Bomb explodes in Oslo

I am sure many of you have seen this news, which I picked up from FNC:

OSLO, Norway –  DEVELOPING: A powerful bomb tore open several Oslo buildings, including the prime minister’s office, on Friday, killing at least one person, a Norwegian news agency said. Several people also were injured, as the blast shattered windows and coated the street with documents.

Prime Minister Jens Stoltenberg is safe, government spokeswoman Camilla Ryste told The Associated Press. A senior adviser to the prime minister, Oivind Ostang, said Stoltenberg was working at home Friday and was not in the building.

Norwegian news agency NTB says police confirm the Oslo explosion was caused by a bomb. The country’s public broadcaster, NRK, said one person was confirmed killed.

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14 Comments

  1. The explosion was followed by shooting at the summer camp of the Labour Party’s youth organisation. Several young people have been injured. There is no definite information about a link between the two episodes, but the police inform that there is reason to believe that they are linked. It seems that the gunman was actually dressed as a policeman. If there was indeed only one, he has thankfully been apprehended, but I’m not sure that they are excluding the possibility of more.

    So far, there are seven confirmed deaths from the explosion. People are also being evacuated from Oslo city centre and asked to stay inside in the area, so it is clear that the police do not exclude the possibility of further explosions, though one prays that will not be the case and that it is just a case of being safe rather than sorry.

  2. gambletrainman says:

    Also, I heard that there could be several youths killed at the camp. One eyewitness said he saw at least 20 bodies. Again, this is not a report from an official news agency, but from an “eyewitness” account, and sometimes in the excitement, things can be exaggerated. On top of that, I think they are looking at terrorist involvement

  3. For now there are 10 confirmed deaths from the shooting at the youth camp. There are seven from the bomb blast. However, things at the island where the youth camp was held are still apparently very chaotic , and the information is that one expects the death toll will rise. In addition to not having accounted for everyone (at least officially), there are obviously severe injuries.

  4. There are now 84 confirmed deaths from the shootings (with people apparently still missing). All of them would have been young people (14-25 as far as I understand). In addition comes the 7 from the bomb blast.

  5. Mariana says:

    Yes, 84 deaths at the camp and 7 in town. Horrible.

  6. benedetta says:

    The reports are that the suspect is a “Christian fundamentalist” who had some sort of animus against Muslims. Historically in places which are ruled by secularism and where the Catholic Church is not permitted to function and contribute vibrantly to the culture, extremists such as this are more, and not less likely, to crop up, unfortunately. Those who advocate in our own country that Catholics ought not be permitted to contribute any longer to the shaping of the culture and should shut up or would require the dismantling of the Church ought to take heed. A secularist culture first and foremost that discourages faith from legitimate engagement and respects the voice of those of faith is not the model for cultural or secular health and could come to be exactly the opposite through purging the moderating and reasoned voice of the Catholic Church.

  7. AnAmericanMother says:

    There’s no point in speculating with the facts as unclear as they are right now. It appears that these reports are based on a Facebook page that was created just a few days ago.
    Remember how the man who shot the congresswoman in AZ was immediately reported to be a conservative Christian and Tea Party member?

  8. catholicmidwest says:

    Europeans and North Americans to a lesser degree, live in a post-Christian society, which means that a person can be an ex-Christian, a cultural Christian or someone who hangs onto the label but has no idea what it means really. Christians who have assented to the faith and are practicing their faith don’t go around shooting people and bombing city centers just to kill human beings and attract attention to political causes. There is some evidence that all this nonsense really comes from evidence that he visited a variety of websites including Nazi ones and quasi-Christian ones.

    In addition to that, there are people out there who want to blame Christians for everything that happens. They are the political demagogues not us.

  9. catholicmidwest says:

    Many Europeans are nearly rabidly anti-Christian too, and this is probably part of what you will hear about this, even if this killer only visited or posted on some quasi-Christian Internet site.
    The atmosphere regarding religion is quite different there than here, but we are becoming more like them every day in this way, unfortunately.

  10. irishgirl says:

    The death toll in all (from both the city bombing and the camp shootings) is over 90 right now. The police are still looking for bodies that might be in the lake surrounding the island. Horrible tragedy, all around. This might be Norway’s Oklahoma City, since the accused is home-grown. I saw his picture on the BBC website-looks scary!
    benedetta-well said!

  11. Mariana says:

    I just watched the late news on Norwegian TV. He calls himself a Christian conservative, but that is all, it doesn’t seem like he’s in any way actively a Christian, just anti-islamist. He had posted You Tube videos with pictures of Templars and anti-islamist material. He has also confessed to both the bombing and the shootings, his lawyer said just now.
    95 dead at the camp, 5 missing, 7 dead in Oslo.

