And as the son of a convert from Islam, he ought to know what ex-Muslims face at the hands of the members of their former religion.

One of the Church of England's most senior bishops is warning that people will die unless Muslim leaders in Britain speak out in defence of the right to change faith.

Michael Nazir-Ali, the Bishop of Rochester, whose father converted from Islam to Christianity in Pakistan, says he is looking to Muslim leaders in Britain to 'uphold basic civil liberties, including the right for people to believe what they wish to believe and to even change their beliefs if they wish to do so'.

Some Islamic texts brand Muslims who convert to other faiths as 'apostates' and call for them to be punished. Seven of the world's 57 Islamic states - including Iran - impose the death penalty for conversion.

Now Ali, who some see as a potential Archbishop of Canterbury, has told Channel 4's Dispatches programme of his fears about the safety of the estimated 3,000 Muslims who have converted to other faiths in Britain.

'It is very common in the world today, including in this country, for people who have changed their faith, particularly from being Muslim to being Christian, to be ostracised, to lose their job, for their marriages to be dissolved, for children to be taken away,' Ali said. 'And this is why some leadership is necessary from Muslim leaders themselves to say that this is not what Islam teaches.'

The problem is that this is what Islam teaches -- and while only 7 islamic countries impose that penalty under their laws, in many others they prohibit conversion and impose OTHER penalties upon those who leave Islam. Indeed, they tend not to punish the murders of such converts, either.

And when you consider this statistic from a recent poll, it strikes me that there is a much bigger problem at hand. A sizable group of British Muslims want to see the death penalty imposed upon those who convert away from Islam.

A poll of more than 1,000 British Muslims, conducted by the Policy Exchange think-tank this year, found that 36 per cent of Muslims aged between 16 and 24 believe those who convert to another faith should be punished by death.

Wouldn't you love to know the numbers here in the United States? Like any polling company would have the 'nads to ask that question.

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Posted by: Greg at 02:56 AM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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If they really want to rebrand themselves as the Religion of Peace, they ought to come up with something other than "Submit or Die!" as their slogan.

The purported head of al-Qaeda in Iraq has offered a reward for the murder of a Swedish cartoonist over his drawing depicting the Prophet Muhammad.

The $100,000 (£49,310) reward would be raised by 50% if Lars Vilks was "slaughtered like a lamb" said the audio message aired on the internet.

The speaker, said to be Abu Omar al-Baghdadi, threatened a new offensive during the holy month of Ramadan.

Last month's cartoon showed Prophet Muhammad's head on a dog's body.

Several Muslim countries protested.

Imagine, that someone might think that Islam is anything other than a peaceful religion!

But you know what -- maybe these folks have the right idea. Rather than turning the other cheek, perhaps slaying those who mock one's religion is the way to go.

I'll start by offering a reward of one hundred BILLION DOLLARS for the head of Christopher Hitchens on a silver platter -- and up it by 50% if it has an apple clenched between its teeth.

Oh, and $5.00 for every dead Muslim, since they say that Jesus isn't the Son of God but is instead a prophet inferior to Mo-doggie himself.

NOTE TO LOCAL DEMOCRATS: I'm being facetious.

And in the mean time, let's do our best piss off the jihadis (and their supporters) who insist upon the dhimmitude of the West.

In the mean time, might I urge you to sign this petition supporting the artist, Lars Vilks.

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I was raised Catholic. During the first year of my marriage, though, I realized that I was finding myself drawn in a somewhat different spiritual direction, and left the Church. At no time did I expect the force of law to be applied against me – nor did I need to live in fear that I would be murdered for following my conscience.

Unfortunately, that is not the case for these folks.

A group of young Muslim apostates launches a campaign today, the anniversary of the 9/11 attacks on America, to make it easier to renounce Islam.

The provocative move reflects a growing rift between traditionalists and a younger generation raised on a diet of Dutch tolerance.

The Committee for Ex-Muslims promises to campaign for freedom of religion but has already upset the Islamic and political Establishments for stirring tensions among the million-strong Muslim community in the Netherlands.

