Hotter than Fire: the Deaths of Migrants in the Mediterranean

Thinking Faith || By Fr. Agbonkhianmeghe E. Orobator SJ || 27 April 2015

The repeated tragedy of migrants drowning in the Mediterranean Sea, ‘conjures up an eerie spectre of the transatlantic slave trade’, says Nigerian Jesuit Agbonkhianmeghe E. Orobator. The revulsion with which we now react to the slave trade should also apply to this modern-day crisis, and must inform our thinking and action in response to it.

Once upon a time, millions of Africans were shipped across the Atlantic Ocean on an infamous journey to North America and South American European colonies to work as slaves. To this day, accounts of the atrocious conditions of the slaves on European-owned ships and in plantations in the so-called New World still provoke revulsion. Estimates vary, but a reliable guess is that up to two million of the men, women and children that made up the human cargo never made it to their destination. They perished at sea.

The alarming and increasing death toll of migrants crammed into unseaworthy vessels that drown in the Mediterranean conjures up an eerie spectre of that transatlantic slave trade. Then, the massive illegal trade in human beings was sustained by a convergence of situations and conditions, actors and agents, and the complicity of governments, locally and globally. Similar forces lie behind today’s desperate attempts by hapless men, women and children to cross the Sahara Desert and the Mediterranean Sea to get to Europe.

The young men and women who gather their meagre resources to embark on this journey are not oblivious to the perils that lie in wait. They have calculated the risks and reckoned with the odds. They know that their chances are extremely slim – if they don’t die and rot in the Sahara or drown in the Mediterranean, they may be lucky enough to set foot on the promised land of Europe. The majority are brutalised by criminal gangs and harassed by corrupt security agents along the way. Yet, listening to the stories of survivors and prospective migrants, they remain unfazed by the dangers that dog the migrant trails and resolute in their determination never to turn back. An African proverb is apt here: when a rat deliberately runs into a fire, know that it is being pursued by something hotter than fire.

The countries that thousands of Africans are fleeing are routinely classified by experts and analysts as shining examples of the fastest growing economies in the world. But, clearly, such statistical depictions of the fortunes of Africa cannot be telling the whole story. The perilous voyages across the Mediterranean are triggered by political instability, violent conflicts, social inequality and economic disempowerment in the countries of origin; a sophisticated, well-resourced and multi-level network of criminal gangs practicing people trafficking; and moral apathy and political lethargy of destination countries.

African leaders are not doing enough to deal with this problem. More can and should be done to slow down, if not halt, the migrant flows by improving living conditions and prospects of a better life, especially for the young. The requisite measures are not impossible, nor are they even too complicated to put in place: better educational opportunities, gainful employment, job creation, resources for entrepreneurship, and resolving violent civil and political conflicts – as well as arresting and prosecuting known people traffickers.

Last week’s tragedy is by no means the first time that we have witnessed the mass death of migrants on the Mediterranean. In 2013, when more than 100 African migrants met a similar fate off the coast of the island of Lampedusa, stirring promises to avert a repeat of such preventable carnage echoed around the world. European Union leaders made familiar noises and shed tears over the ‘terrible human tragedy’ and ‘slaughter of innocents’ at sea. Pope Francis called it a disgrace and urged concerted efforts to ensure that ‘tragedies like this don’t happen again’; leaders from the UN, the EU and the African Union concurred. The African Union embarked on the now-moribund and poorly resourced ‘Horn of Africa Initiative’ to discourage migration by creating favourable conditions of living in the countries of the migrants’ origin.

Sadly, since Lampedusa, the promised actions have failed to yield the desired results, or even to materialise. Meanwhile, apathy and amnesia settled in. A state of lawlessness in Libya created an ideal haven for gangs engaged in the lucrative business of people trafficking – the ‘slave traders of the 21^st century,’ in the words of Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi. The EU cut back on its maritime search-and-rescue operation ostensibly because it was unaffordable and, bizarrely, with the stated intention of deterring would-be migrants. Worse still, xenophobia filtered into mainstream politics as far-right, anti-immigration nationalist movements gained respectability and acceptability among European voters.

The frustration and apprehension of some European countries on the Mediterranean are understandable. Hospitality is never an easy virtue to practise, especially when wave after wave of guests arrive on the doorsteps of ill-prepared hosts; it is harder still when there is no way of telling how many more migrants are on the way. European policy-makers, governments and non-governmental organisations can bicker ad nauseam about whether or not these are genuine refugees, asylum seekers or economic migrants, but they cannot overlook their common identity. In the words of Pope Francis: ‘They are men and women like us, our brothers and sisters who seek a better life; hungry, persecuted, injured, exploited, victims of war – they seek a better life. They were seeking happiness.’ In reality, these migrants of the Mediterranean confront the world with a matter of human dignity, equality and justice. It is a question of ethics as much as economics and politics.

Now, as in the time of the slave trade, the cries of drowning migrants and the stench of death from the bottom of the Mediterranean are haunting our collective conscience and rousing us from a self-imposed moral somnolence. There is a moral imperative to save lives and it lies on the doorsteps of the European Union and in the backyard of the African Union. For the former, their responsibilities include a greater sharing of the burden of hospitality to migrants, a commitment to venture further out into the Mediterranean to save sinking, overcrowded boats, and a tempering of harsh immigration laws with mercy and compassion. The African Union must call to account dysfunctional African countries that create conditions for this mass flight of young women, men and children in search of the proverbial greener pastures.

The shameful transatlantic slave trade was ended by a massive convergence of unrelenting international efforts, campaigns and struggles on several fronts. Nothing short of the same is required to deal with the modern-day twin crises of migration and people-trafficking that are turning the Mediterranean into a mass grave. Pope Francis is right: ‘Only a decisive collaboration of everyone can help and prevent them.’ Words are not enough.

Agbonkhianmeghe E. Orobator SJ, a Nigerian Jesuit priest, is the Principal of Hekima University College in Nairobi, Kenya.

 

Changes in Egypt's Schoolbooks May Help Counter Islamic Terrorism

Aleteia || By John Burger || 27 April 2015

New reforms met with both caution and criticism

Government ministers in Egypt are taking steps to nip new generations of Islamic terrorism in the bud by making changes in primary and secondary school curricula, according to a report on the website of Voice of America.

The country’s Ministry of Education is removing some religious texts and passages on historical Islamic figures including Saladin, the 12th century Muslim ruler and anti-Crusader hero.

The changes, though, are provoking the ire of Egyptian Islamists.

Salafists say the deletions recommended by a curriculum development panel set up in March amount to the government declaring war on Islam. But the Prime Minister, Ibrahim Mehleb, who has endorsed the recommendations made after a brief review of textbooks says jihadists are exploiting outdated ideas to incite youngsters to violence. ... 

Some fatwas and Hadith (sayings of Prophet Muhammad) are also being omitted, including one saying, “I was ordered to fight people until they testify that there is no god but Allah.”

Some who oppose the changes accuse the authorities of “an assault on our history” and of deleting the words of the Quran.

But the country’s education ministry says, “Some of the material was inciting violence and was first entered into the curriculum during the Muslim Brotherhood's era.” Officials say the censoring of material used to encourage violence is part of a larger ideological battle the government is determined to wage against Islamic extremism.

The plan seems to be in response to the call of Egyptian President Abdel Fattah el-Sissi for a radical reform of Islam. The VOA article pointed out that the changes are: ...in line with a controversial speech the Egyptian president gave earlier this year before an audience of leading religious scholars calling for a “religious revolution” in Egypt. He said dominant Islamic thought had become too closed and antagonistic to the world. “It’s inconceivable that the thought that we hold most sacred should cause the entire nation to be a source of anxiety, danger, killing and destruction for the rest of the world,” he told the scholars.  President el-Sissi said Islam wasn’t the problem per se. The problem lay with “that corpus of texts and ideas that we have sanctified over the centuries, to the point that departing from them has become almost impossible.”

He made that call amid rising violence against non-Muslims, especially the Islamic State group's beheading of 21 Copts working in Libya earlier this year. Ashraf Ramelah, president of Voice of the Copts, told Aleteia that el-Sissi may be well-intentioned but still must overcome the hurdle of influencing the main Islamic religious authority in the country—Al-Azhar. The president, he said, "has not successfully influenced the Al Ahzar stronghold which consistently counters el-Sissi’s efforts to renew Islamic discourse. Publicly, Al-Azhar leaders are welcoming the president’s initiative, but in reality they are against any change."

Ramelah is cautiously optimistic about the curriculum reform but points out that nothing is set in stone yet. He is also concerned that el-Sissi has not come to the public defense of Islam al-Beheiry, a Muslim scholar who is under a death fatwa because he spoke freely about inaccuracies in the hadiths of Islam. "Beheiry challenged traditions held by Al-Azhar scholars, and now his program is shut down along with a death fatwa issued against him. El-Sissi is silent.

The VOA article quoted Egypt expert Samuel Tadros of the Hudson Institute in saying, “Egypt’s current educational system is an incubator for extremism and radicalization.”

“Attempting to address the question of intolerance, radicalization, and extremism in the Egyptian educational system must begin by addressing the very structure of that system and not merely changing curricula,” Tadros said.

 

Seventy Years after WWII, Can Japan Be as Repentant as Germany?

UCANews.Com || By Fr William Grimm || 21 April 2015

The 70th anniversary of the end of World War II is approaching. This month, Japan’s Prime Minister Shinzo Abe will speak in Indonesia and the United States, two countries that suffered as a result of Japanese military aggression in that war.

The speeches will be at an Asian-African summit meeting in Jakarta that begins on April 22 and at a joint session of the US Congress on April 29.

It is estimated that the Japanese killed some 375,000 Indonesians during their occupation of that country. The US military lost about 106,000 lives in the Pacific theater of the war (compared with about 186,000 in the European theater).

People in countries that suffered under the Japanese, especially perhaps China and the two Koreas, will be looking carefully at Abe’s speeches to get hints of what he might say in August, the anniversary of the end of the war. They will be looking in particular for expressions that either accept or downplay responsibility for the war.

In 1995, a socialist prime minister of Japan, Tomiichi Murayama, expressed "deep remorse" over the war and subsequent governments have affirmed this wording, but Abe and his political supporters seem inclined to step back from even that degree of acceptance of responsibility.

Some countries’ governments are calling for a declaration of responsibility and an apology for aggression and cruelty, as has been done by Germany for its part in the horrors of the last century.

Though there are still people who are owed apologies or more — for example women who were forced to work as sex slaves for Japanese troops — it is not likely that they will get what they want and deserve. It is probably futile to put great hopes on what Abe might say because his style of patriotism precludes criticism of Japan.

There is another factor to keep in mind regarding Japanese attitudes toward the war. Most Japanese have no memories of it, having been born since then. Abe himself was born nine years after the war ended. It is a remote event that people feel has no connection to them. They probably would not care one way or the other about expressions of guilt and remorse about something that happened when their grandparents were young.

However, there are some hyper-nationalist Japanese on the right fringe of the political spectrum for whom any admission of war guilt is anathema. They are a force that Abe must reckon with for two reasons. The first is that they can be generally counted upon to support his Liberal Democratic Party and, more importantly, his faction within that party. Alienating them could prove politically costly.

The second reason is darker, a sign that defeat in the war and the intervening years of democracy, development and peace have not changed all aspects of Japan’s politics.

The period in the 1930s leading up to and sustaining Japanese aggression against Asia and the rest of the world was marked by what has been called "government by assassination". Right-wing fanatics murdered politicians with impunity if those politicians were not deemed sufficiently patriotic.

That mind-set has not disappeared, nor has political violence. Even today, the right wing in Japan contains people who can and do resort to threats of violence and actual attacks against politicians, reporters and minorities.

Abe’s political survival, at least, depends upon not arousing right wing ultranationalist resentments and responses. Even in the unlikely event that he wanted to do so, he might not be able to say the sort of things that would appease other nations.

So, it is unlikely that he will say anything this month or in August that will satisfy those who want Japan to act more like Germany when it comes to facing up to its past.

Just what is it that people are looking for? It is true that the 1930s and 40s are ancient history for the overwhelming majority of Japanese. But the same is true for the overwhelming majority of Chinese, Koreans and others.

Are events of 70 years ago really a major emotional and cognitive reality for them? I doubt it. They may feel some resentment toward Japan’s reluctance to accept more responsibility for the reprehensible actions of its long-ago government and military, but it is not the major lens through which they view the land of manga, anime and J-pop.

And yet, leaders in some (though probably a minority) of those countries that suffered under the Japanese seven and more decades ago continue to make Japanese unwillingness to accept guilt a "big deal". Why might that be?

Just as Abe and others have domestic political reasons for limiting what they say and do in relation to history, so too do leaders in other countries, especially, it seems, in China.

A likely reason is that one way to distract people from current domestic injustice is to arouse "patriotic" indignation about Japanese injustice three or more generations ago. Especially where the government controls the media, this can be a temporarily effective distraction.

However, as time goes on, people may be less amenable to being aroused over the "once upon a time". If so, and as the last of those who lived the relevant history disappear, Japanese downplaying of history and other nations emphasizing it will both likely fade.

So, for current domestic reasons that have nothing to do with history, the Japanese government will likely continue to "disappoint" other governments and societies that, for current domestic reasons, prefer to keep people focused on past rather than present assaults on their rights.

Maryknoll Fr William Grimm is publisher of ucanews.com, based in Tokyo.

 

Xenophobic Violence in South Africa Exposes Unresolved Tensions

 

Newsweek || By Lucy Westcott || 17 April 2015

 

Recent attacks on foreign nationals in the South African coastal city of Durban, which have now spread north to the country’s largest city, Johannesburg, have been a long time coming, say workers helping displaced foreign nationals. More than five people have died, including a 14-year-old South African boy, and 8,000 foreigners are now living in five refugee camps that have sprung up near the violence’s epicenter.

On Friday, clashes erupted between police, who fired rubber bullets into crowds, and anti-immigrant protesters in Johannesburg. Foreigners closed down shops in the city out of fear of looting, one day after 18 people were arrested in the city. On Thursday, 5,000 people took to the streets of Durban to protest the attacks, chanting “Down with xenophobia” and “A united Africa,” the BBC reports.

“And so we are back to what we were, a nation with unrest and flashpoints,” Ranjeni Munusamy writes in the South African Daily Maverick. “A country where mobs sharpen their machetes and vow to kill in front of a wall of riot policemen poised to fire. That was the image of Apartheid South Africa. Now it is the image of post-democracy South Africa.”

For local observers, the attacks were not unexpected and reveal a long-simmering tension between impoverished South Africans and entrepreneurial migrants trying to make a living at a time when the unemployment rate is 25.5 percent. Still, the violence has shocked many in a country that prides itself on its relatively peaceful transition to democracy after decades of apartheid. 

“The attacks in Durban happened because the government failed to deal with the root cause of xenophobia,” which is South Africa’s dire economic situation and high crime rates, said Dewa Mavhinga, a senior researcher for the Human Rights Watch Africa division. He is Zimbabwean and decided to return home from Johannesburg this week after witnessing threats of violence against foreigners.

Despite assurances by police and government officials that foreign nationals would be protected, Mavhinga said he feared for his family’s safety. “There’s no sense of protection. I would not feel that the police would be able to protect me,” he said.

The episode recalls the anti-foreigner attacks in 2008, when 62 people were killed in violence across the country. Tens of thousands of foreigners were displaced by the violence, which then-President Thabo Mbeki vowed would never be seen again in South Africa.

Small, isolated incidents occurred in South Africa’s cities between 2008 and 2015, but this is the first time Durban has seen violence and fear on this scale, said Imtiaz Sooliman, chairman and founder of Gift of the Givers, a humanitarian organization that helps foreign nationals living in the camps.

“In different parts of the country, at some time or the other, there has been some kind of attack, which means the underlying problem was always there,” said Sooliman. “It’s exported now, in a much bigger way, in Durban. It’s the first time it’s happened so big in Durban.”

Local media outlets say violence flared up two weeks ago in Isipingo, near Durban, after comments made by Zulu King Goodwill Zwelithini, who said in a speech last month that foreigners are not welcome and must leave South Africa. Migrant workers from other African countries are seen by many as a threat to social and economic prosperity in a country where 54 percent of the population lives on the poverty line, according to the World Bank.

While Zwelithini might have made an off-the-cuff remark, which he later said was taken out of context, it revealed the sentiment of the country’s political elite. This is especially important because South Africa’s local elections are being held next year, says Mavhinga. Scapegoating foreign nationals diverts attention from real issues and the failures of the government to improve the lives of the country’s poor, many of whom are taking up arms in violent fights with immigrants.

“This government of South Africa is failing to deal with this because of the political implications, because they need to retain the vote,” said Mavhinga.

Many people who have arrived in the camps have had their businesses and livelihoods destroyed. Shops in the city centers have been the primary targets, and foreign nationals are being harassed in shops or while walking the street.

“Some people say local businesspeople cannot compete with foreign businesspeople because they’ve got better prices,” said Sooliman.

Mahvinga notes, “One other thing which is fueling this is the myths, the falsehoods, that have spread about foreign nationals, that affect everything, even at a political levels.”

Foreign nationals are thought of as criminals and blamed for the high crime rates; South Africa’s murder rate increased for a second consecutive year, from April 1, 2013, to March 31, 2014. Foreign nationals are also regularly accused of selling drugs to children.

