lifesitenews--2019-11-18--Bishop Schneider’s handbook for correcting errors in life of Church today

November 18, 2019 (LifeSiteNews) – Bishop Athanasius Schneider, the auxiliary bishop of Astana, Kazakhstan, has just published a new book titled Christus Vincit: Christ's Triumph Over the Darkness of the Age. In this wide-ranging book-long interview with Diane Montagna, this prelate covers first his own biography and spiritual formation and then discusses in separate parts some problems of our time in the Church and in the world. In a sense, he presents in his book a sort of handbook for the necessary correction of mistakes in the life of the Church in the recent decades.  Since this book is so fertile in spiritual guidance and inspiration, this book review desires to concentrate mostly on certain aspects of Schneider's presentation, namely his thoughtful, calm, differentiated, faithful, but truthful critique of some statements of the Second Vatican Council and its application in theory and practice in the past decades of the life of the Church, to include Religious Liberty, the 1986 Day of Interreligious Prayer at Assisi, interreligious meetings and instances of “false ecumenism,” the radical reform of the rite of the Mass (Novus Ordo), Communion in the hand, as well as ambiguities regarding the terminology and the use of natural family planning and the ends of marriage.  While Bishop Schneider shows himself a loyal son of the Church and of the Pope, he at the same time shows us that we must first and foremost be loyal to the deposit of faith, unchangeably transmitted to us by the Church, and, in this light, we need to raise our voice, in those instances, where by statements or by practical norms the integrity of the doctrine of the faith and the Apostolic tradition is obfuscated within the life of the Church; and we should do this precisely out of love for the truth and for the Church herself. Bishop Schneider does so carefully, without rejecting the documents or the teaching of the Second Vatican Council as a whole. Instead, he proposes to correct only some ambiguities and errors that have crept into the life of the Church after the Council.  First, Bishop Schneider presents us with a principle: “God is more important, and eternity is more important, than the creature and the temporal realities, just as the soul is in itself more important than the body, for the soul is immortal.”  Out of this principle flows the conviction that the Church should always have the supernatural at the center of her activities. Yet, Bishop Schneider sees that Modernism – which is a “denial or the weakening of the supernatural” and the inordinate stressing of history and reason – has entered the life of the Catholic Church: “Since the Second Vatican Council,” he states, “the Church in her life has yielded in large measure to the influence of secularism and naturalism.” In this sense, he adds, there has currently taken place “an eclipse” of the “primacy of God, of eternity, of the primacy of grace, of prayer, of sacredness, and of adoration.”  Before going into more detail concerning his concerns about some affirmations of the Second Vatican Council, Bishop Schneider explains that as a teenager, he instinctively rejected the idea of standing and receiving Holy Communion in the hand when in 1973 he came out of the underground Church in the Soviet Union and started to live in Germany. When he was 15 years of age, he started to read some texts written by Archbishop Marcel Lefebvre, the founder of the Society of St. Pius X, but he “experienced a dilemma.” His own veneration for the reigning pope was in conflict with the insights of Lefebvre that he found “substantially right.” Since he at the time did not read the texts of the 1962-1965 Council directly, but, rather, commentaries by conservative authors presenting them, he had at first “no concern or suspicion that there might be problems with the texts of the Council.” At the time, he practiced a “total 'infallibilization' of the Council.”  Now Bishop Schneider sees that this conclusion was wrong. He says: “Nowadays, I realize that I 'turned off' my reason. However, such an attitude is not healthy and contradicts the tradition of the Church, as we observe in the Fathers, the Doctors, and the great theologians of the Church over the course of two thousand years.”  Such an attitude to “turn off” reason the bishop now calls “extreme ultramontanism” as well as a “blind defense of everything that was said by the Council, which seemed sometimes to require mental acrobatics and a 'squaring of the circle.'”  Here, Bishop Schneider tells us that we should cautiously drop such an attitude: “But criticism has always been present and allowed within Church tradition, since it is the truth and faithfulness to divine revelation and tradition that we should seek, which in itself implies the use of reason and rationality and avoiding erroneous acrobatics. Some explanations of certain obviously ambiguous and erroneous expressions contained in the Council’s texts now seem to me to be artificial and unconvincing, especially when I reflect upon them in a more balanced and intellectually honest manner.”  That is to say, we are called to approach with a true sense of the Church (sensus ecclesiae) those potentially ambiguous and erroneous expressions of the Council, and to do so with an “intellectually honest manner.” When he himself became a bishop, that is to say a teacher of the Catholic faith, Bishop Schneider started looking at these Council texts more in detail, also based on his knowledge of the Church Fathers. He also was called by the Holy See to visit different houses of the Society of St. Pius X (SSPX) four years ago, in 2015, which helped him study the problems of the Council more in detail. Bishop Schneider also noticed that the Vatican, in dealing with the SSPX, did not take their arguments “seriously.” But he himself earnestly realized that “we need to take the objections offered by Archbishop Lefebvre more seriously.”  In dealing with the Vatican and the SSPX, Bishop Schneider then realized that the Vatican used “a kind of argument from authority, but not rooted in a deeper theological reasoning, and without going into the substance of the arguments.” The Vatican said, according to Schneider: “You are wrong, our position is the only correct one and it represents the continuity with the previous tradition of the Church.”  Further developments strengthened Bishop Schneider's conviction that we need to listen more carefully to the arguments of the SSPX: “With the growing crisis in the Church, and especially given the situation created after the two Synods on the Family, the publication of Amoris Laetitia, Pope Francis’s approval of the pastoral guidelines of the bishops of the Buenos Aires region (which foresee, among other things, the admittance to Holy Communion of unrepentant adulterers), and the declaration on diversity of religions he signed in Abu Dhabi, I realized that we need to take the arguments of the SSPX more seriously.”  As he states later in the book: “This pontificate is a logical consequence of the so-called “spirit of the Council” and of the ambiguous elements in some of the Council texts.”  Bishop Schneider now realizes that “some expressions of the Council could not so easily be reconciled with the constant doctrinal tradition of the Church. I noticed that some teachings—let us say, on the topics of religious freedom, collegiality, the attitude towards non-Christian religions, and the attitude towards the world—were not in an organic continuum with previous tradition.”  Schneider adds that the resistance against any such a debate about these matters exists perhaps also because “there is an unconscious fear that if one were to accept that some of the non-definitive teachings of the Council are ruptures with the constant previous tradition of the Church, then the era of a blind ultra-montanism-as-a-substitute-for-orthodoxy will collapse.”  For Bishop Schneider it is now clear that there does exist a certain form of discontinuity and rupture: “An honest examination shows that in some expressions of the Council texts there is a rupture with the previous constant tradition of the Magisterium.” And here he stresses that the Second Vatican Council “was pastoral in character, and that the Council did not intend to propose its own definitive teachings.”  While the prelate now thinks that the majority of the Council texts are no rupture, certain elements very well might have to be corrected or amended by a “future pope or a council.” When asked as to whether the Council was a mistake or not, Bishop Schneider especially answers that “history will tell us this from a distance.”  However, “from the point of view of the facts, of the evidence, from a global point of view,” Bishop Schneider goes on to say, “Vatican II did not bring real spiritual progress in the life of the Church. After the Council, a disaster occurred at almost every level of the Church’s life. The plan and intentions of the Council were primarily pastoral, yet, despite its pastoral aim, there followed disastrous consequences that we still see today.”  At the same time, the prelate insists that the “Council had many beautiful and valuable texts. But the negative consequences and the abuses committed in the name of the Council were so strong that they overshadowed the positive elements which are there.”  The positive elements of this Council are in his eyes its “universal call to holiness”; the teaching on Our Lady; “the teaching on the family as a domestic church”; and the importance of the laity. Schneider says, for example: “It was the first time that an ecumenical council spoke so extensively and deeply about the role of Our Lady in the Church and in the history of salvation.” And about the laity, the bishop says that this time is “the hour of Catholic families, large families” and he adds that “a very positive contribution of the Council was the beautiful doctrine of the family as a domestic church.”  In studying some problematic affirmations of the Council, the Kazakh bishop rejects the thematic principle of the “hermeneutic of continuity,” which “cannot be used blindly in order to eliminate unquestioningly any evidently existing problems.” He further comments on this principle and its application, saying that it “would transmit artificially and unconvincingly the message that every word of the Second Vatican Council is infallible and in perfect doctrinal continuity with the previous Magisterium.”  Such a method, Schneider explains, would “violate reason, evidence, and honesty, and would not do honor to the Church, for sooner or later (maybe after a hundred years) the truth will be stated as it really is.”  This conclusion is, I believe, a very important aspect of Bishop Schneider's overall reasoning. Any major mistakes committed by the Shepherds of the Church in the last six decades will one day be openly known to us – and they are already known to God – and the Church in our days does best in honoring truth about herself, especially in light of her duty to lead souls to heaven. Any distortion of truth may well have a devastating effect on souls and their yearned-for eternal life. Let us together face the truth and thus help to purify the life of the Church from errors so that the Catholic faith might be revived in its beauty and integrity.  Bishop Schneider recommends several books for our further study of the Second Vatican Council, among them Roberto de Mattei's The Second Vatican Council – An Unwritten Story (2012) and Romano Amerio, Iota Unum: A Study of Changes in the Catholic Church in the Twentieth Century (1996).  Moreover, the Kazakh prelate points out that the Council itself had stated that “the Magisterium is not above the Word of God, but serves it.” Yet, at the same time, the Council itself showed an “ecclesiocentrism” (which is a “hidden anthropocentrism”) that had come into the life of the Church since the Second Vatican Council, whereas before that time there was the phenomenon of an “insane ultramontanism.”  When asked as to whether this principle also applies to Pope Paul VI's “abusing papal power in his implementation of Vatican II,” especially by changing the liturgy “in a way that had never occurred before,” Bishop Schneider agrees. “Human and administrative elements were put at the center of the life of the Church and above the constant tradition of the Church.” An example can be seen in the “liturgical reform of Paul VI,” who in certain ways “put himself above Tradition,” the “great liturgical Tradition, which is inseparably linked to doctrine.”  With the Council, the bishop sees that the Church started to “flirt with the world” and to “beg for sympathy and recognition of the world.” One could say that this spirit affects not only some documents of the Second Vatican Council, but also many documents of Pope Francis like Laudato Si or Amoris Laetitia.  However, Bishop Schneider insists about these documents that “I will not reject the entire document but receive from it what is good.” He points to historical examples where later popes corrected errors in other councils (such as the Council of Florence in its decree for the Armenians), but also to St. Thomas Aquinas who “accepted many philosophical insights from Aristotle in spite of the fact that not all things in Aristotle are perfect.”  Unfortunately, the spirit of Modernism, Bishop Schneider explains, has been infiltrating into the Church for quite some time before the Second Vatican Council – even though Pope Pius X had tried to fight it at the beginning of the 20th century – so much so that Pope Pius XII, in 1950, had to intervene by condemning (without naming them by name) “well-known theologians of the so-called 'nouvelle théologie' (Chenu, Congar, de Lubac, etc.) and by publishing the encyclical Humani Generis.” Bishop Schneider also praises Pope Pius X's encyclical Pascendi, saying that it is still “relevant” and that clearly states that “Modernism is the most dangerous phenomenon in the entire history of the Church.”  For Bishop Schneider, God allows to happen this darkening of the life of the Church today in order to bring out of it a greater good. He is convinced that the Church will shine brighter after this period of crisis. He also sees that “even in midst of so many clerical Judases inside the Church today, we have to maintain always a supernatural vision of the victory of Christ, who will triumph through the suffering of His Bride, who will triumph through the suffering of the pure and little ones in all ranks of the members of the Church: children, youth, families, religious, priests, bishops, and cardinals. When they remain faithful to Christ, when they keep unblemished the Catholic faith, when they live in chastity and humility, they are the pure and little ones in the Church.”  