Ehsan Jami, the committee’s founder, who rejected Islam after the attack on the twin towers in 2001, has become the most talked-about public figure in the Netherlands. He has been forced into hiding after a series of death threats and a recent attack.

The threats are taken seriously after the murder in 2002 of Pim Fortuyn, an antiimmigration politician, and in 2004 of Theo Van Gogh, an antiIslam film-maker.

Speaking to The Times at a secret location before the committee’s launch today, the Labour Party councillor said that the movement would declare war on radical Islam. Similar organisations campaigning for reform of the religion have sprung up across Europe and representatives from Britain and Germany will join the launch in The Hague today.

“Sharia schools say that they will kill the ones who leave Islam. In the West people get threatened, thrown out of their family, beaten up,” Mr Jami said. “In Islam you are born Muslim. You do not even choose to be Muslim. We want that to change, so that people are free to choose who they want to be and what they want to believe in.”

Indeed, that threat of death is quite real, given the murders that have taken place in the Netherlands. The courageous Ayaan Hirsi Ali was forced to flee the country because of the threats against her. And around the world, individuals like Abdul Rahman and Lina Joy have faced death and imprisonment for exercising their right to follow the call of Christ, while forced conversions have become a hallmark of jihadi terrorists.

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights is clear on that such oppression is a violation of a fundamental right of every human being.

Article 18.

Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion; this right includes freedom to change his religion or belief, and freedom, either alone or in community with others and in public or private, to manifest his religion or belief in teaching, practice, worship and observance.

Notice, please, that there is no exception for Islam – EVERYONE had the right to change one’s religion or beliefs.

So unless we are to conclude that Muslims – including those born and raised as Muslims without their consent – are not human, then it is obligatory for every government to not only permit individual Muslims to freely change their religion, but also protect such ex-Muslims from violent reprisal by their former co-religionists.

Of course, given the violations of the rest of the rights in Article 18 in Saudi Arabia and other Muslim countries, I somehow doubt that the governments of those countries will suddenly embrace the right to renounce Islam and become an apostate. It is up to the rest of the world to apply pressure until that right is universally accepted.

Unfortunately, this does not help us to deal with the greater philosophical question – how much tolerance should we grant to a religion that not only rejects tolerance, but does so in a murderous fashion?

H/T Malkin

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Posted by: Greg at 02:30 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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I was raised Catholic. During the first year of my marriage, though, I realized that I was finding myself drawn in a somewhat different spiritual direction, and left the Church. At no time did I expect the force of law to be applied against me – nor did I need to live in fear that I would be murdered for following my conscience.

Unfortunately, that is not the case for these folks.

A group of young Muslim apostates launches a campaign today, the anniversary of the 9/11 attacks on America, to make it easier to renounce Islam.

The provocative move reflects a growing rift between traditionalists and a younger generation raised on a diet of Dutch tolerance.

The Committee for Ex-Muslims promises to campaign for freedom of religion but has already upset the Islamic and political Establishments for stirring tensions among the million-strong Muslim community in the Netherlands.

Ehsan Jami, the committeeÂ’s founder, who rejected Islam after the attack on the twin towers in 2001, has become the most talked-about public figure in the Netherlands. He has been forced into hiding after a series of death threats and a recent attack.

The threats are taken seriously after the murder in 2002 of Pim Fortuyn, an antiimmigration politician, and in 2004 of Theo Van Gogh, an antiIslam film-maker.

Speaking to The Times at a secret location before the committeeÂ’s launch today, the Labour Party councillor said that the movement would declare war on radical Islam. Similar organisations campaigning for reform of the religion have sprung up across Europe and representatives from Britain and Germany will join the launch in The Hague today.

“Sharia schools say that they will kill the ones who leave Islam. In the West people get threatened, thrown out of their family, beaten up,” Mr Jami said. “In Islam you are born Muslim. You do not even choose to be Muslim. We want that to change, so that people are free to choose who they want to be and what they want to believe in.”

