Dating Easter

How do we date Easter?

Easter Procession

Why is Ash Wednesday and Lent so early this year? This article will primarily focus on the Western (Gregorian Calendar) way of dating Easter. The dating of Easter arises from the complicated joining of two different calendar systems. These calendars might be illustrated by the early story of Cain and Abel. If you are an Abel type, hunting, fishing, watching your flock by night, you will focus on the moon and the lunar cycle of 29 and a half days. Moonlight and tides will be significant to you. If you are a Cain type, a tiller of the ground and grower of crops, the solar cycle and its seasons will be more significant to you. The dating of Easter comes out of combining these solar and lunar calendars.
Passover - Pesach
The Jewish calendar is lunar. Twelve lunar months, with an occasional extra month popped in to keep up with the solar year. The month begins with new moon, and full moon, in the middle of the month, is the obvious time for extensive parties and festivals. There’s more light at night! Passover (Pesach) is the first full moon after the vernal (Northern Spring) equinox (14 of Abib in the Old Testament's Hebrew Calendar) (Lev 23:5). This was to be a "perpetual ordinance" (Exodus 12:14).

Nicaea on Easter

There appears confusion between the synoptics (Matthew, Mark, and Luke) and John on the relationship between the Passover celebration and Christ’s death. Added to that, some early Christians celebrated Pascha (Easter) on the Jewish festival of Passover, whilst others always celebrated it on the Sunday following. The former were called Quartodecimans (Latin: quarta decima, fourteen). The Council of Nicaea (325) decided against the Quartodecimans and in favour of Easter always being on a Sunday. Rather than produce a canon on this, they communicated this to the different dioceses and gave the Bishop of Alexandria the privilege of announcing annually the date of Easter. The Council of Nicaea determined that Easter would be the Sunday which follows the first full moon after the vernal equinox. If full moon happens to fall on Sunday, Easter is celebrated the following Sunday. Furthermore, it fixed the vernal equinox to be 21 March. By the sixth century complex mathematical methods had been devised, involving paschal cycles of 19 years in the East, and 84 years in the West. Hence Easter calculations are based not on the astronomical full moon but an "ecclesiastical moon," based on these created tables.

Link to the full article entitled, How do we date Easter from the blog Liturgy.

Easter and the Holy Eucharist by Fr. John A. Hardon, S.J. (here)

Divine Mercy

Divine Mercy

St. Faustina Kowalska

(here) , (here) and (here)

The Diary

(here) , (here) and (here)

Divine Mercy Sunday

(here) , (here) and (here)

The Chaplet Of Divine Mercy

(here) , (here) and (here)

Divine Mercy Miracles

(here) , (here) and (here)

Divine Mercy Shrine In Krakow, Poland

(here) , (here) and (here)

Divine Mercy In The News

(here) , (here) , (here) , (here)

(here) , (here) , (here) , (here) and (here)

Divine Mercy In The Blogs

(here) , (here) , (here) (here) and (here)

Divine Mercy And The Jesuits

(here) , (here) , (here) , (here) and (here)

50 Different Versions Of Ave Maria

Sonitus Santus delivers us Ave Maria - All You Can Stand

about 50 individual versions of the song Ave Maria

English Ladies Called Jesuitesses

Mary Ward was a Yorkshire woman who, at a time of severe repression of Roman Catholics in England,

felt called by God to found a congregation of religious sisters (Institute of the Blessed Virgin Mary) on the model of the Jesuits (Society of Jesus). Her vision was for a non-enclosed order of religious sisters who might serve their faith actively as educators and missionaries across Europe,

set free from the restrictions of monastic enclosure. In an era when women were considered intellectually and morally incapable of doing good for themselves, Mary soon came into conflict with the Papal authorities. Having founded a community of sisters in St Omer in Flanders in 1609, Mary was initially allowed to open schools across Europe without restriction and continued to secretly assist persecuted Catholics in Protestant England.