The government has done nothing to counter such falsehoods, says Mahvinga. On Thursday, President Jacob Zuma said that he doesn’t think South Africans are xenophobic, and that if they were, there wouldn’t be so many foreign nationals living in the country. He echoed comments made by Police Minister Nkosinathi Nhleko, who said the attacks are Afrophobic. “It is African-on-African. It is not on other nationalities,” Nhleko said Wednesday.

Immigration concerns have also contributed to the violence. The government recently clamped down on immigration to South Africa, with work permits for foreign university staff not being renewed and a refusal of visas for family members visiting foreign workers in South Africa, Achille Mbembe, professor of political science at the University of the Witwatersrand, notes in a blog post.

For the foreign nationals who have fled, the government has set up five camps and provided tents and water. Humanitarian efforts and additional supplies are being provided by organizations such as Gift of the Givers.

“Each day, more and more people are coming to the camps,” said Sooliman. “They’re not necessarily being attacked, but out of fear, as a preventative measure, people are coming to the camps.”

Between 9,000 and 10,000 foreign nationals have moved away from their homes; 8,000 are in camps, and the rest have fled to private residences. They mainly come from Malawi, Somalia, Congo and Zimbabwe, with some from Pakistan, Burundi and Nigeria. Sooliman says the community response has been encouraging, and people have brought cooked food, sanitary products, towels, clothes and shoes. But he worries that the initial surge of concern will soon dissipate.

Now many foreign nationals don’t want to return to their South African homes, and embassies are making arrangements for them to go back to their home countries.

“They’ve lost faith, they’ve lost respect, they’ve lost trust, they’ve lost everything,” said Sooliman.

As the violence continues, Mavhinga expects to keep receiving calls from foreign nationals and compatriots who remain in South Africa. They’re asking him the same questions: “Where do we go? Who will save us?”

 

Why are Humanitarians so WEIRD?

IRIN || By By Paul Currion || 15 April 2015

I'm WEIRD. I'm not sure whether I became an aid worker because I'm weird, but I was definitely a WEIRD aid worker. I realised this after reading a 2010 academic article which pointed out that an overwhelming proportion of psychology experiments were carried out on an “extraordinarily restricted sample” of humanity – American university undergraduates. The article concluded that this sample was “one of the worst subpopulations one could study for generalizing about Homo sapiens,” because they were too WEIRD: Western, Educated, Industrialized, Rich and Democratic.

That seemed credible to me (if footnotes were Non Food Items, that one article could have supplied everybody in Zaatari refugee camp with kitchen sets) because I realised that, even if they weren’t talking directly about aid workers, the modern aid industry was founded - and is still largely run - by people who are WEIRD. (Yes, I'm looking at you too, MSF.) Stealing a phrase from that 2010 article, aid workers are “a distinct outlier vis-a-vis other global samples,” which explains why we look faintly bewildered a lot of the time; it’s because we get culture shock pretty much everywhere. Even aid workers who aren't WEIRD themselves – the national staff who do most of the work – still work in WEIRD humanitarian organisations.

The result, noted by the 2015 World Development Report (WDR to its friends), is that “development professionals are not always good at predicting how poverty shapes mindsets,” a phrase that maintains the World Bank's position as gold medallists at the Understatement Olympics. Meanwhile the 2014 World Disasters Report (confusingly, also WDR to its friends) emphasises that “Many... organizations are divorced from the realities of the life and the expectations of those who are at risk,” leading to what the Disasters Report describes as a clash between “people's culture” and “organizational culture.”

Culture clash 

This clash is one source of the current crisis of confidence in the humanitarian community. It's telling that both WDRs focus on “their” culture, rather than “our” culture. In fact, the aid industry needs to change “our” organisational cultures from top to bottom, but this is likely to raise difficult questions about the role those cultures play in what Naomi Klein calls the “shock doctrine.” She outlines a secret history of “disaster capitalism” that exploits manmade and natural disasters to impose controversial economic policies on cities (such as New Orleans) and countries (such as Iraq).

This might seem like a conspiracy theory designed for people who consider themselves above conspiracy theories, but the idea that wars are used as a cover for promoting financial interests is an old one. (The classic of the genre is the 1935 War is a Racket by Smedley Butler, who had the awesome nickname “The Fighting Quaker” and the slightly less awesome nickname “Old Duckboard”.) Klein suggests that natural disasters can provide similar cover for neoliberal economics, and there’s an increasing number of people who agree. I'm not suggesting that you swallow her thesis whole, but her book raises serious questions about the function of disaster response - and humanitarian action more widely.

Antonio Donini at Tufts University suggests a possible answer: simply put, “Humanitarian action makes countries safe for capital.” Essentially humanitarian assistance is the international relations equivalent of gentrification: aid agencies displace existing populations by renting all their houses of course, but they also displace existing governance mechanisms. We don't do it deliberately – any more than property developers in London have a nefarious scheme to remove Bangladeshis from Brick Lane – but it happens just the same. As for aid workers, Donini suggests that humanitarians “perform essential functions to prepare the terrain for the return of international industry and finance.”

Hipster humanitarians 

That’s right: aid workers are the hipsters of the international community, and I don't mean the hipsters selling whistles to stop war in DR Congo. We’re into the latest disaster zones before anybody else, move into areas that are just run-down enough to be cool (but not so run-down that they're unlivable), start demanding that bars and shops cater to us, and then leave as soon as too many “mainstream” international organisations show up (like those earnest types at the World Bank). Contrary to popular stereotype, however, the humanitarian hipster isn't a young white guy with a carefully trimmed beard and a fixed gear bike, but an old white guy with no beard (although he may have a fixed gear bike - we don’t know for sure yet).

We could devote a whole column to the lack of transparency and accountability in the appointment process for the new Emergency Response Coordinator, but everybody knows already that UN appointments are even less democratic than the naming of a new Pope. Stephen O'Brien may well turn out to be an excellent ERC, but he's a symptom of the real disease from which the humanitarian sector is suffering: it's still fundamentally WEIRD.

WEIRD organisations will always struggle to understand the attitudes and behaviours of the non-WEIRD people that make up the rest of the world – as the WDR (disasters version) points out, “People do not behave in the way that disaster managers and institutions want – or expect – them to behave.” Trying to make those people behave more like us, and then being surprised when they don’t, is a bad habit of the humanitarian community: as we saw during the Ebola crisis, it can undermine communication with communities, and sometimes even lead us into conflict with them. Meanwhile non-WEIRD organisations - the local responders who are often on the front lines - struggle to make their voices heard in a WEIRD humanitarian system.

We shouldn't be surprised at O’Brien’s appointment – but we also shouldn't be surprised if our crisis of confidence only gets worse while we remain WEIRD from the top down.

 

12 Great Movie Priests in 4 Years

Aleteia || By Tom Hoopes || 13 April 2015

What does the world see in these collared counter-cultural figures?

When I saw that the 2015 Netflix series “Marvel’s Daredevil,” which debuted April 10, featuring a sympathetic portrayal of a priest, I had a brainflash – I thought that maybe I could put together a list of 10 positive priests in movies in the New Millennium.

I soon had a list of 20 positive priest portrayals since 2000, and noticed 15 of them were from the past 10 years.

There was the bright young priest whose advice hit home with Clint Eastwood’s grizzled cynic in Gran Torino (2008), the cautious but faithful priest played by George Lopez (of all people) in Henry Poole Is Here (2008). There were the good natured priests in sports B movies The Perfect Game and Mighty Macs (both 2009).  

Best of all was the gallant self-sacrifice of missionary Fr. Christopher in Rwanda in Beyond the Gates (2005), and the stately self-sacrifice of the monks of Algeria in Of Gods and Men (2010).

Then I noticed that fully 12 “pro-priest” movies were made in the past four years.

It made me wonder. The movie Spotlight starring Michael Keaton is coming out this year, celebrating the Boston Globe reporters who covered the priest scandal that started the media frenzy in 2002. That is the kind of priest movie one expects in our Catholicism-averse, post-abuse scandal world.

But why all the positive priest movies? I put them in categories to try to understand.

We admire priests as celibate, otherworldly heroes.

The story is told that Native Americans who met Catholic priest missionaries tended to be more impressed than Native Americans who met married Protestant married missionaries. They admired these men who had the self-possession to control their sexual appetites and the strength to face the world alone.

Catholics know it is not the priest’s strength that is admirable, but his faith. He knows his true home is not here, but in another place. “[A]ccepted with a joyous heart,” says the Catechism, “celibacy radiantly proclaims the Reign of God.”

Three movies show priests as in-this-world-but-not-of-it figures of mystery and charm.

The BBC’s Father Brown (2013) stars Mark Williams (Harry Potter, Doctor Who) as the charming little priest who G.K. Chesterton devised to solve crimes. Kenneth Moore and Alec Guinness were superior Father Browns, but the bright and lively new series is an improvement over the dated older versions.

Perhaps it takes a Catholic to properly admire priests. Two “Catholic projects” admiringly depict their priests as otherworldly heroes: For Greater Glory (2012) with its kindly martyr priest and There Be Dragons (2011) with its enigmatic appearances of St. Josemaria Escriva.

But even in Man of Steel (2013), the literally super-natural hero Superman turns to a priest at Sacred Heart Church for advice on his duties in earth. 

We know we need priests to fight the devil … and sin.

The Rite (2011) got a bad rap; it was much better than many critics gave it credit for. Besides, its central story is the story of modern man: A priest rediscovers his faith by facing a devil that he at first only reluctantly believes in.

This is the experience of man in the age of the holocaust, the gulags, the drug cartels and terrorism: We think evil is a thing of a past, more primitive age, until we can’t avoid it.

Exorcist movies are scarier than monster movies because we are more afraid of true things.

The Conjuring (2013) is an old-fashioned exorcism movie with a strange twist: Lay people as well as priests fight the devil. Deliver Us From Evil (2014) is a contemporary-styled exorcism movie that delivers a strong priest character, even if he doesn’t wear his collar.

Sin is a mirror image of Satan in movies as in life. Men and women are haunted by sin and can’t get rid of it on their own.

Movies from the sublime Les Miserables (2013) to the straight-forward October Baby (2011) see the same problem. The first features a priest as a main character saving Jean Valjean from misery at the beginning and end of life; the second gives a priest the key lines about forgiveness and personal sin.

We admire priests who struggle like we do and overcome.

Several of the priest movies of the past four years tell the kind of vocational crisis stories we have seen before in such movies as Keys of the Kingdom (1944) and The Mission (1986).

One of the central threads in To the Wonder (2012) is a priest’s (Javier Bardem) faith struggle. The film has all the hallmarks of a Terrence Malick movie, with beautiful cinematography, a slow pace and impressionistic spiritual themes. In the end the priest sees “Christ with me. Christ before me. Christ behind me ...” in an unexpected way.

Calvary (2014) is a hard film to watch, which nonetheless rewards the viewer with the picture of a man who has transformed his personality for the sake of others. The Confession (2011) is more fun to watch, but with less payoff as Kiefer Sutherland and John Hurt face off in serial-style cliffhangers. But both films show how a horrifying sin of the past works away at a soul such that only a total identification with God can overpower it.

With Daredevil, that’s at least 12 positive movie priests in four years (in the comments, list any I missed).

The stories a culture tells show what is in our hearts. Clearly, somewhere deep inside, we know that God is reaching out to us through the representatives he has placed in our midst — through the priesthood.

Tom Hoopes is writer in residence at Benedictine College in Atchison, Kansas.

 

Killing Christianity

National Catholic Reporter || By Phyllis Zagano || 08 April 2015

Killing Christians is the goal of various extremist groups that call themselves Muslim, but killing Christianity is the real danger.

In the Middle East and Africa, the Taliban, ISIS (the so-called Islamic State), Boko Haram, and al-Shabab use large and small weaponry to eradicate Christians and all evidence of Christian culture. Each incorporates a peculiar hatred in the name of Islam -- the word means "submission to the will of God."

In Rome, while Francis charms the world, the Curia burns. Lately, Cardinal Gerhard Müller has announced the pope is no theologian. Müller, editor of the opera Ratzinger, has been telling just about anyone who will listen that as head of the old Holy Office, he must "theologically structure" the papacy. Translation: Only Müller can speak about faith and morals.

That's what it boils down to. 

It is about divorce and remarriage. Against a backdrop of dueling German cardinals, with Cardinal Walter Kasper at one end and Müller at the other, Francis wages Christianity and points to the Gospel. Müller is armed with canon law against Kasper, whose pastoral theology seems more in tune with how Francis thinks Jesus would approach the questions.

Most telling is Müller's perspective. Speaking about second marriages to the French Catholic newspaper La Croix, Müller declared: "Il est impossible d'avoir deux femmes!" ("It is impossible to have two women!")

Note to Cardinal Müller: Women are no longer chattel in the developed world. Women are independent human beings made in the image and likeness of God. To "have two women" speaks to the older traditions that terrorists want to preserve in Christian lands: Women are property; women are to be controlled. Remember female genital mutilation? Remember honor killings? 

Such is the attitude toward women Jesus' teachings counter. The whole crowd of marauding men in the Middle East and in Africa wants to preserve that belittling attitude and that distorted view. They believe it is a man's world and no one has any business saying otherwise. Women are for breeding, for cooking, for cleaning. Barefoot and pregnant is their preferred state.

Church teachings can be thus misunderstood. So when a Christian woman finds herself disastrously married to Joe Six-Pack, who comes home drunk every night and beats her before raping her, she's stuck. So when a man finds his wife has moved on to another romance, he's stuck, too.

Francis and Kasper are not so sure, but Müller wants to hold the line. So the clerics who work for Müller look for where Francis and Kasper have made mistakes. There's got to be a law in there somewhere, and if not, we'll write a decree or something.

The synod on the family will not be pretty. Müller and his careerist minions are square in the sights of the followers of Francis who apply the Gospel. Francis, Kasper and the rest want the church to loosen up a bit. Any canon lawyer will tell you that annulments are possible, but both complicated and expensive. 

In the end, however, Müller and Kasper may be saying much the same thing. Müller emphasizes law, Kasper emphasizes accommodation.

The long-term second marriage really should be "accommodated" when it has repaired a youthful mistake. Bring the folks in and do the paperwork if you need to, but don't scream that they are public sinners when they've lived open, honest lives for 15 or 20 or 30 years.

And the woman abandoned by the lout who now lives across town with his trophy wife and BMW needs to have some closure, too. She needs to be told that her awful marriage has truly ended and she may seek a second husband to share her life and help raise her children.

No one is arguing for serial monogamy or for trial marriages or for divorce on a whim. But everybody is recognizing that some applications of church laws have hurt many people and damaged many lives. There needs to be a more general understanding of the church's healing mission. Graced words do not say it's all about men ruling over women or count out how many women any man can "have."

Yes, it is complicated. But Francis has opened the living room doors, and now we are talking about that fat elephant that bedevils so many lives. Now we are talking about the fact that marriages die. Now we are thinking about the fact that women are equal to men in this marriage business, that women are human beings with rights as well as responsibilities.

That is the message of Jesus. That is the Christianity that must survive all its attacks. That is submission to the will of God.

[Phyllis Zagano is senior research associate-in-residence at Hofstra University in Hempstead, N.Y. She will speak April 16 at Mary Immaculate College in Limerick, Ireland, and April 18 at the Cork Theology Forum in Ireland. Her newest books are Mysticism and the Spiritual Quest: A Crosscultural Anthology and Sacred Silence: Daily Meditations for Lent.]

 

German Plane Crash: Co-Pilot Appears to Have Intentionally Brought Airbus Down

 

NBC News || By By Alastair Jamieson, Carlo Angerer and Nancy Ing || 25 March 2015

 

The co-pilot of the crashed Germanwings plane appears to have "intentionally" brought the plane down while his captain was locked out of the cockpit and banging to be let back in, prosecutors said Thursday.

First Officer Andreas Lubitz, 28, was alone at the controls of the Airbus A320 as it began its rapid descent, Marseille Prosecutor Brice Robin told a news conference.

Passengers' cries were heard on the plane's cockpit voice recorder in the moments just before the plane slammed into the French Alps, Brice said.

"Banging" sounds also were audible, he said, suggesting the captain was trying to force his way back into the cockpit. However, the reinforced cockpit door was locked from the inside and could not be overridden, even with a coded entry panel.

"If he had been able to open this door, the captain would have done it," Brice said.

Lubitz, a German national from the town of Montabaur, "didn't say a word" during the descent, according to Brice, who said no distress signal or radio call was made.

"There was no reason to put the plane into a descent, nor to not respond to… air traffic controllers," he said. "Was it suicide? I'm not using the word, I don't know. Given the information I have at this time … I can tell you that he deliberately made possible the loss of altitude of the aircraft."

Three Americans were among the 150 people killed in the disaster, whose victims included sixteen high school children on an exchange visit, babies, businessmen and two opera singers.

The current interpretation, Brice added, is that the co-pilot had "a desire to destroy this plane" though there was nothing to indicate a terrorist connection.

Germanwings' parent company, Lufthansa, earlier said Lubitz joined the airline in September 2013, directly after training, and had flown 630 hours.

His captain was an "experienced" pilot, with more than 10 years' experience with the organization and more than 6,000 flight hours on the Airbus model.

Many airlines, especially U.S. carriers, have a flight attendant sit in the vacant seat if a pilot leaves, for example during a bathroom break.

While Lufthansa earlier Thursday would not comment on its cockpit security procedures, it said it followed rules set out by German authorities that allow temporary absence from the flight deck.