Indeed, that threat of death is quite real, given the murders that have taken place in the Netherlands. The courageous Ayaan Hirsi Ali was forced to flee the country because of the threats against her. And around the world, individuals like Abdul Rahman and Lina Joy have faced death and imprisonment for exercising their right to follow the call of Christ, while forced conversions have become a hallmark of jihadi terrorists.

The Universal Declaration of Human Rights is clear on that such oppression is a violation of a fundamental right of every human being.

Article 18.

Everyone has the right to freedom of thought, conscience and religion; this right includes freedom to change his religion or belief, and freedom, either alone or in community with others and in public or private, to manifest his religion or belief in teaching, practice, worship and observance.

Notice, please, that there is no exception for Islam – EVERYONE had the right to change one’s religion or beliefs.

So unless we are to conclude that Muslims – including those born and raised as Muslims without their consent – are not human, then it is obligatory for every government to not only permit individual Muslims to freely change their religion, but also protect such ex-Muslims from violent reprisal by their former co-religionists.

Of course, given the violations of the rest of the rights in Article 18 in Saudi Arabia and other Muslim countries, I somehow doubt that the governments of those countries will suddenly embrace the right to renounce Islam and become an apostate. It is up to the rest of the world to apply pressure until that right is universally accepted.

Unfortunately, this does not help us to deal with the greater philosophical question – how much tolerance should we grant to a religion that not only rejects tolerance, but does so in a murderous fashion?

H/T Malkin

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Posted by: Greg at 02:30 PM | No Comments | Add Comment
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I agree that extremist materials need to be kept out of prison libraries, but this just goes too far.

Behind the walls of federal prisons nationwide, chaplains have been quietly carrying out a systematic purge of religious books and materials that were once available to prisoners in chapel libraries.

The chaplains were directed by the Bureau of Prisons to clear the shelves of any books, tapes, CDs and videos that are not on a list of approved resources. In some prisons, the chaplains have recently dismantled libraries that had thousands of texts collected over decades, bought by the prisons, or donated by churches and religious groups.

I understand that there needs to be screening, and I acknowledge that libraries can't accommodate everything. However, consider what the approved list includes -- and does not include.

The Bureau of Prisons said it relied on experts to produce lists of up to 150 book titles and 150 multimedia resources for each of 20 religions or religious categories — everything from Bahaism to Yoruba. The lists will be expanded in October, and there will be occasional updates, Ms. Billingsley said. Prayer books and other worship materials are not affected by this process.

The lists are broad, but reveal eccentricities and omissions. There are nine titles by C. S. Lewis, for example, and none from the theologians Reinhold Niebuhr, Karl Barth and Cardinal Avery Dulles, and the influential pastor Robert H. Schuller.

Mainstream theologians and popular pastors have been excluded. How absurd! It appears as if intellectual laziness is the criteria for inclusion of materials -- I won't say theological bias is at work, other than a bias against weightier works.

And, of course, the problem that is being dealt with has never particularly been one coming from Christian and Jewish works. The hatred and extremism has been imported by "The Religion Of Peace" that attacked us six years ago tomorrow -- but actually dealing with the foul propaganda that advocates hatred and extremism would be seen as an example of bias, so everyone's religious material needs to be restricted lest the ACLU and CAIR file suit.

Posted by: Greg at 09:47 PM | Comments (5) | Add Comment
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I guess it is time to show some solidarity with those whose free speech is under assault.

A Swedish Muslim group on Tuesday said it plans to sue a local newspaper for publishing a drawing of the Prophet Muhammad with a dog's body. The Nerikes Allehanda newspaper in Orebro printed the cartoon made by artist Lars Vilks in an August 19 editorial that criticized Swedish art galleries for not displaying Vilks' art.

Mahmoud Aldebe, chairman of the Swedish Muslim Federation, said the group would sue the newspaper for inciting hatred against ethnic groups. "It ridicules our religion. This is discriminating and insulting... they want to see just how far they are able to go by pushing the boundaries of press freedom," he said.