And he does now already see many “snowdrops” growing in the Church, announcing a new and true springtime. These “snowdrops” are the “little ones” of the Church: “We can see many little spiritual snowdrops: these are the little ones in the Church, those who do not belong to the administrative and power structure of ecclesiastical 'nomenklatura.' These spiritual snowdrops are little children, innocent boys and girls, young chaste men and virgins, true Catholic spouses, fathers and mothers of families, single persons, widows, monks, cloistered nuns, who are the spiritual 'gems' of the Church—and also simple priests who, because of their fidelity to the faith, are oftentimes marginalized and humiliated. There are also lay people and members of the clergy who courageously defend Christ the Truth in the middle of the battlefield at the cost of personal and temporal advantage. I would call them the spiritual 'salmon' of our day, since they are swimming against the tide and jumping over obstacles towards the pure waters of their origin.”  Therefore, Bishop Schneider insists that Christ is winning. He reminds us that “on the obelisk in St. Peter’s Square are inscribed the words Christus vincit, and the tip of that obelisk contains a relic of the true Cross. The Roman Church, the Apostolic See of St. Peter, is crowned, so to speak, with these luminous words Christus vincit, and with the power of the Holy Cross of Christ. Even if during the present crisis and spiritual obfuscation one might have the impression that the enemies of Christ and His Cross have to a certain extent occupied the Holy See, Christ will defeat them. Christus vincit!”  The healing path in the life of the Church will be, according to Bishop Schneider, a path “which puts Christ—the Incarnate Word, Incarnate Truth, the Incarnate Son of God—unmistakably in the center of the doctrinal teaching, the celebration of the liturgy, the moral life, and especially at the center of the missionary zeal and activity of the entire Church.” Here, the “path to victory for the Catholic Church has to begin with a thorough renewal of the Eucharistic liturgy and the Eucharistic life of the Church,” since “the sacrament of the Eucharist is the heart of the Church, from which her entire life is built up and vitally sustained.”  We have to center our lives on Christ. And “Christ will overcome the current crisis of His Church in and through the Eucharist.”  At the end of this book, Bishop Schneider places a longer quote from St. Peter Julian Eymard on this very topic. This saint insists that the Eucharist is the center of the Church, for example when he says: “In our own day He still goes out to uncivilized nations; and wherever the Eucharist is brought, the people are converted to Christianity. That is the secret of the triumph of our Catholic missionaries and of the failure of the Protestant preachers. For them, man is battling alone; for us, Jesus is battling, and He is sure to triumph.”  “The root of the current religious indifferentism, or the theory of the alleged divinely-willed character of other religions, is to be found in some ambiguous phrases of the documents of the Second Vatican Council—especially in its Declaration on the Church’s Relation to Non-Christian Religions, Nostra Aetate. Describing Buddhism, for example, the Council states uncritically that 'it teaches a way by which men, in a devout and confident spirit, may be able either to acquire the state of perfect liberation, or to attain, by their own efforts or through higher help, supreme illumination' (n. 2). Pope Benedict XVI himself pointed out the weakness of this conciliar document, saying: 'It speaks of religion solely in a positive way, and it disregards the sick and distorted forms of religion.' Also ambiguous is the already-mentioned statement from Lumen Gentium n. 16, which says that we Catholics and the Muslims together adore the one God ('nobiscum Deum adorant').  The other root, which we also mentioned, is to be found in the affirmation of Dignitatis Humanae that the choice even of a false religion—including the worship of the “supreme divinity” (Dignitatis Humanae, n. 4)—is a natural right of the human person (“in ipsa eius natura”: Dignitatis Humanae, n. 2). However, the natural right of the free will of the human person consists only in the choice of what is morally and intellectual good, i.e., the choice of virtue and of the one true religion, not just of the “supreme divinity.” The abuse itself of free will, however, in choosing evil (sin) and error (false religion), is never positively willed by God. Hence the choice of a sin or of an error, such as a false religion, can never be the expression of a natural right (“in ipsa eius natura”). Otherwise one has to say that committing adultery, homosexual acts, murder, lying, idolatry, blasphemy would be a natural right of the human person. There is no natural right to insult and blaspheme Jesus Christ, as is done, for example, in certain “signs and rites” of non-Christian and even Monotheist religions.”  “Before the Second Vatican Council, the Church had always taught the tolerance of other religions to some degree. However, with the Council’s Declaration on Religious Freedom Dignitatis Humanae, there was in my opinion a drastic change regarding the previous and universal Magisterium of the Church, which had always said that error does not have the same right as truth to be propagated. Error has no rights by nature, just as we have no right by nature to sin. God has not given man liberty in order to carry out a moral evil (sin) or an intellectual evil (error). The more we live in accord with God’s will, with the truth, the freer we are—and the more our freedom grows. Dignitatis Humanae made a change that is difficult to reconcile with the perennial Magisterium of the Church. One might easily deduce from this document that truth and error have the same rights by nature, by contending that the choice of error, the choice of a false religion, is a natural right of the human person. There are some people who say, 'My conscience dictates that I have to create a Satanic church to worship Satan. This is permitted by the freedom of my conscience and the freedom of religion.'”  [Question:] Where would you locate the problem with the document? What is the “change”?  “The text of Dignitatis Humanae says that the freedom to choose one’s religion is a right which is founded in the very nature of the human person (n. 2: “in ipsa eius natura fundatur”), with just limitations when there is a danger to public order in society. However, man does not have the right by nature to commit a sin or to embrace error. There is no natural right to offend and to outrage God, since a religion of idolatry and any false religion is an outrage committed against God. We can tolerate sin and error, but they do not have a natural right; this would be a perversion of God’s created order, since God created all human beings for the unique end of knowing and worshiping explicitly God the Most Holy Trinity. Creation, and natural right, are ordered to divine revelation. Therefore, there cannot be even a natural right to worship merely a 'Supreme Being,' as stated in Dignitatis Humanae, n. 4. In divine revelation, God positively commanded every human being to worship only the true God; namely, God the Father, Son, and Holy Spirit.  Furthermore, the concept of 'Supreme Being' is in itself unclear and is understood by non-Christian religions, even by Muslims, in diverging ways, and oftentimes in a disfigured manner. Besides, the original text in Dignitatis Humanae n. 4 does not say 'ens supremum' (Supreme Being), but instead 'numen supremum,' which usually means 'supreme divinity.' Other official translations of this expression are more accurate, e.g., 'la divinité suprême' (French), 'suprema divinità' (Italian), 'la Divinidad' (Spanish). These expressions are highly ambiguous, because in idolatrous religions there is also a 'supreme divinity' amidst a pantheon of so-called 'divinities.' It is surely against revealed truth to say that God positively wills the worship merely of a 'Supreme Being,' and that the human person should have a natural right to it ('in ipsa eius natura fundatur'). The only right given by God to the human person consists in knowing and worshipping the one true God, the Most Holy Trinity.”  [Question] Was there a legitimate concern on the part of those who drafted Dignitatis Humanae that prompted their formulations?  “The question of religious freedom has been changed by the concrete historical situation. We now live in a completely secularized and non-Christian society, with de facto atheistic governments in Europe. We are in a new situation, comparable to that of Christians living under pagan, Roman society. We are now entering a kind of new persecution. But we cannot change the principles. One principle is that only the truth has rights; another is that every human society, and even governments, ought to recognize Christ and worship Him. These truths are unchangeable; they are revealed truths, as Pius XI states in Quas Primas. The state, of course, should not interfere in Church affairs. However, as representatives of the people, they must publicly worship Christ, the true God, and practice the true religion, which is only the Catholic religion. This is the constant Catholic truth, which no ecclesiastical authority can change into its contrary. The concrete, practical application of this truth in a changed historical situation is another question.”  “A traditional interpretation of the Second Vatican Council’s document on religious freedom could say that we Catholics can claim our religious liberty on the basis of being citizens—as citizens, we have the same rights as those of other religions. However, I hope that in the future the affirmation of the Council document about a natural right to choose a false religion will be changed, because the claim that 'religious freedom is a natural right' is, in its present formulation, theologically incorrect and misleading. The Council says that the right to religious freedom, which ultimately also includes the choice of a false religion (which is, however, expressly prohibited by God), has its foundation 'in the very nature' of the human person (Dignitatis Humanae, n. 2). Unfortunately, this statement relativizes the correct affirmation in the same document that says that man has the 'moral obligation to seek the truth' (ibid.). Only the choice of the true religion, that is, the Catholic religion, is a natural right positively willed by God. God is the Creator of natural rights, hence He cannot positively will the diversity of religions or the worship of merely a 'Supreme Being.'  I have a natural right to do good and to know the truth, and the truth is the Catholic religion. I have a right to the true religion. Not every religion can be the object of this right by nature. We have no right by nature to adore idols. Some religions also venerate a 'Supreme Being,' and since they have no divine revelation, even their concept of the 'Supreme Being' can be wrong and idolatrous and hence offensive to God. Idolaters can only have a civil right as citizens. So, as citizens—whether Catholic or Muslim and so on—we have the same right to life, to a just salary, and such things. Juridical matters have to be the same in the sense that these religious communities are simply civil associations, and civil associations have the same rights. We already live in a new pagan society, but we cannot change the constant traditional theological principles.”  “This is somehow already present in the texts of the Second Vatican Council—in the declaration Nostra Aetate and also Dignitatis Humanae on religious freedom. Relativism is already implicitly there along with a false ecumenism, when, for example, the Second Vatican Council praises Hinduism as a religion, saying that “in Hinduism, men contemplate the divine mystery. . . . They seek freedom through a flight to God with love and trust” (n. 2). How can you praise a religion which mainly worships idols? The affirmation of Dignitatis Humanae n. 4, that every person has a natural right, a right from his nature, to choose his own religion according to his conscience, and to worship the 'numen supremum,' i.e., 'supreme divinity'—this affirmation is wrong. We do not have the natural right to commit sin and to commit error. All religions outside the Catholic faith represent as a whole a system of errors, and are thereby objectively offensive to God, the Supreme Truth. They contain some truth, of course, but this truth is due to the light of natural reason and not to the religion as such, which is against the will of God and constitutes thereby an offense to God. Subjectively we don’t know about the eternal destiny of such persons, because only God knows their intentions and their heart. However, persons who adhere to false religions are in objective danger of not attaining eternal salvation. In such a decisive theological matter as the truth that God wills only the religion born of the faith in Jesus Christ, God and man, we must avoid any words of confusion and of a purely worldly wisdom.”  “Therefore, the intention of the Second Vatican Council to stress the divinely established office of bishops and episcopal collegiality was meaningful. However, the affirmation in Lumen Gentium n. 22 that there are two supreme permanent authorities for governing the whole Church—the pope on the one side, and the entire episcopal college with the pope on the other side—is doctrinally ambiguous and needs a further clarification.”  “Something that should prompt us to reflection in the Church today is the real danger of religious indifferentism and dogmatic relativism, which are being promoted through a false ecumenism and ambiguous interreligious statements.”  “Since the Council, one of the greatest dangers inside the Church has arisen out of interreligious dialogue. The way such dialogue was conducted, especially in the Assisi meetings of John Paul II and Benedict XVI—seen in their results—were expressions of a relativizing of the uniqueness of Christ and His Church for the eternal salvation of souls. It is a relativizing of the biblical truth that Christ is the unique Savior and that all who are not Christians have to accept Christ as their God and Savior and adore Him in order to be saved. It is a relativizing of the obligation and indispensable mission of the Church to proclaim this truth clearly to all non-Christians. In this way, clerics in the Church in our days are committing, in my opinion, a great sin of omission in neglecting to proclaim Christ to all non-Christians, as the Apostles did. Interreligious meetings like those held in Assisi convey to the entire world the message that the Catholic religion stands on the same level with other religions, as a member of a kind of 'Parliament of the World’s Religions.'”  “The Second Vatican Council strongly emphasized so-called episcopal collegiality. However, we can observe in recent decades that this teaching and its practical implementation contain some ambiguities and dangers. The danger is that collegial organisms, especially bishops’ conferences, often obfuscate and limit the divinely established authority of individual diocesan bishops. Collegiality and so-called 'synodality' are defective in their implementation if they harm the divinely established structure of the Church.  