1. Is the pope so clueless he really believes Islam is not a religion of submission that justifies murdering and enslaving its enemies? (See The Church and Islam) Kirkpatrick writes:
The Church’s handling of the numerous cases of [what Pope Francis calls] “Islamic abuse” has the potential for causing a greater scandal [than the sex abuse scandal]. The similarities are striking. Once again we have Church leaders who deny that there is any serious problem.
Here are pickup quotes from the full press conference on the papal plane (My comments in red.):
Question: ...why do you, when you speak of these violent events, always speak of terrorists, but never of Islam, never use the word Islam? And then, aside from prayer and dialogue, which are obviously essential, what concrete initiatives can you advise or suggest in order to counteract Islamic violence? Thank you, Holiness.
Pope Francis: I don’t like to speak of Islamic violence, because every day, when I browse the newspapers, I see violence, here in Italy… this one who has murdered his girlfriend, another who has murdered the mother-in-law… and these are baptized Catholics!
Well, the Islamic terrorists have a new weapon of mass destruction. The attack by truck in Nice during Bastille Day celebrations netted 84 dead (so far) including ten children with many others seriously injured -- over 200 total. Who needs guns when you can wreak that kind of carnage in minutes with truck?
Chalk up one more illustration that Islam is a "religion of peace." After all, the driver told authorities only hours before the massacre that he was delivering ice cream. No doubt he was just trying to get close enough to hand eskimo pies and popsicles out the truck window.
Who's really to blame for the Orlando shooting? Obviously the shooter, but there was clear evidence he was cooking up a big deal violent event. Was it preventable. though? Maybe not.
Several weeks before the shooting Mateen was engaged in suspicious activity trying to buy body armor, but the store owner and bulk ammo. The store didn't get his name because they refused to sell him anything and apparently surveillance footage wasn't good enough for facial recognition.
Okay, I've read enough about government agencies investigating the demonized movie maker. I'm sick of Hillary Clinton apologizing for the movie. I'm sick of her yammering to the Muslim world that America had nothing to do with making the movie. "It is sickening and repulsive", etc.
Forget the movie already! Movies don't kill. And they don't make people kill. Insults against religion don't kill either. If they did Christians would be on the rampage full time.
As a Catholic I'm deeply offended that my government eagerly funds insults against my faith like Andres Serrano's "P*** Christ" showing a crucifix immersed in a jar of urine and a video with ants crawling all over a bloody crucifix. Hillary can't say the American government had nothing to do with that. And when have liberals expressed any concern over anti-Catholic films like The Last Temptation of Christ or blasphemous plays like Most Fabulous Story Ever Told portraying Mary as a lesbian and Corpus Christi: Playing with Redemption which depicts Jesus as gay? Try to find a liberal criticizing an anti-Catholic art work, movie, play, photograph, music video, verbal blasphemy, etc. NEVER! They pooh-pooh the idea that Christians should be offended no matter how blasphemous the work! They call us thin-skinned and overreacting. But let someone insult the prophet? Wow! The apology machine goes into overdrive.
So Hillary...and Obama and Sebelius, we're waiting to hear your apologies, not for what someone else did, but for what your administration is doing to Christians. Let's start with the HHS contraceptive mandate!
Hmmm...Maybe if we acted more like the "religion of peace"....
A kook Florida pastor's plan to burn qu'rans has stirred up a number of breast beaters among the Catholic bishops. They are quick to jump on the bandwagon to condemn the violence against the Muslims' holy book. You know who they are: usually the same bishops who can't bring themselves to discipline politicians who advocate burning and dismembering innocent babies in the womb.