Actually, Mamoud, I think you and your fellow Muslims done a fine job of inciting hatred against yourselves and your faith. After all, between acts of terrorism and attempts to restrict the rights of non-Muslims, you and your co-religionists have managed to lower the esteem in which I once held Islam.

Besides -- since the Qu'ran contains insulting statements denying the divinity of Christ and ridiculing the beliefs of Christians, I certainly could argue that it constitutes an incitement of hate against ethnic groups, and that it is therefore discriminating and insulting towards OUR faith. Do you really want to trade your religion's holy book for a few pathetic drawings of your faith's (false) prophet?

H/T Stop the ACLU

Posted by: Greg at 12:04 PM | Comments (101) | Add Comment
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Today's WaPo has an excellent piece on the rise of anti-Semitism in Europe today.

Hatred of Jews has reached new heights in Europe and many points south and east of the old continent. Last year I chaired a blue-ribbon committee of British parliamentarians, including former ministers and a party leader, that examined the problem of anti-Semitism in Britain. None of us are Jewish or active in the unending debates on the Israeli-Palestinian question.

Our report showed a pattern of fear among a small number of British citizens -- there are around 300,000 Jews in Britain, of whom about a third are observant -- that is not acceptable in a modern democracy. Synagogues attacked. Jewish schoolboys jostled on public transportation. Rabbis punched and knifed. British Jews feeling compelled to raise millions to provide private security for their weddings and community events. On campuses, militant anti-Jewish students fueled by Islamist or far-left hate seeking to prevent Jewish students from expressing their opinions.

Frankly, I think it would be interesting to see a study similar to McShane's carried out in this country today. There has been a steady rise in the anti-Semitic rhetoric on the Left today, as best shown on websites like Kos and DU. On college campuses around the country, anti-Semitic rhetoric is a staple of anti-Israel protest -- but opposition to the brutal face of Islam shown daily by the jihadis is treated as religious intolerance and Americans are urged to "abandon their stereotypes". The Israel lobby is painted as anti-American by some -- while unindicted co-conspirators in terrorism related cases are treated as respected voices of moderation.

Indeed, not only is it time to examine the anti-Semitism running rampant in America, it is also time to closely examine the philo-Islamism that threatens to undermine our struggle against the forces of jihadi terror.

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One of the strangest laws on the books in Texas has been a statute forbidding any person or organization from operating an educational institution referring to itself as a seminary or awarding theological degrees without licensure and supervision by the State of Texas. It seemed out of place, for the teaching of theology and the determination of the qualifications of those who have a theological education for a degree has always seemed to be decidedly a matter for churches, not the state.

Today, the Texas Supreme Court agreed.

The Texas Supreme Court reversed lower court decisions today and ruled that state restrictions on what unaccredited religious institutions can call themselves and their education training violate the First Amendment.

The court said banning an institution like the Tyndale Theological Seminary in Fort Worth from using the term "seminary" in its name violates the Constitution.

Three religious organizations waged the legal fight. Tyndale, one of the schools, was cited in 1998 for violating a law that requires seminaries to be accredited and prevents unaccredited institutions from awarding degrees. It was fined $173,000 by the Texas Higher Education Coordinating Board.

Plano-based Liberty Legal Institute represented the schools and argued before the court in 2005 that the state has no business regulating how pastors are trained.

State law requires institutions to meet certain standards if they call themselves a college, university or seminary. The court ruled that the law as it pertains to seminaries intrudes upon religious freedom.

"This decision is a huge victory for all seminaries not only in Texas but nationwide," said Kelly Shackelford, the institute chief counsel. "Seminaries are going to now be free to be seminaries ... The shackles are off."

The case is not about secular teaching and degrees, but about purely theological education, he said. Shackelford said the ruling means the plaintiffs can try to recover attorneys' fees incurred in the case.

