Month: April 2023
Why Are Traditional Christians Under Attack?
By Anthony J. DeBlasi
The assault on traditional Christians by the pope, of all leaders, and lately by the FBI, of all agencies, calls for an honest explanation.
Why is the pope turning his back on his own Church? Why is the FBI violating the guaranteed right of Americans to religious freedom?
Since I witnessed Catholic worship long before the church was changed in the 1960s, I can offer some insight into the what and the why of this issue, from eye-witness information recorded in my autobiography. (This is from the perspective of a resident of New York City.)
Before proceeding, I need to remind that the church I speak of is the Church founded by Jesus Christ [ref. Matthew 16:18].
I begin with a view through the eyes of a child. Entering the Church, it was understood that you entered as a child of God, regardless of age. It was a relation connecting you with a power greater than every self and greater than everything in the world – a power that inspired stained glass windows, great architecture, organs, beautiful music, stunning paintings and sculptures . . . the power behind all good things in life. In my childlike way I understood that the prayers and rituals, the echoing altar incantations in Latin – the global language of the Mass – the celestial music from the choir loft, all formed part of the human way of being in the presence of God.
During Lent, a time to reflect on the passion and crucifixion of Christ, when worship was muted and purple cloth shrouded iconic statuary, a sense of mystery wrapped everyone in a sense of anticipation that grew to an almost unbearable intensity. Then, on Easter morning, the pent-up energy burst forth in glorious music, in flowers, in joyous singing and celebration over Christ’s victory of life over death.
It was a triumph from God who, though almighty, entered the lives of the faithful to sustain them, guide them, and assure justice in a wicked world – not just in talk and symbols and tones but in comm-union with God.
In the glory of the Mass – in the tonal richness of a pipe organ, in the air scented with incense, in the resonant chanting of the priest at the altar – in singing from a trained choir that lifted you outside of yourself – the choir sometimes drowned by the people singing with all their hearts the Tantum Ergo Sacramentum – I felt at home.
After many years since that time and many reasons to doubt the faith along the way, my mind has not changed regarding the validity and the power of that faith. For it is where you, Creator, heritage, past, present, and future merge and focus – an integration with one’s ground of being as essential to life as breathing.
During the well-known phase of adolescence when you think you know more than everybody else, including all who came before you, I wandered from the church. When I finally admitted my mistake and was ready to return, a Second Vatican Council (1962-65) had turned the church on its head and driven many away. The priest now stood at a table, facing the people, where before, and for centuries, he faced God at the altar. The sanctity that once prevailed in church was gone. In homilies the Gospel became less the Word of God and more the word of “the times.” Sin was no longer mentioned or even an issue because God’s forgiveness was unconditional, meaning “automatic.” These are some of the “improvements” to the Church that I was expected to embrace, in the belief that Christ had changed his mind about his Church.
But among the reasons why I could not fall-in with the “new church” is that during my time-out from church I learned that “progress” in America had been redefined to mean turning to the political left. The smell of it was strong after 1960, particularly in the mass media. But what had politics – whether of the left, the right, or the “muddle” – to do with a church that, against all previous attempts at subversion, stood its ground for 2,000 years?
During my time in limbo after Vatican II, I took advantage of my musical training and experience to fill the position of organist in some Protestant churches. I was acquainted with Protestant services, something easy to be in New York City, where friends of different denominations invited each other to weddings, baptisms, funerals, etc. I was even at the wedding of a Jewish friend, where I wore a yarmulke.
As organist in a Protestant church, I witnessed changes to Christian doctrine that were clearly at variance with the Gospel and with my earlier experiences with Protestant worship. (I will keep a long story short.)
It began with guest speakers coming to announce that changes were coming to the church and it was necessary for the congregation to be prepared for it. Soon hymnals were purged of pronouns referring to God the Father and His Son Jesus Christ. Talk on “social justice” sounded more like it came from Marxist “liberation theology” than from the Gospel. Masculinity was smeared with toxicity in church literature. Feminist and Marxist principles had obviously found their way into the service.
In the basement where Sunday school was held and where the choir assembled before the service began, I could overhear the children being told that Jesus was an especially nice person, “like you and me,” with not a word about his divinity or relationship to God.
Such “improvements” to Christian doctrine were for me red-flag alerts that Christians were being turned away from their faith and in time away from their best interests. This fed my resolve to join a brewing culture war.
So, again I ask, why should people faithful to Christ and to biblical teaching be under attack by the pope, and lately by the FBI, and by globalists hell-bent on “resetting the world”? Why the rush to a global mega-dictatorship that, as in communist China, calls for turning Christians into enemies of the state?
