Morsi to Hezbollah: Get out of Syria

Elizabeth Arrott

Egypt has further aligned itself with those trying to overthrow Syrian President Bashar al-Assad. It remains unclear, though, how far Egypt will back its words with action.

Syria's civil war has increasingly drawn in outsiders, from individual fighters to regional and international powers lining up on opposing sides. Egypt recently has stepped up its role, but the message appears mixed.

President Mohamed Morsi has severed Egypt's already tenuous ties with Syria's government, a move denounced by Syrian officials as influenced by the United States and Israel.

Morsi also lashed out at intervention by Lebanon's Hezbollah fighters on the side of Syrian President Bashar al-Assad.

Speaking at a rally Saturday, he said Hezbollah must leave, adding “there is no space or place for Hezbollah in Syria.”

The open presence of the Shi'ite militant group in Syria has highlighted the conflict's increasingly sectarian nature.


Read it all here.

Secular squatters on Biblical land

Jeff Fountain

Human dignity and rights needed to be set free from religious foundations. Only a secular basis can maintain their continued existence free from religious violence and tensions.

At least, that was the learned opinion one of Holland’s best-known atheists as expressed in a seminar last week in The Hague. Dr Margriet Krijtenburg, who spoke in Dublin at a recent State of Europe Forum, was presenting her doctoral thesis on Robert Schuman to an invited audience, and had invited her supervising professor, Paul Cliteur, to be one of her respondents.

As in Dublin, Margriet had described Schuman’s conviction that the Christian faith had a significant role to play in restoring unity in Europe and in Europe’s future. Concepts such as human dignity and solidarity were, in Schuman’s understanding, intrinsically linked with a Christian concept of humanity.

Margriet’s professor agreed that the identification of such values as the freedom of expression, of religion and of assembly had laid foundations for the unique European project. But fortunately, he said, those values had been set free from their religious roots and redefined within a sustainable secular framework. Such a framework protected human dignity from religious intolerance and offered it a tolerant pluriform context.

A few days after attending this seminar, an engagement near Den Bosch gave me the opportunity to visit the former Nazi concentration camp in Vught while in the neighbourhood.

Some 31,000 Jews, political prisoners, resistance fighters, students, Jehovah’s Witnesses, tramps, black marketeers and criminals were thrown together into Kamp Vught, some for short periods, others longer. Almost all of the 12,000 Jewish internees, over a third of the camp population, were later murdered in extermination camps in Poland.

A reconstructed cell remind visitors of the so-called “bunker drama” of January 15, 1944. In response to a protest by prisoners, the camp commandant ordered 74 women to be locked up together in one cell in a space of nine square metres, without ventilation. When the doors were finally opened after 14 hours, ten of the women had died.

Most sobering, however, was a memorial to the 1,800 Jewish children taken away from the camp on June 6 and 7, 1943, to a “special children’s camp” -- or so the parents were told. Some parents were allowed to accompany the children. After a three-day train ride to the Sobibor extermination camp in Poland, almost every person perished.

The cold metal monument carried those names and ages of 1,269 of the children that are known. I stood there transfixed and emotionally disturbed reading the ages of these little defenceless human beings. I sought out the ages of my own three grandchildren: three months, two years and four years.



At the base of the monument was a sculptured teddy bear, a truck and other toys. In the trunk of my car was a wrapped present for my grandson celebrating his second birthday. What if he had been born 70 years earlier, to Jewish parents?

What was the source of the evil that had led to this vile crime? Was it not a denial of the Biblical truth that the dignity of every human is rooted in the understanding that life is a gift of the Creator? and that each one of us has been created in His image, Imago Dei?

Had not the “freeing from religious foundations”, the rejection of the Biblical view of humanity, by Hitler and his henchmen caused this European tragedy? Was it not this very tragedy that had led Schuman and others to formulate the European Convention on Human Rights, to which every member nation of the Council of Europe had to agree? Was it not their aim to render such “state gangsterism” impossible, to prevent for ever the atrocities of Kamp Vught, Dachau and Auschwitz?

How quickly we are forgetting this most important lesson of modern times! No, Professor, it is not “fortunate” that in the minds of millions of Europeans today human dignity has been freed from its historical and transcendent foundations. For there are no other foundations. We can’t invent foundations or roots. A process of materialistic evolution in which only the fittest survive can never result in protection and rights for the weak and vulnerable.

As (non-believer) John Gray, formerly of the London School of Economics, wrote in his 2007 book Straw Dogs: humanists are simply Christians in disguise. If there is no God, there is no basis for human dignity and human exceptionalism. Humanism is the creed of those who have “given up an irrational belief in God for an irrational belief in humans”.