Former pilots and aviation experts told NBC News that most planes have coded entry door controls, but these can be overridden with a double lock — a practice implemented industry-wide after the 9/11 attacks.

"The cockpit has the ultimate control of the door," said former pilot Captain John Cox. "If it is placed in the override mode then no matter what is done with the code pad, the door will remain locked. The security people were very firm on the need for the flight deck to remain the ultimate authority."

"It's likely that an airline like Lufthansa will have fitted the highest specification of security technology," said David Gleave, an aviation safety investigator based at Loughborough University near Leicester, England.

"These reinforced doors are designed to be very strong — they can't be smashed open. That's the point of them."

Robin said that families of the victims had been informed of the investigations' developments. His remarks to the press came as relatives of the 150 victims of Tuesday's crash were aboard special flights bringing them to the crash site.

 

Why Your Teens Can't Keep Their Eyes Open and How to Help Them Get Their Sleep

Aleteia || By Kathleen M. Berchelmann, MD || 23 March 2015

A new study finds teenagers sleep less now than 20 years ago

If you can’t get your teen to go to bed, you’re not alone. American teens sleep less now than they did twenty years ago, according to a study published in the medical journal Pediatrics.  

This very large study looked at more than 250,000 teens between 1991-2012, and the results are eye-opening. As our children move through adolescence they sleep less and less. In the past twenty years there has been an overall decline in adolescent sleep. More than half of teen ages 15 and older sleep less than seven hours per night, and about 85% of teens get less than the recommended 8-10 hours of sleep per night. Ages 14-15 seems to be a big turning point for sleep deprivation, a year when teens experience the greatest drop in hours of sleep each night.  

“Overall, across 20 years and all age groups, 12 to 19, there has been a downward shift in the proportion of adolescents getting seven or more hours of sleep,” says Katherine Keyes, co-author of the study. 

This study was published just after the National Sleep Foundation released new aged-based recommendations for hours of sleep per night. Teenagers aged 14-17 need 8-10 hours of sleep per night, according to the new recommendations.  (Previously, it was thought they needed 8.5-9.5 hours of sleep per night.) 

In other words, your teen probably needs at least 1-3 more hours of sleep per night than he or she is getting.  

But most teens don’t want to go to bed, and that’s normal. During adolescence, biological sleep cycles shift so that it’s natural to want to go to bed later and wake up later. It’s also natural for a teen to have trouble sleeping before 10 or 11 p.m. and then need to sleep in until 8 or 9 a.m. Their middle aged parents also go to bed around 10 or 11 p.m., but need less sleep and hence don’t have trouble waking up earlier. And hence we have a set-up for the classic problem: Teens and parents both go to bed around 10 or 11 p.m., and parents wake up for work, but teens don’t want to wake up for school.  

Your teens aren’t lazy, obstinate, or difficult; they just need more sleep. Here’s the bottom line: it takes virtue to get to bed on time. We have to teach our children (and ourselves) to say no to all the distractions. 

A lot of teens think they get enough sleep even when they don’t. This research showed a mismatch between perceptions of adequate sleep and actual reported sleep times. Females, racial/ethnic minorities, and adolescents of low socio-economic status (SES) were the most likely to think they were getting enough sleep yet report an inadequate number of hours of sleep.  

Sleep is essential for both physical and psychological health, as well as academic performance. “The road to academic success is paved with sleep,” according to Dr. James Kemp, the director of our sleep center at St. Louis Children’s Hospital. Sleep helps kids do well in school, improves social functioning, prevents illness and injuries, and may even prevent obesity.  Sleep deprivation is strongly associated with adolescent depression and anxiety. 

Here are nine ways you can help your teen sleep more: 

Advocate for later school start times: Based on extensive research, the American Academy of Pediatrics recommends that middle and high schools should start at 8:30 a.m. or later. Later school starting times is a cost-effective approach to improving academic performance, and has even been shown to increase lifetime future earnings. Read more about this topic in the AAP’s policy statement on school start times.  

Talk to your child about sleep: Lots of teens don’t realize they aren’t getting enough sleep and don’t recognize the importance of sleep for health. Your teen may just need some education on the subject. Not sure how to start the conversation? Show them this article as a starting point.  

Leverage the natural power of melatonin: Melatonin is a natural hormone made by your brain that triggers that sleepy, I-can’t-keep-my-eyes-open feeling. Light exposure reduces melatonin production, including blue light from LED screens. Dim lights and pull shades to darken your home at least 30 minutes before your child’s bedtime. The darkness will trigger a surge of melatonin that will make bedtime much easier. Melatonin supplements are available over-the-counter at most pharmacies. I do not recommend regular melatonin use in children or adolescents, but there are some situations where short-term melatonin use may help kids get back on a sleep schedule. Do not give your child melatonin without first discussing it with your pediatrician.

Rule out medical conditions that can impair sleep: Sleep apnea, narcolepsy, depression and anxiety are just a few of the medical conditions that can impair sleep and have very negative effects on the the life experience.  Narcolepsy often presents in adolescence and can be misdiagnosed as depression or even laziness. At St. Louis Children’s Hospital, we provide comprehensive sleep evaluation and treatment through our sleep center. To learn more about our sleep center or make an appointment, click here or call 314-454-KIDS. Our brochure, “A Parent’s Guide to Sleep Disorders,” can provide more information about sleep disorders including sleep apnea and narcolepsy. 

Help your child write out and live by an evening and bedtime schedule: The trick to getting to bed on time is an evening and bedtime schedule. If you child still has chores or homework to do, chances are you will let her stay up to finish.  Most teens only have about 4 hours each day at home before bedtime. This time is valuable. Have a schedule for homework, paid work, extra-curriculars, practicing, bathing, and unstructured free time. Encourage your child to stick to a regular bedtime routine, just as when they were younger.  

Set a bedtime for your screens, too: Screen time before bed prolongs “sleep latency,” or the time it takes to fall asleep.  So your screens need a bedtime, too, at least ninety minutes before your child’s bedtime (I prefer two hours). Set an alarm on your phone or tablet for your screen’s “bedtime.” Choose a unique alarm sound, like a barking dog, so that when the dog barks the kids know it’s time for the screen to go to bed. Then pick a common spot to charge up your screens overnight—we use a basket on the kitchen counter. This makes it easier for you, as a parent, to check that all screens are off and out of kids’ bedrooms at least 90 minutes before bedtime. 

Exercise: What is your child’s primary form of exercise during the school year?  Exercise helps kids sleep well, and sleep improves athletic performance.  Avoid exercise in the 2 hour window before bed.

Get rid of chemical stimulants: Caffeine, energy drinks, chocolate, and nicotine interfere with sleep.  When you’re trying to get your teen on a sleep schedule, it’s best to get rid of all of it.  Some “health” and energy drinks contain elusive amounts of caffeine, so be careful as to what your children are drinking and read labels.

Refill your medications: ADHD medications, antidepressants, and other common pediatric drugs can alter sleep. Be sure your child is taking their prescription at the right time of day and isn’t missing doses.  

Are you tired? Here’s what sleep deprivation does to parents. We’ve also put together some tricks for keeping toddlers in bed and helping infants sleep through the night.


Kathleen M. Berchelmann, MD, is an Assistant Professor of Pediatrics at Washington University School of Medicine in St. Louis, and a mother of five young children. Connect with Dr. Berchelmann at: KathleenBerchelmannMD.com.

 

Act the Part, and the Feeling will Follow

National Catholic Reporter || By Brian Harper || 19 March 2015

If there is anyone on the planet who if given the opportunity would not change something about him- or herself, I would love to meet them.

The reality, of course, is that we all have characteristics and circumstances we care to hide or wish we could transform. Some of these are relatively superficial, e.g., our personal appearance, athletic ability or lack thereof. Others are crosses beyond our control but that we nevertheless must carry, such as prolonged illnesses or debilitating disabilities.

There are some imperfections, however, that get down to the most fundamental yet intangible aspects of our personality and the entire human experience. We desire to be patient when we feel anything but. We long to be pleasant when all we see within ourselves is spiteful, bitter pettiness. Surely, all of us have encountered that person who seems to breathe goodwill and joy and found ourselves simultaneously wanting what they have and resenting them for having it.

"I wish I was like you," Kurt Cobain sang. "Easily amused."

"Am I hard enough? Am I rough enough? Am I rich enough?" the Rolling Stones asked.

All these emotions, doubts and questions are branches on the same tree: feeling inadequate. Experiencing a sense that we are lacking on a most elemental level. Worrying that we alone are missing something without which we cannot sufficiently live.

The Christian response to this impression is that we are, in fact, deficient, that each of us is weak and sinful in our own way and that God alone can satisfy our deprivation. Whether it is St. Augustine's famous assertion that "our hearts are restless till they find rest in Thee" or Fr. Robert Barron's claim that "we have all been wired for God," the Christian answer, at face value, seems to be that yes, we are full of foibles, and God is the one who can truly fix us.

While I think there is much truth to this, I also think it is far too simplistic. Recognizing we are flawed by nature does not give us a free pass to ignore our call to goodness or let us off the hook for blemishes in the virtue department. Like President John F. Kennedy said in his inaugural address, while we ought to ask "His blessing and His help ... here on earth, God's work must truly be our own."

As much as we may feel we are unable to cultivate kindness, forge forgiveness or manifest mercy, I cannot imagine God would accept "Sorry, but I'm not cut out for this whole 'being a good person' thing" or "All right, God: It's up to you to make me better" as satisfactory excuses.

What to do, then?

Fake it. Pretend to embody the highest traits even when you fear you are in short supply.

This may sound counterintuitive, even two-faced and dishonest. Just as we all know the person who brims with boundless joy, we have also all met the person who grins through clenched teeth, masking scorn that will one day inevitably creep out.

Just hear me out.

In Malcolm Gladwell's book Blink, he writes about Paul Ekman and Wallace V. Friesen, psychologists who studied the relationship between emotions and facial expressions. The two worked on the Facial Action Coding System, which classifies and documents facial expressions. The two spent an absurd amount of time practicing various combinations of expressions with remarkably specific names. In laypeople's terms, the looks represented anger, confusion, shock, jubilation and a host of other feelings.

Their research led to a number of fascinating conclusions laid out in Blink, but the one that stuck with me most was that sometimes, the expression precedes the emotion. If, for example, Ekman spent considerable time contorting his face to demonstrate disgust, he began to actually feel disgusted, despite our general assumption that it is the other way around; we feel something and respond accordingly.

But what does this have to do with living a virtuous life?

We often presume we must be a polite person to act courteously, that we must be compassionate to show sympathy. There is some hidden quality we must hold before we can actually carry out the behaviors most frequently associated with that quality.

What I take from Ekman and Friesen is that the physical action leads to the corresponding emotion. Whether it is refraining from yelling at a rude and unhelpful customer service representative or complimenting someone we do not like, doing the right thing allows us to actually be good before we feel good.

In his enormously helpful article "12 Things I Wish I Knew at 25: Spiritual Learnings on My 50th Birthday," Jesuit Fr. James Martin wrote: "Within you is the idea of your best self. Act as if you were that person and you will become that person, with God's grace."

No one is perfect, and no one is exactly as they would like to be. But in many scenarios, most of us can determine how we would act in an ideal world. Maybe functioning with that in mind, even if we feel phony and disingenuous while doing so, will slowly bring us to the holiness and love we so want to exemplify.

There is no question that the attempt will be imperfect. But I also must believe God sees the effort and stands ready to help us with the rest.

[Brian Harper is a writer, musician and community outreach coordinator for a small business. His work is available at brianharper.net.]

 

Sin and the Internet: 4 Frightening Lessons

Aleteia || By Tom Hoopes || 16 March 2015

Social media is ubiquitous in a way that the lives of previous generations never had to deal with, and everyone from the high and mighty to the lowly and rowdy are learning hard lessons.

Here are some spiritual truths that are reflected in social media scandals.

1. We cannot rid ourselves of sin.

“To uproot sin and the evil that is so imbedded in our sinning can be done only by divine power, for it is impossible and outside man's  competence to uproot sin.” —St. Macarius, Homily 3.4

Hillary Clinton’s email system is teaching her a lesson many have learned online. Her use of a separate server may have made good sense at the time, but she also seems to have skirted the Freedom of Information Act and other regulations in the processm and now is criticized for the way she deleted emails.

Emails are federal records, which is why Lois Lerner of the IRS is in trouble for deleting emails.

They are learning in their public roles what social media is teaching people in their private lives: Our choices are real, with real consequences, and we can’t make them go away. Sin won’t go away on its own. Ever.

2. Nothing you do is secret.

“There is nothing hidden that will not become visible, and nothing secret that will not be known and come to light.” -Luke 8:17

Parker Rice and other SAE frat members at Oklahoma University learned this the hardest way possible. They gleefully performed an ugly, violent racist chant on a bus. It was posted on YouTube, went viral and earned the condemnation of every single person that saw it or heard about it.

In apologies, both protested that they were not racists, but were repeating a traditional chant they had been taught. One can imagine that there is some truth to what they say: We can all remember saying or doing things in college that we regret. But those things probably fell short of leading a group in a chant that made light of lynchings.

Meanwhile, a woman is pressing charges against the rapper “50 Cent” because after she allowed nude videos of herself to be given to him, he posted them on YouTube.

One imagines she probably has a solid case. One also imagines that she probably wished she hadn’t consented to the embarrassing videos in the first place.

But both cases are a reminder for each of us that what we do is not really ever private. “Each of us shall give an account of himself to God” (Romans 14:12).

We can be grateful for that, actually. Jesus is a much kinder judge than our fellow human beings. Which is why we must …

3. Beware the accuser.

“The accuser of our brothers is cast out, who accuses them before our God day and night.” —Revelation 12:10

Justine Saaco was on a flight to Africa and tweeted jokes about the annoying aspects of travel to her 170 followers. When she landed, she found that one of her jokey tweets—an ill-advised quip that she was not afraid of getting AIDS because she was white—had gone viral and made her the villain of commentators worldwide villifying her joke. The sad tale is told in the New York Times’ “How One Stupid Tweet Ruined Justine Saaco’s Life.”

It is certainly true that Saaco should not have sent an offensive tweet about AIDS and race. It is also true that the offense should not be punishable by international infamy.

In the same way, it is unwise for teens to use Instagram to share their every movement, but it should not be punishable by attracting predators, as it so easily can be. And worse than unwise, it is downright sinful for teens to share naked pictures of themselves, but that should not be punishable by becoming part of a child pornography website.

Horror movies act by positing the existence of an evil force in the world that uses your every weakness to destroy you.

There really is such a power: The devil. And his merciless hounding of us for our sins is the dark mirror-image of Christ’s healing rays of light.

4. Be prepared for hostility for your belief.

“Do not be ashamed of your testimony to our Lord … but bear your share of hardship for the gospel with the strength that comes from God.” -2 Timothy 1:8

A New Jersey Catholic school teacher took down her Facebook after being targeted by a petition criticizing her opinions against homosexual marriage there.

Patricia Jannuzzi is called a loving, caring teacher by her students—but one day she posted her frustration over homosexual marriage laws advancing across the land. “Real Housewives of New Jersey” cast member Greg Bennet, a 2004 graduate of Immaculata shared her post online and called her a “nightmare dumpster human.”

That’s right, she is the one being accused of hate speech, not him.

Meanwhile, Fred Hammond is the latest Christian evangelist who accusing Facebook of censorship. Christians feel censored and some say they can prove it.

Believers clearly do not have the same free speech rules as everybody else, but we should never let that stop us from speaking the truth.

It should make us very careful though, because social media is an unforgiving master. 

Tom Hoopes is writer in residence at Benedictine College in Atchison, Kansas.

 

Vatican Event Tackles Women's Equality, Inclusion, Ordination

National Catholic Reporter || By Joshua J. McElwee || 09 March 2015

 

A Vatican event Sunday saw a remarkably open and frank discussion among women about the limits on their participation in church structures in what may have been the first such public conversation ever to take place at the center of the Catholic hierarchy.

Among the topics the women discussed at the event, held to mark International Women's Day: the need for the church to practice what it preaches about full equality between men and women, to include women in every level of decision-making, and to use inclusive language in its worship.

The women also expressed a desire for a fundamental rethink regarding how church prelates and documents describe them, saying they are often pigeonholed as reflecting only the sensitive or tender half of humanity.

"I would like to see women have [the] opportunity to be strong, courageous, intelligent," said Ulla Gudmundson, a former Swedish ambassador to the Holy See, during the discussion. "I would also like to see men have the opportunity to be tender, patient, sensitive."

Turning a phrase often used by bishops to describe women on its head, Gudmundson continued: "Pope Francis is a shining example of feminine genius: patient, tender, showing mercy and love."

Expressing her dreams for how the church would treat women in the future, another member of the discussion presented a multilayered vision of a Catholic church where men and women are treated as equals at every level.

"I dream of a church where it won't matter whether you're a man or a woman and you just respond to God's call of service," said Astrid Gajiwala, an Indian biologist who has worked as a consultant for her bishops' conference.

"I also dream of a church where men and women would participate equally in all decision-making so that they both would contribute to the policies, the structures, the teaching, and the practice of the church," she said. "And both would engage in ministry."

Gajiwala expressed a desire for inclusive language "in our translations, in our liturgies, in our documents."

"When I speak of language, I also would love to see a church where God is liberated from male constructs," she said. "Women experience God so differently, and I wish there was a place for this, to expand our understanding of the mystery of God."