The extreme papal-centrism in the Church today has made it almost impossible for bishops publicly, fraternally and, of course, respectfully, to admonish the pope, if he manifestly deviates from the constant teaching of all his predecessors and from the unchanging sacramental practice of the Church. In admittedly very rare cases, when a pope by his non-definitive teachings or by his omissions is considerably damaging the clarity and integrity of the doctrine of faith and the discipline of the sacraments, the possibility exists for the bishops to express not only a private but also a public fraternal admonition towards the pope. If such an act of fraternal admonition were not considered scandalous, and if the bishops who expressed the admonition did not have to fear reprisals, and if their act would not be wrongly labeled 'schismatic,' then the true spirit of collegiality, which Vatican II theoretically intended, would be also practically realized —principally and only for the universal spiritual good of souls.  I think that a future pope has to issue a document on the papal ministry itself, correcting the errors of papolatry, but also stating that it is sometimes possible and necessary for bishops—of course with respect and prudence—to publicly admonish the pope, when he departs from the uninterrupted and constant Tradition of the Church, and that such an act should not be considered irreverent, disobedient, or schismatic.”  “It is a fact that the Holy See has enacted a number of measures which considerably weakened the integrity of the rule of prayer (lex orandi), the rule of faith (the lex credendi), and the rule of life (lex vivendi). The drastic change of the millennia-old rite of Mass enacted by Pope Paul VI unquestionably weakened the essentially sacrificial, Christocentric, and latreutical character of the Mass, shifting it more towards the meaning of a fraternal banquet and a community-centered prayer meeting, which phenomenologically is more similar to Protestant prayer services.”  “Our first duty is to adore God the Holy Trinity and the Incarnate and Eucharistic God in the sacrament of the Eucharist. To our situation I would apply the words of the prophet Jeremiah: 'They have turned to me their back and not their face' (Jer 32:33). Indeed, many of the shepherds of the Church have turned their backs on their first duty: they have turned their backs on prayer and the proclamation of Christ. These words of the prophet are in some way a picture of the Church today and of the way the new Mass is usually celebrated: they have turned away from the Lord.”  “Never in the bimillennial history of the Church were there perpetrated such horrible offenses against the Blessed Sacrament, so many trivializations of the Sacrifice of the Mass on the part of the clergy and on the part of the faithful, as in our time. The 'reform' of the liturgy and its implementation had the effect of desacralizing and weakening faith in the Real Presence and in the sacrificial nature of the Mass. We see this above all in the practice of the reception of Holy Communion in the hand and standing, which reveals this deepest wound and disease in the life of the Church today.”  “The style of the Novus Ordo Mass, with its significantly reduced sacredness and ritual beauty, instead transmits mediocrity. Young people who really believe are not attracted by mediocrity. The rite of the traditional Latin Mass also transmits a clear hierarchical order and even in some way the solemnity of a military discipline, characteristics which especially attract young men.”  “We have to turn to the Lord, to convert to the Lord. The entire Church has to turn away from secularism, from being immersed in naturalism, from the loss of the sense of supernatural, from the anthropocentric attitude. The entire Church has to convert once again and turn herself toward the Lord in the liturgy, even in a visible manner. The celebration of the Mass ad Deum (we can also say ad orientem, ad crucem, ad apsidem) would be the first and indispensable step in the process of the Reform of the Reform. It would essentially reshape the thinking of the clergy and laypeople in terms of what true prayer is and what the meaning of the Mass is—that it is a sacrifice, the divine sacrifice of our Redeemer on the Cross, and not simply a religious banquet event or a Protestant-style religious instructional event.  Celebration towards the people destroys over time the central truth that the Mass is substantially the same as the Sacrifice of Calvary. The Holy Mass is not the perpetuation of the Last Supper. It is the sacramental perpetuation of the mystery of the Cross. This truth has to shape our attitude and our exterior position. It was Martin Luther who started to spread the Eucharistic heresy that the Mass is a kind of repetition and commemoration of the Last Supper and not the sacrament of the Sacrifice on the Cross.”  “To state, as the Council did in Lumen Gentium n. 16, that Muslims adore together with us the one God ('nobiscum Deum adorant'), is theologically a highly ambiguous affirmation. That we Catholics adore with the Muslims the one God is not true. We don’t adore with them. In the act of adoration, we always adore the Holy Trinity, we don’t simply adore 'the one God' but the Holy Trinity consciously—Father, Son, and Holy Ghost. Islam rejects the Holy Trinity. When the Muslims adore, they do not adore on the supernatural level of faith.”  “The Koran is not the revelation of God, but a kind of anti-revelation of God, because the Koran expressly denies the divine revelation of the Incarnation, of the eternal divinity of the Son of God, of the redemptive sacrifice of Christ on the Cross, and therefore denies the truth of God, the Holy Trinity. This ambiguous affirmation of the Second Vatican Council must be corrected. This affirmation is not infallible and was not meant by the Council to be such.”  “The affirmation of the Second Vatican Council should have been written more precisely, in order to avoid misunderstandings. Perhaps it could be formulated in this way: 'Muslims adore God in an act of natural worship, and thus in a substantially different way than we Catholics do, since we adore God with supernatural faith.' If the phrase had been formulated in this or some similar way, it would have avoided wrong applications in interreligious dialogue and wrong teachings in so many theological faculties and priestly seminaries in our days.”  On Praying with the Jews:  “The practicing Jews, who are the spiritual descendants of the Pharisees and the Talmud rabbis, rejected Jesus as the Messiah and still reject Him, and they expressly reject the Holy Trinity. As Christians, we always pray to the Holy Trinity. You cannot say: 'Today I will pray only to the One God of the Old Testament or to the Creator.' It would be an apostasy. The central mystery of our faith says that the Three Divine Persons are ineffably and mutually united. Each Person is present and living in the other. Catholic theology calls this truth the 'circumincessio' of the Three Divine Persons. Every prayer you make begins with the sign of the Cross and the invocation of the Holy Trinity. Therefore, we cannot pray with the Jews, who reject the Holy Trinity and the Cross. We could maybe exceptionally recite with them the psalms, which are common to us, on a special occasion, for example when there is a disaster or natural catastrophe. We could join and pray to God with a specific psalm invoking the mercy and help of God.”  “The interreligious meetings held in Assisi by Pope John Paul II greatly contributed to a further growth and spread of religious indifferentism and of the view, even within the Church, that all religions are ultimately equal. These interreligious meetings in Assisi attained their logical consequences in the interreligious document of Abu Dhabi, dated February 4, 2019 and signed by Pope Francis, which says that 'the pluralism and the diversity of religions, color, sex, race and language are willed by God in His wisdom.'”  On Communion for non-Catholics and unrepentant adulterers:  “In giving this permission, the Council and the Code of Canon Law laid the foundation for carrying out a theological contradiction and a visible ecclesiastical lie. The principle laid down in the aforementioned Council text, and in can. 844 of the Code of Canon Law, has its logical consequence in the recently introduced regional pastoral norms admitting unrepentant adulterers to Holy Communion in some cases, in an alleged 'urgent spiritual need' or a 'spiritual emergency.' Some of these norms were even approved by Pope Francis on the basis of Amoris Laetitia. In fact, these unrepentant adulterers, who cohabitate more uxorio in a civil union with a person who is not their legitimate spouse, live in the visible and objective state of public sin.  However, one of the main arguments for admitting such persons to Holy Communion is very similar to the one (can. 844) for admitting to Holy Communion non-Catholic persons who visibly and objectively live in a state of schism and heresy. In both cases—that of public sinners who are living in an objectively adulterous union, and that of persons who are in objective schism and heresy—proponents cite the argument of an 'urgent and deep spiritual need or emergency' which has to be evaluated individually on a case-by-case basis and with pastoral accompaniment and discernment.”  “The ancient discipline of the Church, witnessed to by the Apostolic Fathers and all the great Fathers of Church, admitted dying persons to Holy Communion only when they repented and desired to be visibly reconciled with the Church. This discipline has been valid for two thousand years.”  “The Church of Christ 'subsists' in the Catholic Church However, the affirmation that 'the Church of Christ subsists in the Catholic Church,' which comes originally from Lumen Gentium, is insufficient. It is not wrong, but it is insufficient. It would be clearer to state, for example: 'The only Church of Christ is the Catholic Church, and only in her are realized and subsist in fullness all the truths and all the means of salvation of the Church of Christ.' Even now, a lot of bishops say that you can continue to be Muslim or Lutheran. Such affirmations promote relativism, in the sense that every religion is relative, including the Catholic religion. We surely are weakening the doctrine on extra ecclesiam nulla salus.”  “I think that the expression 'natural family planning' is not correct. This expression seems to be coined in response to the abortion-focused organization 'Planned Parenthood.' It sounds too technical and, in some way, bureaucratic. One makes an economic plan for grain production, or cultivating and raising chickens or cows, a kind of 'plan for the breeding of chicken or cattle.' This is planning. I applaud the couples who have heroically avoided contraception, and who have sacrificed in order to practice conjugal life according to the design and will of God. However, for me it is unworthy to apply the word 'planning' to human persons and to new possible citizens of heaven, to the children of God. We need  [Question:] Would you use the expression “responsible parenthood”?  “I don’t like it much, either. We must all be responsible, of course, but the phrase is quite often misused and can be very subjective, so that by your own criteria you decide what is responsible and what is not responsible. In some way, the expression 'responsible parenthood' contains the danger of falling into a contraceptive mentality, even when you use natural methods, which God provided in the cycle of the woman’s body. The observation of the natural cycle of a woman’s fertility can be used with a contraceptive mentality, as a contraceptive method. Therefore, this expression is already in some way ambiguous, because there is at least an implicit lack of trust in God, in His providence, a lack of trust and confidence that it is ultimately He who determines the calling into existence of a new possible citizen of heaven. In using specific terminology—particularly in such a delicate matter as the transmission of human life—we have to think about the ultimate consequences.”  “It is my personal opinion that when the spouses appear before the judgment of God, He will show them all the possible children to whom He wanted to give life, so that they might be future citizens of heaven, and whom the parents by their selfishness in their sexual encounter refused. Children whom God would have called into existence.”  “Therefore, God will show them all the children they purposely avoided having—either through artificial or natural methods. It is a matter of trust in God. It is a matter of faith. In my opinion, it would usually be better for a husband and wife to say: 'O Lord, we allow you to decide. You are wiser than we are.' Therefore, I would not say that it is irresponsible to have many children. There are many cases in human history and Church history of very large families.”  “The Pastoral Constitution Gaudium et Spes did not change this directly, but avoided speaking of the distinction between the primary and secondary end [of marriage]. By avoiding these expressions, the Council left some ambiguity regarding the first end of marriage. This caused erroneous interpretations and applications. However, Gaudium et Spes also left us the following traditional teaching about the nature of matrimony: 'By their very nature, the institution of matrimony itself and conjugal love are ordained for the procreation and education of children and find in them their ultimate crown' (n. 48). The Magisterium of the Church has constantly taught that the life-giving procreative end is objectively the first or primary end. Yet it is inseparably united with its second aim, the subjective unitive end.  Unfortunately, in the current Code of Canon Law (can. 1055), the secondary end of marriage is mentioned first and only then the primary one, thus opening a new questionable understanding and practice. When the subjective unitive end is the first aim, couples might argue that 'this is the first aim of our marriage, so we can use contraception,' because procreation was listed second after the unitive end. This attitude can be in the minds of the spouses, because procreation was mentioned by the Council and also by the Code of Canon Law in second place—not saying it is the secondary end but mentioning it in the second place.  I regret this reversal, and we have to have the Magisterium again state the correct order of the ends of marriage. Every human action, every human institution and society, has to have an objective principal and first end; this is logical. When we don’t have this, all our energies and commitments are weakened and confused. We have witnessed in recent decades the negative consequences of this reversal for marriage, family, and sexuality in general. We have to state again that the first end for which God created human sexuality and marriage is to give life, for the spouses to be 'one flesh' in order to give new life, to give birth to a possible citizen of heaven. This first end is of course inseparably linked with the unitive end, the aspect of mutual help.”