The truth is, many Europeans are squatters living in a house built on Judeo-Christian foundations -- but they don’t want to pay the rent.

Jeff Fountain and his wife Romkje are the initiators of the Schuman Centre for European Studies in The Netherlands. This article has been republished here with permission from the Centre’s website.

RT Media versus US "Lame-stream Media"

"RT Media tells more truth about America than CNN, FOX, ABC, CBS, MSNBC, and all the newspapers combined. That in itselt makes RT a saint compared to the trash fed to Americans and the rest of the world. That’s why the attack dogs are out in force to try and discredit RT. I am very pleased with the truth RT uncovers, or at least, asks the questions no one else is asking in the media.” YouTube comment

Another Media Fact-Checking Failure

Fathers Rights Group protested Enda's house, not pro-lifers; major media fail

17 June 2013


Pro-life groups have criticised the Irish media for their failure to carry out basic fact-checking in their rush to demonise pro-life activists.

Niamh Uí Bhriain of the Life Institute said that media reports that pro-life activists had carried out a protest at Enda Kenny's home were "entirely incorrect and had no basis in fact", and that the Irish media had engaged in "sloppy and unprofessional journalism".

In fact, the Fathers' rights group who carried out the protest had posted it on the internet for any journalist who wanted to check the facts.

Ms Ui Bhriain said that reporters had got the facts inexcusably wrong.

"There was no masked pro-life protest at Mr Kenny's home," she said. "This is a false claim, entirely manufactured by the media. If there was a protest because of some other issue, the media need to investigate and establish the facts rather than jumping to conclusions. "

"It is inexcusable that the media are printing misinformation of this sort, and it smacks of a rush to try to demonise pro-life activists," she said.

"The media need to get their act together and politicians need to discuss the reality of this cruel and unacceptable abortion legislation and stop trying to deflect from the issue with unsubstantiated claims and false allegations," added the Life Institute spokeswoman.

"Last week we saw that Fine Gael TDs were upset when attempts were made at the top level of the party to carry out a 'political hanging' of the chairman of the Public Accounts Committee. Now we are seeing similar dirty tricks where baseless allegations and false stories are being circulated in order to try to silence genuine pro-life people who are fully entitled to make their voices heard against abortion," she said.

"The notion of former Worker's Party members, who now run Labour, complaining about imagined intimidation was deeply, deeply ironic," she said, adding that it was no surprise that such people supported the taking of innocent unborn life.

END

US Talks with Taliban Compromised

The United States and Afghanistan have announced their intention to hold talks with the Taliban in Qatar. The plans were announced on Tuesday as the Taliban officially opened a new office in Doha. The group said it wants to find a political solution to Afghanistan's crisis.

Meanwhile, the Taliban killed 4 American soldiers in a rocket attack on a convoy near Bergram Air Base in Afghanistan (June 19, 2013), just hours after the the Taliban office opened its doors for peace talks with the U.S. in Doha, Qatar, according to the Newser website.

The Taliban claimed responsibility for the attack, which came as Afghan forces formally took charge of the country's security. In another setback for the hopes of military stability, Afghan President Hamid Karzai announced today that the Afghan government was pulling out of talks on a new security deal with the U.S.

Karzi said on Tuesday that his government would send envoys to Qatar to try to open peace talks with the Taliban. He made the comment during a ceremony in which Afghan forces took over responsibility for security for the entire country from an international military coalition.

The United States has dropped some of its preconditions for engaging the Taliban and is now willing to hold direct talks with the militants, senior Obama administration officials said on Tuesday.

The Taliban too have agreed to support the Afghan peace process and the talks can now be held within days, officials said.

The White House deputy national security adviser for strategic communications, Ben Rhodes, however, told reporters that he could not yet give a date for the talks.

It could be a “matter of days” when US talks to Taliban, he added, pointing out that US officials would also discuss the release of an American soldier now in Taliban’s custody.

“The United States will be supporting a process that is fundamentally Afghan-led,” he said. “We can play a role in talking to the Taliban as well in supporting that peace process and because we have issues of our own to bring up with them.”

Senior Obama administration officials told a briefing in Washington that the talks that led to this breakthrough involved the Taliban’s core leadership and included the Haqqani network.

The officials said the Taliban also have vowed not to allow their soil to be used for threatening other countries.

“I think the US will have its first formal meeting with the Taliban, and the first meeting with the Taliban for several years, in a couple of days in Doha,” said one US official.

Political representatives of the Taliban will shortly meet Afghan and US officials in Doha to discuss an agenda for “peace and reconciliation” before further talks with the Afghan government later this week, said another official.

