The Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue released a statement about the wave of terror washing across Syria and Iraq. The statement was in French. HERE Here is an English translation:
The whole world has witnessed with incredulity what is now called the “Restoration of the Caliphate,” which had been abolished on October 29,1923 by Kamal Ataturk, founder of modern Turkey. Opposition to this “restoration” by the majority of religious institutions and Muslim politicians has not prevented the “Islamic State” jihadists from committing and continuing to commit unspeakable criminal acts. [Interesting… this isn’t written entirely in Vaticanese!]
This Pontifical Council, together with all those engaged in interreligious dialogue, followers of all religions, and all men and women of good will, can only unambiguously denounce and condemn these practices which bring shame on humanity:
-the massacre of people on the sole basis of their religious affiliation;
-the despicable practice of beheading, crucifying and hanging bodies in public places;
-the choice imposed on Christians and Yezidis between 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 places of worship and Christian and Muslim 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;
-indiscriminate violence aimed at terrorizing people to force them to surrender or flee.
No cause, and certainly no religion, can justify such barbarity. [And yet this seems to be part and parcel of what the Religion of Peace does.] This constitutes an extremely serious offense to humanity and to God who is the Creator, as Pope Francis has often reminded us. We cannot forget, however, that Christians and Muslims have lived together – it is true with ups and downs – over the centuries, building a culture of peaceful coexistence and civilization 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 communities and ethnic minorities in Iraq requires a clear and courageous stance on the part of religious leaders, especially Muslims, [Partially in Vaticanese. Translation: Imams…. mullahs… denounce these actions or you are not courageous, that is, you are cowards.] as well as those engaged in interreligious dialogue and all people of good will. All must be unanimous in condemning unequivocally these crimes and in denouncing the use of religion to justify them. If not, what credibility will religions, their followers and their leaders have? What credibility can the interreligious dialogue that we have patiently pursued over recent years have? [Calling them out, for sure.]
Religious leaders are also called to exercise their influence with the authorities to end these crimes, to punish those who commit them and to reestablish the rule of law throughout the land, ensuring the return home of those who have been displaced. While recalling the need for an ethical management of human societies, these same religious leaders must not fail to stress that the support, funding and arming of terrorism is morally reprehensible.
That said, the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue [Read… Pope Francis!] 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. “
This would not have been published without the knowledge of Pope Francis.
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That’s about as strongly a worded statement coming from the Vatican—and perhaps especially from this particular office–as one is likely to hear. Impressive.
I like it. Maybe this horror unfolding in Iraq and Syria will open some eyes in the Vatican to what Islam really is. Maybe someday (I don’t expect to hear it in my lifetime but maybe someday…) the Holy Father and the high prelates of the Church will stop seeking phony dialogue with the followers of Muhammad’s angel and his book, and start calling Islam what it is: a FALSE religion steeped in error that was inherited from various ancient Christian heresies mixed with the barbaric practices of Arab paganism. And maybe one day we can seek to convert the Muslims and allow the Holy Spirit to liberate them from this atrocious error.
If muslim leaders do not issue immediate and widespread condemnation of these satanic acts against Christ, Pope Francis should publicly break off all dialogue with muslims and the Church should spend her time instead on prayers and active missionary efforts for their conversion. This is our only true hope.
One would like to see published in English and in other languages the full Report of the International Theological Commission (2014) approved by Cardinal Müller, Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, entitled “God the Trinity and the unity of humanity: Christian monotheism and its opposition to violence” (2014).
At the moment it has only been published in Italian at http://www.vatican.va/roman_curia/congregations/cfaith/cti_documents/rc_cti_20140117_monoteismo-cristiano_it.html
The Commission was invited to consider the topic by Pope Benedict XVI in 2009
Paragraph 17 states:
” L’unità indissolubile del comandamento evangelico dell’amore di Dio e del prossimo stabilisce il grado di autenticità della religione. In ogni religione. E anche in ogni presunto umanesimo, religioso o non religioso.”
Paragraphs 28 – 30 would also seem relevant to today`s statement by the Vatican
Two items found today.