Her order of ‘English Ladies’ considered itself directly answerable to the Pope without other intervening male authority. But when Mary traveled to Rome to seek Papal recognition for her congregation of so-called (go here>) ‘Jesuitesses’,

Pope Urban VIII ruled against her refusal of enclosure and imprisoned her as a heretic. Despite centuries of struggle in a Church and a world unprepared for Mary Ward’s pioneering vision, her sisters today are fulfilling her dream of apostolic service and opportunities for women all over the world. The cause for Mary Ward’s canonization was opened in 1929. The historical research was accepted by the Congregation for the Causes of Saints in 1995. Theologians completed their investigations in 2009 and recommended unanimously that her cause should go forward.

Link (here) to the full article.

George W. Bush's Warm Embrace Of The Catholic Church

I think that George Bush has been an awsome President. I had only wished his Catholic brother Jeb Bush would have ran for President in 2008. Despite the constant verbal onslaught of personal insults, George Bush has never called out any of his critics by name. He has been an ardent defender of life and an advocate of the family. George Bush understands the difference between good and evil, he is even willing to defend good even when the poll numbers will drop. If George Bush becomes a Catholic it will be a great day, if not then I will have lived under a President who prays to Jesus Christ and does his best to live his life as a Christian first and politician second. Deacon Greg Kandra at the Deacons Bench explores the Republican George Bush and his warm embrace of the Catholic Church. I think that the Deacon is really telling a story of a political shift that is happening in America, Catholics are starting to become more and more Republican and the voting record supports it. The Democratic Party will no longer be able to hold back the Catholic throngs leaving the Party. Let me be more clear, a party cannot advocate, pay for and encourage the destruction of innocent human life and expect reasonable men and woman to buy the line, " I am against abortion, but I am for woman's rights!"

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Deacon Greg writes

George W. Bush, "closet Catholic"


A pal sent this my way: a fascinating piece on George Bush and Catholicism from the Religion News Service, reprinted in tomorrow's edition of the Washington Post:
Shortly after Pope Benedict XVI's election in 2005, President Bush met with a small circle of advisers in the Oval Office. As some mentioned their own religious backgrounds, the president remarked that he had read one of the new pontiff's books about faith and culture in Western Europe.

Save for one other soul, Bush was the only non-Catholic in the room. But his interest in the pope's writings was no surprise to those around him. As the White House prepares to welcome Benedict on Tuesday, many in Bush's inner circle expect the pontiff to find a kindred spirit in the president. Because if Bill Clinton can be called America's first black president, some say, then George W. Bush could well be the nation's first Catholic president.

This isn't as strange a notion as it sounds. Yes, there was John F. Kennedy. But where Kennedy sought to divorce his religion from his office, Bush has welcomed Roman Catholic doctrine and teachings into the White House and based many important domestic policy decisions on them.

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Read the Deacon's full post (here)

Barack Obama's Jesuit Connections On The Catholic National Advisory Board

CATHOLIC DISSIDENTS ADVISE OBAMA

May 2, 2008
When Sen. Barack Obama recently announced the formation of his Catholic National Advisory Council, he said he was “deeply honored to have the support and counsel of these committed Catholic leaders, scholars and advocates.”

Commenting on this group is Catholic League president Bill Donohue: “The best advice I can give Sen. Obama about his Catholic National Advisory Council is to dissolve it immediately."

Of the 26 Catholic former or current public office holders he has listed as either National Co-Chairs (5), or as members of the National Leadership Committee (21), there is not one who agrees with the Catholic Church on all three major public policy issues: abortion, embryonic stem cell research and school vouchers. “Indeed, on the issue of abortion, their record is disgraceful." Consider the scorecard as issued by the most radical pro-abortion organization in the nation—NARAL.

Of the two National Co-Chairs who have a NARAL tally, one agrees with the extremist group 65 percent of the time and the other agrees 100 percent of the time. Of the 20 National Leadership Committee members with a NARAL score, 17 have earned a 100 percent rating.