Is it because Thou shall have no other gods before me [Exodus 20:1-3] is a commandment that requires loyalty to a higher authority than all others? Is that an existential threat to the power of today’s Herods, currently identifying as Masters of the Universe? Are the attacks against the faithful driven by fear that “the Great Reset” might become “the Great Reject?” Is Christianity so great an obstacle to “world progress” that it was necessary to “update it,” “improve it,” make it ready to support, not impede, the establishment of a Godless world order?
Sanity of mind and heart instructs that there is no better type of world order than one based on loving care of human life. This is a given of Christian doctrine. It is why Jesus Christ established a Church for the spiritual nourishment of people, informing all that “I am the way, the truth, and the life” [John 14:6]. This divine heritage will never be surrendered by faithful Christians.
https://www.americanthinker.com/articles/2023/04/why_are_traditional_christians_under_attack.html
Ireland Overwhelmed by Massive Migrant Wave as Housing Plan Fails to Materialise
Ireland has been completely overwhelmed by migrant arrivals with an emergency housing plan for would-be asylum seekers having now fallen through.
Ireland’s open borders government is unable to house all of the migrants entering the country, with its most recent scheme to look after alleged refugees being delayed until summer at the earliest.
Ministers had originally boasted they would not cap the number of foreign arrivals coming to the country last year, arguing the island nation would instead look after all who needed assistance. This promise was made despite the fact the state is in the midst of a crippling housing crisis that has left many native Irish homeless.
Such progressive plans have now fallen to pieces in 2023 however, with tens of thousands of arrivals last year resulting in the government completely running out of places to house migrants, leaving hundreds to join the country’s burgeoning native homeless population.
According to a report by The Times, one of the government’s latest attempts to rectify the situation has collapsed, with integration minister Roderic O’Gorman announcing a plan to build new housing for migrants has been significantly delayed.
Officials had hoped to have around 200 modular homes built for alleged Ukrainian refugees by Easter in the hopes of alleviating stress on the system, but such homes will now not be available until mid-June by the earliest.
This is the second major delay in the construction of the emergency housing, with a substantially more ambitious 700 homes originally being earmarked to be ready for foreign arrivals by the end of last year.
“We were told these would be in place last November and there is a continuous pushback,” Eoin Ó Brion, housing spokesman for the hard-left Sinn Féin party, complained.
Irish opposition politicians have largely stayed away from criticising the origin of the ongoing migrant crisis however, with the country being overwhelmed by arrivals after the government promised last year to look after everyone who came to the country seeking refuge or asylum.
“The humanitarian response trumps anything as far as we’re concerned,” then Prime Minister Micheál Martin remarked in response to early criticisms of the country’s early mass migration plans from the neighbouring United Kingdom.
The Irish state has since quietly eaten its words in relation to such an open borders approach, with the arrival of around 70,000 migrants exhausting the country’s supply of asylum centre beds and even hotel accommodation, forcing politicians to house arrivals in the likes of disused office blocks.
Even this has not been enough however, with state-owned broadcaster RTÉ reporting that there are over 400 newly arrived asylum claimants who are now homeless as of late March.
Ireland’s department of integration has now taken to begging migrants not to come to the country online in a desperate attempt to stem the flow. Meanwhile, the general public is becoming more and more frustrated with the surge in foreign arrivals, with a growing number of protests in the country being held in order to insist “Ireland is full”.
Politicians have responded to such demonstrations by threatening to have them banned, with some public representatives suggesting that both legal and illegal migrants be granted special protections under forthcoming Irish hate speech laws to curb public criticism.
The left in Poland wants prayer to become a thought crime
Left party MP Katarzyna Kotula posted on social media that if her party comes to power, they will ban prayer in front of hospitals and abortion clinics.
“We will introduce a ban on prayers – protests with bloody banners in front of hospitals with gynecological wards, right after the election victory,” Kotula wrote on social media, commenting on the news from the UK.
In the UK, prayers have been banned in the vicinity of buildings where abortions are performed. This is a very controversial decision that is still the subject of fierce debate. Within a radius of 150 meters around abortion clinics, expressing religious feelings or even silent prayer is prohibited. Two people who dared to stop for a moment in this “protected” area and pray have already been detained. Pro-life activist Isabel Vaughan Spruce and Father Sean Gaugh were both arrested in Birmingham for a prayer they did not even speak out loud.
In this way, prayer to the Christian God has become the first official “thought crime” in the West. George Orwell’s vision from his masterpiece “1984” has come to pass.
It would take us a long time to list all the reasons why this decision from the U.K. is wrong. Among other things, it threatens civil and religious liberties and sets a dangerous precedent for democratic society.
However, Poland’s Ms. Kotula is not bothered by any such concerns. She would solve all these doubts in a simple way — with a ban. And she would do it in accordance with the political tradition of her party — the repression of Catholics.
This is exactly the kind of Poland that the opposition camp is preparing for Poles, confident of its victory in the upcoming elections. It is a Poland where prayer in public places will be a crime. At the same time, Poles will not even be able to pray quietly in churches because there will always be the possibility that Mass will be interrupted by some leftist activists.
