith of their people with courage! (…) When the Holy Innocents were killed, the angel told Joseph to take Mary and their Son to safety. Today, on the contrary, our diplomats would probably advise Joseph to go and dialogue with Herod!”

Vídeo: Trailer Filme 13 Horas- História do Ataque Terrorista de 2012 na Líbia

Esse filme eu quero assistir, começa a passar hoje nos Estados Unidos, e segundo os que participaram do fato histórico, o filme tenta relatar fielmente o que aconteceu no dia 11 de setembro de 2012, na Líbia, quando rebeldes invadiram a embaixada americana e mataram o embaixador. Procura mostrar o heroísmo de soldados americanos que desafiaram ordens superiores e resgataram 32 americanos.

Na época, Obama e seus oficiais, como Hillary Clinton, diziam que a culpa do ataque era de um filme sobre a vida de Maomé. Depois foi provado que era simplesmente um ataque terrorista, feito exatamente 11 anos depois dos ataques às torres gêmeas de Nova York. Muitos dizem que a culpa da morte do embaixador é de Obama e Hillary, pois não autorizaram que forças militares fossem à tempo em socorro. Obama, na época, estava em campanha para reeleição e dizia na campanha que tinha derrotado o grupo terrorista al-Qaeda, não queria que um ato terrorista, feito por rebeldes possivelmente filiados à al-Qaeda, atrapalhasse sua reeleição, mesmo às custas da morte de um embaixador.

Aqueles que foram em socorro, foram desafiando as ordens de superiores.

Vejam trailer abaixo.

O Legado de Obama

Na maior parte de minha carreira profissional eu trabalhei com questões internacionais, então os meus colegas de trabalho gostam de saber a minha opinião sobre os mais diversos temas. Sobre os EUA, eu sou conhecido como o "critico de Obama", o "cara que não gosta do Obama".

O que eles perguntam para mim raramente são um desafio, pois, infelizmente no Brasil, mesmo doutores, têm péssimo conhecimento sobre o acontece no mundo, grande parte se restringe a ler notícias de jornais brasileiros, que são péssimos em questões internacionais.

Então, sendo assim de pouco conhecimento em termos de assuntos internacionais, eu procuro explicar apenas um tema.

Quando a pessoa me diz: "eu gosto do Obama", eu procuro desafiá-la em apenas um tema, e respondo: "Diga uma coisa que você gosta mais nele, eu lhe provo que você está errado".

Com meus amigos economistas, é mais fácil mostrar que os Estados Unidos entraram no beco sem saída econômico, que o déficit lá ficou insustentável, que os EUA crescem cada vez menos e que os dados de empregos por lá não servem.

Com meus amigos de relações internacionais, é mais fácil ainda provar que Obama foi um desastre em política externa.

Tenho também amigos que, mesmo se dizendo católicos, gostam que Obama apoia casamento gay, daí o debate passa ser mais teológico e doutrinário. Sem falar naqueles que gostam que Obama aprova o aborto de forma generalizada.

Mas hoje li um artigo que mostra o legado de Obama pelo método de mostrar que são os condidatos populares para substituí-lo.

Obama, ao contrario do que se pensa no Brasil, não é popular nos Estados Unidos. A aceitação dele é muito baixa, ele chegou a ter momentos pior do que o Bush. Tem mais gente que não apoia ele do que gente que apoia, nos EUA. Obama não será chamado para apoiar nenhum candidato do partido dele, porque ele não atrai votos.

É uma vertente interessante ao do texto, porque geralmente o povo escolhe o sucessor de acordo com o atual mandante do cargo. O povo elegeu Dilma, olhando para o Lula, e vai eleger o sucessor de Dilma, olhando para Dilma.

Obama dividiu tanto os Estados Unidos que os mais populares para substituí-lo querem tocar fogo no circo, são dois radicais, um é comunista, Bernied Sanders, o outro é um libertário, Donald Trump. Os dois são do mesmo tipo: "querem destruir".

Vejamos parte o artigo que é Daniel Henninger, do Wall Street Journal.

Obama’s Legacy: Trump and Bernie

By 

DANIEL HENNINGER

There is Barack Obama’s State of the Union and there is the state of the union anyone else can see.

The new year began with an underground nuclear-bomb test in North Korea, the worst first week for the Dow since 1897, and Iran forcing 10 U.S. sailors to their knees.

But the man delivering the State of the Union is “optimistic” because “unconditional love” will win.

Let’s get just one SotU venting out of the way before considering what Mr. Obama has wrought for his country and its politics as he turns into his final year.

It is beyond any conceivable pale that Mr. Obama would fail at least to note the 14 Americans gunned down in San Bernardino by committed Islamic terrorists, even as he stood there lecturing the country, at least three times, about not turning against others’ religion. In the past, he said, we have “turned toward God.” Ugh.

In fact, seven years of the Obama presidency have left the United States with a historically weak economy and a degraded national politics. The causal legacy of those two realities are— Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders.

Mr. Obama said in his speech that the economy is producing jobs, which is true, and that it is “peddling fiction” to say the U.S. economy “is in decline.” Really?

The U.S. economy’s average annual growth rate since World War II has been about 3%. In Mr. Obama’s seven years it has been about 2%. Some 65% of people think the U.S. is on the wrong track. You can discover a lot about the wrong track in that missing 1% of economic growth, Mr. Obama’s “new normal.”

The president is correct that the economy is creating jobs, but an alternative view would be that he has proven it is not possible to kill an economy with a GDP of $16 trillion.

Here’s what the new normal looks like. The gold standard of new job creation is business starts. Indeed, Mr. Obama said his new online tools “give an entrepreneur everything he or she needs to start a business in a single day.” Perhaps not everything.

...

For example, Kauffman’s report also notes that the rate of entrepreneurship among people age 20-34—who hire employees like themselves, new breadwinners—began dropping fast in 2011. The president said Tuesday that ObamaCare would help new-business formation. It is doing the opposite. Millennials, assumed to be the Obama base, have entered adulthood to endure a decade of slow growth.

The leaders of Communist China lie awake at night worrying about creating 10 million new jobs every year to prevent a revolution. The elected leader of the U.S. lies awake every night thinking about jobs making . . . windmills and solar panels.

And we’ve got a revolution.

People wonder what accounts for the rise of Donald Trump and Bernie Sanders. Maybe the better question is how the Obama years could not have produced a Trump and Sanders.

Both the Republican and, to a lesser extent, Democratic parties have elements now who want to pull down the temple. But for all the politicized agitation, both these movements, in power, would produce stasis—no change at all.

Donald Trump would preside over a divided government or, as he has promised and un-promised, a trade war with China. Hillary or Bernie will enlarge the Obama economic regime. Either outcome guarantees four more years of at best 2% economic growth. That means more of the above. That means 18-year-olds voting for the first time this year will face historically weak job opportunities through 2020 at least.

Under any of these three, an Americanized European social-welfare state will evolve because Washington—and this will include many “conservatives”—will answer still-rising popular anger with new income redistributions.

And for years afterward, Barack Obama will stroll off the 18th green, smiling. Mission, finally, accomplished.