Of those who have less than a perfect score, not one is in favor of school vouchers. [Click here for the evidence.] “Practicing Catholics have every right to be insulted by Obama’s advisory group. What is the purpose of having an advisory group about matters Catholic when most of its members reject the Catholic position? If Obama wanted input from gay leaders, would he choose those who don’t reflect the sentiments of the gay community?

In short, to choose Catholic dissidents to advise him about Catholic concerns is mind-boggling.

“If these are the best ‘committed Catholic leaders, scholars and advocates’ Obama can find, then it is evident that he has a ‘Wright’ problem when it comes to picking Catholic advisers.”

Bill Donohue

Obama's list of Catholic advisers.

National Co-Chairs

Senator Bob Casey Jesuit educated at Holy Cross

Representative Patrick Murphy (PA-08)

Former Congressman Tim Roemer, President of the Center for National Policy

Governor Kathleen Sebelius of Kansas

Governor Tim Kaine of Virginia was a Jesuit Volunteer in Honduras

Tom Chabolla, a member of PICO, founded by a Jesuit

Victoria Reggie Kennedy, Sen. Ted Kennedy's second wife

Sr. Jamie Phelps, O.P.

Sr. Catherine Pinkerton, Congregation of St. Joseph. Long association with Jesuits

National Steering Committee

Mary Jo Bane, Professor, Harvard Kennedy School

Nicholas P. Cafardi, Jesuit educated at Georgian University in Rome and Media Relations for USCCB

Lisa Cahill, Professor of Theology, at Jesuit Boston College

M. Shawn Copeland, Associate Professor of Theology, Boston College

Ron Cruz, Hispanic Affairs Director for USCCB

Sharon Daly, Vice President for Social Policy at Catholic Charities USA

Richard Gaillardetz, vocal advocate for women priests.

Grant Gallicho, Associate Editor, Commonweal Magazine

Sr. Margaret Gannon, IHM, A Sister of the Immaculate Heart of Mary, Scranton, PA

Don Guter, Judge Advocate General of the Navy (2000-2002); Rear Admiral, Judge Advocate General’s Corps, U.S. Navy (Ret.), Pittsburgh, PA

Cathleen Kaveny, Professor of Law and Professor of Theology, University of Notre Dame

Jim Kesteloot, President at Chicago Lighthouse, Jesuit educated at Loyola University in Chicago

Vincent Miller, Associate Professor of Theology,at Jesuit Georgetown University

David O'Brien, Loyola Professor of Catholic Studies at the Jesuit College of the Holy Cross

Peter Quaranto, Senior Researcher and Conflict Analyst, Resolve Uganda (Notre Dame Class of 2006)

Dave Robinson, Pax Cristi leadership,

Vincent Rougeau, Associate Professor of Law, University of Notre Dame, was a professor at Loyola University Chicago

Mary Wright, Inter-Faith Liaison, Louisville, KY

National Leadership Committee

Governor Jim Doyle of Wisconsin

Former Senator Majority Leader Tom Daschle , visiting professor at the Jesuit Georgetown University.

Senator Richard Durbin of Illinois , a gradute of the Jesuit Georgetown University.

Senator Edward Kennedy of Massachusetts

Senator John Kerry of Massachusetts , the toast of the Jesuits "BC Law" and a graduate.

Senator Patrick Leahy of Vermont , a gradute of the Jesuit Georgetown University

Representative Xavier Becerra of California

Representative Mike Capuano of Massachusetts , a gradute of the Jesuits "BC Law"

Representative Lacy Clay of Missouri

Representative Jerry Costello of Illinois

Representative Bill Delahunt of Massachusetts , a gradute of the Jesuits "BC Law"

Representative Rosa DeLauro of Connecticut,

Representative Anna Eshoo of California

Representative Raul Grijalva of Arizona

Representative Patrick Kennedy of Rhode Island , Ted Kennedy's son

Representative John Larson of Connecticut

Representative George Miller of California

Representative James Oberstar of Minnesota , a student of the Jesuits Georgetown University.