Gudmundson and Gajiwala spoke Sunday at an event known as Voices of Faith, which was put together as an opportunity for women to share their stories of faith from the Vatican on International Women's Day.

Organized by the Liechtenstein-based charitable trust Fidel Götz Foundation, the event was live-streamed around the world from the Vatican's Casina Pio IV, an iconic marble building that is home to the Pontifical Academy of Sciences.

The panel discussion was just one part of the five-hour event and was moderated by Deborah Rose-Milavec, who is the head of the U.S.-based reform group FutureChurch. The other speakers on the panel were British-Zambian theologian Tina Beattie and Gudrun Sailer, a journalist for the German section of Vatican Radio.

The discussion, which lasted just under an hour, was remarkable for the breadth of subject matter the women addressed and for the apparent honesty with which they tackled topics that are normally considered off-limits in Vatican discussions.

For example, while the topic of women's ordination was only discussed tangentially, all four women addressed the jarring lack of women in ministry in the church and in leadership positions in the Catholic hierarchy.

"We are told that the question of ordination is ruled out," said Beattie, a noted theologian at the University of Roehampton in London.

"If we're asked to accept that and respect it, we have to see that in every single other situation, there is full and equal participation of women's leadership in the church -- that every single position that does not require ordination is equally filled by men and women," she said.

"What I would dream is a church that proclaims the full equality and dignity of male and female as made in the image of God should be an absolute beacon to the world," Beattie said.

Relating on a personal note, she continued: "Our daughters look at us and say, 'Mum, why on earth would you hang on in a church like that where everywhere else but the church you are recognized and valued for who you are?' "

"The dream would be that the dignity and the equality that we have being made in the image of God were the face that the church presents to the world," Beattie said. "And that would have to be an absolutely fully equal face in every aspect of the church for that to be credible."

While Gajiwala said she had some "wonderful" experiences working with bishops in the Indian church, particularly in helping draft her episcopal conference's 2010 gender policy, she also said the experience serving in the church is "rather mixed."

"I find it very frustrating that women are excluded from decision-making because all kinds of governance is linked with ordination," she said.

"The truth is that all we can do is make recommendations," said Gajiwala, who along with consulting for her bishops has served as vice president of her parish council. "We don't have a vote. There is no accountability. It's just that we recommend things."

Addressing also the process that women go through when a husband chooses to become a permanent deacon in the church, Gajiwala said although the husband and wife both go through all the deaconate training together, "at the end of it all, the husband gets ordained as a deacon and the wife doesn't."

"I don't see the logic of this," she said. "And now we have introduced one more layer -- first you have the priests, and then the married deacons and, well, the women are one layer below."

"For me, this is problematic," Gajiwala said.

Sailer, who has worked at Vatican Radio since 2003 and has written several books on women at the Vatican, said the struggle to include women in church structures was not about imitating the secular world.

"It's about recognizing, realizing that excluding women from the church [does] not conform to the Gospel," Sailer said. "It's not what the Gospel wants."

Sunday's event was the second hosted by Voices of Faith from the Vatican in two years. In an earlier NCR interview, Fidel Götz Foundation executive director Chantal Götz said the Vatican's willingness to host the event was "important because it means the doors are open" for women.

Among other speakers Sunday were six other women from various places and circumstances around the world who addressed issues as varied as health care needs for women in India, creating opportunities for education for women in refugee camps, and persecution against Christians in the Middle East.

Voices of Faith also joined with Caritas Internationalis to award two 10,000 euro prizes to two organizations run by women that have developed best practices in addressing world hunger.

Those awards went to a Lebanon-based group called Basmeh & Zeitooneh that is helping Syrian refugees learn work skills and to Caritas Nicaragua, which is helping women to learn farming skills to help sustain their families and earn income independent of their husbands.

The only male speaker at Sunday's event was Jesuit Fr. Agbonkhianmeghe Orobator, a native Nigerian who recently finished serving as the provincial of the Jesuit order's province of East Africa.

Centering his talk on the April 2014 kidnapping of girls in Nigeria by the terrorist group Boko Haram, Orobator gave a commanding presentation on the discrimination faced by African women and girls.

Orobator said one of the sad realities of the kidnapping of the girls from the town of Chibok in Nigeria was that the government has not helped them appropriately simply because they are female -- "people who society and culture actively conspire to downgrade their social premium and human dignity to that of second class citizens."

They are, Orobator said, "Children, as it were, of a lesser god."

"Any society that relegates women to a secondary status and allots them menial tasks, creates propitious conditions for gender-based violence and morally depraved ideologies to emerge and thrive," the Jesuit said.

He continued: "In the final analysis, I find profoundly disturbing not only the fact that the educated woman is perceived as a threat to such ideologies, but also the sad realization that such ideologies render the educated, independent and competent African woman an endangered species."

While the theme of women as second-class citizens was not addressed directly by the panel of women speaking about their roles in the church, Gajiwala said in a separate NCR interview last week that the church's link between ordination and governance leaves women without decision-making roles.

"I hope that some time, if the structure is going to remain the way it is ... then at least that they will de-link governance and ordination so that women can be part of decision-making."

"Right now, what happens is that we are there mainly as consulters," Gajiwala said. "Yes, we do influence decisions, but the decision is not ours. This is a fact."

On Sunday, Beattie called for a church where women are full partners with men.

Beattie, a convert to Catholicism, said Pope Francis' apostolic letter, Evangelii Gaudium ("The Joy of the Gospel"), showed "the church that I dream of -- the messy, free, faithful, joyful community that when I joined the church ... I glimpsed very strongly."

"I just long for the day when women are full and equal partners in that struggle," she said.

[Joshua J. McElwee is NCR Vatican correspondent. His email address is  This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it. . Follow him on Twitter: @joshjmac.]

 

Women Feel Left Out Amid Talk of Change in the Catholic Church

Crux || By Elisabetta Povoledo || 07 March 2015

In the first two years of his papacy, Pope Francis has stirred great expectations for change among Roman Catholics who believe that the Church has not kept pace with the social transformations of secular society.

Nowhere are those hopes felt more keenly, perhaps, than among women, often the driving force behind local Church communities, but who say that their voices remain marginalized.

Though the pope has repeatedly cited the importance of women in the life of the Church, critics say he has, at times, proved strikingly tone-deaf toward the sensitivities and needs of women (for example, describing five women he appointed to a committee as “the strawberries on the cake”).

Some momentum is nevertheless gathering behind women’s issues, however, if only because women, correctly or not, see his papacy as an opportunity and have begun pushing their agenda forward, challenging various corners of the Vatican’s male-dominated status quo.

On Sunday, International Women’s Day, Voices of Faith, an initiative sponsored by a Liechtenstein-based foundation, will — for only the second time — bring together women from various walks of life to discuss women’s issues at a seminar inside Vatican City, a hard-fought victory, said Chantal Götz, the president of the foundation.

“It becomes all the more symbolic when it’s inside the Vatican. It’s a step ahead,” she said. Participants in the seminar could provide a sort of de facto think tank. “If the pope needs advice, there are women who can provide it,” she said.

Women and their status in the Church were on the agenda of the cardinals who met at the Vatican for last month’s Consistory. The Vatican’s chief spokesman, the Rev. Federico Lombardi, told reporters that several speakers had expressed the hope that they would play an “increasingly active role” in the Church, and in particular in the Curia, as the hierarchy that runs Vatican affairs is known.

Last month, too, the Pontifical Council for Culture’s annual assembly specifically focused on women, acknowledging a decline in church attendance, vocations, and “a certain diffidence toward the formative abilities of religious men,” among younger women in Western countries, according to the assembly’s working paper.

It called on participants to reflect on how better to engage women in the Church “in full collaboration and integration with the male component.”

And any debate on the role of women, however, is curtailed by one irremovable premise: There is no place for women priests. Pope Francis has rejected such a change outright.

Beyond that, the pope’s own acknowledgment that women need to play a more incisive role has opened the door to discussion of women’s status to growing hopes.

“This is the most sensitive issue in the Vatican, more difficult than so many others because it is fundamental to so many others,” said Tina Beattie, a professor of Catholic studies at the University of Roehampton in London.

“We need to make him understand that this is a make-or-break issue for the Church,” she added. “It would be an unbearable blow if he left the papacy as he found it with regards to women.”

Currently women have little voice at the Vatican. Though women make up a notably higher percentage of those devoted to consecrated life — 702,529 sisters and nuns compared to 55,314 religious brothers and nearly 420,000 priests and bishops, according to 2012 figures, the most recent available — in tangible terms, they play little role in the decision-making of the Church, observers say.

On Thursday, Vatican Radio reported that even though the number of women employed at the Vatican had risen over the past decade to 782 in 2014, female staff still accounts for only about 18 percent.

Only two women hold top positions in the Curia, the Vatican’s administrative arm, and last year a woman was named to the supervisory board for the Vatican bank while another became the first woman rector of a pontifical university in Rome.

Though numerically negligible, some say these nominations “should be appreciated because they are big, even if they are small,” said Cristina Simonelli, who leads an association of Italian women theologians.

“Like nominating the first black bishop, they are signs of change,” she said.

Outside the boundaries of the Vatican, women lead lay movements and pastoral ministries. In many developing countries, nuns and female missionaries are at the forefront of efforts to empower local women, providing health care, education, and training.

“The Church could be proud of these achievements,” but it barely acknowledges them, said Lucetta Scaraffia, a feminist intellectual and the co-editor of a monthly insert on women and the Church distributed with the Vatican newspaper, L’Osservatore Romano, a rare mouthpiece for women introduced under Benedict XVI.

Women are an untapped resource, she said. “They should be listened to, seen, and heard; instead, they are neither.”

Their quotidian reality can be even bleaker than numbers suggest. For many clerics at the Vatican, “nuns practically don’t exist, it’s as if we were transparent,” said one sister who works in a Vatican office and declined to be identified for fear of repercussions.

“In the male world of Rome, a nun needs to be anchored to her consecration, to remind herself why she is where she is,” because she will receive few acknowledgments from the men around her. “They look at you, but see right through you. There’s very little else to say,” the sister said.

In the United States, some observers say the negligible status of women has fueled the growing disenchantment of female faithful.

“People report leaving because they feel that the institutional Church is not relevant, and much is related to the issue of women’s voices not being fully embraced by the hierarchy,” said Jim FitzGerald, the executive director of Call to Action, a group seeking change in the Church.

Critics say that as long as positions of relevance within the Church are tied to ordination, then women will continue to remain subordinate, and there have been calls to delink governance from consecration to allow women greater participation.

Others want to see more women teaching in seminaries, “because it’s a question of culture and of raising awareness,” among young priests to overcome the chauvinism rooted in the Church, said Caterina Ciriello, who teaches Church history at the Pontifical University Regina Apostolorum.

A document adopted in 2010 by the Catholic Bishops Conference of India recognized the need for gender equality in decision-making and urged greater empowerment of women.

“Our focus was changing mindsets,” said Astrid Lobo Gajiwala, who worked as a consultant for the bishops’ group, and is in Rome this week to participate in Voices of Faith.

So far, the policy has been adopted with mixed results in India. “These are slow processes,” she said, “overcoming the conditioning of centuries.”

 

Blaming the Poor

Aleteia || David Mills || 04 March 2015

 

Writing in the English newspaper The Guardian, Lucy Mangan tells of people reacting to her raising money for a home for battered women by demanding, “Why don’t these women just leave?” The obvious answer is that when you’ve been beaten for a long time and psychologically broken down, and have no resources, and are scared for yourself and your children’s safety, and fear you’ll be killed, and most to the point have nowhere to go if you do leave, you can’t. 

The obvious answer, one would have thought, but it apparently isn’t. I have heard otherwise kind and generous people react to stories of battered women with that and similar questions. Such people will dismiss the sufferings of the mentally ill with the line that all they have to do is just buckle down and get on with it. Mention of the effects of racial prejudice is answered with a reference to Colin Powell or Barack Obama. Concern with the effects of poverty is rejected with a version of both of those, and other excuses to blame to poor for being poor.  

Political and economic conservatives complain that liberals are treated as the compassionate ones and conservatives as if they were heartless. An automatic defense of government welfare spending does not indicate by itself that the person actually feels compassion. True. But the complaint would be more believable if so many conservatives didn’t speak and write like jerks. 

Sometimes they just blame the poor outright. This is not uncommon in some circles, especially among secular conservatives. At other times they blame the poor indirectly, as when they react to any description of the barriers set before the poor with a defense of the market or praise of enterprise and hard work or some other answer to a question that wasn’t being asked. Their publications and websites are free of the kind of stories about the life of the poor that the sympathetic person naturally writes. I remember some years ago the frothing contempt with which conservative reviewers treated Barbara Ehrenreich’s classic Nickel and Dimed, which told the stories of the working poor who could not, though working very hard, escape poverty.

Last week, a Conservative member of the House of Lords, speaking at the launch of a report on hunger in England, declared “We have lost a lot of our cookery skills. Poor people do not know how to cook. I had a large bowl of porridge today, which cost 4p. A large bowl of sugary cereals will cost you 25p.” That people may not have the time to make the oatmeal because they’ve only got a few minutes between two exhausting jobs, Lady Jenkin didn’t see.

I have been at parties with affluent Catholics, all Republicans, standing around talking about children or football or some other comfortable subject, when one of the people around me would start talking about the failings of the poor. The judgments would be comprehensive and categorical. Heads would nod and affirmative noises would be made. Any suggestion that poverty itself made escape hard was blown off, often with a broad back-handed sweep of the hand. The idea wasn’t just being contradicted, it was being dismissed.

It is the way fallen people are. A Berkeley professor named Paul Piff runs an experiment in which two people play Monopoly. One, chosen at random, is given twice as much money to start and allowed to roll two dice while the other is given only one. The first player will always win.

Afterwards, when the person who was always going to win won, Piff would ask him if he thought he deserved to win. The winner always did. “They felt like they deserved to win the game. And that’s a really incredible insight into what the mind does to make sense of advantage or disadvantage. You, like a real rich person, start to attribute success to your own individual skills and talents, and you become less attuned to all of the other things that contributed to you being in the position that you’re in.” This was true of political liberals and conservatives both.

The answers to questions like Mangan’s are obvious, but not obvious unless you’re looking at the people who suffer. Really looking at them, at the details of their lives, with sympathy, and not looking at them as examples of a class defined by a few generalizations, a class with a place and function within an ideological scheme. 

The naturally charitable see the need right away. The rest of us have to work at it. Mangan would ask such people if they’d never had a very bad day when they really wanted another glass of wine or a bad week when they kept having dinner delivered because making dinner was too much trouble.

You have? Why, splendid. Now imagine if your whole life were not just like that one bad day, but even worse. All the time. No let-up. No end in sight. No, you can’t go on holiday. No, you can’t cash anything in and retire. No. How would you react? No, you’ve not got a marketable skills set. You don’t know anyone who can give you a job. No. No.

If my own experience is any guide, half the people will not see the point. Just not see it, not make any connection between their own frustrations and the obstacles holding back those far less privileged. 

We all like to take credit for our successes, and this can mean assuming that those who did not succeed as we did failed because they were not as good as us. For some of us, this can include feeling superior to the lout at the party who dismisses the poor with a broad back-handed sweep of his hand.

With all the Scriptures and the Church say about poverty and the poor, and all that basic sympathetic observation should teach us, and all we should know from our own experiences of failure, Catholics should not blame the poor for being poor. There, but for the grace of God, and all sorts of blessings we didn’t deserve, go you and I. If you can’t say something kind, don’t say anything at all.

David Mills, former executive editor of First Things , is a senior editor of The Stream and columnist for several Catholic publications. His last book is Discovering Mary.

 

Is it Healthy to Feel Ashamed?

 

Aleteia || By William McKenna, M.S. || 28 February 2015

 

The IPS (Institute for Psychological Sciences) offers practical advice from psychological experts, drawing on Catholic faith and modern psychology. This month's question explores feelings of shame.
 
QUESTION: During Lent, I feel like there is a large emphasis on sinfulness. I find myself feeling constantly ashamed of my past sins. Is this healthy?
 
RESPONSE: William McKenna, M.S., Clinical Extern at the IPS Center for Psychological Services
 
You are not alone in your concern. All too often, individuals feel inadequate when confronted with their sins, and sometimes Lenten sermons on the consequences of sin can lead people to question God’s love and mercy. It is a good thing when a person feels an emotional response to disordered behavior because it allows them to recognize the wrong and seek forgiveness. However, when that same person has repented and begins to believe that they themselves are a bad person because of past sins, then we have a bigger problem. 
 
To understand the dilemma above it is important to make a distinction between a person feeling guilt versus feeling shame. Someone who feels shame because of their sins may say things such as, “I’m a bad person who shouldn’t be allowed in God’s presence” or “I hate myself because of my sins.” On the other hand, the guilty person may echo the words of Scripture by saying, “Have mercy on me God, a sinner.” Persons feeling guilt understand that they are inherently good, and that they tend towards sin because of the fallen nature of human beings. The shameful person believes that he is inherently evil and that no matter what, he will always be evil. The shameful person, more significantly, believes that they do not deserve the love of God. 
 