Ultimately, the statute had the state (either directly or through a private organization) determining the qualifications of teachers of theology and the structure and content of that education if a school wished to award academic degrees. Indeed, there was potential here for the state to deny a religious body the ability to credential its own clergy -- especially given the fact that the state recognized only one body for accrediting schools of religion, meaning that a group with unorthodox beliefs might be denied due to doctrinal and ecclesiastical governance issues. with which it was at odds with the organization granted a monopoly on recognizing such programs by the state.

Freedom of religion means nothing if the teaching of religion by religious organizations can be regulated and restricted by the state.

Posted by: Greg at 12:27 PM | Comments (1) | Add Comment
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Not, mind you, that the station doesn't have the right to do as its choosing with its schedule. However, the reason for that change is quite troubling.

A Christian televangelist who harshly criticizes Islam and other religions said Friday that his late-night program is being pulled off the air because of pressure from a Muslim group.

Earlier this month, officials from the Council on American Islamic Relations wrote a letter to the TV station's owners asking for an investigation of the show it broadcasts, "Live Prayer with Bill Keller."

In a May 2 broadcast, the televangelist said Islam was a "1,400-year-old lie from the pits of hell" and called the Prophet Muhammad a "murdering pedophile." He also called the Quran a "book of fables and a book of lies."

Council officials asked for equal air time for Florida Muslims to counter Keller's comments, but never got the chance.

The hourlong show, which airs nightly at 1 a.m., is broadcast on WTOG-TV, a CBS-owned station that airs the CW network locally. WTOG station manager Laura Caruso said the decision to end Keller's contract was a programming one, made by station executives and the televangelist.

But after speaking with CBS executives, the Islamic group claimed credit for Keller's demise. His last broadcast will be Aug. 31.

"They really based their decision upon our letter," said Ramzy Kilic, the group's civil rights coordinator. "They really did not know that Bill Keller was involved with this kind of anti-Muslim rhetoric."

Let's see -- Keller says they yanked the show because of Muslim complaints. The terrorist-affiliated Muslim group indicates that its protests got Keller off the air. The station, on the other hand, says that the complaints had nothing to do with it and that Keller agreed to the change. Is it just me, or does it appear that someone -- likely the CBS affiliate -- is lying here?

Mind you, I don't necessarily agree with all of Keller's theology, or even all of his comments about Islam. But he is accurate in his initial premise that Islam and Christianity are fundamentally incompatible -- and that since Jesus is THE Way, THE Truth and THE Light, an incompatible faith explicitly states that Jesus was not divine and was not crucified and resurrected clearly does constitute a danger to one's eternal soul. A book (such as the Quran) which purports to be divinely revealed and teaches falsely about Jesus is, in fact, a "book of fables and a book of lies." And while one can argue the Mohammad was not a pedophile based on certain cultural and social norms that prevailed in seventh century Arabia, it is clear that he and his successors over the next 1400 years often engaged in murder to advance their religion and to prevent the exercise of the human right to freely practice the faith of one's choosing.

In America, respect for the religious beliefs and sensitivities of others is not required. Indeed, WTOG-TV and CBS regularly broadcast material which is insensitive and insulting towards the religious beliefs of Christians and other religious groups. Only Islam seems to get this sort of hyper-sensitive treatment.

Could it be that the tendency of Muslims world wide to riot and murder when confronted with opposing voices is the reason for this disparity? And if it is, isn't such barbaric behavior sufficient reason in and of itself to denounce ridicule and belittle the Religion of Behead-The-Infidel and those who practice it?

H/T Stop the ACLU, Weasel Zippers

And on a related note, bravo to Salon.com for having the courage to host two weeks of Berkley Breathed's "Opus" which have been withheld from publication by many newspapers for mocking Islamism.

Posted by: Greg at 08:17 AM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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It seems this guy's message has taken root in Great Britain.

After all, the police took action to ban this humorous entry in a carnival parade.

It probably seemed like a good idea at the time. Stuck for inspiration about what to wear at their village carnival, one group made a last-minute decision to dress up in mock Muslim burkas.

Calling themselves the "Page Three Beauties from the Ramalama Ding-Dong Times", the 17 men and women carried placards with made-up names such as "Miss Hairyarmpitsbad", "Miss Slackistan", "Miss Notbadinbedabad" and "Miss Reallyamanistan".