Representative Linda Sanchez of California

Representative Carol Shea Porter of New Hampshire

Representative Peter Welch of Vermont , a graduate of the Jesuit College of the Holy Cross

Link to the list (here)

Catholic Dissidents Advise Obama

May 2, 2008 The Catholic League

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Who Are Obama's Catholic Supporters?
by Deal W. Hudson
4/15/08

An Artistic Sacrilegious Insult By Cildo Meireles

This is the most visually spectacular of all his installations, and the most explicitly religious. It was made for an exhibition exploring the Jesuit missions to South America between 1610 and 1767, when the Jesuits were themselves suppressed by the papacy. Around 600,000 coins are laid out like a square carpet on the gallery floor, and from the mid-point, a thin column of communion wafers rises around eight feet into the air where it meets a matching suspended square canopy made from 2,000 bones.

Cildo Meireles has explained: "I wanted to construct something that would be a kind of mathematical equation, very simple and direct, connecting three elements: material power, spiritual power, and a kind of unavoidable, historically repeated consequence of this conjunction, which was tragedy. I wanted a sky of bones, a floor of money, and a column of communion wafers to unite these two elements."

Here, as so often in Meireles's work, mathematics is moralised and given a troublingly tangible architecture.

Link (here)

The Year Of St. Paul

Gain a Pauline Year indulgence,
here is a link to the URBIS ET ORBIS DECREE.
Hat Tip to Fr. Ray Blake (here)

How About Pilgrimages For Jesuit High School Graduates?

125,000 Polish high-school graduates plan Marian pilgrimages
Warsaw, May. 6, 2008 (CWNews.com) - Roughly one-fourth of the students graduating from Polish high schools this year will make a pilgrimage to the Marian shrine at Czestochowa, the KAI news agency reports. About 125,000 students are expected to participate in the 34 different pilgrimages that are being organized by Polish dioceses for recent high-school graduates.
Link (here)

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St. Ignatius of Loyola's, Rules for Thinking with the Church

Rule # 6 To praise relics, the veneration and invocation of Saints: also the stations, and pious pilgrimages, indulgences, jubilees, the custom of lighting candles in the churches, and other such aids to piety and devotion. Link to these very important rules (here)

The Exercises Delivered And Lived

The Disciples of the Hearts of Jesus and Mary

is a Roman Catholic Religious Clerical Institute of diocesan right, with its general house in the diocese of Cuenca (Spain). Currently, we are present in Spain, Italy and the United States.

Our apostolic mission revolves around three main axes: the Spiritual Exercises of St. Ignatius of Loyola, delivered and lived; family and youth pastoral life, as well as spiritual direction and theological formation.

All this, in profound communion with the universal Church: cum Petro et sub Petro. “He who asks for admission into the Institute is called by Him who, giving himself over eternally to the Father, gives himself to us in the mystery of Redemption: the Master, who “looking at him, loved him” (Mark 10:21). It is a call to offer himself completely in a particular service to the work of Redemption, by means of his belonging to a fraternal community.” (Constitutions § 90b).

For an initial discernment of his vocation, the young man who manifests the desire to consecrate himself to Christ as a disciple goes through a trial period, the Postulancy. During this time both he and the Institute can verify the call, ensuring that the candidate possesses the human and affective capacities needed to live out the religious consecration as a path of human and Christian maturity.

To that end, a priest responsible for the vocations of the Institute, will assist, advise and accompany the candidate. “The Disciples will ask God to send vocations to their Institute” (Constitutions § 91). For further information contact Fr. José Granados

Link to Disciples of the Hearts of Jesus and Mary

Hat Tip to MDV

Not affiliated but in the same theme, check out the lay apostalate from the Phillipines, Alliance of the Two Hearts (here)

Traditional Latin Rite Confirmations In Great Britian

Westminster bishop to confer Traditional Latin Rite confirmations

An excerpt.
Bishop George Stack, auxiliary bishop in Westminster, will administer Confirmations in the Traditional Latin Rite at St James’s Church, Spanish Place, London W1 on Saturday, 15 November at 11.00 am at the request of Cardinal Cormac Murphy-O’Connor, Archbishop of Westminster.