Vatican advocates military intervention in Iraq.
http://www.breitbart.com/Big-Peace/2014/08/12/Vatican-Advocates-Military-Action-in-Iraq
Astute Middle East commentator correlates this to the Thirty Years War and predicts it will only be over when the protagonists sustain 20-25% of their potential fighting forces. http://pjmedia.com/spengler/2014/08/12/shermans-300000-and-the-caliphates-3-million/
Wow. Someone finally grew a spine and called this mongrelized political and social system cloaked in religion for what it is on an official capacity. I’m (happily) stunned. Let’s see if it gets rolled back…
The reason you don’t hear, even from the ostensibly ‘moderate’ immans any public condemnation is for the same reason so-called interreligious dialogue is its mostly two wolves and a sheep discussion what’s for lunch, or a moslem cleric patting the head of the Christian saying ‘good doggie’ while he reaches around for a club. And we, as Catholic Christians take that sheep metaphor too far sometimes…forgetting that the Lord Himself had righteous anger over, say, the moneychangers in the temple precincts. The supposed ‘moderates’, were they to actually publicly express outrage or condemnation, would be to contradict the guiding principles written down in the book they profess belief in. In order for true dialogue or discussion to take place…the words have to mean the same to both sides. Peace, to Christians, means absence of strife and acceptance of the dignity and worth of everyone…to the sociopolitical system of mohamedism, it means submission to the rule of Sharia and acceptance of the rantings in the Koran.
What is happening in these sad lands is beyond barbarity, and the Prince of Darkness is dancing in delight.
One thing is for certain, it takes a certain strength of Faith to NOT deny Christ, even to the point of knowing you will suffer the same fate as He. Many martyrs are being made, right before our eyes…while our ruling class is cavorting on the beach and playing another round of golf. Sow the wind…reap the whirlwind.
“Violence is never defeated by violence. Violence is defeated by peace. “
Contra:
“My mother said violence never solves anything.” “So?” Mr. Dubois looked at her bleakly. “I’m sure the city fathers of Carthage would be glad to know that.”
Lt. Col. Jean V. Dubois (Ret.), p. 25; exchange between him and a student
” … I was not making fun of you personally; I was heaping scorn on an inexcusably silly idea — a practice I shall always follow. Anyone who clings to the historically untrue and thoroughly immoral doctrine that violence never settles anything I would advise to conjure up the ghosts of Napoleon Bonaparte and the Duke of Wellington and let them debate it. The ghost of Hitler could referee and the jury might well be the Dodo, the Great Auk, and the Passenger Pigeon. Violence, naked force, has settled more issues in history that has any other factor, and the contrary opinion is wishful thinking at its worst. Breeds that forget this basic truth have always paid for it with their lives and their freedoms.”
He sighed. “Another year, another class — and for me another failure. One can lead a child to knowledge but one cannot make him think.” Suddenly he pointed his stump at me. “You. What is the moral difference, if any, between the soldier and the civilian?”
“The difference, I said carefully, “lies in the field of civic virtue. A soldier accepts personal responsibility for the safety of the body politic of which he is a member, defending it, if need be, with his life. The civilian does not.”
“The exact words of the book,” he said scornfully. “But do you understand it? Do you believe it?”
Lt. Col. Jean V. Dubois (Ret.) and student, p. 26″
Robt Heinlein, Starship Troopers (the book – not the movie)
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When sane (non-leftist) people say “violence never settles anything,” they’re usually assuming a definition of violence something like:
an unjust or unwarranted exertion of force or power, as against rights or laws:
They’re not saying force or power never settled anything.
I was once asked: Is the Muslim Allah the same as the Christian God? I scoffed at the question thinking they HAVE to be the same person. Now, after nearly 20 years of radical Islam trying to attack the US mainland, and succeeding twice; and reading the moral decay of ISIS and their persecution and murder of Christians, I have to believe that Allah is really Satan, and not God. If you read the end times Non-Catholic literature, the anti-Christ will have miraculous powers from Satan. Satan is obviously directing the current murder of Christians and using ISIS as his minions. If Allah is allowing this to occur, then Allah is Satan.
From 2006:
“”Enough now with this turning the other cheek! It’s our duty to protect ourselves,” Monsignor Velasio De Paolis, secretary of the Vatican’s supreme court, thundered in the daily La Stampa.
“The West has had relations with the Arab countries for half a century, mostly for oil, and has not been able to get the slightest concession on human rights,” he said.”
This quote taken from Jimmy Akin’s blog (it was also reported elsewhere such as Whispers in the Loggia), and as Ed Peters said in his comment, (now Cardinal) DePaolis is a canon lawyer, so he tells it like it is.
“Violence is never defeated by violence. Violence is defeated by peace. ”
I have news for the Pope. Violence is defeated by a) defence and b) strategy and c) counter-attack, preferably using massively superior firepower.
