Is the Pope Suggesting the Use of Force in Iraq?

The Vatican has found its voice.

Pope Francis wrote a letter to Ban Ki-Moon, UN Secretary General, asking him to "do everything you can to stop the violence against Christians in Iraq". The letter, received by Ban Ki-Moon on 13 August, is the latest of the Pope’s interventions to stop the persecution of Christians and other religious minorities in Iraq.

He writes:

It is with a heavy and anguished heart that I have been following the dramatic events of these past few days in Northern Iraq where Christians and other religious minorities have been forced to flee from their homes and witness the destruction of their places of worship and religious patrimony. Moved by their plight, I have asked His Eminence Cardinal Fernando Filoni, Prefect of the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples, who served as the Representative of my predecessors, Pope St John Paul II and Pope Benedict XVI, to the people in Iraq, to manifest my spiritual closeness and to express my concern, and that of the entire Catholic Church, for the intolerable suffering of those who only wish to live in peace, harmony and freedom in the land of their forefathers.

In the same spirit, I write to you, Mr Secretary-General, and place before you the tears, the suffering and the heartfelt cries of despair of Christians and other religious minorities of the beloved land of Iraq. In renewing my urgent appeal to the international community to take action to end the humanitarian tragedy now underway, I encourage all the competent organs of the United Nations, in particular those responsible for security, peace, humanitarian law and assistance to refugees, to continue their efforts in accordance with the Preamble and relevant Articles of the United Nations Charter.

The violent attacks that are sweeping across Northern Iraq cannot but awaken the consciences of all men and women of goodwill to concrete acts of solidarity by protecting those affected or threatened by violence and assuring the necessary and urgent assistance for the many displaced people as well as their safe return to their cities and their homes. The tragic experiences of the Twentieth Century, and the most basic understanding of human dignity, compels the international community, particularly through the norms and mechanisms of international law, to do all that it can to stop and to prevent further systematic violence against ethnic and religious minorities.

Confident that my appeal, which I unite with those of the Oriental Patriarchs and other religious leaders, will meet with a positive reply, I take this opportunity to renew to your Excellency the assurances of my highest consideration.

From the Vatican, 9 August 2014

FRANCISCUS PP.

In an interview with the Vatican Radio, Monsignor Silvano Maria Tomasi, Permanent Observer of the Holy See to the United Nations in Geneva, appears to interpret the Holy Father's letter as an invitation to the UN to act even by recourse to force. He said:

What impressed me is the phrase saying that the situation is so tragic that it "compels" the international community to act. In fact, if we look at the Charter of the United Nations, we see, very clearly, that Article 42 says that the international community has the responsibility to protect even by force - which cannot be done by the local state, local authorities, who for various reasons are prevented to act or do not have the opportunity to do so, after you have tried all the ways of the law, dialogue, negotiation - to avoid evils like those seen in Northern Iraq in these days.

But it is clear that "by force" is the ultimate solution, the final step...

[T]his is not a defence of Christians and other religious minorities, merely in an action of direct support to Christians: here we are dealing with human beings whose fundamental rights are trampled upon and for whom the local authorities cannot intervene. Therefore, the duty of the international community is to protect them. The problem is not, in simple words, a Church problem, it is a problem of humanity, of the human family.

Second, we must find ways to limit, to try to block the fact that weapons, financial aid and politicians continue to get into the hands of the representatives of this elusive state of the Caliphate, which so far has just been an excuse to create violence and kill those who are in disagreement with the leaders of this new entity. [Emphasis added]

Monsignor Tomasi recalled the situation years ago in Rwanda, similar to today's Iraq, saying that genocide was not prevented due to not having acted decisively.

Also speaking to Radio Vaticana was Cardinal Angelo Bagnasco, President of the Italian Episcopal Conference. He said that the Vatican will help Iraqi refugees to find homes. He announced the Day of Prayer for the Persecuted Christians, tomorrow 15 August, the major feast Day of the Assumption.

Today, on the eve of the Assumption Day, the Archbishop of Ferrara Luigi Negri displayed on the facade of the Archbishop's Palace the ن symbol of Christians persecuted by jihadists in Iraq, with a message explaining the reasons.