This will be the fifth consecutive year that Westminster auxiliary bishops will have conferred Confirmation in the Traditional Rite. Last year in November 2007, a record 54 candidates received the sacrament at the hands of Bishop John Arnold – 50 children and 4 adults.

Also in November 2007, Bishop Peter Doyle of Northampton became the first diocesan bishop of England and Wales to administer Traditional Rite Confirmations when he confirmed 7 candidates during a pastoral visit to Our Lady of Perpetual Succour Church, Chesham Bois, Bucks on Sunday 18 November 2007. Bishop Doyle also celebrated Sunday Mass in the Traditional Rite on that occasion. John Medlin, General Manager of the Latin Mass Society, said, “There is no sign of slackening of demand for Traditional Rite Confirmations – in fact the opposite. The numbers are increasing every year and I expect this trend to continue after Pope Benedict’s Motu Proprio. We hope it will not be long before bishops all over England and Wales respond to pastoral demand for Mass and the Sacraments in the Traditional Rite. Those attached to the Extraordinary Form of the Roman Rite are very grateful to Cardinal Cormac and the Westminster auxiliary bishops for making provision for the Traditional Mass and Sacraments.”

Read the full press release (here) A Hat Tip to Fr, Ray Blake at St Mary Magdalene blog (here)

The Holy Father Pope Benedict XVI: USA Tour 2008

Via and thanks to Catholic Culture for this excellent recap.
Well, ahem, probably the best course is to get myself out of trouble by giving you the complete list of Pope Benedict's statements while he was in the United States. Here they are, all in one place:
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On the plane: I Go to the United States with Joy
To President Bush: Faith Sheds New Light on All Things
To the Bishops: The People of This Country Are Known for Their Great Vitality and Creativity
Homily at National's Stadium: Americans Have Always Been a People of Hope
To Catholic Educators: Freedom Is Not an Opting Out, it Is an Opting In
To Religious Leaders: A United Society Can Indeed Arise From a Plurality of Peoples
To Members of the Jewish Community: On the Feast of Pesah
To Other Religious Communities: Address at the Ecumenical Prayer Service
To UN Staff: Meeting with Staff of the United Nations
To the UN General Assembly: Human Rights Must Be Respected as an Expression of Justice
To the Disabled: Meeting with Young People Having Disabilities
To Young People and Seminarians: Meeting with Young People and Seminarians
Homily at St. Patrick's Cathedral: Votive Mass for the Universal Church
At Ground Zero: God of Peace, Bring Your Peace to Our Violent World
Homily at Yankee Stadium: Look to the Future with Hope
Farewell Address: Promote Peaceful Co-Existence among Nations
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There's a treasure-trove of spiritual reading here. If you haven't already, I invite you to sample it.

Jeff Mirus President
Trinity Communications
www.CatholicCulture.org

We Have Started To Evaluate Liturgy - A Monstrous Act!

The Greatest Damage.

We sit in the pews and ask ourselves, was that Holy Mass, or wasn't it? I go to church to see God and come away like a theatre critic.

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Fr. Ray Blake of the blog Saint Mary Magdalen read his full post (here)

Science Got It Wrong Again

Shock: First Animal on Earth Was Surprisingly Complex
LiveScience StaffLiveScience.com Thu Apr 10, 2008
Earth's first animal was the ocean-drifting comb jelly, not the simple sponge, according to a new find that has shocked scientists who didn't imagine the earliest critter could be so complex.The mystery of the first animal denizen of the planet can only be inferred from fossils and by studying related animals today. To get to the bottom of that, scientists analyzed massive volumes of genetic data to define the earliest splits at the base of the animal tree of life.The tree of life is a hierarchy of evolutionary relationships among species that shows which groups split off on their own evolutionary path first.The new study surprisingly found that the comb jelly was the first animal to diverge from the base of the tree, not the less complex sponge, which had previously been given the honor.