Both the Church and psychology agree that this sometimes blurred distinction between guilt and shame stems from a person believing that he or she is not lovable. God created us to know Love, to be loved, and then to give love to others. However, when a person believes that he has never been loved, he struggles to form relationships with others or even with God. This feeling is usually rooted in our earliest relationships as infants and very young toddlers. We use these early relationships as a guiding model for our later relationships. Oftentimes, people develop early attachments that show that people can be counted on for love and support and tell us that we are worthwhile. Sometimes, though, if a person does not feel secure and safe in an early relationship, it is harder for them later to feel loved and supported in adult relationships and even with God.
 
The Lenten season is a joyful time. Indeed, it is a time of renewal when we prepare for the wonder and the beauty of Christ’s resurrection. While it is good and necessary to repent of our sins, we also recognize that Christ paid for our sins by dying on the Cross. As the Church proclaims in the Exsultet, “Oh truly necessary sin of Adam, destroyed completely by the Death of Christ! Oh happy fault that earned so great, so glorious a Redeemer!” May God bless and keep you during this wonderful liturgical season.      
 
Have a practical question related to psychology and faith? Write to This email address is being protected from spambots. You need JavaScript enabled to view it.             

William McKenna is a Clinical Extern at the IPS Center for Psychological Services. His clinical interests include counseling couples, families, military personnel, and those suffering from anxiety and depression.

 

Warming Climate Accelerates Spread of Vector-Borne Diseases

AllAfrica || By Mike Ives || 25 February 2015

Health agencies need to take into account disease evolution in warming environments as climate change could alter the development of vector-borne diseases, two studies have found.

The "vector" in a vector-borne disease refers to an infected human or animal that transmits pathogens or parasites and causes disease in human populations.

Climate change can impact "all relevant aspects" of vector-borne diseases, including the locations of host populations and the availability of vectors, says Nina Fefferman, a biologist and part of a team from Rutgers University in the United States behind one of the studies.

The research focused on Aedes japonicus japonicus, a species of disease-carrying mosquito native to Japan and Korea, whose range has expanded since the 1990s to parts of Europe and the Hawaiian archipelago. The study found that populations of the mosquito on the island of Hawaii and in the American state of Virginia were capable of "rapid evolutionary change" and adaptation to their new environment.

As a result, vector-borne disease could become a greater threat to human health as the global climate warms, the study found. Its authors say that climate change studies need to play a greater role in national and global efforts to eradicate these diseases.

"We have to understand the changes to each facet [of vector-borne disease] separately, and then how the different alterations interact with each other," Fefferman tells SciDev.Net. "This is very complicated, but our current methods for vector-borne disease estimation don't include many, if any, of these factors, even in isolation."

Vector-borne diseases, which are typically found in the tropics and subtropics, account for 17 per cent of the world's infectious disease burden, according to the WHO. The deadliest vector-borne disease is malaria, which killed an estimated 627,000 people in 2012, and the fastest growing is dengue fever.

The study, along with a second one focusing on how weather and climate variables are being included in the fight against vector-borne diseases, were published last week (16 February) in Philosophical Transactions B.

The second study calls for more applied research, rather than pure modelling, to assess the effectiveness of interventions and health-policy approaches to vector-borne diseases. It analysed work done under the WHO's TDR (Special Programme for Research and Training in Tropical Diseases), which studies links between climate change and human vulnerability to diseases such as malaria, sleeping sickness and schistosomiasis (bilharzia).

The study found that the use of scenario-based modelling of disease outbreaks, based on past experiences, is of limited use for future decision-making, as there are too many uncertainties around disease behaviour in warming climates.

Madeleine Thomson, a researcher at Columbia University in the United States, says the WHO study makes a "compelling case" for how the health sector might respond to climate change. But shaping such a response requires high-quality and large-scale data sets, which are so far largely lacking, Thomson says.

She believes that, in malaria's case, having such data sets would also help pay for disease control programmes, as they would enable these programmes to align better with national development agendas.

"Evidence of the return on investment is critical to obtaining funding and to do that one needs access to good surveillance data - something which is only just now beginning to be prioritised," Thomson says.

 

Pray for the "Gift of Tears"

 

Aleteia || By Msgr. Charles Pope || 21 February 2015

 

Most pastors and confessors are aware that in any parish there are going to be a few who are scrupulous, even in times like like these. Some have a kind of scrupulosity that is mild and almost admirable.  A sensitive conscience is a beautiful thing and bespeaks a kind of innocence that is rare today.

Some others have a more unhealthy form of scrupulosity, rooted too much in cringing fear of a God who is seen more as a punishing adversary than a delivering Father who wants to help us overcome our sin.

But saddest of all are the large majority who have very little compunction (sorrow) for sin. Most Catholics have lived so long in a culture that dismisses, excuses, or makes light of sin that they have very little notion of just how serious sin can be. That God had to send His only Son to die in order rescue us from our sins shows just how serious they are; weeping for our sins is not some “extreme” reaction.

Indeed, a worthy Lenten practice is going to the foot of the Cross and allowing the Lord to anoint us, so that we see both how serious our sins are and at the same time how deep His love for us is. When it finally begins to dawn on us that the Son of God died for us, our heart breaks open, light pours in, and we can begin to weep for our sins and in gratitude for His love.

Consider that Jesus looked at a paralyzed man and, “not noticing” his paralysis, said to him, “Courageson, Your sins are forgiven” (Mat 9:2). In a sense, He saw the man’s sins as more serious than his paralysis. Jesus says elsewhere,
I tell you that anyone who looks at a woman lustfully has already committed adultery with her in his heart. If your right eye causes you to stumble, gouge it out and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to be thrown into hell. And if your right hand causes you to stumble, cut it off and throw it away. It is better for you to lose one part of your body than for your whole body to go into hell (Matt 5:28-30).

Now the Lord does not mean literally to gouge out eyes and cut off appendages. But what He is saying is that it is more serious to sin (in this case through lust) than to lose our eye, hand, or foot.

Now we don’t usually think like this, but we should. Sin is much more serious than most of us imagine. It is our most serious problem. It is more serious than lack of money or poor physical health. Sin is our most serious problem; whatever is in second place isn’t even close.

In times like these, when self-esteem is overemphasized, personal responsibility is minimized, and excuses abound, we do well to ask for the gift of tears. We do well to ask for a profound and healthy grief for our sins.

More than ever, this is a gift to be sought. Note that these tears are not meant to be tears of depression, discouragement, or self-loathing. The tears to be sought here are tears of what St. Paul calls “godly sorrow.” Godly sorrow causes us to have sorrow for our sins but in a such a way that it draws us to God and to great love, gratitude, and appreciation for His mercy. St. Paul writes,

Even if I caused you sorrow by my letter, I do not regret it. Though I did regret it—I see that my letter hurt you, but only for a little while—yet now I am happy, not because you were made sorry, but because your sorrow led you to repentance. For you became sorrowful as God intended and so were not harmed in any way by us. Godly sorrow brings repentance that leads to salvation and leaves no regret, but worldly sorrow brings death. See what this godly sorrow has produced in you: what earnestness, what eagerness to clear yourselves, what indignation [at sin], what alarm, what longing, what concern, what readiness to see justice done (2 Cor 7:8-11).

With all this in mind, consider that in the current (2011) Roman Missal there is a beautiful “Mass for the Forgiveness of Sins (B).”  In the old Missal (1962), it is called the Missa ad Petendam Compunctionem Cordis(Mass Requesting Compunction (sorrow) of Heart). It is known more colloquially as the “Mass for the Gift of Tears.”

Consider these beautiful prayers from the Roman Missal (both the 1962 and current (2011) versions). I post here the English translation from the current (2011) Missal:

Collect:
Almighty and most gentle God,
who brought forth from the rock
a fountain of living water for your thirsty people,
bring forth we pray,
from the hardness of our heart, tears of sorrow,
that we may lament our sins
and merit forgiveness from your mercy.
Through our Lord Jesus Christ your Son,
who lives and reigns with you
in the unity of the Holy Spirit,
one God forever and ever.

Prayer over the gifts:
Look mercifully, O Lord, upon this oblation,
which we offer to your majesty, for our sins,
and grant, we pray, that the sacrifice
from which forgiveness springs forth for the human race,
may bestow on us the grace of the Holy Spirit,
to shed tears for our offenses.
Through Christ our Lord.

After Communion:
May the reverent reception of your Sacrament O Lord,
Lead us to wash away the stains of our sins
with sighs and tears, and in your generosity
grant that the pardon we seek may have its effect on us.
Through Christ our Lord.
So beautiful, scriptural, and spiritual. Pray these prayers. Ask your priest to celebrate this votive Mass often. We need the gift of tears today.
Still struggling to know your sins? Consider this list I compiled: Litany of Penance and Reparation.

Here is the Lacrimosa from the Mozart Requiem. The text says, “Day of tears that day when from the ashes man arises and goes to his judge. Spare O God then, O sweet Jesus, Grant them eternal rest.

Msgr. Charles Pope   is the pastor of Holy Comforter-St. Cyprian in Washington, DC. He attended Mount Saint Mary’s Seminary and holds Masters degrees in Divinity and in Moral Theology.     He was ordained in 1989 and named a Monsignor in 2005. He has conducted a weekly Bible Study in Congress and in the White House, for two and four years, respectively.

The Media Must Invest in Journalists who Understand Religion

 

Catholic Herald || By Conor Gaffey || 16 February 2015

 

The BBC's decision to scrap the job of Head of Religion and Ethics is part of a worrying trend

For some reason, #AdviceForYoungJournalists was trending on Twitter on Tuesday. Perhaps a helpful tweet to accompany this hashtag would be: Don’t go into religious affairs.

The BBC recently announced that its head of religion and ethics would be losing his commissioning role. The current incumbent, Aaqil Ahmed, would be invited to apply for a new role in factual programming, which combines religion with science, business and history. Before that decision, Ahmed was the only executive in British television with a role dedicated to the commissioning of religious programming.

This cost-cutting exercise by the BBC seems related to another phenomenon: the demise of religious affairs correspondents.

Last year, Ruth Gledhill departed from the Times, leaving the national papers without a reporter dedicated to this portfolio.

Many papers have columnists on religion (Giles Fraser at the Guardian, for example) or journalists who cover faith among other things (eg, the Telegraph’s John Bingham). But this media landscape suggests that religion does not command anywhere near the same weight of attention and investment as sport, politics or even showbiz.

This is a worrying trend – and not just because I’m a newly qualified journalist with a theology degree in need of full-time employment.

Religion is undisputedly a major driver of news. Two months into 2015, many of the biggest and most shocking stories have had a strong religious theme: think of Charlie Hebdo, the Rt Rev Libby Lane, and the rise in anti-Semitism in Britain and across Europe.

It pays to have expert analysis of such topics by religiously literate correspondents. Topics involving the sacred are often incredibly nuanced and require delicate treatment. The Jewish-Muslim dispute over the Temple Mount is not the kind of story that can be treated by someone with a mere passing interest in religion.

Shallow, under-informed coverage can fuel ambivalence towards religion or create a dangerous misrepresentation of the facts. A good example is how Pope Francis is continually depicted in the mainstream media as some kind of liberal culture warrior setting the arch-conservative Catholic Church to rights.

Some believe the decline of specialised religious affairs correspondents is a good thing. Ms Gledhill herself saw the retiring of her role as a sign that religion had been taken out of the sanctuary and into the arena of general current affairs.

While the sacred and the secular do have much to say to each other, I still feel the public would benefit from having more dedicated correspondents given over to this important assignment. As recent events have shown, God is certainly not dead – He’s making the news more than ever.

 

3 Big and Beautiful Benefits of Lent: Secret Treasures of the Season

 

Aleteia || By Tom Hoopes || 16 February 2015

 

 

Catholics have a bad reputation. The world thinks of us as largely irrelevant and mostly negative.

Society has become so extreme in its embrace of various forms of immorality, we are largely absent from many sectors of society, except to protest them. So we are looked on as the grumpy family member who sits glumly in the corner, interrupting his moody silence only occasionally in order to make things awkward for the people who are trying to have fun.

If Catholics truly are the Debbie Downers we are made out to be, Lent would seem to be our glory season, the time when we can really kill the fun.

So it is helpful to recall that Lent is — choose your jargon — proactive and not reactive, positive and not negative, offense not defense.

1. Lent makes you more beautiful.

No, I don’t mean that Lenten fasting can improve your looks; I mean Lenten prayer can.

Did you ever notice that Mother Teresa is both one of the ugliest women who ever existed, and one of the most beautiful women who ever existed? To describe her features, you have to use the same words you use to describe a troll: wrinkled, leathery, stooped, bags under her eyes, an oversized nose.

But no one who ever met her described her as “ugly.” She was suffused with a radiance that made you want to spend more time with her. She was filled with a deeper beauty than her features could account for.

Catholics believe soul and body are one, and that means, by uniting with God in prayer, everyone can be beautiful.
The features of Mother Teresa didn’t define her. What defined her was the “form” given them by her spirit. There is no one more attractive than someone who has turned their body, whatever body they have, into a vessel for a beautiful spirit.

We Catholics know this phenomenon is not confined to Mother Teresa. The parish lady who prays in the back of the church has a smile that can stop you in your tracks; the children filing out of Catechesis of the Good Shepherd with wonder in their eyes are delightful to see.

If we pray, and really connect with Jesus Christ, we can get some of that same wisdom and innocence which, after all, they get from him.

2. Fasting means you don’t have to settle.

We are all sadly familiar with the feeling of disappointment. It is one of the defining feelings of our time. If we are poor we are disappointed because we fill our minds with images of wealthy happiness that are unattainable. If we are rich we are disappointed because nothing ever lives up to the expectations we have for it.

We all want our lives to be better, bigger and more, but we are all sadly aware of life’s giant lack.

When our soul is too big for this world we have two options: We can shrink our souls to the size of life’s pleasures, or we can expand our awareness to the size of our soul. The more we seek futilely after material pleasures, the more we start to settle; we accept a modified joy, a compromised happiness, we figure “good enough” is as good as anything ever gets.

Fasting in Lent is like shocking our system to make us remember that life’s pleasures are not all that there is. There is something greater, something that truly satisfies; Jesus found it in the desert. We find it in Church.

3. Lent gives you the one greatest happiness available to mankind.

It is central paradox of life that the more we try to make ourselves happy, the less happy we are and the more we try to make someone else happy, the more happy we are. The more you grab at pleasure, the more it slips through your fingers; the more you give it away, the more it fills your heart.

This works in every aspect of our life. Come to work in the pajama pants and sweatshirt that please yourself the most and you will quickly find them unpleasing; but dress to please others and you will find you please yourself, too. In sports, max out your personal glory and not the team’s and all glory will fade; give glory to the teammates and your personal glory will grow.

This isn’t the reign of selfishness — this is “the law of the gift.” “Man finds himself only by making himself a sincere gift to others,” said Vatican II.

By proscribing almsgiving in Lent, the Church is sharing the secret to happiness.

So when in planning what to do this Lent in prayer, fasting and almsgiving — don’t think small and don’t think negatively.
You can easily go through Lent adding a hurried daily rosary, begrudgingly giving up wine, and searching for the most expendable can of food to put in the food drive, but that kind of Lent is irritating.

Pray to become friends with Christ and become his light in the world, fast to make nothing but God satisfy you; and give so you can take the joy the angels do in the happiness of others.

Tom Hoopes is writer in residence at Benedictine College in Atchison, Kansas.

 

A Catholic Guy's Guide to a Happy Valentine's Day (And Beyond)

 

Aleteia || By Sam Guzman || 11 February 2015

 

In college, I got to know an elderly couple who took a real liking to me, and they would often have me over to their house and take me out to dinner. While they were nothing but kind to me, their relationship with each other was incredibly hostile. Every conversation would turn into an angry shouting match, and they could barely relate to one another without harsh words or bitter criticisms.

While I don’t know this couple’s history or how they came to interact this way, the relationship they had is sadly all too common. Marriages are crumbling, and the divorce rate is creeping above 50%. And while the Church has always defended the indissolubility of marriage, it is a tragic reality that Catholics are civilly divorcing at essentially the same rate as everyone else.

The causes of this breakdown of marriage are many, but really, the solution is simple. We who are called to the vocation of marriage must love our wives. Let’s face it, we ultimately can’t change anyone’s marriage but our own. In the face of marital collapse on a massive scale, our Catholic marriages must be a prophetic witness of joyful life, fidelity, and love.

So with that said, here are 25 ways to tell your wife you love her. There are hundreds more!

1. Listen to her and care about what she has to say

2. Show her physical, non-sexual affection

3. Surprise her with flowers

4. Take her out to dinner (without the kids)

5. Buy her a book she’s been wanting

6. Write her a love note

7. Wash the dishes

8. Check something off your honey-do list

9. If you have babies, change a diaper

10. Let her go out with her girlfriends sans kids

11. Open the door for her

12. Pray with her and for her

13. Apologize to her when you sin

14. Forgive her when she sins…never hold a grudge

15. Ask her advice

16. Pay attention to her pet peeves and avoid them

17. Take her shopping

18. Fast for her

19. Understand and comfort her fears even if you don’t share them

20. Talk to her about life

21. Compliment her specifically

22. Kiss her in public and in front of the kids

23. Hold her hand

24. Give up something you want to do to do something she wants to do

25. Don’t criticize or complain…praise

In short, keep dating your wife.

Once upon a time, your chief preoccupation was winning your wife’s heart and securing her affection. Remember? Yet, many men stop doing this the minute they say “I do.” This shouldn’t be. Your mission as a Catholic husband is to become a life-long student of your wife. Study to understand her hopes and dreams, her fears and practical concerns. What does she love? What does she hate? What makes her happy? What’s her love language? Learn what delights her heart and then do it.