Atheists and IRS Against the US Constitution

The American tax authority, the IRS (Internal Revenue Service), will monitor churches for electioneering in a settlement reached on 18 July with an atheist group, the Freedom from Religion Foundation (FFRF).

In 2012 the FFRF filed a lawsuit alleging that "the IRS routinely ignored complaints by the FFRF and others about churches promoting political candidates, issues, or proposed legislation. As part of their tax-exempt status, churches and other religious groups are prohibited from engaging in partisan political activity."

Monitoring what is said in houses of worship is a clear violation of the First Amendment, since no law can be written by Congress to this effect. The federal Constitution doesn't allow it.

As The American Vision points out,

Monitoring churches is something the Nazis did. When German anti-Nazi theologian and Lutheran pastor Martin Niemöller (1892–1984) used his pulpit to expose Adolf Hitler’s radical politics, “He knew every word spoken was reported by Nazi spies and secret agents.” [From Basil Miller, Martin Niemoeller: Hero of the Concentration Camp]

The First Amendment does not prohibit churches from speaking out on any issue, including political issues. The amendment is so clear that the people at the Freedom from Religion Foundation almost never cite it:

Congress shall make no law respecting an establishment of religion, or prohibiting the free exercise thereof; or abridging the freedom of speech, or of the press; or the right of the people peaceably to assemble, and to petition the Government for a redress of grievances...

Notice that the prohibition is directed at Congress, our nation’s national law-making body. It can’t establish a religion and it can’t prohibit the free exercise of religion. Period.

To prohibit a church from addressing politics for any reason is a violation of the First Amendment. Notice that the First Amendment gives everybody, churches included, the right to speak about religion, write about religion, congregate about religion, and “petition the government for a redress of grievances.”

The goal of an organization like the Freedom from Religion Foundation is to intimidate pastors and churches to remain silent. FRF [sic] knows that if conservative pastors began to address issues from a biblical perspective, it would mean the near end of liberal domination in America.

Former IRS Commissioner Mark Everson warned churches not to speak out on political issues. He claimed that churches that violate IRS regulations could lose their tax-exempt status and be forced to pay a ten percent excise tax on all donations. I would like to see the IRS try to defend the position in court based on the First Amendment. Constitutionally, it can’t be done. Of course this doesn’t mean that it won’t be done since the Constitution is a legal wax nose...

This so-called ban is a direct violation of the First Amendment. The First Amendment is clear that “Congress shall make no law. . . .” In 1954, Congress made a law prohibiting churches from speaking out on political issues and endorsing candidates. The logic is simple. Since Congress passed such a law, then Congress violated the Constitution. This makes the law null and void.

To have this law declared unconstitutional - and to once and for all remove the ability of the IRS to censor what a pastor says from the pulpit - is the goal of the Pulpit Initiative, created by Alliance Defending Freedom in 2008, focusing on freedom of religion issues in response to more than 50 years of threats and intimidation by militant groups.

On Freedom Pulpit Sundays, the last of which was held in June 2013 with the participation of over 1,100 churches, "pastors are encouraged to advise their congregations on political matters, such as marriage and abortion rights, and even endorse or oppose candidates." The next Pulpit Freedom Sunday will be on 5 October 2014.

It's a great act of resistance. Churches shouldn't be bullied.

This is not the first time that the IRS, which is supposed to be politically impartial, has targeted political rivals of the present administration: in the past these have been pro-life, pro-family and Tea-Party groups. A scandal relating to this bias broke in 2013, leading to the current congressional investigation of the IRS for improperly monitoring conservative groups, which has resulted in a moratorium on all IRS investigations. So, in practice, the IRS will not enforce the agreement with the FFRF on monitoring churches because of this moratorium, at least not until it's lifted.

According to Christian Century,

The Freedom from Religion Foundation is widely seen as the most litigious of the dozen or so national atheist advocacy groups. It claims to have brought 40 First Amendment lawsuits since 1977 and is currently involved in legal challenges to a Ten Commandments monument, graduation prayers and a Catholic shrine on public land.

Why shouldn't it? It seems to work, even to the point of going against the American Constitution to satisfy its agenda and still winning.

The American Vision concludes its denunciation thus:

One last thing. The purpose of Christian involvement in the political field is not to use the power of the State to impose a Taliban-style religious-political system on the nation but to decrease the power of the State at every level.