And I recall JPII has already justified the targeted use of force in order to avoid a humanitarian catastrophe such as mass starvation or ethnic cleansing.
Violence is part of the human condition, it is inescapable. In the case if ISIS in particular and radical Islamism in general we have an evil ideology which cannot be stopped by any save violent means. I was hoping that they would call for a Crusade, myself, which in the end is what it will take.
For the most part I am very disappointed with reaction of the church’s leadership to this genocide. Case in point I emailed our local bishop and asked for some public petitions or reciting of the rosary after the weekend and for collections to be taken up to support these poor people. The result a non reply, at sunday mass no special mention during the petitions. I am stunned, especially after seeing a picture on another website of the headless body of a little girl.
Father Z is it sinful for me to leave Mass next time I have to sit through a “social justice” presentation by the designated group of the bishops on protecting the environment, protesting mining practices etc etc, while nothing is mentioned about the social injustice of the genocides occuring either through abortion or through the islamic extremists..i just can’t take it anymore
Folks generally hold that, because both Christians and Mohammedans profess a monotheism, their gods must be the same. They most certainly are not. Yahweh is not Allah. The question of identity boils down to Pure Love and pure will, Christian and Mohammedan gods respectively. Not only are these two gods not the same, they cannot be the same.
In order for Christians to confess and defend the One True Faith, we must first properly assess Mohammedanism for what it IS. The central questions then, are what is the Mohammedan god and what are the tenants of Mohammedanism. We Christians cannot engage in a pseudo-Christian brotherly love (er, religious dialogue) with Mohammedans who, according to the book that they are obligated to believe, hold and practice, are not permitted, on pain of death, to engage in religious dialogue with “Infidels”. And yes, Christians are Mohammedan infidels. You can read that little tidbit in their book. It shows up repeatedly.
How is it that Mohammedans can understand and announce in writing and in practice that Christians are infidels precisely because the Christian and Mohammedan gods are not the same while Christians call Mohammedans “believers in the same god”? The common Mohammedan exhortation “there is no god but Allah, He has no companions” is intentionally and explicitly (and stupidly) anti-Trinitarian. It is a slur against Christians and the One True Faith. It is their unambiguous assertion that Yahweh is most definitely not Allah. Mohammedans plaster the walls of their mosques with this intentionally derisive epithet for all to see. This is Mohammedan religious monologue. For with Mohammedans there is no dialogue. There can not and will not ever be. (That’s also in their book.) Other iterations of this very same Mohammedan monologue are being acted out in a deathly morality play in Northern Iraq. Christians need to recover our ability to recognize the morals in morality plays.
The Vatican’s statement and the recent statements of the Chaldean Patriarch appear to signal that we Christians might just be waking up to a long-coming and overdue hangover brought upon by decades of binge dialoguing with Mohammedans paying mere lip-service to Christians in return.
The Christian cheek has been struck. The other has been turned and predictably struck and struck and struck. We are well out of cheeks. Now what, Church Militant?
Vecchio di Londra:
Agreed on all points.
There is also the case study of the little Jewish boy named David who once engaged in violence as a response to violence. I read that it settled things fairly well.
Violence IS defeated by peace, but only if you can avert the violence or, barring that, after the violence ends. After a violent conflict, peace and forgiveness heals so that former enemies can become neighbors and, eventually, friends. Violence recurs when there is no peace or forgiveness.
The idea that peace can overcome active, murderous violence does not bear out, although many people continue to say so. But the difference between what happens to some areas after violent conflict, civil war, etc. is very telling — in some places, it is quickly over and people can hardly believe it ever happened, even people who fought, and certainly the next generation. But in other places, people are ready to attack each other as soon as they get hte chance, even 1000 years after a conflict.
It seems to me that this is what “peace defeats violence” means. Once violence breaks out, there is really no choice other than to fight, hide, or hope to survive other people’s violence. A peaceful person might be spared, or a small group, but only in a sort of random way or some other exception.
Vecchio di Londra:
JP2 also kissed the same green book these devils are upholding so?
“God protect islam”Remember??
So , Im sure the Pope is doing the best he can,not apologizing to the Muslim like other Popes have done in the past and coming out with the harshest possible words allowed for a Pope. So far he has done more far more than others in terms of dealing with these heretics.
St. Bernard of Clairvaux, Blessed Nonius Alvares Pereira, and St. Joan of Arc would be pleased.
SS. Sergius and Bacchus, patrons of Syria, would also be pleased. We need more warrior saints.