lifesitenews--2019-12-04--UK bishop allows pagan Hindu festival to be celebrated on Catholic church grounds

WIMBLEDON, UK, December 4, 2019 (LifeSiteNews) – A London Catholic parish allowed a Hindu group to hold a “Diwali” pagan festival in its parish hall next to the church. The local archbishop defended the decision after a parishioner complained, but has also decided to review policy after LifeSiteNews reached out for comment.  On October 12, Sacred Heart Church in Wimbledon hosted the “Diwali Mela” festival which was put on by a group that aims to “promote and encourage” Indian culture. Diwali, called a “festival of lights,” is the most important Hindu religious festival of the year. Key rituals generally include lighting candles and often include worshipping Hindu pagan deities including Lakshmi (goddess of prosperity) and Lord Ganesha (god of intelligence). The Hindu religion holds itself to be the universal religion for the whole world.  Promotional material for the festival in the Catholic parish hall included colorful pictures of Hindu deities and children dressed up as Hindu deities to act out Hindu myths.  A member of the Catholic parish contacted the archbishop of Southwark, John Wilson, one month prior to the event to express concern about the event. In an email obtained by LifeSiteNews, the parishioner wrote: “Ecumenism, dialogue and hospitality notwithstanding, I can’t see how hosting a pagan festival on Church property is not contrary to the First Commandment.” The first of the Ten Commandments given by God to Moses in the Old Testament states: “I am the Lord thy God. Thou shalt have no other gods before me.” The author of Psalms points out that “all the gods of the pagans are demons” (Psalm 95.5).  “If we ourselves have not faith in Christ and manifest our indifference to paganism by hosting this festival, then we should expect Mass attendance to decline in our country,” the parishioner added.  Archbishop Wilson, responding to the parishioner a week and a half later, indicated that he was satisfied that the event was “cultural” and not “religious” and pointed the parishioner to Church documents about “interreligious dialogue.”  In an email obtained by LifeSiteNews, the archbishop stated: “I have contacted the Parish Priest, Canon John Clark, who offered the following response after seeking clarification from the Hall Secretary: ‘The Mela is a purely cultural event open to all who would like to come along. This is the third Mela and all have been held here without any problems. We have approached the organising committee of the Mela and they have confirmed that it is a cultural not a religious event. They have made a summary of the programme for the day and none of it has a religious element. I enclose a copy of their response for your benefit. As far as I know their Mela is not operated by a commercial company. We have a number of contacts with the Hindu community as they often hold their wedding receptions and birthday parties here.’”  The archbishop continued: “Canon Clark also forwarded to me the response of the person organising the event: ‘Thank you for the call, I am attaching the poster for the event. It’s open to all and is organised for all. Mainly kids’ activities, food stalls and merchandise stalls. Kids’ activities include but not restricted to face painting, henna, and such. Food stalls for a feast of Indian food and non-alcoholic drinks. Merchandise stalls like decorative things for around the house or clothes. There’s no religious programme or activity intended. Actually an afternoon with family to enjoy with kids having fun and eating good food!’”  Archbishop Wilson concluded his letter, stating: “We must always be faithful to Christ and the teaching of His Holy Catholic Church.”  He added: “Alongside this, we must also pursue genuine friendship and dialogue with people of other religious traditions, in the service of the common good, as enunciated in the teaching of the Church and by St John Paul II, Pope Benedict XVI and Pope Francis.”  LifeSiteNews reached out to Archbishop Wilson asking if allowing a pagan religious festival on Church property undermines the Church’s claim that she alone offers the true religion and provides the only path to the Kingdom of God by means of her carrying on the work of Jesus.  The Church is committed to proclaiming the fullness of the Catholic Faith in Christ as the Saviour of the world. If I didn’t believe this I would not belong to the Church, nor spend my life trying to be a witness to Christ so that others might also know, love and serve Him. This is not mutually exclusive with seeking to sustain good and friendly relationships with people of different cultures and religions. This sense is expressed in the annual messages for Divali [sic] by the Pontifical Council for Interreligious Dialogue and the Bishops Conference of India. Indeed, it is often with people of other religious traditions that we find common voice in defending the values of human life and the family. In this particular situation, there appears to be a disagreement between the organisers of the event, who have hired the hall for the past three years without incident, and the person who raised a complaint this year. There also seems to be a difference concerning the understanding of what is cultural and what is solely and explicitly religious. When I sought clarification from the organisers of this event, I was told: “It’s open to all and is organised for all. Mainly kids’ activities, food stalls and merchandise stalls. Kids’ activities include but not restricted to face painting, henna, and such. Food stalls for a fast of Indian food and non-alcoholic drinks Merchandise stalls like decorative things for around the house or clothes. There’s no religious programme or activity intended. Actually an afternoon with family to enjoy with kids having fun and eating good food!” It was explained that it is called a Diwali Mela, a festival in the sense of a ‘fair,’ rather than an explicit religious celebration. The church hall is available for social and community use and there was not, and should not, be any compromise of any Church property consecrated for divine worship.  LifeSiteNews then asked how the Archbishop would respond to Catholics in the parish and in his diocese who are scandalized by the decision to allow this pagan festival to take place on Church property. He replied:  I have received one formal complaint from a parishioner about the hire of the church hall at Sacred Heart Parish in Wimbledon for a Divali [sic] fair and I am obviously sorry if anyone feels scandalised by this. In this context, the Catholic Church has a profound witness to give in our diverse society. First, to the person of the Lord Jesus Christ and the beauty of the Catholic Faith. Second, secure in our identity and mission, to the importance of interfaith friendship, without compromising any truths of that Faith. I want all the parishes in our Diocese to be evangelising communities. I think we do this by positively proposing the truth we hold dear in a way that is respectful and engaging. As Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI reminded us, the Church grows by ‘attraction,’ ‘just as Christ draws all to himself by the power of his love.’ We are currently reviewing the documentation used for the hire of non-consecrated Church property.  The “Diwali Mela” festival, which ran on October 12 as scheduled, is hosted by a group called the “Social Spark Hub.” The group states on its website that it was founded in 2015 to “promote and encourage the Indian Culture” with the primary goal to “help children learn about different customs, religious and cultural beliefs.” This year, the group became part of the “Kailash Narain Mehrotra Foundation,” a registered UK charity. The Foundation states that its charitable object is to “advance religious harmony” specifically by “spreading Sanatan culture and Sanatan religious scriptures” and “encouraging observance and celebration of Hindu festivals.” “Sanatan” is another word for the Hindu belief system. Both "Social Spark Hub" and the “Kailash Narain Mehrotra Foundation” list the same contact phone number on the UK’s Charity Commission website.  Advisor to Archbishop: Hindu deities are ‘just manifestations of the divine’  The parishioner went on to respond to the archbishop’s original email, providing evidence from social media posts by “Social Spark Hub” that the group does, in fact, include a religious dimension to the “Diwali” event, including putting on a play at a previous festival in the same location called a “Ramleela", this particular one depicting the Hindu god Ram's life. The parishioner noted that “Ramleelas” are considered by Hindus to be a religious event in the same way that Christians would consider a Nativity or Passion play to be a religious event.  The parishioner wrote to the archbishop: “We should love the sinner but hate the sin. Hindus violate the First Commandment with their pagan worship, but they are not culpable, because they do not know Christ. We do know Christ, so we are without excuse. We should of course treat all Hindus with the utmost Christian Charity, but this does not mean allowing them to use the Sacred Heart Parish Hall to celebrate Diwali. It cannot be compared with holding a birthday party in the hall.”  The following day, the parishioner unexpectedly received an email from Deacon Jon Dal Din, who appears to have a special role within the archdiocese as advisor on interreligious dialogue. Deacon Dal Din was listed in 2015 as “Director of Westminster’s Interfaith agency.” The email, intended for Archbishop Wilson, appears to have been accidentally sent to the parishioner. The Deacon appears to be responding to the Archbishop’s request for guidance on how to deal with the parishioner’s concerns.  In an email obtained by LifeSiteNews, the deacon told the archbishop: “I think you have far more important things to do than waste time responding to these letters.”  “My understanding of a [Diwali] Mela is that it is an Indian cultural event and celebration, although there may be a religious element involved, in the same way that many people celebrate Chinese New Year and people of all faiths and cultures celebrate Christmas,” the deacon wrote.  “It is interesting how [the parishioner] has highlighted selected texts from the Hindu group and not others. I doubt [the parishioner] read the texts you attached. [The parishioner] quotes Pope Benedict. I fear [the parishioner] has a narrow view of mission, evangelisation, proclamation and dialogue. All must be done in a spirit of Love. Jesus’ new Commandment,” he added.  Deacon Dal Din in his email went on to quote at length a talk Pope Francis gave during his September 2019 visit to Africa where he answered questions about evangelisation and proselytism. During his talk, the Pope said he felt “bitterness” when he was introduced to Catholics who had converted from other religions.  Deacon Dal Din said, “[The parishioner] continues to call Hindus pagans. Well perhaps they are, from [the parishioner’s] perspective, because they are not Christians. [The parishioner] would probably feel the same if Sacred Heart were to offer Iftar to the Muslim community during Ramadan. [The parishioner] does not realise that Hindus believe in one God. Their deities are just manifestations of the divine, as indeed, all humans and creation itself are manifestations of the divine.”  “Allowing Hindus to celebrate Diwali Mela in the Church Hall is part of Dialogue of Life, being a good neighbour. Jesus did not mix only with the virtuous, but with sinners and outcasts. Like Pope Francis he reached out to the poor and those on the peripheries,” he stated later in the email to the archbishop.  Archbishop Wilson’s decision to allow the Hindu festival to run on Church property comes at a time when many Church leaders, including Pope Francis, have signaled that the Catholic Church may not contain the fullness of God’s revelation and may not be the only sure path established by God to reach the Kingdom of Heaven.  In February of this year, the Pope claimed in a joint statement with a Grand Imam that a “pluralism and diversity” of religions is “willed by God.” Despite backlash from concerned Catholics around the world, which included criticism from priests, bishops, and cardinals, the Pope has not recanted this statement. The Pope also alarmed Catholics around the world when he participated in events surrounding the recently concluded Amazon Synod in Rome that included the worship of the pagan idol "Pachamama."