The separation between Church and state has largely the purpose of protecting the Church from the power of the state. It's ridiculous to think that it means that only Christians, clergy or laymen, of all the different groups that make up a society, should not be entitled to hold political views as Christians or to express them publicly.

Even more absurd is to believe that Church ministers can earn the right to speak of political issues to their flocks only by paying tax money to governments that will squander it and will make themselves greater and more powerful with it, of which type of government conduct the Obama administration provides many excellent examples.

Vatican Denounces Islamic Caliphate Crimes

The Vatican denounced the crimes of the Islamic Caliphate, with a strongly-worded Declaration by the Pontifical Council for Inter-religious Dialogue.

This is the text of the Declaration on the jihadist violence in Iraq, issued on 12 August 2014, translated from the Italian from the Vatican News website:

The whole world has witnessed in shock what is now called the "restoration of the Caliphate," which had been abolished on 29 October 1923 by Kamal Ataturk, founder of modern Turkey. That this "restoration" is contested by the the majority of Muslim religious and political institutions has not prevented the "Islamic State" jihadists from committing and continuing to commit unspeakable criminal acts.

This Pontifical Council, all those engaged in interreligious dialogue, followers of all religions, as well as men and women of good will, can only unambiguously denounce and condemn these practices unworthy of man:

• the massacre of people for the sole reason of their religious affiliation;
• the despicable practice of beheading, crucifying and hanging bodies in public places;
• the imposition on Christians and Yezidis of the choice among conversion to Islam, payment of a tax (jizya) or forced exile;
• the forced expulsion of tens of thousands of people, including children, elderly, pregnant women and the sick;
• the abduction of girls and women belonging to the Yezidi and Christian communities as spoils of war (sabaya);
• the imposition of the barbaric practice of infibulation;
• the destruction of Christian and Muslim places of worship and burial places;
• the forced occupation or desecration of churches and monasteries;
• the removal of crucifixes and other Christian religious symbols as well as those of other religious communities;
• the destruction of a priceless Christian religious and cultural heritage;
• appalling violence aimed at terrorising people to force them to surrender or flee.

No cause, and certainly no religion, could justify such barbarity. This constitutes an extremely serious offence against humanity and against God who is its Creator, as Pope Francis has often reminded us.

We cannot forget, however, that Christians and Muslims have been able to live together - although, it's true, with ups and downs - over the centuries, building a culture of coexistence and a civilisation of which they are proud. Moreover, it is on this basis that, in recent years, dialogue between Christians and Muslims has continued and intensified.

The dramatic plight of Christians, Yezidis and other religious and ethnic communities who are minorities in Iraq requires a clear and courageous stance on the part of religious leaders, especially Muslims, of people engaged in interreligious dialogue and of all people of good will. All must be unanimous in condemning unequivocally these crimes and in denouncing the appeal to religion to justify them. What credibility will religions, their followers and their leaders have, otherwise? What credibility could the interreligious dialogue that we have patiently pursued over recent years still have?

Religious leaders are also called to exercise their influence with rulers to end these crimes, to punish those who commit them and to re-establish the rule of law throughout the land, ensuring the return home of those who have been displaced. While recalling the need for an ethical guidance in the management of human societies, these same religious leaders must not fail to stress that the support, funding and arming of terrorism are morally reprehensible.

That said, the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue is grateful to all those who have already raised their voices to denounce terrorism, especially that which uses religion to justify it. Let us therefore unite our voices with that of Pope Francis: "May the God of peace stir up in each one of us a genuine desire for dialogue and reconciliation. Violence is never defeated by violence. Violence is defeated by peace!

Islam Is Not the Only Threat to the West

About the photo: Antonio Gramsci, co-founder of the Italian Communist Party in 1921, developed the theory of cultural hegemony, according to which the extreme Left has to take power indirectly and in a less visible way, through an ideological and cultural war that it has now de facto won all over the Western world.

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I've often said that the West is allowing its own Islamisation - which it could easily stop, since it's in a much stronger position than the Muslim world - and that therefore, if we want to be effective in dealing with the Islamic threat, we must first understand and deal with what has brought Western civilisation to its knees long before Islam could use this predicament for its purposes.

We've got to understand what went wrong in the West's seemingly unstoppable march of progress.