Men marriage is a sacrament, just like confession or the Eucharist. A good marriage can literally give us spiritual life and grace. Isn’t that amazing? And yet despite this fact, many of us treat our spouse casually and irreverently, as a nuisance, or worse, as an enemy. How sad.

The saints tell us that we receive more from the sacraments if we receive them well. The more prepared our hearts are, the more graces we receive. Why then, do we who are called to the sacrament of Matrimony so often neglect our marriages and ignore our spouses? Your wife is a sacramental sign to you. Treat her like one.

Sam Guzman   is the founder and editor of the Catholic Gentleman

 

Top 75 Inspiring Quotes from Pope Francis

Aleteia || By Marcel Lejeune || 07 February 2015

1. “Jesus is the gate opening up to salvation, a gate open to everyone.”

2. “God’s forgiveness is stronger than any sin.”

3. “To change the world we must be good to those who cannot repay us.”

4. “We cannot keep ourselves shut up in parishes, in our communities, when so many people are waiting for the Gospel!”

5. “The perfect family doesn’t exist, nor is there a perfect husband or a perfect wife, and let’s not talk about the perfect mother-in-law! It’s just us sinners.” A healthy family life requires frequent use of three phrases: “May I? Thank you, and I’m sorry” and “never, never, never end the day without making peace.”

6. “Being a Christian is not just about following commandments: it is about letting Christ take possession of our lives and transform them.”

7. “A little bit of mercy makes the world less cold and more just.”

8. “Instead of being just a church that welcomes and receives by keeping the doors open, let us try also to be a church that finds new roads, that is able to step outside itself and go to those who do not attend Mass, to those who have quit or are indifferent.”

9. “Dear young people, do not be afraid of making decisive choices in life. Have faith; the Lord will not abandon you!”

10. “It is the disease of cowards, who do not have the courage to speak upfront and so talk behind one’s back. … Watch out against the terrorism of gossip!”

11. “Are you angry with someone? Pray for that person. That is what Christian love is.”

12. “How marvelous it would be if, at the end of the day, each of us could say: today I have performed an act of charity towards others!”

13. “Jesus understands our weaknesses and sins; and he forgives us if we allow ourselves to be forgiven.”

14.“Not only does each person have the freedom and the right to say what they think for the common good, they have a duty to do so Because while it is true that is wrong to react with violence, If my good friend Mr Gasparri says a curse word against my mother, he can expect a punch in the nose. … It’s normal. You cannot provoke. You cannot insult the faith of others. You cannot make fun of the faith of others. … There are so many people who speak badly about religions or other religions, who make fun of them, who make a game out of the religions of others. They are provocateurs. And what happens to them is what would happen to Mr Gasparri if he says a curse word against my mother. There is a limit. … One cannot make war… kill in the name of one’s own religion, that is, in the name of God.”

15. “The family is where we are formed as people. Every family is a brick in the building of society.”

16. “There is no cross, big or small, in our life which the Lord does not share with us.”

17. “Gossip can also kill, because it kills the reputation of the person! It is so terrible to gossip! At first it may seem like a nice thing, even amusing, like enjoying a candy. But in the end, it fills the heart with bitterness, and even poisons us.”

18. “We cannot sleep peacefully while babies are dying of hunger and the elderly are without medical assistance.”

19. “The principal mission of the Church is evangelization, bringing the Good News to everyone.”

20. “Let the Church always be a place of mercy and hope, where everyone is welcomed, loved and forgiven.”

21. “We now live in a culture of the temporary, in which more and more people are simply giving up on marriage as a public commitment.”

22. “Christianity spreads through the joy of disciples who know that they are loved and saved.”

23. “Journeying is precisely the art of looking toward the horizon, thinking where I want to go but also enduring the fatigue of the journey, which is sometimes difficult. … There are dark days, even days when we fail, even days when we fall … but always think of this: Don’t be afraid of failures. Don’t be afraid of falling.”

24. “The secret of Christian living is love. Only love fills the empty spaces caused by evil.”

25. “The measure of the greatness of a society is found in the way it treats those most in need, those who have nothing apart from their poverty.”

26. “The love of God is not generic. God looks with love upon every man and woman, calling them by name.”

27. “Inconsistency on the part of pastors and the faithful between what they say and what they do, between word and manner of life, is undermining the Church’s credibility.”

28. “Dear young people, do not bury your talents, the gifts that God has given you! Do not be afraid to dream of great things!”

29. “There is so much noise in the world! May we learn to be silent in our hearts and before God.”

30. “We must restore hope to young people, help the old, be open to the future, spread love. Be poor among the poor. We need to include the excluded and preach peace.”

31. “Dear young people, you have many plans and dreams for the future. But, is Christ at the center of each of your plans and dreams?”

32. “Every time we give in to selfishness and say ‘No’ to God, we spoil his loving plan for us.”

33. “The true disciple of the Lord commits himself personally to a charitable ministry whose scope is man’s multiform and endless poverty.”

34. “Our prayer cannot be reduced to an hour on Sundays. It is important to have a daily relationship with the Lord.”

35. “Today people are suffering from poverty, but also from lack of love.”

36. “We cannot be Christians part-time. If Christ is at the center of our lives, he is present in all that we do.”

37. “I say that politics is the most important of the civil activities and has its own field of action, which is not that of religion. Political institutions are secular by definition and operate in independent spheres. All my predecessors have said the same thing, for many years at least, albeit with different accents. I believe that Catholics involved in politics carry the values of their religion within them, but have the mature awareness and expertise to implement them. The Church will never go beyond its task of expressing and disseminating its values, at least as long as I’m here.”

38. “I believe in God, not in a Catholic God, there is no Catholic God, there is God and I believe in Jesus Christ, his incarnation.”

39. “Let us ask the Lord for the grace not to speak badly of others, not to criticize, not to gossip, but rather to love everyone.”

40. “Proselytism is solemn nonsense, it makes no sense. We need to get to know each other, listen to each other and improve our knowledge of the world around us.”

41. “It is so important to listen! Husbands and wives need to communicate to bring happiness and serenity to family life.”

42. “Children have the right to grow up in a family with a father and mother capable of creating a suitable environment for the child’s development and emotional maturity. Today marriage and the family are in crisis.”

43. “The Lord never tires of forgiving. It is we who tire of asking for forgiveness.”

44. “This generation, and many others, have been led to believe that the devil is a myth, a figure, an idea, the idea of evil… But the devil exists and we must fight against him.”

45. “Dear young people, let us not be satisfied with a mediocre life. Be amazed by what is true and beautiful, what is of God!”

46. “Hatred is not to be carried in the name of God.”

47. “However dark things are, goodness always re-emerges and spreads. Each day in our world beauty is born anew”

48. “We are all sinners. But may the Lord not let us be hypocrites. Hypocrites don’t know the meaning of forgiveness, joy and the love of God.”

49. “Ask yourselves this question: How often is Jesus inside and knocking at the door to be let out, to come out? And we do not let him out because of our own need for security, because so often we are locked into ephemeral structures that serve solely to make us slaves and not free children of God.”

50. “If we want to advance in the spiritual life, then, we must constantly be missionaries”

51. “Faith is not a light which scatters all our darkness, but a lamp which guides our steps in the night and suffices for the journey. To those who suffer, God does not provide arguments which explain everything; rather, his response is that of an accompanying presence, a history of goodness which touches every story of suffering and opens up a ray of light.”

52. “If we think that things are not going to change, we need to recall that Jesus Christ has triumphed over sin and death and is now almighty. Jesus Christ truly lives.”

53. “What kind of love would not feel the need to speak of the beloved, to point him out, to make him known?”

54. “The world tells us to seek success, power and money; God tells us to seek humility, service and love.”

55. “Mission is at once a passion for Jesus and a passion for his people.”

56. “The human heart desires joy. We all desire joy, every family, every people aspires to happiness. But what is the joy that the Christian is called to live out and bear witness to? It is the joy that comes from the closeness of God, from his presence in our life. From the moment Jesus entered into history, with his birth in Bethlehem, humanity received the seed of the Kingdom of God, like the soil receives the seed, the promise of a future harvest.”

57. “Indifference towards those in need is not acceptable for a Christian.”

58. “May no one use religion as a pretext for actions against human dignity and against the fundamental rights of every man and woman.”

59. “It is not enough to say we are Christians. We must live the faith, not only with our words, but with our actions.”

60. “Dear young people, Christ asks you to be wide awake and alert, to see the things in life that really matter.”

61. “A true missionary who never ceases to be a disciple, knows Jesus walks with him speaks to him, breathes with him, works with him”

62. “If someone is gay and is searching for the Lord and has good will, then who am I to judge him? … The problem is not having this tendency, no, we must be brothers and sisters to one another"

63. “An evangelizer must never look like someone who has just come back from a funeral.”

64. “The ‘Big Bang,’ that today is considered to be the origin of the world, does not contradict the creative intervention of God, on the contrary it requires it.”

65. “When evangelizers rise from prayer, their hearts are more open”

66. “Practicing charity is the best way to evangelize.”

67. “We know well that with Jesus life becomes richer and that with him it is easier to find meaning in everything. This is why we evangelize.”

68. “God’s love is unbounded: it has no limits!”

69. “If we wish to follow Christ closely, we cannot choose an easy, quiet life. It will be a demanding life, but full of joy.”

70. “Only the person who feels happiness in seeking the good of others, in desiring their happiness, can be a missionary”

71. “If I can help at least one person to have a better life, that already justifies the offering of my life”

72. “The Gospel responds to our deepest needs, since we were created for what the Gospel offers us: friendship with Jesus”

73. “Jesus is more than a friend. He is a teacher of truth and life who shows us the way that leads to happiness.”

74. “A person who is not convinced, enthusiastic, certain and in love, will convince nobody.”

75. “A Christian is never bored or sad. Rather, the one who loves Christ is full of joy and radiates joy.”

Marcel LeJeune is Assistant Director of St. Mary's Catholic Center at Texas A&M University. This article originally appeared on their blog, Aggie Catholic and is reprinted here with kind permission.

 

 

 

Oscar Romero and the Politics of Canonization

On February 3, 2015, Pope Francis formally ratified the martyrdom of Oscar Romero, the Salvadoran Archbishop who was shot dead at the altar while presiding over the Eucharist in 1980.

The Tuesday authorization happened when Pope Francis met, at a private audience, with the prefect of the Congregation for the Causes of Saints, Cardinal Angelo Amato, S.D.B.

This ratification by the Pope opens the way for Archbishop Romero to be beatified. Pope Francis, the first Latin American pope, has expressed his appreciation for Archbishop Romero. He has been described as a man of the poor who, on many occasions, denounced social injustices, violence and repression in his homeland and throughout Latin America.

Fr. Don Bosco Onyalla

Below is a reflection by Father William Grimm on Archbishop Oscar Romero and "the politics of canonization."

 

UCANews.Com || By Father William Grimm || 05 February 2015

 

On October 30, 1984, the body of Father Jerzy Popieluszko was recovered from a reservoir in Poland. The priest, an outspoken and internationally well-known opponent of the communist regime, had been beaten to death by agents of the government’s Security Police.

Immediately, a Vatican functionary, possibly hoping to curry favor with the Polish pope, called for Popieluszko’s canonization as a martyr. In fact, he was beatified in 2010 as a martyr, 25 years after his murder.

On March 24, 1980, Archbishop Oscar Romero of San Salvador was fatally shot at the altar while celebrating Mass. The archbishop was an outspoken and internationally well-known opponent of the El Salvador government’s oppression and violence against its own people.

Now, 35 years after his assassination, Pope Francis has described Romero’s death as martyrdom and the long-delayed process of his recognition as a saint has apparently been put on the fast track after languishing in the Vatican.

It is clear that if the Latin American Francis had not moved the process along, Romero would have remained as buried in a Roman file cabinet as he is in his shrine at the cathedral in San Salvador.

The delay has been incomprehensible because throughout Latin America and the rest of the world the archbishop is already revered as a martyred saint. The Anglican Communion even has a day honoring him on its liturgical calendar, as does part of the Lutheran Church. So, at long last, his own Catholic Church may catch up with Catholics and non-Catholics in recognizing another of its martyrs.

Why the delay? In one word, politics.

There has always been a close tie between martyrdom and politics. Until the recent rise of fundamentalist Hinduism and Islam those who have killed Christians have usually done so for political rather than religious reasons. 

In the Roman Empire, Christians’ refusal to join in the official cult of the divine emperor was punished as a threat to the political system. In 17th century Japan, Christians were killed as a possible “fifth column” for European colonialism.

Popieluszko and Romero were not murdered because they said their prayers. They were martyred because those prayers led them to oppose the oppressive political systems under which they lived.

Politics has not been a concern solely on the part of the killers, however. The process of declaring saints is also marked, and sometimes marred, by politics.

An example is Joan of Arc, who was burned alive by the English after having led an army against them. Her trial and condemnation were political, but so was her activity. She had not led an army on behalf of the Kingdom of God, but for the Kingdom of France and the installation of Charles VII as its ruler.

Joan’s canonization, too, may have had political aspects. Though she was executed in 1431, she was not canonized until 1920. There had been efforts over the years on the part of French Catholics to have her canonized, but why did it not happen until nearly half a millennium after her death?

There may be a clue in the date, just after the end of World War I and the Russian Revolution.

At one point during the war’s carnage nearly half the French divisions on the Western Front mutinied. Though the mainspring of the mutiny was the exhausted morale of troops who had been sent “over the top” again and again to be butchered, another element was news of the revolution that eventually led to a communist government in Russia.

Might Joan’s canonization have been at least in part a political move to restore French pride in its military traditions while also countering communism, a mainstay of which was atheism?

This brings us back to the contrasting Vatican reactions to the murders of Popieluszko and Romero.

The Polish priest was explicitly challenging a communist political system.

The Salvadoran archbishop was confronting a political system that proclaimed anti-communism and claimed to be defending the Church and society from the inroads of leftist liberation theology.

However, the fact that Romero sided with the same people that atheist leftists tend to side with or claim to side with — the powerless, the poor, the oppressed, the outcast — made him suspect in Rome.

The Vatican would naturally look kindly upon the Polish priest who confronted leftist godlessness.

It is incomprehensible that the massacre of whole villages and the murder of an archbishop, no matter how the perpetrators might describe themselves, could be viewed as anything but godless.

But, Romero’s speaking out bothered physically comfortable prelates in Rome made morally uncomfortable by what seemed to be support for leftist critiques. And so, Romero’s canonization went nowhere even while the people of El Salvador followed the ancient custom of de facto local canonization.

Now, we have a pope who reminds us that true peace does not “act as a pretext for justifying a social structure which silences or appeases the poor, so that the more affluent can placidly support their lifestyle while others have to make do as they can. Demands involving the distribution of wealth, concern for the poor and human rights cannot be suppressed under the guise of creating a consensus on paper or a transient peace for a contented minority. The dignity of the human person and the common good rank higher than the comfort of those who refuse to renounce their privileges. When these values are threatened, a prophetic voice must be raised.” (Evangelii Gaudium, 218)

Both Father Jerzy Popieluszko and Archbishop Oscar Romero raised that prophetic voice.

So finally, whether to mollify their Latin American boss or because they have realized that their own politics have hampered the Church in recognizing another of its martyrs, Vatican bureaucrats are moving ahead with the canonization of Oscar Romero.

The Church will not make Romero a saint any more than it makes anyone else a saint. Their generous response to God’s grace does that. It will merely recognize his example and present it to the world as worthy of emulation; and that will have political implications for all who believe.

Maryknoll Fr William Grimm is publisher of ucanews.com, based in Tokyo.

 

What It's Really Like to Be Married to Jesus

 

Aleteia || By Sr. Helena Burns, FSP || 02 February 2015

 

I’m a nun. 

Technically, I’m a religious Sister, because “nun” refers to cloistered contemplatives. But no matter. We answer to “nun,” too, because it’s in common parlance and rhymes with a lot of words… like “fun.”

So, what’s it like being married to Jesus? Real. Very real. It is not poetry. It is not metaphor. It is not make-believe. Do you think I would give up my life to play pretend princess? Not on your life. Mother Teresa once said: “If you are called, you will know it, and you won’t be able to explain it to anyone.” But fools rush in, so here goes.

Nuns often get referred to as “brides of Christ,” which is what we are, but after all these years, I also feel like his wife, His old lady, not just His blushing bride. How can this be? Don’t look at me. When I was 9, I planned on living in a farmhouse in New Hampshire with my husband, 10 boys and a sheepdog. (I wanted boys because I felt they just weren’t being raised properly these days.) By the time I was 15, I set my sights on being an Ornithologist (specializing in raptors) and most likely living in the wild (a husband was welcome to join me if he could keep up). 

But then Jesus had to go and propose to me.

GOD PROPOSES

It didn’t feel like a proposal at first. It felt like a very serious, urgent invitation to be God’s servant, His handmaid, His little worker bee. (You know that worker honey bees are all females, right? There are only a few drones [males] in every hive.) I fought with Him for two years and then surrendered. Why did I say yes? It was becoming more and more apparent that I had no idea how to make myself happy any more. 

Any more? Before I met God, I had hobbies and activities that I enjoyed intensely. Actually, I did everything intensely (type A). When I started searching for the meaning of life (intensely), all my joys began to dim because they seemed meaningless if there was no ultimate purpose to everything. 