Link to the full article (here)

Fr. Joseph Fessio, S.J. on the Church and its position on evolution (here).

What Happens When Every Member Of Your Family Looses Its Faith, Including Your Own

Read Joe Garcia's blog Ad Majorem Dei Gloriam he has hit on some profound subject material in his post entitled, "Hold That Thought" .

Quote Of The Day: "God Destroyed And Abolished The Hell, But People Restore It Again And Again."

God didn’t create the hell for sinners, they did it themselves
The Russian Orthodox Church’s representative to the European International Institutions Bishop Hilarion of Vienna and Austria, on Interfax-Religion’s request, commented on the recent suggestion of Danish Lutheran theologians to consider the hell and the devil a metaphor and to accept only existence of the paradise. -

This theology should be considered in general context of liberalized Christian dogmatic and moral teaching developed in depth of many Protestant communities in several recent decades. Everything that makes Christianity is “inconvenient”,“uncomfortable” is being omitted, “the dark Middle Ages” heritage is cleared up.

Christianity in light version is under construction and the hell and devil don’t match it. A tragedy of Protestantism has originally been the following. Seeking to get rid of medieval stratification of Catholicism, Protestants didn’t properly study the heritage of the Eastern fathers. And today when arguing with the Middle Age hell and devil, liberal Protestants don’t trouble themselves with reviewing the Holy Fathers and their conception of afterlife retaliation. Meanwhile, the Eastern

Christian tradition has never considered the hell as created by God to punish sinners. God didn’t create the hell, free will of people has created it. It exists not because God wants it, but because people keep it existing.

They first create the hell on Earth and then carry it on to the afterworld. -What do you mean by the hell on Earth?- When a man using his power over others makes Earth the hell for them. Didn’t Hitler turn Earth to hell for millions of people tried and tortured in concentration camps, perished in gas cameras and battlefields? Didn’t Lenin and Stalin make hell for thousands and millions of people who died in camps or were shot on false denunciations or sentenced by Stalin’s “troika”?

Don’t today’s terrorists, who kill peaceful citizens, take them hostage and cut off their heads, turn Earth to the hell? And is it believable that malefactors and monsters, who kill other people and revolt against God and all-hallows will share the paradise with righteous and saints?

Is it believable that the paradise will welcome both John the Baptist and Herod, St. Veniamin of Petrograd and Lenin, thousands of the murdered new Russia’s martyrs and confessors and their torturers? It removes division between the good and the evil. Then there’s no difference if you are a saint or a villain, if you do the good or the evil, if you save people from death or kill them. -So sins will be inevitably recompensed?-Any person bears moral responsibility for his actions. And he will answer for the sins of his earthly life in the eternity.

St. Isaac the Syrian writes that sinners in the hell are not deprived of God’s love. On the contrary, love is given equally to everyone: to the righteous in the Heavenly Kingdom and to the sinners in Gehenna. But for the righteous it becomes the source of joy and bliss while for sinners it is the source of torture. Thus, God didn’t create the hell for sinners, they did it themselves. God doesn’t send sinners to the hell, but people who oppose God’s will and revolt against God choose the hell themselves.

And this choice is made in their earthly life rather than in some distant eschatological prospect. It is right here on Earth that infernal tortures and “the Kingdom of God come with power” begin. - However, even the Orthodox divine service says that the hell is “abolished” by Christ after His Resurrection from the dead? - The reality of the hell, its existence for sinners and even the possibility of its eternal existence don’t contradict the news of its abolition by Christ resurrected.

The hell is really “abolished” in the resurrection of Christ, as it is not inevitable for people anymore and doesn’t have power over them. But those, who consciously oppose God’s will and commit crime and sin, restore destroyed and abolished hell as they don’t want to reconcile with God’s love. I’d like to stress it again: God didn’t create the hell, people created it for themselves, God destroyed and abolished the hell, but people restore it again and again.

The hell is re-created every time when the sin is consciously committed and isn’t repented.