We believe that European countries and those descended from them are the most successful in the world, yet they are just ready not just to accept but to welcome with arms wide open their own Islamisation.

If we are in this situation it’s obviously because we have taken a path which is not so successful and conducive to good results as we illusorily thought we had. There’s not much point in all this “progress” if it has the same causes as our predisposition to civilisational suicide.

Sometimes people respond to my assertion that something is rotten in the West by saying things like this message, which I've just received:

I think what you say is true. However, I also think there are more causes to the rise of militant Islamism in the UK and elsewhere in Europe than just the failings of cultural Marxism and Western liberal democracy. Violence, war, slavery and Jihad are built into the very DNA of the Quaran and no iman would argue with that. I have come to the conclusion that Islam itself is not a religion at all. In fact the Quran defines it as a "system of thought" which is a far more accurate description.

It's impossible to say with any remote appearance of logic - and therefore I've never said - that Islam invasion of the West can occur without Islam. If you think about it for a moment, it wouldn't make any sense even as a linguistic construct.

But what I'm saying is that, if we focus only on Islam, we miss the broader picture.

When Rome was invaded and sacked by the barbarians, that had the possibility to happen only because the Roman Empire was already weakened internally, by moral decadence and the loss of the values that had built its strength. The barbarians merely took advantage of that.

Something similar is happening to Western civilisation. If the West were not in such a state of moral and cultural confusion so serious as to resemble a loss of identity, Islam would be too weak a force to even dream of threatening it.

Let's not forget that, with unrestricted immigration, we opened the doors to the invaders. The perpetrators of 9/11, as an example, received their training in engineering and driving planes in Germany and the US. Without that training, they wouldn't have achieved anything, even after reading the Quran a thousand times. This is just a dramatically emblematic example of what I'm saying.

I'm not saying even for a moment that Islam is not a huge problem, threatening the very existence of our civilisation.

But it's far from being the only problem threatening it.

Even without Islam, the West for a long time has been on a path to destroy itself (witness the two totally unnecessary world wars, that many historians, including Niall Ferguson, call "Western civil wars").

We are conducting this analysis now exactly because we have to find out what went wrong. I anticipate the conclusions of my analysis: abandoning Christianity, losing our moral compass, turning man into God is what went wrong.

What all of us have been taught is different from the truth that we have to re-discover again.

Western civilisation was built on and for many centuries took its nourishment and lifeblood from Christianity. Without it, it will end.

I am personally not a believer, I was an atheist all my adult life until I became agnostic about two years ago. It's not necessary to believe in God to recognise these, which are historical facts. Or to become a follower of Christianity without its theological aspect.

Christianity, like all religions, has a theological and a cultural, ethical and social aspect. We can embrace the latter without embracing the former.

Uncontrolled Immigration and Welfare State

Towards the end of July a would-be illegal immigrant to the UK, a stowaway who had clung underneath a coach for 200 miles from Calais to Norfolk, was killed when the coach's driver accidentally reversed over him.

One cannot help feeling sorry for the poor chap, illegal or not.

This news emerged in conjunction with that of a group of illegal immigrants first caught by the French border police while they were trying to leave Britain and smuggle themselves into France, and then returned to Dover.

Several Facebook users left comments to the effect that, with all the illegal immigrants coming into the UK, they only catch the illegals who are trying to leave. It's entirely understandable to feel that way: the problem is that, when generosity and altruism become excessive and destructive (you can have too much of a good thing, for every human quality we must find the right balance), when we realise and try to counteract the catastrophic consequences of these excesses, we risk being deprived of our spirit of compassion and humanity. This is another thing that the whole immigration disaster risks taking away from us.

In fact, I feel more anger towards the native benefit scroungers - people who could work and choose not to - for whom it's been extremely easy to exploit a welfare system that exists just to be taken advantage of and who have no moral scruples in living off the backs of the hard workers in their society, than I have towards immigrants like this man, who take huge risks with their lives.

Of course the lives of the British people in welfare-dependent families in which nobody has worked for generations are in the end ruined by alcoholism, drug abuse, domestic physical and sexual abuse, broken families, fatherlessness, and crime within and out of the home walls.

Both the welfare state and the uncontrolled immigration that we have and is more akin to invasion create human tragedies: this something they have in common.