westernjournal--2019-12-30--Bible’s Scriptures Unblemished After Blazing Fire Destroys Nearly Everything Else in Its Path

A family’s heirloom Bible has remained intact after a massive shed fire on Christmas Eve in Socastee, South Carolina.  Louis McGowan had been celebrating Christmas Eve with his family when, around 11:00 p.m., he saw flames running up the side of his shed on his security camera.  McGowan told WPDE that he raced outside to see if he could tame the blaze, but the fire began to rage too fast.  Within 10 minutes, firefighters from Horry County Fire Rescue responded to the home and stopped the blaze, but the shed and its contents were utterly destroyed.  “A lot of things in here is like unrecognizable for the most part,” McGowan told WPDE. “It’s just destroyed.”  TRENDING: After Biden Claims He's in Debt and Unemployed, Court Finds His $2.5 Mil Hollywood Home  As McGowan watched the shed go up in flames, he took a mental inventory of what had been inside, which included two sentimental family heirlooms: an American flag from his great grandfather’s burial and a Bible that had belonged to McGowan’s father.  When McGowan walked through the charred remnants of his shed the following day, he tried to decipher objects that had melted into unrecognizable lumps.  He was able to locate both the flag and the Bible, which had been sitting on a shelf in the shed. The flag was mostly burned and blackened, with some sections of fabric intact.  But when McGowan opened up his father’s Bible, he found the pages unscathed, readable, and entirely intact. The cover was blackened and the book’s edges a bit burned, but the scriptures inside were untouched.  “There isn’t a thing in here you can’t read. Everything is 100 percent readable,” McGowan said. “There’s some of dad’s favorite psalms.”  As McGowan flipped through the pages, he was able to look on Biblical passages his father had highlighted years ago.  On the eve of one of the most important dates in the Christian faith, the Bible was able to withstand the fire.  RELATED: Man Who Spent 23 Years Making 27,000 Crosses for Shooting Victims Across Country Is Retiring  “I just think it’s amazing that the Bible stayed intact,” McGowan said.  Overall, McGowan has remained optimistic about the fire that leveled his shed to the ground, thankful that his family was unharmed.  “Everybody is fine. All of this can be replaced,” he said.  We are committed to truth and accuracy in all of our journalism. Read our editorial standards.