“The Taliban will release a statement that says two things: First, that they oppose the use of Afghan soil to threaten other countries; and second, that they support an Afghan peace process,” the official said.

“These are two statements which we’ve long called for and together, they fulfil the requirements for the Taliban to open an office, a political office, in Doha for the purposes of negotiation with the Afghan government.”

Another US official said the Taliban and other insurgent groups were now required to meet three end conditions: Break ties with Al Qaeda; end the violence; and accept Afghanistan’s constitution, including its protections for women and minorities.

Read more here and here.

When Journalists Fail to be Credible

Mark Judge

There are few sights in modern life more ridiculous and sickening than watching a journalist try and explain why people hate him and his profession. When asked why this is so, the journalist will breathe in deeply, adjust his mien to express both noble victimhood and self-righteousness, and explain that he is disliked because he tells the truth. Sometimes people don’t like to hear the truth.

This, of course, is a lie. Most journalists are not interested in the truth, and most people know this. What is remarkable is how so many journalists think they can get away with obscuring or eliminating facts that they don’t like. After cable, after Fox News, after Bernie Goldberg, the media still thinks its problem is that people can’t stomach fearless truth-telling.

What I find interesting is that things in the fourth estate weren’t always this way. In my desk I have a copy of a column written by Meg Greenfield, the late and celebrated editorial page editor of the Washington Post. It is dated October 3, 1979. It is called “The Power of the Pope,” and was written when John Paul II was visiting America for the first time. From time to time, when I feel sickened by the stupidity and arrogance of modern journalism, I reread these two paragraphs:

My favorite story about [John Paul II] is that he caused great consternation by insisting, against scandalized advice, that he wanted a papal swimming pool built at the papal summer residence in Castel Gandolfo. You got the idea that the pope 1) refused to view swimming as an act that could affect, let alone destroy, his dignity, 2) at the same time did not view it as some kind of humanizing or popularizing hey-look-the-pope-is-swimming gambit, but 3) wanted a swimming pool for the simple, direct and authentic reason that he likes to swim.

This evident self-possession looks to be the style of a man who is comfortable with his choices and the values they dictate. I know I am leaving out a religious dimension here that is unfamiliar to me, and also that some of those choices have worldwide political and social implications that many people, myself included, think are truly harmful. But I think there is a wholly admirable and tragically rare aspect to this man: he exudes the authority of personal strength, belief and commitment in a way that practically no other leader does. And this authority, clearly, does not depend on the orthodoxy and church law he is seeking to maintain. Rather, it comes from within the man, is in that place between insecurity and dumb arrogance where genuine leadership reposes.

Meg Greenfield was a liberal. Her claim that the authority of the pope has nothing to do with the law and orthodoxy of the Catholic Church is bunk.

But this passage is also filled with the kind of questing intelligence that modern journalism no longer allows for. Greenfield opened her eyes up to the pope in his entirety; she allowed herself to be surprised, to learn, to come to conclusions that would even challenge her worldview. And then she honestly wrote about it. She also displayed an attractive humility at not being an authority on Catholicism.

Read it all here.

Anglicans Need a Few Good Men

DISCERNING VOCATIONS:
A TASK FOR THE WHOLE CHURCH

One of the remarkable developments of recent years has been the growth in the number of men who stand firmly in the catholic tradition whom God is calling to the priesthood in the Church of England and who have responded in faith to that call. The number in formation at St Stephen’s House and the number who will be beginning their studies there this autumn are very encouraging. This is a sign of hope for our future. A high proportion of them are young men who can offer up to forty years of service or even more.

But although this growth is encouraging, it is not enough. We need more priests than we have, yet the number who will retire in the coming years means that we shall have even fewer unless an even larger number respond to God’s call.

Vocation involves a double call – an internal calling discerned by the individual, but also a calling through the Church. This means that Vocations are the concern of the whole Church and not just of the individuals concerned. We all need to think and pray about who in our parishes might be called by God to ministry in his Church.

The next Vocations Conference will be held at St Stephen’s House from 30 August to 1 September. Forward in Faith calls on its clergy and people in each parish to consider prayerfully whether there is someone in their midst whom God might be calling to the priesthood, and who should be encouraged to attend the Vocations Conference in order to explore this.

In calling young men to the priesthood, God assures us that he has a future for us. But it is also true that if there is no response to that vocation, we shall have no future. Please play your part in the process of discernment, by encouraging those who may have a vocation to come to the conference and find out more.

For further information about the Anglican Vocations Conference, go here:

www.additionalcurates.co.uk/vocationsconference.php