Something else they share is that, ideologically, they both derive from the same doctrine: that we must pay our way out of poverty, also known as wealth redistribution, an idea of the Left since time immemorial. The difference is that the welfare state does for the domestic poor what unrestricted immigration does for the international poor. The end result, in both cases, is the devastation of the country's economy and the inability to achieve the allegedly desired result, namely the alleviation of poverty.

Interestingly, “most sensible economists (including Hayek) agree that, as long as inequality exists between national states, you can have either a Welfare State or free movement of people—not both.”

The great economist, winner of the Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences Milton Friedman also said that you cannot have free immigration and welfare at the same time, as it leads to parasitism. (43.40 - 45.40 in the video)

The colonisation that we keep calling "immigration" is similar to a lifeboat: if too many people get on board, it sinks and nobody will be saved. And, if among those people there is a disproportionate number of criminals and terrorists, the lifeboat will become a "deathboat".

Wind Farms' Dirty Secrets

It's not enough that they kill large numbers of birds and bats and that they are eyesores ruining the landscape and seascape.

Wind farms are being investigated in Scotland for their possible harm to human health.

The Scottish government has commissioned a report studying the effects on over 33,500 families living near 10 wind farms North of the Border, just a sample of the 2,300 wind turbines in Scotland. Its results will be known in autumn.

The research was prompted by campaigners who claim that some people living near the wind farms and suffering ill health don't realise that the cause may be infrasound emitted by wind turbines: noise at such a low frequency that it cannot be heard but can be felt.

A local resident is Andrew Vivers,

"an ex-Army captain who has suffered from headaches, dizziness, tinnitus, raised blood pressure and disturbed sleep since Ark Hill wind farm was built near his home in Glamis, Angus."

Medical examinations and tests failed to find the cause of his symptoms.

"Mr Vivers, who served almost 10 years in the military, said the authorities had so far refused to accept the ill effects of infrasound despite it being a 'known military interrogation aid and weapon'.

"He said: 'When white noise was disallowed they went on to infrasound. If it is directed at you, you can feel your brain or your body vibrating. With wind turbines, you don’t realise that is what’s happening to you.'"

In addition, "Mr Vivers said he has also witnessed an 'incredible number' of dead hares on the moors around Ark Hill and believes they may have succumbed to 'internal haemorrhaging and death' as a result of the turbines."

Mr Vivers believes that infrasound low frequency noise monitoring should be mandatory before and after turbine erection.

http://www.express.co.uk/news/uk/497525/An-ill-wind-blows-as-the-surge-of-turbines-stirs-fears-of-silent-danger-to-our-health

Scotland had been involved in the discovery, earlier this year, of environmental damage caused by wind farms:

"Scotland’s environmental watchdog has probed more than 100 incidents involving turbines in just six years, including diesel spills, dirty rivers, blocked drains and excessive noise.

"Alarmingly, they also include the contamination of drinking water and the indiscriminate dumping of waste, with warning notices issued to a handful of energy giants."

http://www.sundaypost.com/news-views/scotland/special-investigation-toxic-wind-turbines-1.282890

It will be interesting to see if environmentalists and celebrities respond to any ruinous effects of one of their pet "renewable energy" projects with the same ardour and vigour with which they've been attacking fracking and fossil fuels.

Judging from their weak reaction to the massacre of birds and bats by wind farms, I wouldn't hold my breath.

Let's Never Become Blind to Burkhas

If a woman in a burkha, looking like a black spectre, walks by in Sheperds Bush or Oxford Street, people ignore her, pretend not to see her, probably try to believe that it's perfectly OK and normal to be dressed like that.

They have been almost thoroughly desensitised, they are like robots, automata who don't recognise the significance of what they see, who don't think.

Some people say to me things like: "I don't know why you're surprised, we see it all the time. It's just a traditional dress. Would you react in the same way if you saw a nun?"

I usually reply that being used to something shouldn't lead to its blind acceptance. If I had lived in Nazi Germany I probably would have got used to seeing arms risen in the Heil Hitler salute, but I would have resisted considering it right.

The burkha is a symbol, just like a nun's habit is a symbol. But the former symbolises a doctrine - Islam - that brings out the very worst in people, while the latter symbolises a doctrine - Christianity - that, by making them altruistic and considerate, brings out the best in people.