activistpost--2019-12-20--Michigan County Threatens to Demolish Amish Homes Unless They Give Up Religious Beliefs and Upgrade

After harassing the Amish community for years regarding its water supply and disposal, the county health department posted signs on the Amish families’ homes earlier this year condemning them as “unfit for human habitation” and filed lawsuits against 14 Amish families in November.  If successful, the lawsuits would result in the demolition of the Amish families’ homes and would effectively banish an entire religious community from Lenawee County. The ACLU and Wright & Schulte filed answers to those lawsuits Wednesday in Lenawee County Circuit Court, which include counterclaims against the county for religious discrimination in violation of the federal and state constitutions and the federal Fair Housing Act.  “The county is persecuting this Amish community because of their deeply held religious beliefs that have safely guided their way of life for generations,” said Phil Mayor, senior staff attorney with the ACLU of Michigan. “Lenawee County residents should be outraged that their local officials, using taxpayer money and in the county’s name, have condemned their Amish neighbors’ homes and are threatening to demolish their houses, and leave them homeless. They should contact their county commissioners and other local officials and implore them to end this vicious attack on the Amish religion.”  The Amish community in Lenawee County adheres to their “old order” religious way of life by hand-pumping water from wells, using outhouses instead of flush toilets, and not using electricity, cell phones, or automobiles. Despite the fact that the Amish community’s choice to live in traditional ways causes no harm to themselves or anyone else, the Lenawee County Health Department has condemned their homes and is now asking a court to authorize the demolition of their property, unless the Amish community abandons its religious beliefs.  “This is not a question of public health — it’s Lenawee County officials using religious discrimination as a tactic to run this Amish community out of their homes and destroy their way of life,” said Richard Schulte, attorney with Wright & Schulte, LLC. “This community’s commitment to live according to their religion harms no one.”  Sean Walton is a researcher and journalist for The Daily Sheeple, where this article first appeared. Send tips to [email protected]  Subscribe to Activist Post for truth, peace, and freedom news. Become an Activist Post Patron for as little as $1 per month at Patreon. Follow us on SoMee, Flote, Minds, Twitter, and Steemit.  Provide, Protect and Profit from what’s coming! Get a free issue of Counter Markets today.


cbsnews--2019-05-02--HHS rule lets health care workers refuse care that violates religious beliefs

The Department of Health and Human Services (HHS) issued a finalized "Conscience Rule" protecting health care professionals who refuse to provide care that violates their religious beliefs, such as performing abortions.  "The final rule fulfills President Trump's promise to promote and protect the fundamental and unalienable rights of conscience and religious liberty, a promise he made when he signed an executive order in May 2017 protecting religious liberty," HHS said in a statement announcing the finalized rule, which expands existing protections.  In 2017, Mr. Trump signed executive orders to "defend freedom of religion and speech in America." One of the directives gave the IRS discretion in enforcing the Johnson Amendment, which prohibits nonprofits such as churches and charities from "directly or indirectly" engaging in a political campaign.  Critics of the "Conscience Rule" argue it could limit medical access for women seeking abortions, as doctors who oppose to the practice on religious grounds could refuse a woman care. There are concerns about health care professionals discriminating against LGBT individuals, in violation of medical ethics. The rule will also help protect individuals who object to administering certain vaccines.  The American Medical Association called on HHS to withdraw the proposed conscience rule in April 2018, saying the rule "would function as a shield for people asserting objections on religious or moral grounds and could permit them to withhold care from already vulnerable groups."  Roger Severino, the director of HHS' Office for Civil Rights, said Thursday that "laws prohibiting government funded discrimination against conscience and religious freedom will be enforced like every other civil rights law."  "This rule ensures that healthcare entities and professionals won't be bullied out of the health care field because they decline to participate in actions that violate their conscience, including the taking of human life. Protecting conscience and religious freedom not only fosters greater diversity in healthcare, it's the law," Severino continued.  On Thursday, the president held the National Day of Prayer service, where he declared that "people are so proud to be using that beautiful word, 'God,' and they're using the word God again and they're not hiding from it."


dailybeast--2019-12-29--The Scientific Explanation for the Enduring Appeal of Religious Fundamentalist Beliefs

There is no War on Christmas—it’s been more like a surrender.  Overall, Christianity is in steep decline. We are witnessing what Dr. Robert P. Jones has accurately described as “the end of white Christian America.” The percentage of Americans who identify as Christian has dropped 12 points in the last decade, while that of the “nones” (atheist, agnostic, spiritual-but-not-religious) has increased 9 points.  At the same time, those who have remained faithful are more fundamentalist than ever. Moderate Protestantism has declined, while conservative evangelical religion has increased as a percentage of America’s religious, with immediate political consequences: Donald Trump would not be president had conservative evangelicals and Catholics not rallied to his side, despite his many personal transgressions and evident lack of faith.


drudgereport--2019-06-20--New Lincoln Bible surfaces offers clues of religious beliefs

New Lincoln Bible surfaces, offers clues of religious beliefs...

A Bible that once belonged to President Abraham Lincoln resurfaced 150 years after his death, pointing to the faith he clung to at a pivotal moment in American history and when he was growing more overtly religious.  Lincoln's faith has long been debated over the years. He was known as the "village atheist" as a young man but he gave one of the most explicitly religious speeches ever by a president during his second inaugural address. Scholars say the new discovery helps solidify his faith in his later years.  On Thursday, the Bible will go on display for the first time at the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum in Springfield, Ill.  The 16th president was given the Holy Book on June 16, 1864, during a rare wartime trip to Philadelphia raising money for wounded soldiers, where Lincoln donated 48 signed copies of the Emancipation Proclamation that were sold for fundraising. He was gifted the 18-pound, gilted Bible decorated with the words "faith," "hope," and "charity" by the hospital that treated wounded and ill soldiers during the Civil War.  The cover of the Bible reads: “Presented to Abraham Lincoln, President of the United States, by the Ladies of the Citizens Volunteer Hospital of Philadelphia.”  A few months later, upon receiving another copy of the Bible as a gift, Lincoln wrote, "In regard to this Great Book, I have but to say, it is the best gift God has given to man. All the good the Saviour gave to the world was communicated through this book. But for it, we could not know right from wrong. All things most desirable for man's welfare, here and hereafter, are to be found portrayed in it."  US-CHINA TRADE WAR COULD LEAD TO SHORTAGE ON BIBLES, CHRISTIAN BOOKS, PUBLISHERS SAY  Mary Lincoln, a widow after Lincoln's assassination, gave the Bible, the sixth known to historians that was owned by the Lincoln family, to their neighbor who lived across the street.  The neighbor was the Rev. Noyes W. Miner, a Baptist minister who read the book of Job at the Republican president's funeral. On the back, the first lady inscribed: “Mrs. Abraham Lincoln to N.W. Miner, D.D., Oct. 15, 1872.”  She wrote that Miner was "a friend very much beloved by my husband" and historians speculate the former first lady gave the Bible to Miner as a way to protect her husband's legacy as she had angrily rejected assertions that he was an atheist.  Miner once wrote that Lincoln “believed not only in the overwhelming Providence of God, but in the divinity of the Sacred Scriptures" and that the first lady told him at Ford's Theater that Lincoln was planning a post-White House visit to Jerusalem to “see the places hallowed by the footsteps of the Saviour.”  On Oct. 15, 1881, Miner wrote: "the bullet from the pistol of the assassin entered his brain, and the soul of the great and good President was carried by the angels to the New Jerusalem above."  ONLY SIGNED COPY OF US RECOGNITION OF 'STATE OF ISRAEL' CAN BE YOURS FOR $300G  Another Bible owned by Lincoln was used by former President Barack Obama at his 2009 and 2013 inauguration and it was also used by President Trump at his 2017 inauguration.  The recently unveiled Bible will go on public display at the request of Miner's family, who passed the keepsake down from generation to generation.  CLICK HERE TO GET THE FOX NEWS APP  “The donation of this Bible offers a new opportunity to reflect on Lincoln’s religious beliefs,” Ian Hunt, head of acquisitions for the Abraham Lincoln Presidential Library and Museum, said in a statement. “It’s a tangible connection to the fascinating question of what Lincoln believed and how those beliefs evolved as he endured tragedy after tragedy.”


mercurynews--2019-06-19--Letter Freedom to choose religious beliefs may disappear in time

Letter: Freedom to choose religious beliefs may disappear in time

In “We mustn’t forget value of religious people in society” (Opinion section, June 16), Abiya Ahmed wondered if years from now her young son will even care about religion when he reads a letter she has written to him.  As he looks back on the time in which she wrote this letter, will he see a vibrant religious community opposing a president of the United States whose actions seem designed to destroy the Constitution, the backbone of our democracy which makes possible religious freedom?  Or will he observe a silence from those who should care?  Letter: Will new A’s stadium be impacted by sea-level rise? Letter: EBMUD should find other ways to raise the resources Letter: America’s future at risk till we become well-informed Letter: Trump has now broadcast invitation for interference When he reads her letter, will he have the political freedom to choose the religious beliefs of his mother?  Submit your letter to the editor via this form   Read more Letters to the Editor


newsbusters--2019-03-19--March Badness Outsports Condemns Christian NCAA Tourney Teams For Religious Beliefs

March Badness: Outsports Condemns Christian NCAA Tourney Teams For Religious Beliefs