  12. benedetta says:

    The fact is that the true faith is not allowed to healthily function in that culture as other European ones and so unstable people may or may not latch onto something they erroneously believe to be “Christian” but which any look into what it is really about reveals it is the opposite. Can it be surprising that in the times of the dictatorship of relativism certain things are promoted with labels to give cover to the evil that has always existed. Who knows, the guy may actually be affiliated with Satanism and arranged it in order that Christians and apparently Islam be “blamed” for what in reality are his choices, his violent actions, his individual evil works, and no one else’s. Evil is after all also always deception, they always go together and never come to the light.

    Clearly a healthy sense of God and worship if permitted to exist, and that is a big if, cultivates works of mercy, peace, meekness, gentle actions, goodness, love, joy. When one reads of the nonviolence movements of Martin Luther King, or Gandhi (who admired Our Lord and was inspired by Him), of Christians who actively resisted the various totalitarian or militant extremist regimes that practiced purging of churches or attempted to control people’s faith through government or cultural crackdown one sees that martyrdom was a quiet, silent, peaceful assent to God’s will, and not a showing of threats or force, and used legal means to bring about justice, as opposed to fringe groups which resort to terrorism.

  13. benedetta says:

    The papers are saying he was a “fundamentalist Christian” with “right wing politics”. But I do not see that he was involved in politics, at all. There is nothing remotely political, or Christian about what he said or obviously was doing or did. He was a proud member of a masonic lodge. I did not know these were still culturally active where the mainline churches are decaying. But also he apparently was a violent video game addict. There are numerous studies that link violent video games with acts of violence. Of course if one is addicted to it such that one hasn’t a job and plays it exclusively at age 25 then yes there is a problem and apparently there was nothing culturally to offset the addiction and encourage the practice of virtue and goodness. He was a wealthy kid, looks like a spoiled brat living in an urban center. He professes neo-Nazi affiliation which is obviously not and never was informed by Christianity or politics, but only by evil and targeted Christians and other groups along with the explicit “solution” that sought to bring about through making the government its tool. So he is a terrorist, evil, plain and simple, and, anyone who would countenance hatred and violence against a child is evil incarnate. The newspapers should just call it for what it is, evil incarnate, or will even this most heinous sin get the relativistic media pass? There is evil and it is not at all a matter of faith or politics though some want to pretend or disguise, and, the most violent and the most evil, hateful, hate, children and target children and do so under cover of many many other things. Those who wish to destroy children, whether through “politics” or “the church” or whatever other affiliation or rant or hint or clue they elect to use is never about what they say since evil is a liar and a thief, from the beginning, but it is always about, hatred for humanity, hatred for youth and innocence, and hatred for Christ Himself. Do not be deceived and let no one deceive you.

  14. benedetta says:

    If this evil violent extremist had actually been a real Christian, one could discover a congregation if he worshipped as well as a spiritual formation in the faith. So far, there is not one shred of evidence that he was a practicing Christian, not a one. He apparently is a child of divorce. As a Christian clearly he is an imposter and nothing else. There is potentially extremist violence and it is totally unacceptable for anyone to assign violence, extremism, terrorism a place at table in just politics among people of good faith, as mere relativized reflections of one or another political ideology. Terrorism and evil, violence can never be regarded as just an expected outgrowth of “politics”. It is possible in a democracy for respectful, robust, engaged, healthy political debate which is able to include and dialogue with people of good will of all faiths. People of different faiths and traditions need to meet and know one another and be respectful of one another’s beliefs. Our cultures and society is crying out for the compassion of Christ, authentic worship, freedom of association. The labels and stereotypes of others and leading with that always amount to destruction, exploitation, abuse, violence. It always leads to evil.

    The media is going to have to work with precision in this story so as to avoid harmful and destructive, inaccurate stereotyping and indicting innocent people by labeling this apparent satanist as a “Christian”. If the facts reveal that he truly worshipped with a congregation which fomented politics in place of the authentic message of the gospel, then that congregation will have to account for any role as well. My sense is that this is just another disturbed man, as it plays out in our own country, aimless in life, somewhat educated and able to track down information of interest to him personally, yet lacking core values and virtues, angry and violent, devoid of self-control, clearly narcissistic, lacking any sense of empathy whatsoever and somehow along the way given license and affirmation unwittingly through various things towards venting his horrific designs, with apparent resources to fund and then access an arsenal capable of slaughtering innocents.

    Evil hates children, that is a fact, evil hates innocence and youth with an untold viciousness.

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