Link (here)

Wow: You Have Got To Read This!

Islam’s ‘Public Enemy #1’

Coptic priest Zakaria Botros fights fire with fire.

By Raymond Ibrahim
Though he is little known in the West, Coptic priest Zakaria Botros — named Islam’s “Public Enemy #1” by the Arabic newspaper, al-Insan al-Jadid — has been making waves in the Islamic world. Along with fellow missionaries — mostly Muslim converts — he appears frequently on the Arabic channel al-Hayat (i.e., “Life TV”). There, he addresses controversial topics of theological significance — free from the censorship imposed by Islamic authorities or self-imposed through fear of the zealous mobs who fulminated against the infamous cartoons of Mohammed. Botros’s excurses on little-known but embarrassing aspects of Islamic law and tradition have become a thorn in the side of Islamic leaders throughout the Middle East.

Botros is an unusual figure onscreen: robed, with a huge cross around his neck, he sits with both the Koran and the Bible in easy reach. Egypt’s Copts — members of one of the oldest Christian communities in the Middle East — have in many respects come to personify the demeaning Islamic institution of “dhimmitude” (which demands submissiveness from non-Muslims, in accordance with Koran 9:29). But the fiery Botros does not submit, and minces no words.

He has famously made of Islam “ten demands,” whose radical nature he uses to highlight Islam’s own radical demands on non-Muslims.The result? Mass conversions to Christianity — if clandestine ones.

The very public conversion of high-profile Italian journalist Magdi Allam — who was baptized by Pope Benedict in Rome on Saturday — is only the tip of the iceberg. Indeed, Islamic cleric Ahmad al-Qatani stated on al-Jazeera TV a while back that some six million Muslims convert to Christianity annually, many of them persuaded by Botros’s public ministry. More recently, al-Jazeera noted Life TV’s “unprecedented evangelical raid” on the Muslim world.

Several factors account for the Botros phenomenon. First, the new media — particularly satellite TV and the Internet (the main conduits for Life TV) — have made it possible for questions about Islam to be made public without fear of reprisal. It is unprecedented to hear Muslims from around the Islamic world — even from Saudi Arabia, where imported Bibles are confiscated and burned — call into the show to argue with Botros and his colleagues, and sometimes, to accept Christ.Secondly, Botros’s broadcasts are in Arabic — the language of some 200 million people, most of them Muslim. While several Western writers have published persuasive critiques of Islam, their arguments go largely unnoticed in the Islamic world.

Botros’s mastery of classical Arabic not only allows him to reach a broader audience, it enables him to delve deeply into the voluminous Arabic literature — much of it untapped by Western writers who rely on translations — and so report to the average Muslim on the discrepancies and affronts to moral common sense found within this vast corpus.

A third reason for Botros’s success is that his polemical technique has proven irrefutable. Each of his episodes has a theme — from the pressing to the esoteric — often expressed as a question (e.g., “Is jihad an obligation for all Muslims?”; “Are women inferior to men in Islam?”; “Did Mohammed say that adulterous female monkeys should be stoned?” “Is drinking the urine of prophets salutary according to sharia?”). To answer the question, Botros meticulously quotes — always careful to give sources and reference numbers — from authoritative Islamic texts on the subject, starting from the Koran; then from the canonical sayings of the prophet — the Hadith; and finally from the words of prominent Muslim theologians past and present — the illustrious ulema.

Typically, Botros’s presentation of the Islamic material is sufficiently detailed that the controversial topic is shown to be an airtight aspect of Islam. Yet, however convincing his proofs, Botros does not flatly conclude that, say, universal jihad or female inferiority are basic tenets of Islam. He treats the question as still open — and humbly invites the ulema, the revered articulators of sharia law, to respond and show the error in his methodology.

He does demand, however, that their response be based on “al-dalil we al-burhan,” — “evidence and proof,” one of his frequent refrains — not shout-downs or sophistry.