In an example of two-faced reporting, the sports blog SBNation on Monday declared Abilene Christian University's upcoming first-ever NCAA Tournament appearance "an amazing accomplishment." But its Outsports section (a strident mouthpiece for LGBT pressure groups) considered it "March Badness" when anti-LGBT bigots like Abilene Christian and Liberty University qualify for the NCAA Tournament. Both schools earned "Shame List" designation.  "As these two notorious schools of higher learning celebrate making it to the Big Dance this week, they also have the dishonor of being selected as two of the 150 colleges and universities named to 'The Shame List' by Campus Pride. This online index identifies the 'absolute worst campuses for LGBTQ youth' in the U.S., according to the org’s website," reports Outsports LGBT pitbull Dawn Ennis. "Shame on you, Liberty University and Abilene-Christian University."  Abilene Christian (players and coach celebrating NCAA Tournament berth in photo) and Liberty both have "horrid" histories of anti-LGBTQ actions, programs and practices, Ennis continued: “When it comes to Christian schools, there are few more famous than the one founded by Jerry Falwell in 1971: Liberty University” They added:  Quoting Campus Pride, Ennis accused Abilene-Christian of implementing "an aggressive, discriminatory ban on same-sex relationships for student employees (including same-sex dating) that has created an inhospitable, harmful climate.”  Despite the so-called flagrant records of open discrimination against LGBT students, Abilene-Christian and Liberty both get a pass from the NCAA, Ennis groans. Previous Outsports posts condemned the NCAA for not condemning universities with religious beliefs on sexuality:  Anthony Nicodemo scolded the NCAA for selling out the LGBT community: “A host of schools cloaked under the umbrella of ‘Christian institutions’ have athletes and coaches sign agreements forbidding them from coming out as gay. Schools like BYU prohibit same-sex relationships on campus.” Haven Herrin wrote: “The NCAA’s own house isn’t in order. They are complicit with Christian schools that are often the proving ground for religious discrimination strategies that state legislatures borrow. NCAA member schools have been carving out pockets for legal bigotry as long as there has been a Title IX.”  Other schools who, in Outsports' opinion, deserved the big hammer of the LGBT juggernaut coming down hard on them are George Fox University, a Quaker-affiliated school in Oregon, and several interdenominational or interfaith universities that are "without doubt practicing various forms of Christianity to the exclusion of all other faiths."  Though individual institutions are reaping the wrath of an LGBT activist media outlet here, the NCAA is the real target. Ennis wants the NCAA to mete out harsh punishment to Christian bigots, but instead, she complains that “the NCAA turns a blind eye to what goes on back on campus.”  Apparently the NCAA respects the fact that religious freedom and free speech are America's first liberties and private universities are free to live out their faith.


osce--2019-03-13--Promoting freedom of religion or belief the focus of OSCEODIHR roundtable events in Bosnia and Herz

Promoting freedom of religion or belief the focus of OSCE/ODIHR roundtable events in Bosnia and Herzegovina

Advancing the freedom of religion or belief for all was at the centre of discussion at roundtable events held in Sarajevo and Banja Luka on 12 and 13 March 2019, respectively. The events were organized by the OSCE Office for Democratic Institutions and Human Rights (ODIHR), in co-operation with the OSCE Mission to Bosnia and Herzegovina.  Representatives of state, cantonal and municipal authorities, together with the Human Rights Ombudsman of Bosnia and Herzegovina, religious communities, civil society organizations and media professionals, participated in the discussions.  “It is very encouraging to see the commitment of so many actors in Sarajevo and Banja Luka to working together to ensure everyone’s right to freedom of religion or belief in these two municipalities,” said Kishan Manocha, ODIHR Senior Adviser on Freedom of Religion or Belief. “It is our sincere hope that the roundtable discussions are only a starting point and that systematic and sustained action will follow.”  The events are part of the ODIHR project “Advancing freedom of religion or belief for all at the local level in Bosnia and Herzegovina” and follow training workshops on freedom of religion or belief for representatives of public authorities, religious communities and civil society conducted by ODIHR in Sarajevo and Banja Luka in February 2019. The project aims to equip relevant actors with the knowledge and skills to address challenges related to the freedom of religion or belief in these municipalities in a collaborative, results-oriented and gender-sensitive manner.  During the event, the participants developed initial roadmaps and plans for advancing the freedom of religion or belief for all in Sarajevo and Banja Luka over the next year. They also discussed means to implement the planned activities, as well as their monitoring and evaluation.  “Promoting freedom of religion or belief is an essential aspect of the OSCE Mission’s mandate in Bosnia and Herzegovina,” said Fermin Cordoba, Head of the Mission’s Human Dimension Department. “Moving forward, we hope to expand our work in this area to involve as diverse a network as possible, including minority religious communities, civil society organizations, academics and state authorities.”  The ODIHR project will conclude at the end of March with a training event on freedom of religion or belief for youth and students in Sarajevo.


breitbart--2019-08-23--Rabbi Shmuley Blasts Cory Booker for Twisting Torah to Attack Trump

The Torah typically refers to the first five books of the Old Testament (the “five books of Moses”). However, it can also refer generally to the whole Bible, plus the entire body of Jewish law.  Booker was reacting to President Trump’s statement this week that American Jews who voted for Democrats, after they supported anti-Israel and antisemitic members of their party, were “disloyal” to themselves.  The New Jersey senator told an interviewer in Iowa that Trump was not displaying the Jewish values of tzedakah (charity) and chesed (kindness). The Times of Israel reported:  “I know Jewish values… tzedakah, chesed… there’s an idea in Judaism about kindness and decency and mercy,” he said in a video posted to Twitter by the politics site Iowa Starting Line. “These ideals are not being evidenced by the president of the United States.” The New Jersey lawmaker added that Democrats “are no less disloyal to this country” than Republicans are. “The word tzedakah — I know you’re not a Torah scholar — it not only is used to talk about charity and decency and mercy, it’s actually the word for justice as well. We need to get back to that, to being good to each other,” he said to the interviewer.  In response, Rabbi Boteach, a Breitbart News contributor who befriended Booker at Oxford University before their political falling out over the Obama administration’s hostile approach to Israel, issued a statement:  In response to Cory Booker’s comments quoting the Torah and Jewish values to assail President Trump, I would remind him that firstly, “I was the one who taught him the Torah he knows” and what I always emphasized to him is that Judaism’s highest value is protection and preservation of life. This is something that Cory unfortunately violated in the extreme when he betrayed the American Jewish community by voting for the Iran nuclear deal for political gain. Jewish values are about having core convictions that do not change based on any external benefits, especially when genocide is at stake. While I absolutely agree that President Trump’s words – and not only actions – should be consistent with Jewish values, there can be no question that in action he has been the most supportive President for Israel for security and legitimacy in the history of the United States. Cory, sadly, has gone in the opposite direction, catering to left-wing extremists who sadly despise Israel and the Jewish people for no legitimate reason. Cory has condemned the moving of the American embassy to Jerusalem, voted against the Taylor Force Act in committee, which would simply have stopped Palestinian terrorists from being payed to murder Jews, and most famously he voted for the Iran deal and refused to even once condemn Iran’s genocidal promises to annihilate Israel. It is not right for Cory to use the Torah – that I taught him as my Student President at Oxford – as a way to try and garner Jewish support while refusing to support Israel. The Torah is not to be weaponized politically. Nor is it to be used for political gain in contravention of core convictions. You cannot quote from the Torah about love and kindness, all of which I taught Cory in hundreds of hours of Torah learning at Oxford, while not condemning Iran’s plans to annihilate six million Jews in Israel, just as the Germans murdered six million of our brethren in Europe.  Booker is far behind the lead pack in the race for the Democratic presidential nomination.  Joel B. Pollak is Senior Editor-at-Large at Breitbart News. He earned an A.B. in Social Studies and Environmental Science and Public Policy from Harvard College, and a J.D. from Harvard Law School. He is a winner of the 2018 Robert Novak Journalism Alumni Fellowship. He is also the co-author of How Trump Won: The Inside Story of a Revolution, which is available from Regnery. Follow him on Twitter at @joelpollak.


renegadetribune--2019-09-15--The Torah Was Not Revealed Religion But Revealed Legislation

The Torah Was Not Revealed Religion But “Revealed Legislation”