As they walked the one-mile parade route, the group knelt down in mock prayer and used fake compasses to try to find Mecca.

Their routine impressed carnival judges - a mayor, two district councillors and a parish councillor - and they were shortlisted for the "best entry" prize.

But before any awards were handed out, police told the group to leave after complaints about racism.

And all it took was six unidentified "students from out of the area" to complain and get the group hustled out of the area.

I somehow doubt that a group mocking priests or nuns or Hare Krishnas would have received similar treatment.

But then again, those folks don't threaten you with death for mocking them.

H/T LGF, Jawa Report

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I have a difficult time imagining the city of San Francisco allowing a Christian school to operate on city land -- especially not one that hews to orthodox Christian teachings. And I certainly cannot imagine the city doing so if the group operating it were one with a long and well-documented history of racist and anti-Semitic teachings coming out of its top leadership.

But that is happening in San Francisco right now. Except the religious school in question is operated by the racist, anti-Semitic Nation of Islam -- and it has been allowed to operate on city land RENT FREE for five years.

The Nation of Islam school in San Francisco's Hunters Point, now at the center of a controversy over whether asbestos-laden dust from a neighboring development is sickening residents, has quite a history - not to mention a curious lease arrangement with the city.

It sits on city land, and the school was supposed to pay rent - but in the five years since it opened, it hasn't been billed a dime.

It's a classic example of how the patronage politics that defined the Willie Brown era at San Francisco City Hall still rattle around to this day.

Read the rest of the story -- it is sickening.

Oh, and by the way -- it appears that the organization's mosque may also have been paid for with city and federal state tax dollars. I wonder if San Francisco would cut such a deal for a Baptist Church in the city's Castro District?

Seems to me that the Nation of Islam has become the officially established religion of San Francisco -- without a word of outcry from the ACLU or others that these mosque-itos have been sucking the taxpayers dry for years.

Posted by: Greg at 07:15 AM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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Nothing -- absolutely nothing -- can justify this sort of vandalism and violence against any place of worship. Period.

Police in Arizona said two unidentified men tossed a bottle filled with acid at a Phoenix area mosque early on Monday, splashing a caustic chemical near a Muslim cleric involved in a high-profile discrimination suit.

A Glendale Police Department spokesman said two men driving in a red car threw a soda bottle filled with acid and a reactant at the Albanian American Islamic Center of Arizona, in Glendale, west of Phoenix, around 1 a.m. (O800 GMT) on Monday.

The bottle, which contained pool cleaner and strips of tin foil, burst some 20-25 feet away from Imam Didmar Faja and another mosque official, although neither man was injured, sergeant Jim Toomey said.

"The bottle ruptured in front of them and they smelled a strong chemical smell when it went off," Toomey said.

"We are treating it as a hate crime. We are taking it very seriously," he added.

This is not how real Americans do things -- and those responsible do not merit the dignity and high honor that goes with being an American citizen.

On the other hand, I can't wait to see Faza's lawsuit thrown out on its merits.

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Michael Gerson makes an excellent point in the Washington Post on what is significant about Mitt Romney's Mormonism -- and how it should unite him with, rather than divide him from, religious conservatives.

Many Christians have serious problems with Mormon theology on personal salvation and the nature of history -- disputes that go much deeper than those between, say, Baptists and Presbyterians. These disagreements are theologically important. But they are not politically important, because they are unrelated to governing.

Romney, however, should not make Kennedy's mistake and assert that all religious beliefs are unrelated to politics. What Mormonism shares with other religious traditions is a strong commitment to the value and dignity of human beings, including the unborn, the disabled and the poor. This conviction is unavoidably political, because it leads men and women to act in the cause of justice, not in order to impose their religion, but to protect the weak.

Given this common ground, evangelicals and other religious conservatives should not disqualify Romney from the outset. There may be other reasons to oppose him for president, but his belief about the destiny of the soul is not one of them.