One, Cardinal Theodore McCarrick, recently participated in an ecumenical press conference to address "bigotry against Muslims" resulting from plans to build the mosque at Ground Zero in New York City. When asked whether Muslims have the right to convert to Christianity he responded with a bob and weave and never directly answered the question, unlike a Christian pastor who answered clearly and unequivocally:
CNSNews.com asked McCarrick, “Americans believe there is a God-given right to the free exercise of religion, which is enshrined in the First Amendment. Does a Muslim born and raised in Mecca have a God-given right to convert to the Roman Catholic faith, in your mind, and freely exercise his religion there?”
“As an American, I believe that we all have a right to practice what God tells us is his message to us, and if, therefore, if someone is--if someone sees the Gospel as the truth of God’s presence in our world, that person should embrace the Gospel,” McCarrick responded.
“If a person sees the Quran as proof of God’s presence in the world, then I cannot say, ‘Don’t embrace the Quran.’ So that I think we are, we should always be willing to talk to people and we should always be willing to love them and we should always be willing to allow them that freedom of conscience which comes from God.”
The press conference where Cardinal McCarrick delivered this wishy-washy answer was sponsored by the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA). There apparently was no discussion of anti-Christian violence by Muslims such as the recent murder of a man in Egypt because of a rumor that the Coptic Christian had a relationship with the Muslim murderer's sister. The killer doused the man with gasoline and set him on fire. When his father arrived at a rally later the Muslim crowd stabbed him to death. Have you heard about this? Not likely, but you've heard about plans to burn the qu'ran ad nauseum. One can only conclude that, to the media, burning a book is more serious than burning a man to death.
According to The Christian Post, "In Egypt recently, sectarian violence has been on the rise as Christian-Muslim relations have been strained by conversions to Christianity and government opposition to recognizing the conversions." Muslims are perfectly happy to accept converts from Christianity but woe betide the Muslim who accepts Christ!
Cardinal McCarrick needs to answer the question. Do Muslims have the right to convert to Christianity? And there are a few related questions as well. Do Christians have the right to wear the crucifix and cross and publicly practice their faith in Muslim countries? (In Saudi Arabia, for example, non-Islamic religions may only be practiced in private.) Do our soldiers have the right to freedom of religion when they serve in Islamic-ruled nations? As for the ISNA and McCarrick's participation with the group, it has radical roots and connections to the militant Muslim Brotherhood. Federal prosecutors named the group an unindicted conspirator in the 2008 Hamas terrorist financing trial. ISNA conferences also often feature radical speakers.
It's amazing to see how much hoopla has been generated by one crank pastor threatening to burn the qu'ran, and almost no media condemnation of Muslims burning people to death or issuing fatwas (legal rulings) calling for violence, such as those against Salman Rushdie for The Satanic Verses and Danish illustrator Kurt Westergaard for a dozen cartoons depicting Mohammed as well as others against journalists calling for women's emancipation.
One of the most offensive acts in this drama over the qu'ran burning occurred at the Catholic Cathedral in Sacramento where an ecumenical group came together to put "roses of love" on the qu'ran, a book that advocates killing infidels, i.e., Christians and others who don't embrace Islam. The service included releasing 18 "peace doves" and singing Let there be peace on earth. That a Catholic pastor (Fr. Anthony Garibaldi) would bless the qu'ran is a disgrace. One doesn't have to agree with the Florida pastor's actions to oppose blessing a book that portrays God as a maniacal tyrant who authorizes his "prophet" to convert by the sword, cheat and lie to non-Muslims, and kill those who blaspheme, commit adultery, or write unflattering books.
Cardinal McCarrick and others of his ilk have illustrated time and again how little they honor or accept the doctrines of the Catholic Church. His actions are no less offensive to believing Catholics than those of the book-burning pastor in Florida.
Understanding the true nature of Islam grows more important every day as mosques and Islamic ghettos rise up in cities all over the United States. I haven't read the book described below but plan to get it. The "religion of peace" is a sham. And the bland acceptance of its peaceful pretense by the naive endangers our security.
After the book review I've included a "quiz" that is circulating on the internet. It gives a pretty clear picture of the dangers we face from those who follow Islam according to Mohammed and the Qur'an.