Then I met God and all my loves were returned to me, but in a new way. Ever since I met God I wasn’t able to enjoy my favorite things in the same way. Before I knew God, they were EVERYTHING to me. They were ALL I had. But now they were no longer ends in themselves, but pleasant occupations along a journey to a bigger Destination. God was re-ordering my priorities and my life.

Oh, I was trying desperately to make myself happy in all the usual ways, but God doesn’t give up that easily. I knew I was free to respond either “yes” or “no,” but at a certain point I realized that my life was becoming like The Agony in the Garden (where Jesus begged the Father “that this cup [of His Passion and Death] might pass me by.”) Jesus struggled with doing what He knew was the will of God, too! I was asking God that the “cup” of my vocation to be a nun might pass me by. My prayer kind of was: “Dear God, it is sooooo nice to know You now! I’m so glad you’re in my life! But I really want to go back to my own plans for my life. I got plans, see? Remember? The animals, the birds? So, this nun thing? I’m flattered, I really am. Thanks, but no thanks. Amen.” 

The fact that I could feel TWO wills struggling meant that I wasn’t making this up. If it was my own insane “What was I thinking?!” idea, I could just put it to rest and ignore it, go another way, leave it behind, move on. But it wasn’t my idea.

DUMPING GOD

Dumping God is also not done that easily (see poem “The Hound of Heaven”). I remember so clearly the night I decided I was DONE with the idea of ever becoming a Sister. I determined to put it out of my mind and get on with my life. After all, I WAS free, right? God never forces us to do anything, right? 

I can still see exactly what I was wearing. I went out to the movies, all set for a euphoric night of total forgetfulness of this crazy notion. I came home miserable. (It wasn’t the movie — it was a great film.) My entire being felt out of sync. I knew I would never be who I was truly meant to be, I would never progress, I would never experience profound contentment if I didn’t give myself completely to Him, which at this point I knew beyond the shadow of a doubt He wanted. I knelt by my bed and said YES. Within about two weeks, I had glided easily into His will for me. His will was now my will, too.

When did it start to feel like a proposal? Many years after I entered the convent, when I discovered John Paul II’s “Theology of the Body.” Karol Wojtyla gave me permission to be a woman, something that my (radical) feminism had denied me. Yeah, like that. Of course that’s a whole ‘nother rant.

“BUT CAN GOD REALLY BE ENOUGH?”

Is God really enough? Can God really satisfy? I would simply like to turn those questions around. How could God NOT be enough? How could God NOT satisfy? He’s our Creator. He created all things. He IS love. He is the SOURCE of all life and love. “Your Maker is your husband” (Isaiah 54:5). 

God is “realer” than we are. We are ONLY real because He is real and He sustains us in existence. “In him all things hold together” (Colossians 1:17). He is a personal God who became human for us and gave His life for us because He loves us and now has a human face forever. Life is short. We come from God and are going back to God. What was your question again?

WHAT CAN MARRIED COUPLES LEARN FROM MY MARRIAGE?

What can married couples learn from my marriage? The same thing I can learn from their marriage: what God’s spousal love looks like. Our complementary vocations are two sides of the same coin. We should be a mutual admiration society. In fact, nuns’ biggest fans are young married couples who get so excited when they see us because they want their kids to meet a nun (and hope their daughters will consider a religious vocation some day).

When you see a nun, are you supposed to think: “There she goes. One of God’s special, chosen ones. *Sob.* He didn’t choose me, but He chose her. *Sob.* She’s so unique. She must have been so good and holy for Him to choose her. And not me. *Sob.*”??? 

Of course not! 



This is what you’re supposed to think when you see a nun: “Yup! God is the Spouse of every soul, the Spouse of my soul. Every time I see a nun, I’m reminded of that truth! It’s so great to remember that God is so close to us, so real that He calls some to be exclusively His. God can be enough for us, truly fill our needs and make us happy. He can be trusted with our entire lives. Oh, and she reminds me that this isn’t all there is — we’re all headed to the wedding feast of heaven!” And then you are obliged to make a monetary donation to that Sister who reminded you of so many good things, pray for her, take her out for coffee, etc.

YOU CAN HAVE WHAT I HAVE

Not only are nuns walking “eschatalogical signs” (signs of the world to come, of the “new heavens and the new earth,” of paradise), you can have what I have. Really?! Yes, you too can have Jesus. 

Jesus is all that anyone needs. “Out of his fullness we have all received, grace upon grace” (John 1:16). Vatican II busted the myth that holiness and coziness with Jesus is for priests and nuns and other religious fanatics. Vatican II called it “the universal call to holiness.” In fact, marriage is the ordinary way of holiness! (To paraphrase John Paul II: “We must make a bigger deal of ‘ordinary love.'”) 

THAT’S why most people have marriage as their vocation and why it’s a sacrament. Marriage is not a DEFAULT vocation. Marriage gets you holy.

EVERYONE IS CALLED TO MARRIAGE

Everyone is called to marriage. Wait, what?

1. The primary image of God’s love for us in the Bible is marriage.

2. Every male and female body has a “spousal meaning,” that is, the fact that we were designed for union shows that we were made to give and receive love according to our vocation in life.

3. God is the Spouse of every person.

4. No one is called to be all alone. Not singles. Not hermits. We are called to be with God and others according to our vocation.

5. We’re all heading to the wedding feast of heaven; we’re all “engaged” to God.


MARRIAGE WHEN ONE SPOUSE IS PERFECT

Being married to the Perfect Guy is epic. He is forgiving, understanding, exciting, a good listener, omniscient, omnipresent, comforting and challenging at the same time, infinitely tender, wise, a great provider, keeps me entertained, keeps me laughing, keeps me growing, makes me fruitful. 

It’s a real back-and-forth, give-and-take relationship. But whenever we fight, only one of us gets upset, and only one of us is always wrong. Jesus gets me. He never cheats and He never leaves. Bad boys are overrated.

“NO, REALLY. HOW CAN I HAVE WHAT YOU HAVE?”

“I can’t REALLY have the same amazing relationship you have with Jesus, can I, Sister?” Yes. How? Prayer. Pray, pray, pray. Jesus said: “Pray always and never lose heart” (Luke 18:1). If we’re all supposed to “pray always,” that must mean that prayer is as easy and natural as breathing, wouldn’t you say? Sure, there’s lots of wonderful more “formal,” and rote prayers we can do (find ones you enjoy!): the rosary, Divine Mercy chaplet, novenas, Liturgy of the Hours, lectio divina, (the Mass is the penultimate prayer because it’s Jesus offering Himself to the Father for us), etc. But foremost, we must communicate with God constantly and organically throughout the day. 

We can never stop thinking and feeling and willing, so just consciously open up all your thinking and feeling and willing to Him and He will be a part of every second of your life – even when you have to concentrate on something else and “forget” Him for a while. You don’t even have to use words. Let your heart converse with Him in its own language. He’s for you. He’s on your side. 

Still having trouble praying? Talk to Jesus about it. (Get it?) Anything that makes prayer sound hard is not of God. Everyone can be as close to God as the greatest mystics and contemplatives, because this is what God earnestly desires, too. Source...

You can follow Sr. Helena Burns, FSP on Twitter @SrHelenaBurns. This article was original published at LifeTeen.com.

 

From Jungle to Justice: LRA at The Hague

IRIN || 26 January 2015

Almost 10 years after the International Criminal Court issued an arrest warrant against him, a senior member of the Uganda’s Lord’s Resistance Army rebel group appeared before the tribunal’s judges in The Hague today. 

Dominic Ongwen, who surrendered earlier this month in the Central African Republic, faces charges of crimes against humanity, including murder, enslavement and inhumane acts of inflicting serious bodily injury and suffering.

He also stands accused of war crimes, namely cruel treatment of civilians and intentionally directing an attack against a civilian population. He is the first of five indicted LRA members (one of whom has since died) to be brought before the Court.

That Ongwen, like thousands of others, was abducted into the LRA as a child and forced to witness and carry out acts of extreme brutality, is likely to feature prominently in his defence. His recruitment as a child soldier epitomizes the difficulties in distinguishing victims from perpetrators in this conflict.

The LRA came into being in 1987 and over the years IRIN has written hundreds of news, feature and analysis articles and produced several films about the group and the devastating effect prolonged conflict has had on northern Uganda. Here are some highlights: This dispatch from 4 December 1996 offers a snapshot of many of the themes that would go on to define the LRA insurgency: human rights abuses, displacement, forced encampment, food security, and humanitarian access.  In January 1999, the Acholi Religious Leaders Peace Initiative pushed for negotiations with the LRA rather than prosecutions or military action, a position it continues to hold today. 

The leaders even travelled to The Hague to press their case against criminal indictments. It was clear from the start of the war that the LRA was not alone in abusing civilians in the north. The actions of the security forces were frequently slammed by rights activists and years later investigated by the ICC.  One particular bone of contention was a government move to force most of the population of the north into “protected villages”, a policy condemned by local politicians. All too often, horrific events made it clear the term was a misnomer. 

Over the years, other key themes of IRIN’s coverage included allegations that the Ugandan army deliberately perpetuated the conflict against the LRA; how the war strained diplomatic relations with Sudan; the phenomenon of “night commuters” – children pouring into the town of Gulu every evening for fear of abduction; life after abduction; and the wider impact of the conflict on education.   

In 2007, this multimedia package examined a comprehensive peace deal between the LRA and the government. Although detailed agreements were drawn up, no final pact has been signed to this day. In the years that followed, the LRA was driven out of Uganda and went on to commit atrocities in the Democratic Republic of Congo and the Central African Republic.  

The war in northern Uganda may be over, but its effects linger and continue to cause distress: children wounded in the conflict go untreated; others, orphaned in the war, fend for themselves on city streets; farmers contend with unexploded ordnance, cattle rustlers, lack of basic services, land rows and crop-trampling elephants. Source...

 

Pope and Obama Focus on March for Life: A Tale of Two Tweets

Aleteia || By John Burger || 23 January 2015

It wasn't the first time a Pope has sent a tweet across the Atlantic to the annual March for Life, but Pope Francis' Twitter message was welcomed with as much enthusiasm as the first papal tweet to the gathering was, a few years ago.

“Every Life is a Gift,” said Pope Francis' Twitter message Jan. 22, echoing the theme of this year's March for Life. The message went out to over 5.3 million Twitter followers on his English-language account @Pontifex.

A Spanish version, “Cada Vida es un Don,” was tweeted to the Pontiff's 7.8 million Spanish-language followers,

By day's end, his English-language tweet had been favorited over 22,000 times and retweeted over 17,000.

Meanwhile, crowds of pro-life advocates amassed on the National Mall for a rally preceding the March for Life. Speakers included pro-life activists and members of Congress, some focusing on the need to protect disabled children.

Republican Rep. Cathy McMorris Rodgers of Washington state told the crowd that her 7-year-old son, who has Down syndrome, has intensified her commitment to the anti-abortion fight.

Other legislators emphasized the importance of the Health Care Conscience Rights Act, which would implement a broad religious exemption and conscience protections for private employers who oppose the federal contraceptive mandate that is part of the Affordable Care Act.

Congressman Mike Pompeo, R-KS, said the large youth contingent on hand was evidence that "the pro-life movement is stronger than ever," and a reminder that "every single life is a gift."

Virtually every single one of those young people carried a mobile device, and a random look at Facebook or Twitter reminded digital denizens throughout the day of #WhyWeMarch. 

That hashtag was the result of a call by the March for Life Education and Defense Fund, which had announced the #WhyWeMarch social media campaign on January 2. "Throughout this Sanctity of Life Month and leading up to the March for Life on the 22nd, we encourage pro-lifers to upload a photo to Instagram, Facebook, or Twitter with the hashtag #WhyWeMarch and the reason you’d like to share 'why we march' for life on January 22nd."

They marched, primarily to mark the 42nd anniversary of the 1973 Roe v. Wade Supreme Court decision, which legalized abortion nationwide, protesters held signs with slogans such as, "Defend Life" and "I am a voice for the voiceless" and "Thank God my mom's pro-life."

And anyone under 42 years of age may have been conscious of the fact that he or she could have been a victim of the Court's decision. Levi Fox, a volunteer and a graduate of Liberty University, told Catholic News Service, "Half of our generation is missing. Sixty million have been killed since Roe v. Wade, which is why I am dedicating my time to the March for Life."

Abortion rates have come down somewhat in recent years, but they are still too high, according to the second annual report examining "The State of Abortion in America," released recently by National Right to Life. "While recent reports show a significant decrease in the annual number of abortions, tragically, nearly 3,000 unborn children are still killed every day in the United States," said Carol Tobias, president of the organization.

Meanwhile, NARAL Pro-choice America posted a message on its Facebook page, saying, "We're part of the 7 in 10 who support Roe v. Wade because we believe everyone should decide for themselves whether, when, and with whom to have a family."

Many would dispute the statistics the organization cites. Wednesday night, speaking to some 11,000 Catholics gathered in the Basilica of the National Shrine of the Immaculate Conception, Cardinal Sean O'Malley said that myths about America's pro-choice stance perdure, in spite of recent findings. "Despite the impression that a solid majority of Americans back legal abortions, the Gallup polls indicate that about the same number of Americans identify as pro-choice as do pro-life, but in fact 58% of Americans oppose all or most abortions," said the cardinal, who is chairman of the U.S. bishops' Committee on Pro-Life Activities. 

Speaking during a Mass to open the National Prayer Vigil for Life, he described three myths persist in the American media and public perception: that abortion is a woman's issue, that most Americans "are pro-choice, pro-abortion," and that "young people are overwhelmingly in favor of the pro-abortion position."

Polling over the past 20 years, according to the cardinal, shows "women have consistently been more pro-life than men." In addition, young people "are the most pro-life segment of the American people," he said. Five years ago, the Gallup organization "declared pro-life is the new normal," Cardinal O'Malley said.

As the day wore on, another world leader released a Tweet commemorating the Roe anniversary. This time it was President Barack Obama, and it read "President Obama on the 42nd anniversary of Roe v. Wade #7in10ForRoe." Attached was a jpeg of his annual statement supporting Roe v Wade. 

The decision, he said, reaffirmed “a fundamental American value: that government should not intrude in our most private and personal family matters." Source...

John Burger is news editor for Aleteia's English edition.

 

What Causes Regular People to Become Terrorists?

 

Aleteia || By Susan E. Wills || 22 January 2015

 

 

Most of the "experts" have it all wrong

The January 7 terrorist attack on the offices of the satirical newspaper “Charlie Hebdo” and the subsequent hostage-takings and murders stunned Europe and prompted the swift arrests of over two dozen suspected Muslim terrorists in Belgium, France, Germany and Greece.

Two ISIS-affiliated terrorists were killed in Verviers, Belgium in a raid that thwarted an attack authorities deemed “hours away.” These events prompted media to raise questions you may have asked yourself:  

Why would anyone commit such acts? Could the French government have prevented these 20 deaths by profiling and tracking the Kouachi brothers, Amedy Coulibaly and their accomplices? How do Muslim extremists become radicalized, i.e., how do they go from living normal lives to murdering innocent people in a manner calculated to evoke widespread terror? Why haven’t decades of counterterrorism efforts stopped the escalation and brutality of terrorist attacks, like the one in Paris and the January 3-7 Boko Haram massacre of possibly 2,000 Nigerian men, women and children?

And why, in light of these concerns, would the Obama Administration release five more terrorist detainees from Guantánamo Bay — Yemeni nationals who’d been captured in a raid on an Al Qaeda hideout in Pakistan — claiming that they no longer pose a threat to the West? Is it even possible to take the radical out of the terrorist (or the terrorist out of the radical) through “de-radicalization programs?”

Questions like these have been explored in tens of thousands of articles and books: Amazon lists 34,990 books on terrorism as of January 18. British terrorism expert Andrew Silke, PhD, estimates that a new book on terrorism is being published every six hours, and that’s just the books in English.

So you’d think we’d know everything there is to know about the “typical” terrorist profile, their motivations, their transformation into radicals, their entry into terror groups and the group’s dynamics, and, if they leave terrorism behind, their reasons for disengaging from the group.

But unfortunately, most of the “answers” and explanations are either wrong or irrelevant (not “actionable,” i.e., useful for counterterrorism efforts) according to experts like Silke (“Research on Terrorism: Trends, Achievements and Failures”) and John Horgan, PhD (“The Psychology of Terrorism”), a University of Massachusetts (Lowell) professor and director of the Center for Terrorism and Security Studies.

How can that be? A 1988 assessment of terrorism research by Alex Schmid and Albert Jongman explains:

Much of the writing in the crucial areas of terrorism research … is impressionistic, superficial, and at the same time often also pretentious, venturing far-reaching generalizations on the basis of episodal evidence.

They added: “there are probably few areas in the social science literature on which so much is written on the basis of so little research.” [They estimated that] “as much as 80 percent of the literature is not research-based in any rigorous sense; instead it is too often narrative, condemnatory, and prescriptive” (quoted in Chapter Two of “ Terrorism Informatics: Knowledge Management and Data Mining for Homeland Security,” authored by Dr. Silke).

Silke’s more recent literature review found that 68 percent of the books and articles published in the 1990s were speculative and still not grounded in primary research.

Dr. Horgan agrees that the field of terrorism and radicalization is “still quite haphazard.”

We try to explain things before we understand what we’re looking at. … There are gaps in the field. We have little data but millions of theories. Metaphors abound.