Read the rest of the article (here)

Weigel: Critical Truth

so where is weigel wrong?
Posted by: Diogenes - Mar. 26, 2008
About a month ago, George Weigel made public some reasons to think the new Jesuit General over-estimated the Society's deference to the Holy See. This provoked a heated and defensive reaction on the part of certain Jesuits, obliging Weigel to repeat, for the benefit of the offended parties, a lesson usually learned between one's thirteenth and seventeenth birthday:

the truth that criticism -- even wounding criticism -- is not always a product of ill will.

What baffles your Uncle Di is that the Jesuits who castigate Weigel don't make clear why he was wrong to make reference to Partial Birth Abortion and "Pretty Boy & Jabba the Slut" and the rest. Is Weigel to be faulted because the Society denounces the Drinan legacy and gay campiness -- and he slanderously suggested the opposite? Or

is Weigel to be faulted because the Society embraces the Drinan legacy and gay gamesmanship -- and he slanderously suggested this to be a departure from the Ignatian ideal?

Even if Weigel's a villain, these villainies can't both be true of him. Let's flip back a couple years to examine another prominent journalist who slipped into criticism of the Society. This is Andrew Sullivan, from his Daily Dish post of 10 July 2005.

Diametrically opposed to Weigel's ecclesial perspective, Sullivan is exercised by the upcoming Doomsday Doc forbidding the acceptance of homosexual seminarians.

He's in a lather about the bigoted Pope Benedict and indulges in some coloratura hyperbole:

Not since the Jesuits' ban on ethnic Jews, regardless of their conversion or Christian faith, has the Church entertained such pure discrimination. The insult to gay Catholics is, of course, immeasurable. It is also an outrageous attack on the good, great and holy work so many gay men and lesbians have performed in the Church from its very beginnings.

Later in the same post, Sullivan hastily reassures his readers that he intended no criticism of the contemporary Society of Jesus:

I don't think any reader of this blog would remember me having anything but respect for the Jesuits. In this country, they are becoming the underground resistance that will keep the decent church alive while Benedict spreads his brittle reactionaryism.

Sullivan is praising the Society for the very recalcitrance the Jesuit General emphatically denies, right? So was there an outpouring of white-hot Jesuit indignation protesting

Sullivan's claim that the Jesuits comprise "the underground resistance" to the Pope? If so, most of us certainly missed it. Well, lads, what about it? Are you critics of Weigel's libelous charge of Jesuit disloyalty willing to trash Sullivan for his?

If not, the rest of us will continue to believe that it was Weigel who had it right in the first place. And if we’re wrong in this, it would be a kindness to point out our mistake.
[tip to Karen Hall ]

Link (here)

Some Sidebar Spirituality

I added a new side bar to help us reflect upon Jesus Christ, a little pleasant and meaningful diversion.

My favorites are:

Pater Noster

This video has Pope John Paul the Great singing

the Pater Noster (The Our Father) it has great imagry.

Litany Of Saints

The music of Matt Mahr is very soothing to the ear,

you will find yourself humming, singing and praying

the Litany of the Saints right along with the song.

Barka

Pope John Paul the Great's favorite Polish hymn,

"Lord When You Came to the Seashore"

I think you will understand why when you watch and listen.

It has all the one feature of all great hymns,

you don't need a hymnal to sing it.

Chaplet of the Divine Mercy

The masculine voice of Timothy Chong chanting

with Divine Mercy imagery.

Our Lady of Fatima

The video is from Fatima highlighting an

evening candlelight procession

with about 80,000 people

in the court yard of the shrine

singing Ave Maria.

Cherubic Hymn

Byzantine chant with only vocal instrumentation

Cherubic Hymn: Plagal of 1st tone, "Let us who mystically portray the Cherubim,

and chant the thrice-holy hymn unto the life-creating Trinity, lay aside all earthly care, that

we may receive the King of all, escorted invisibly by the angelic orders. Alleluia."

Jesuit Gene

Excellent Blog Catholic Church Conservation, author Gillibrand has four Jesuit ancestors.