From The New Oxford Review
Islamic Contradictions
July-August 2010 By Philip Blosser
Book Review: Cracks in the Crescent. By Hussein Hajji Wario. Bethany Press. 252 pages. $24.95.
Since the events of 9/11, Christians in the West have become increasingly interested in what makes the Muslim world tick. Writers and publishers, for their part, have begun turning out a growing number of books introducing Western Christians to the world of Islam. Offerings from Catholic publishers include Jacques Jomier's The Bible and the Qur'an (Ignatius Press, 2002), Daniel Ali and Robert Spencer's Inside Islam: A Guide for Catholics (Ascension Press, 2003); Spencer's Islam Unveiled (Encounter Books, 2003), and Giorgio Paolucci and Camille Eid's interview-based volume, 111 Questions on Islam: Samir Khalil Samir, S.J., on Islam and the West (Ignatius Press, 2008), to mention but a few.
Hussein Hajji Wario's Cracks in the Crescent warrants special notice. Two facts set this book apart. First, Wario is not only a former Sunni Muslim with years of experience in an Islamic culture, but unlike many Muslims was thoroughly educated in the esoteric aspects of Islam. Second, the arguments he uses to expose Islam — arguments honed by years of experience of debating Muslim peers after his Christian conversion — are drawn from the extensive literature of Islam itself, not merely the Qur'an, but Islamic history, Seerah (the life of Muhammad), Sunnah (specific words, actions, and practices of Muhammad), and Hadith (narrations based on the words of Muhammad shedding light on the Qur'an and matters of jurisprudence), and Fiqh (Islamic jurisprudence). The purpose of his book, Wario says, is to help both Muslims and non-Muslims seeking answers about the true nature of Islam.
Wario was educated in traditional Islamic schools, called madrassa, in Kenya during his formative years. Upon graduation he served as a madrassa teaching assistant and as a muadhin, the man who calls Muslims to prayer, in his native hometown. The first fourteen chapters of his book chronicle his upbringing in the monolithically Muslim community of his Kenyan Orma tribe, the shocking persecutions that followed his Christian conversion in 1989, and his emigration to the United States, where he attended Hope College in Michigan. The final two chapters deal thematically with the distortions behind the "Jesus of Islam" and the "Promised Comforter," whom Muslims understand to be Muhammad.
Western readers will be startled to read Wario's account of the tight, hierarchical network of Muslim clerics who strictly oversaw every aspect of Wario's education. All of life revolved around the madrassa and local mosque. As soon as he was old enough, he was taught to read and write Arabic, and then to read the Qur'an. Along with fellow schoolboys, he still bears scars from the floggings they received when they misspelled or mispronounced words from the Qur'an.
Pat Condell makes a lot of sense and points out the danger of politicians enabling Islamic violence. He also points out that the name Cordoba, which is that selected for the planned mosque, comes from the large mosque built by Muslims as they began the mass conquest of Spain. Islam has always built mosques on conquered ground. It is a "permanent affront" to all Americans. Selecting this spot is very deliberate as is the plan to open the mosque on the 10th anniversary of 9/11.
"Public opinion can put an end to this disgraceful plan."
Let them build their offensive mosque somewhere else, Condell says, -- like the Arizona desert or Death Valley. Amen to that!
The press conference where Cardinal McCarrick delivered this wishy-washy answer was sponsored by the Islamic Society of North America (ISNA). There apparently was no discussion of anti-Christian violence by Muslims such as the recent murder of a man in Egypt because of a rumor that the Coptic Christian had a relationship with the Muslim murderer's sister. The killer doused the man with gasoline and set him on fire. When his father arrived at a rally later the Muslim crowd stabbed him to death. Have you heard about this? Not likely, but you've heard about plans to burn the qu'ran ad nauseum. One can only conclude that, to the media, burning a book is more serious than burning a man to death.