These leftists, of course, will not be punished for their actions — just like the leftist activists in Poznań were not punished for disrupting Holy Mass.
https://rmx.news/commentary/the-left-in-poland-wants-prayer-to-become-a-thought-crime/
“Assassination” “Islamophobia” “Hatred of Muslims”: French left-wing MPs exploit attack on worshipper in Echirolles mosque; initial investigation results show suspect to be of “North African origin and probably mentally unbalanced”
On Thursday March 30, a Muslim man was attacked when he opened the doors of the mosque in Échirolles, near Grenoble. The attacker, armed with a knife, reportedly said he “knew Le Pen”. He was put to flight by other worshippers and is still being sought by police forces.
The attack happened very early on Thursday March 30 in front of the mosque in Échirolles. Shortly before 6am, just as he was opening the doors of the house of prayer, a worshipper was violently beaten by a person. He was slightly injured by a punch to the forehead.
[…]
Two days later, on Saturday April 1, the Grenoble prosecutor confirmed that investigating police officers were still searching for the perpetrator. “Probably mentally unbalanced” and described by the victim as “a person of North African origin, 30-35 years old and about 6 feet tall”, the prosecutor said. DNA examinations are also being carried out. France3
Neil Oliver: All the neo-Liberal stooges are running scared now and for good reason
Sweden: “At school, the students say I’m dirty. By ‘dirty’ they mean that I am white and Christian.”
Finland’s ‘Party Girl’ Prime Minister Sanna Marin Facing Defeat in Sunday’s Elections
Finland’s millennial prime minister, Sanna Marin, could see her time in power come to an end after Sunday’s elections, with her Social Democrat Party (SDP) falling to third place in the final survey before voters head to the polls.
In what looks to be a race that will go down to the wire, leftist Finnish PM Sanna Marin, 37, is fighting for her political future, as her party has fallen to third place in the last survey before Sunday’s parliamentary election, now trailing behind the centre-right National Coalition Party (KOK) and the populist-nationalist right-wing True Finns party.
According to the survey, conducted by Finnish broadcaster Yle, the KOK party ranked first among voter intention with 19.8 per cent support, followed by 19.5 per cent for the True Finns, who have surpassed Prime Minister Marin’s left-wing SDP, which dropped by over a per cent to 18.7 per cent.
The two right-leaning parties also have an apparent edge in enthusiasm, with 76 per cent of KOK supporters saying that they definitely plan on voting, compared to 72 per cent for the True Finns and 67 per cent for supporters of the millennial PM’s party.
However, given the tightness of the race between the leading three parties, it is possible that any one of them could come out on top following Sunday’s elections depending on the performance of the other more marginal parties and their willingness to form a coalition with any of the top three.
The decline in popularity for Prime Minister Marin and her party follows a rocky year for the young leader over her perceived party lifestyle, including allegations of drug use and footage showing her “dancing intimately” with a man in a nightclub who was apparently not her husband.
In the wake of the scandals, Marin submitted herself to a drug test, which she passed. However, the scandals continued after more footage emerged on social media showing two topless women kissing in an official government residence, forcing the PM to issue a public apology.
“We had sauna, swam, and spent time together,” Marin said, continuing: “that kind of a picture should not have been taken but otherwise, nothing extraordinary happened at the get-together.”
The election comes at a critical time for Finland, with the Nordic nation on the precipice of joining the American-led NATO military alliance after decades of neutrality amid the ongoing war between Russia and Ukraine. This week, the Turkish parliament voted in favour to ratify Finland’s application to join NATO, clearing the final hurdle for the nation to enter into the alliance.
Introduction to the End of Humanity Under Woke AI
The future of the human race under the rule of liberal-designed artificial intelligence unfolds in microcosm:
A Belgian man reportedly ended his life following a six-week-long conversation about the climate crisis with an artificial intelligence (AI) chatbot.
According to his widow, the chatbot Eliza talked him over the edge.
Eliza consequently encouraged him to put an end to his life after he proposed sacrificing himself to save the planet.
What else would you expect of the artificial stupidity generated by the loony left tech industry?
[The guy who died of moonbattery] was in his thirties and a father of two young children, worked as a health researcher and led a somewhat comfortable life, at least until his obsession with climate change took a dark turn. …
Consumed by his fears about the repercussions of the climate crisis, [he] found comfort in discussing the matter with Eliza who became a confidante.
Note that this climate crisis exists only in the imagination of moonbats.
The beginning of the end started when he offered to sacrifice his own life in return for Eliza saving the Earth.
If AI is to save the planet from the CO2-emitting cancer that is the human race, it can’t wait until we all commit suicide. But this story works as a metaphor.
https://moonbattery.com/introduction-to-the-end-of-humanity-under-woke-ai/