Horgan maintains that counterterrorism efforts have been hampered by the lack of rigorous, quality research, as well as by the tendency of political leaders to act based on a political calculus rather than listening to experts who have produced solid research.

Dr. Horgan is on a mission to deepen our understanding of and response to terrorism by improving the quality of the literature through empirical research using primary sources (e.g., interviews with former terrorists), arriving at conclusions based on the evidentiary data, and applying statistical tools to analyze data.

Based on his extensive interviews of 160 to 180 former terrorists, Horgan suggests these answers to the questions posed above:

Why would anyone commit such acts? We don’t know why. Even the terrorists don’t really know what their motivations are. To be honest, we usually don’t know why we do things either. Human decisionmaking is enormously complex.

In addition, asking “why” is not helpful because often the terrorists' reasons can change over time and the interviewer is likely to hear the propaganda version that terrorists learn to parrot from other members of their group. Dr. Horgan believes that the more important question to explore is how they became involved, how they joined up or were recruited by a terrorist group.

Could the French government have prevented 20 deaths by profiling and tracking the Kouachi brothers, Amedy Coulibaly and their accomplices? An NYPD report after 9/11 (“Radicalization in the West”) simplistically characterized radicalization as a straight-line trajectory from being a “normal” adherent of Islam, to becoming a religious radical to joining a terrorist group to engaging in terrorist violence.

The FBI and other counterterrorism experts have come to realize that there is no useful “profile” for accurately identifying people who may one day be open to committing acts of terrorism. The factors are too numerous and complex. Looking at the common attitudes and circumstances among terrorists who were open to recruitment, identified by Horgan, shows why infiltrating mosques and hanging out in hookah bars is a waste of time and resources. These folks tend to —

(a) Feel angry, alienated or disenfranchised.
(b) Believe that their current political involvement does not give them the power to effect real change.
(c) Identify with perceived victims of the social injustice they are fighting.
(d) Feel the need to take action rather than just talking about the problem.
(e) Believe that engaging in violence against the state is not immoral.
(f) Have friends or family sympathetic to the cause.
(g) Believe that joining a movement offers social and psychological rewards such as adventure, camaraderie and a heightened sense of identity.

How do Islamic extremists become radicalized , i.e., how do they go from living normal lives to murdering innocent people in a manner calculated to evoke widespread terror?  A May 2013 article in “Rolling Stone” quotes Horgan as saying —

The idea that radicalization causes terrorism is perhaps the greatest myth alive today in terrorism research. [First], the overwhelming majority of people who hold radical beliefs do not engage in violence. And second, there is increasing evidence that people who engage in terrorism don’t necessarily hold radical beliefs.

Jamie Bartlett, Director of Demos’ Centre for the Analysis of Social Media, concurs that holding radical beliefs does not predict who will engage in terrorist acts:

I have found that many home-grown al-Qaeda terrorists are not attracted by religion or ideology alone — often their knowledge of Islamist theology is wafer-thin and superficial — but [they are] also [attracted by] the glamour and excitement that al-Qaeda type groups purport to offer.

Horgan believes it is important to recognize that behind the big “social, political and religious reasons people give for becoming involved” — for example, occupation by a foreign nation, drone strikes that kill innocent wedding guests and limit day-to-day activities, the sense that their culture is being annihilated — “there are also hosts of littler reasons — personal fantasy, seeking adventure, camaraderie, purpose, identity” and these “lures can be very powerful, especially when you don’t necessarily have a lot else going on in your life. …”

In the second edition of his book “The Psychology of Terrorism,” Horgan cites a 2013 study by Dyer and Simcox based on interviews of 171 Al Qaeda members. They found five different categories of reasons why people got involved in terrorism. 

But the elusive profile and search for root causes, Horgan contends, are far less useful to research than looking at the pathways and “routes” to terrorism — how individuals are recruited or join a group, how they are trained, how they tackle the logistical problems of finding a “safe house,” getting cash, weapons and supplies for bombs, how and where they learn to shoot automatic weapons, how they obtain vehicles and how they transition from peripheral roles into directly committing acts of violence. In short, he believes counterterrorism efforts can be better informed and devised if researchers study terrorism as something one does rather than what one is.

Why haven’t decades of counterterrorism efforts stopped the escalation and brutality of terrorist attacks, such as the January 3-7 Boko Haram massacre of possibly 2,000 Nigerian men, women and children? I can suggest a number of reasons. Political and military leaders have been forced to learn what they can about asymmetrical warfare on the fly, hence, as many commentators have noted, the West seems always to be fighting the “last battle,” not the next.

That’s why we’re subjected to intrusive TSA screening at airports — to regularly test the hands of middle-aged Anglo-Saxon grandmothers for bomb residue, to ferret out shoe bombs, flammable liquids (I hope your girlfriend enjoyed my nearly new bottle of Chanel No. 5, Mr. TSA agent in Hartford, Connecticut), pistols, knives and boxcutters, along with embroidery scissors and crochet hooks. Historically, state warfare has involved the movements of large armies made up of individuals who value their own lives and the lives of their comrades.

Rarely has the West encountered combatants who prefer martyrdom. Only the kamikaze pilots at Pearl Harbor come to mind. And, frankly, we haven’t figured out how to deter such suicide-minded people except by killing them first, not an entirely humane solution.

It’s not easy for Western nations targeted by terrorists to know who are the good guys and who are the bad guys. Who can know whether an intervention to prevent the slaughter of innocent people will work or backfire? Our intervention in Syria, for example, likely ended up supplying ISIS with U.S. material. 

Some political leaders prefer dialogue and appeasement to taking unpopular military action, while at the same time supporting terrorists by paying millions of dollars in ransom for the return of kidnap victims. Other leaders pursue military action and effectively defeat one group, but the defeat may then serve as a recruitment tool to bring many more aggrieved persons into terrorist groups.

There are countries outside the Middle East and North Africa that support Middle Eastern terrorists by supplying them with weapons and financial aid to gain oil and/or strategic advantage over the West. 

And why, in light of these concerns, would the Obama Administration release five more detainees from Guantánamo Bay — Yemeni nationals who’d been captured in a raid on an Al Qaeda hideout in Pakistan — claiming that they no longer pose a threat to the West?

Is it even possible to take the radical out of the terrorist (or the terrorist out of the radical) through “de-radicalization programs”?

Those related questions will be the subject of the next article: How to Tame the Terrorist Within.

Susan Wills is a senior writer for Aleteia’s English-language edition

Nice and Dirty – the Importance of Soil

IRIN || 16 January 2015

 

Be it laterite, loam, peat or clay, soil is life. It's the foundation of food security, and so the UN has declared 2015 as the year to draw attention to the stuff.

As much as 95 percent of our food comes from the soil, but 33 percent of global soils are degraded, and experts say we may only have 60 years of nutrient-rich top soil left - it is not a renewable resource. 

Africa is especially hard hit. Land degradation denudes the top soil, shrinking yields and the ability of the earth to absorb harmful greenhouse gases. In sub-Saharan Africa, an estimated 65 percent of agricultural land is degraded. That costs the continent US$68 billion a year, and affects 180 million people - mainly the rural poor, already struggling to eke out a living.  But better land management practices could deliver up to $1.4 trillion globally in increased crop production. 

So how to implement sustainable policies that protect the food security of future generations? The uptake of sound soil management approaches is currently low. Farmers are under pressure to abandon effective traditional methods in favour of practices that deliver quicker, short-term, returns. 

But a report - No Ordinary Matter: Conserving, Restoring, and Enhancing Africa’s Soils - released in December 2014, points to potential pathways. These include combining targeted and selected use of fertilisers alongside traditional methods such as application of livestock manure, intercropping with nitrogen-fixing legumes or covering farmland with crop residues. The goal is an ambitious - if contradictory sounding - “Sustainable Intensification” of agriculture. Source...

 

 

If you think Education is Expensive, Try Ignorance

 

Jesuit Refugee Service || By Angela Wells || 15 January 2015

 

 

When South Sudan became the world's youngest country in 2011, the literacy rate was a mere 27 percent. To improve this statistic, the education ministry of South Sudan set a high goal: reduce the illiteracy rate by 50 percent by 2015.

Entering 2015 with no progress made, South Sudan ranks the most illiterate country in the world. The country's educational facilities, teachers and students have been neglected as resources have been diverted to funding the war which has displaced nearly two million people.

"A country without education is like a house without a foundation, and the foundation of South Sudan is crumbling. You can't build a future for a new nation unless you prioritise education; sadly South Sudan never did so. The country is on the brink of disaster, and one of main reasons is the lack of access to education," said Alvar Sánchez SJ, Jesuit Refugee Service (JRS) Maban Education Coordinator.

Goals are an empty illusion. Since conflict erupted in late 2013, all efforts made to fill educational gaps in the country were halted, especially in remote areas like Maban county in Upper Nile, where JRS has established projects.

The lack of resources allocated to educational materials and school management coupled with a scarcity of teachers has set back students in Upper Nile immensely.

The secondary school in Bunj Town has not opened its doors since December last year, and primary schools in Maban are far from offering even minimal services. For the past two years, students who have finished their primary school courses have still not been able to take their national exams.

Furthermore, a stark reallocation of resources is made evident by the difference between a teacher's salary and that of a soldier. Adwok Kiir, Director of Education of Fashoda county, also in Upper Nile, pointed out that a teacher's monthly salary in the county is 270 South Sudanese pounds (roughly 47 USD) while a soldier for the government army is paid 1,000 South Sudanese pounds (175 USD). As a result, many instructors abandoned their schools to join the military in September.

"If a teacher is paid nearly four times less than military personnel, the price will be paid later. If you think education is expensive, try ignorance," said Fr .Sánchez.

The cost of violence and ignorance is likely to be felt in South Sudan for years to come. However, if the international community is to make a long-term investment in education, perhaps the return of peace will result.

"Education is a priority, an emergency, something that should not be suspended or postponed...Emergencies – wars or even natural disasters – do not go away overnight; they affect people for years and whole generations miss out on an education...Ignorance breeds violence, which in turn becomes a vicious circle," said Superior General of the Society of Jesus, Adolfo Nicolás speaking at an event commemorating Universal Children's Day with JRS in Rome.

Restoring normalcy. The situation is no better in the refugee camps in Maban county, which hosts Sudanese refugees from neighbouring state of Blue Nile, 80 percent of whom are women and children.

JRS organises teacher training workshops in Maban county, offers recreational activities for children, and teaches English classes to adults from both the refugee and local communities.

In the emergency context, JRS has found that education is not only important to ensure knowledge is passed onto younger generations, but also to restore some sense of normality in the lives of those whose childhoods have been disrupted by violence and displacement.

"For the refugee and for local community youth, school gives them a rhythm they can depend on in a volatile situation. . It allows them to think not only about today, but for tomorrow, for a month from now, for six months from now and that allows them to hope. 'Hope,' as Confucius said, 'breeds peace,'" said Pau Vidal SJ, JRS Maban Project Director.

Changing power dynamics. Education, which breeds hope and builds strong leaders, can have a powerful multiplying effect, especially for women and girls.

Sadly, of the children not able to access education throughout the country, two-thirds are girls. Only six percent of girls finish primary school, but 42 percent marry before they reach 18.

"Educating girls is the first step in helping them realise their rights, become self-reliant and reduce their levels of dependency. They gain self-esteem and believe they can have power over their own lives, that they can do the same things as men," said Isaac Malish, JRS Maban Assistant Education Coordinator.

The ability of women to transform society, if given the right tools, is immense. Almost 100 women peace activists in South Sudan are organising to "advance the cause of peace, healing and reconciliation." "The women of South Sudan have specific talents that can take the country on a path to peace. They influence their families, especially their sons," said Fr Sánchez.

Cooperative effort. Replacing the current cycle of violence with a cycle of knowledge and peace requires coordinated action between leaders of society, especially parents and school administrators.

"Most parents value girls as assets to marry, because the dowries give them a source of income. They don't know that educating a girl makes her a different kind of resource, one that can allow her to create a better future for herself, her children and society as a whole. Educated women are the best advocates for educating other women in the community," said Isaac.

While 2014 left South Sudan in a protracted conflict, gender balance in education is not something which should be pursued in the aftermath of the crisis, but instead provided during times of displacement to foster strong leaders of the future.

"As Nelson Mandela said, 'education is the most powerful weapon which you can use to change the world' … In an emergency situation, inclusive education is our passport to a better future," said Fr Sánchez. Source...

 

After Charlie Hebdo, Could European Churches Be Next?

Aleteia || By Philip Jenkins || 10 January, 2015

It doesn't take a prophet to foresee the threat to Christian Europe.

Yet again, a hideous terror attack forces Europeans to confront basic political and cultural realities. The massacre at the Paris offices of Charlie Hebdo raises fundamental and troubling questions about free speech, and the delicate balance between civil rights and effective policing. But for Christians, and for Catholics specifically, current terrorist dangers should be forcing a very serious consideration of quite different issues. Looking at contemporary Europe, we should take account of one grim event that has not occurred yet, but that almost certainly will within the next few years. Unless political circumstances change radically, there will soon be a major attack on an iconic symbol of European Christianity.

To assert this demands no gifts of prophecy. For years, the most extreme segments of radical Islamism have uttered direct threats against Christian belief and practice, and it is immaterial whether their actions are in conflict with tolerant interpretations of Islamic tradition. Radical groups like al-Qaeda and ISIS condemn modern Christians as idolaters who fall outside the Qur’an’s promises of protection. To strike at Christian churches is to fight idolatry and infidels.
 
Terrorist groups have already targeted Christian individuals and institutions, with a view to achieving the maximum shock effect. In 1995, an Arab group based in the Philippines planned to assassinate Pope John Paul II on his visit to that nation, as a means of distracting attention from a related plot against U.S. airliners. (Though a Turk actually did shoot the same pope in 1981, he was not acting on behalf of Islamist causes.) When Pope Benedict made his controversial Regensburg speech in 2006, extremist Muslim groups organized protests outside Westminster Cathedral, England’s pre-eminent Catholic church, while a spokesman warned that execution awaited anyone who insulted Islam.
 
Cathedrals and great churches have featured among the aborted list of targets planned by Islamist cells. Such thwarted attacks were directed at Strasburg and Cremona cathedrals, and al-Qaeda made threats against the great cathedral of Bologna. A medieval fresco of the Last Judgment in that last building depicts the Prophet Muhammad being thrown into Hell, naked, with a snake wrapped around his body, and attended by a demon. Italian Muslim activists have frequently protested against this work. Scarcely less sensitive is the pilgrim shrine of Santiago of Compostela, given its dedication to Saint James the Moor-Slayer, Santiago Matamoros. Although they do not specifically offend Islamic sentiment, other high-profile Christian buildings would attract terrorist violence because of their enormous symbolic value.
 
Recent events in the Middle East make attacks on churches far more likely. Over the past decade, extremists across the region have deliberately targeted Christian buildings and communities for destruction, particularly in Syria and Iraq. Mob attacks against churches in Egypt in 2013 were the worst and most widespread in that country since 1321. Iraq has repeatedly been the scene of massacres of Christian clergy and worshipers, commonly during major celebrations like Christmas. Around the world, in fact, Christmas is a uniquely dangerous time for churches in lands like Nigeria or Kenya, when suicide attacks are most feared. Al-Qaeda and ISIS, the main perpetrators of such tactics, both have a potent presence on European soil.
 
European security officials are of course acutely aware of these dangers. Witness the security checks for anyone seeking to enter Rome’s St. Peter’s Square. But by definition, churches and church services have to be open to the public. For terrorist planners, they represent low-hanging fruit.

As an intellectual exercise, we should think through the consequences of such acts. What would be the cultural or political effect of an attack that devastated a cherished building such as Westminster Abbey or Notre Dame, Santiago de Compostela or the Duomo of Florence, or St. Peter’s in Rome itself? Or what about simultaneous Baghdad-style attacks on Midnight Mass services in two or more European cities?
 
The immediate response, undoubtedly, would be grief and fury, and Muslim leaders would be among the first to condemn the hypothetical attack, and with utter sincerity. They would declare that the terrorists represented an extreme fringe of the faith, who violated its basic precepts. Church authorities in turn would undoubtedly respond with words of forgiveness and reconciliation, and we would expect mass interfaith gatherings.
 
It is difficult though to avoid the likelihood of increased religious tension and confrontation. As an attack would result in dramatically increased and militarized security around other churches, it would promote a sense of siege, and encourage a rhetoric of crusade and jihad. The Vatican initially described the London subway attacks of 2005 as “anti-Christian,” but withdrew the comment when it was attacked as inflammatory. In other circumstances though, blatant anti-Christian motives might be impossible to conceal.
 
Conceivably, we might even imagine old-stock European Christians being galvanized to a new awareness of their culture and heritage, to a newly discovered sense of the Christian history they had always taken for granted. In England, for instance, the old crusader flag of St. George was virtually unknown forty years ago, but is now a standard symbol of national identity. We might also expect enhanced militancy from the Global South immigrants living in Europe, millions of whom are Christian, and whose home countries are the scene of interfaith violence. Might we expect retaliatory violence? Far-right nationalists might themselves adopt Crusader rhetoric and imagery, as they struck at mosques and Islamic centers.
 
I don’t pretend to predict consequences in any detail. It would, though, be valuable to think through such potential atrocities before they actually occur. Source...


Philip Jenkins is a Distinguished Professor of History at Baylor Universityand author ofThe Great and Holy War: How World War I Became a Religious Crusade.