From the Practitioners of the Religion of Peace…
The story is from the Christian Science Monitor:
In Egyptian village, Christian shops marked ahead of church attack (+video)
The Saint Virgin Mary Church in Al Nazla is one of 47 churches and monasteries that have been burned, robbed, or attacked in a new wave of violence against Christians in Egypt.Before the violence that shook this small village last week, there were warning signs.
On June 30, when millions of Egyptians took to the streets to protest against now ousted President Mohamed Morsi, residents of Al Nazla marked Christian homes and shops with red graffiti, vowing to protect Morsi’s electoral legitimacy with “blood.”
Relations between Christians and Muslims in the village, which had worsened since Morsi’s election in 2012, grew even more tense as Islamists spread rumors that it was Christians who were behind the protests against Morsi and his ouster by the military on July 3.
Finally, on the morning of Aug. 14, the tension erupted. In Cairo, the police attacked two protest camps full of Morsi supporters, using live ammunition and killing hundreds. When the news reached Al Nazla, a local mosque broadcast through its loudspeakers that Christians were attacking the protesters, say residents. Hundreds of villagers marched on the Saint Virgin Mary Church. They broke down the gate and flooded the compound, shouting “Allahu akbar” and “Islam is the solution,” according to Christian neighbors.
“First they stole the valuable things, and then they torched the place,” says Sami Awad, a church member who lives across the narrow dirt alley from the church. “Whatever they couldn’t carry, they burned.”
[…]
Mosque broadcast
On the morning of the attack in Al Nazla, says Awad, a local mosque broadcast a message around 9 am. “Your brothers in Rabaa El Adawiya are being killed by Jews and Christians,” the loudspeakers boomed, according to Awad and other Christian residents. The crowds attacked the police station before attacking the church, say residents, possibly part of the reason the police did nothing to stop the attack that lasted from around 9:30 am until 7 pm. The attackers even brought trucks to carry away their loot. The police guards that had been posted outside the church walked away when the angry crowds approached, say neighbors. One fire truck that tried to approach the church was repelled by the crowd, and the police never came.
Some Muslim neighbors tried to help put out the fire raging in the church, including Magdy Shaaban. They also successfully protected against attempts to break into or set fire to Christian homes and shops, but near the church, “there were so many attackers, we couldn’t stand against them,” he says.
[…]
Read the rest there.
Sts. Nunilo and Alodia, pray for us.
From a reader:
A little less fancy is the solemn Pontifical Mass “at the faldstool”, a special kind of chair that is placed in the sanctuary before the altar. Most of the action takes place there and there are fewer sacred ministers. This is now most bishops who aren’t the ordinary of the place celebrate Pontifical Mass.
Finally, there is “Low Mass” of a bishop, which is slimmed down even more, though it retains some of the ceremonies of vesting before the altar, etc. That isn’t really called a “Pontifical Mass” because the bishop isn’t vested in all his “pontificals”.
In any event, it is possible to celebrate the Novus Ordo with elements of the older, traditional form preserved. You can make the Novus Ordo look and sound like the Roman Rite in its traditional form. In a way it is easier to do so when a bishop is celebrating, because the Roman Rite’s standard is when a pontiff is pontificating. We are inclined to “beef up” those Masses and our inclination is dead on right.