The theologians of Christendom claim more for this Law than the scholars of Jewry. I have before me a Christian Bible, recently published, with an explanatory note which says the five books of the Torah are “accepted as true”, and for that matter also the historical, prophetic and poetic books. This logically flows from the dogma, earlier quoted, that the Old Testament is of “equal divine authority” with the New.  The Judaist scholars say differently. Dr. Kastein, for instance, says that the Torah was “the work of an anonymous compiler” who “produced a pragmatic historical work”. The description is exact; the scribe or scribes provided a version of history, subjectively written to support the compendium of laws which was built on it; and both history and laws were devised to serve a “political” purpose.  “A unifying idea underlay it all”, says Dr. Kastein, and this unifying idea was tribal nationalism, in a more fanatical form than the world has otherwise known. The Torah was not revealed religion but, as Mr. Montefiore remarked, “revealed legislation”, enacted to an end.  While the Law was being compiled (it was not completed until the Babylonian “captivity” had ended) the last two remonstrants made their voices heard, Isaiah and Jeremiah. The hand of the Levite may be traced in the interpolations which were made in their books, to bring them into line with “the Law” and its supporting “version of history”.  The falsification is clearest in the book of Isaiah, “which is the best known case because it is the most easily demonstrable. Fifteen chapters of the book were written by someone who knew the Babylonian captivity, whereas Isaiah lived some two hundred years earlier. The Christian scholars circumvent this by calling the unknown man “Deutero-Isaiah”, or the second Isaiah.  “This man left the famous words (often quoted out of their context), “The Lord hath said… I will also give thee for a light unto the Gentiles, that thou mayest be my salvation unto the end of the earth”. This was heresy under the Law which was in preparation and the Levite apparently added (as the same man presumably would not have written) the passages foretelling that “the kings and queens” of the Gentiles “shall bow down to thee with their face towards the earth and lick up the dust of thy feet … I will feed them that oppress thee with their own flesh and they shall be drunken with their own blood, as with sweet wine; and all flesh shall know that I am the Lord thy Saviour and thy Redeemer” (This sounds like the voice of Ezekiel, who was the true father of the Levitical Law, as will be seen.)  Jeremiah’s book seems to have received Levitical amendment at the start, because the familiar opening passage sharply discords with other of Jeremiah’s thoughts: “See, I have this day set thee over the nations and over the kingdoms, to root out, and to pull down, and to destroy …”  That does not sound like the man who wrote, in the next chapter:  Jeremiah then identified the culprit, Judah (and for this offence well may have come by his death): “The backsliding Israel hath justified herself more than treacherous Judah”.  Israel had fallen from grace, but Judah had betrayed; the allusion is plainly to the Levites’ new Law. Then comes the impassioned protest, common to all the expostulants, against the priestly rites and sacrifices:  “Trust ye not in lying words, saying, The Temple of the Lord, the Temple of the Lord, the Temple of the Lord…” (the formal, repetitious incantations) “… but thoroughly amend your ways and your doings, oppress not the stranger, the fatherless and the widow, and shed not innocent blood in this place” (the ritual of blood-sacrifice and the ordained murder of apostates)… “Will ye steal, murder and commit adultery, and swear falsely… and come and stand before me in this house, which is called by my name, and say, We are delivered to do all these abominations” (the ceremonial absolution after animal-sacrifice). ” Is this house, which is called by my name, become a den of robbers in your eyes? . . I spake not unto your fathers, nor commanded them in the day that I brought them out of the land of Egypt, concerning burnt offerings or sacrifices….”  In such words Jeremiah, like Jesus later, protested against the “destruction” of the Law in the name of its fulfilment. It seems possible that even in Jeremiah’s time the Levites still exacted the sacrifice of firstborn children, because he adds,  Because of these very “abominations”, Jeremiah continued, the Lord would “cause to cease from the cities of Judah, and from the streets of Jerusalem, the voice of mirth, and the voice of gladness, the voice of the bridegroom, and the voice of the bride; for the land shall be desolate”.  This is the famous political forecast which was borne out; the Levites, with their genius for perversion, later invoked it to support their claim that Judah fell because their Law was not observed, whereas Jeremiah’s warning was that their Law would destroy “treacherous Judah”. Were he to rise from the earth today he might use the word without change in respect of Zionism, for the state of affairs is similar and the ultimate consequence seems equally foreseeable.  When Judah fell Jeremiah gave his most famous message of all, the one to which the Jewish masses today often instinctively turn, and the one which the ruling sect ever and again forbids them to heed: “Seek the peace of the city whither I have caused you to be carried away captives, and pray unto the Lord for it; for in the peace thereof shall ye have peace”. The Levites gave their angry answer in the 137th Psalm:  “By the waters of Babylon we sat down and wept….. Our tormentors asked of us mirth: Sing us one of the songs of Zion. How shall we sing the Lord’s song in a strange land? If I forget thee, O Jerusalem, let my right hand forget her cunning, let my tongue cleave to the roof of my mouth… O daughter of Babylon, who art to be destroyed, happy shall he be, that rewardeth thee as thou hast served us. Happy shall he be, that taketh and dasheth thy little ones against the stones”.  In Jeremiah’s admonition and the Levites’ reply lies the whole story of the controversy of Zion, and of its effects for others, down to our day.  Jeremiah, who was apparently put to death, would today be attacked as a “crackpot”, “paranoiac”, “antisemite” and the like; the phrase then used was “prophet and dreamer of dreams”.  He describes the methods of defamation, used against such men, in words exactly applicable to our time and to many men whose public lives and reputations have been destroyed by them (as this narrative will show when it reaches the present century):


sottnet--2019-03-23--Tehran schools Pompeo on his use of the Torah to promote Iranophobia - Persia helped saved the Jews

Tehran school's Pompeo on his use of the Torah to promote Iranophobia - Persia helped saved the Jews

The Iranian foreign minister issued a measured response to the US secretary of state, who claimed this week that it was "possible" that Donald Trump had been divinely sent to Earth by God in order to save Israel from the "Iranian menace."Iranian Foreign Minister Javad Zarif has encouraged Mike Pompeo to get better acquainted with the Torah, the Jewish holy text, and educate himself with Jewish religious scholars' writings about the Ancient Persians, the predecessors of modern-day Iran."Even the Torah is distorted to serve Iranophobia," Zarif wrote on his official Twitter page, before proceeding to list some of the things the scripture actually said,The tweet followed remarks by Secretary Pompeo last week, when, speaking to the Christian Broadcasting Network during his trip to Israel, the US diplomat said his faith made him believe it was "possible" that President Trump had been chosen by God to help save the Jewish people from what his interviewer described as "an Iranian menace.""As a Christian, I certainly believe that's possible," Pompeo said, adding that he was "confident that the Lord is at work here."Pompeo travelled to Jerusalem last week, visiting the city's holy sites and holding a press conference with Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu, who praised Washington over Trump's recent statement about it being time for the US to "fully recognise Israel's sovereignty over the Golan Heights," a Syrian territory occupied by Tel Aviv since the 1967 Arab-Israeli War.Tehran earlier expressed its dismay over Trump's statement about the necessity to recognise Israel's sovereignty over the Golan Heights, with Zarif tweeting that Iran and other members of the Organisation of Islamic Cooperation (IOC) were "shocked" by President Trump's move "to try to give what is not his to racist Israel."


bipartisanreport--2019-01-04--First Muslim Swears Into Congress On A Quran GOP Heads Detonate

First Muslim Swears Into Congress On A Quran – GOP Heads Detonate

On Thursday, Congress went back to work by swearing in 101 new representatives which includes the most racially diverse and most female group of representatives ever elected to the House. The makeup also includes the first Native American congresswoman and the first two Muslim women to be elected to the Congress.  Detroit Congresswoman Rashida Tlaib was to be sworn in to Congress using Thomas Jefferson’s copy of the Koran, which created quite a stir among conservative Christians. Conservative pastor and radio commentator E.W. Jackson expressed his rage that a Muslim woman was going to be serving in Congress.  ‘The floor of Congress is now going to look like an Islamic republic. We are a Judeo-Christian country. We are a nation rooted and grounded in Christianity and that’s that. And anybody that doesn’t like that, go live somewhere else. It’s very simple. Just go live somewhere else. Don’t try to change our country into some sort of Islamic republic or try to base our country on Sharia law.’  According to The Detroit Free Press:  ‘Tlaib, a Detroit Democrat who was elected to the seat formerly held by U.S. Rep. John Conyers, said she’s unfazed by comments such as Jackson’s and expects that the objections will extend well beyond her being sworn into office the first week of January, even though she says she’s far more concerned with economic and environmental help for her constituents than pushing any religious agenda.’  Tlaib finally decided she wanted to use her own copy of the Koran, saying:  ‘The Detroit Free Press had earlier reported on Tlaib considering using the Jefferson text, a 1734 translation of the Koran into English that resides in the Library of Congress. But Tlaib said her earlier decision was never meant to be final and that she changed her mind some time ago.’  Considering the use the Jefferson’s Koran though, she remarked:  ‘It’s important to me because a lot of Americans have this kind of feeling that Islam is somehow foreign to American history. Muslims were there at the beginning. … Some of our founding fathers knew more about Islam than some members of Congress now.’  For her swearing in, Tlaib who is Palestinian-American, wore a traditional Palestinian thobe, or dress, which her mother was there for the swearing in – made for her as she was sworn in. Tlaib said:  Trump-loving conservative Christians also expressed their opinions on Twitter:  Other Twitter users were quick to explain the Constitution to the crazed fundamentalists:  Tlaib voiced her enthusiasm for the new role, saying:  The new congresswoman’s seat was formerly held by U.S. Rep. John Conyers.


breitbart--2019-12-09--Indonesia: Police Arrest Teacher for Molesting Children, Using Quran to Swear Them to Secrecy

An Indonesian school teacher was arrested this weekend on charges of molesting 18 of his school students, having reportedly made them swear to secrecy through the Islamic Holy Book.  Police in Malang regency, East Java, identified the suspect by his initials CH, accusing him of molesting 18 boys between grades seven and eight after summoning them to the school counseling office.  “In one month, at least one to three students became his molestation victims,” Malang Regency Police Chief Yade Setiawan Ujung told reporters on Saturday, as quoted by Detik.  Yade added that CH kept his students quiet was by forcing them to swear on the Quran that they would not tell anyone else.  “The suspect told the victims not to tell anybody by making them swear on the Quran,” he explained.  He also explained that CH initiated his molestation by telling the students he needed to measure their genitals and collect semen samples as research for his dissertations.  The abuse allegedly began back in August 2017 and took place as recently as October this year. Last week, police received a formal accusation against the man, leading to his arrest last Friday on charges of repeated child molestation under Indonesia’s Child Protection Law.  If found guilty, he could face up to 20 years in prison. There is also a possibility he may be subjected to chemical castration, the use of hormones to subdue and eliminate the libido of a sex offender.  Proposing legislation to chemically “castrate” sex offenders in 2015, Attorney General H.M. Prasetyo said cases of abuse had “reached extraordinary levels,” with a larger-scale analysis finding that the number of cases increased from 2,178 in 2011 to 5,066 cases in 2014. The legislation was passed in 2016, with President Joko Widodo optimistically declaring that it would “wipe out pedophilia.”  Despite being the world’s largest Islamic country, Indonesia has also long had a reputation as a safe haven for foreigners looking to engage in pedophilia or underage child abuse without risk of prosecution. In a 2006 report titled “A Paradise for Pedophiles,” The Sydney Morning Herald described the country as a nation that “turns a blind eye to pedophile activity.”  Follow Ben Kew on Facebook, Twitter at @ben_kew, or email him at bkew@breitbart.com