Indeed, that point is critical -- and it is important to avoid the Kennedy trap of trivializing the importance of religious beliefs in the lives of religious believers.

Posted by: Greg at 02:52 AM | Comments (2) | Add Comment
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I love the Harry Potter books since I picked up the first one several years ago, just to understand what had my students so excited. I certainly noted some Christian symbolism -- but not anywhere near as much as this column explains.

Next I tried the more recognizable Christian material. In Harry Potter and The Chamber of Secrets, Harry confronts Voldemort (whose name means “will to death”) by traveling down into a great cavern where he slays a serpent to win an (eventual) bride. He fatally wounds the serpent in the head. He’s rescued by a bird who descends upon him and the bride, a kind of bird whose “tears have healing powers, and who are able to bear immense loads.” The bird bears them up out of the cavern. “There, how’s that?” I thought. The problem is that very few Christians seem to be aware of descendit ad infernum, the descent into hell. Don’t the schools teach Dante? Don’t the Churches teach the Apostle’s Creed? Well, as a matter of fact, no, they generally do not. The Proto Evangelium, the first gospel in which God told Adam and Eve that He would send Someone who would rescue their descendents by crushing the head of the serpent doesn’t seem to get a lot of play either.

I could go on for page after page: snippets from ancient hymns and creeds for instance. The most powerful spell in Harry’s world is the Patronus, in which the wizard forcefully says “Expecto Patronum”. That’s Christian Latin for “I look for the Savior”. Expecto is used in the Nicene Creed, and Patronum is used in the medieval Dies Irae as the Savior that we look for in the day of judgment. Harry uses the spell when ghastly evil spiritual beings called DEMENtors (caps mine) attack him and another innocent man near a lake. A stag (which just happens to function as a common Christ figure in medieval art) walks across the water dispelling the vile soul-destroying creatures. What’s it take, a 2 by 4 across the forehead? This is Christian stuff!

I have only one word for this column -- FASCINATING!

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I disagree with Christopher Hitchens when it comes to his assertions about religion generally, but the conclusion to his column pointing out that fear dominates our society's treatment of Islam, and the special sensitivity that too many advocate towards that faith.

There can be no concession to sharia in the United States. When will we see someone detained, or even cautioned, for advocating the burning of books in the name of God? If the police are honestly interested in this sort of "hate crime," I can help them identify those who spent much of last year uttering physical threats against the republication in this country of some Danish cartoons. In default of impartial prosecution, we have to insist that Muslims take their chance of being upset, just as we who do not subscribe to their arrogant certainties are revolted every day by the hideous behavior of the parties of God.

It is often said that resistance to jihadism only increases the recruitment to it. For all I know, this commonplace observation could be true. But, if so, it must cut both ways. How about reminding the Islamists that, by their mad policy in Kashmir and elsewhere, they have made deadly enemies of a billion Indian Hindus? Is there no danger that the massacre of Iraqi and Lebanese Christians, or the threatened murder of all Jews, will cause an equal and opposite response? Most important of all, what will be said and done by those of us who take no side in filthy religious wars? The enemies of intolerance cannot be tolerant, or neutral, without inviting their own suicide. And the advocates and apologists of bigotry and censorship and suicide-assassination cannot be permitted to take shelter any longer under the umbrella of a pluralism that they openly seek to destroy.

To answer Hitchens, though, the answer seems to be that there is not a possibility of a violent response to Islam when atrocities are regularly and gruesomely carried out in its name. We know that because we have seen, time and time again, that the rest of us stand by as Islamic barbarism is perpetrated against us and out co-religionists (or, in Hitchens' case, co-irreligionists). When there is a response, the meekest voices among us demand that we turn the other cheek, forgetting that the same Christ said that the day would come when his followers would need to buy a sword to defend themselves.

Of course, I do not suggest that we need to duplicate the methods of the jihadi swine who engage in riots, bombings hostage-taking and murder to advance their malignant faith. I do not advocate that we behead innocent Muslims or otherwise murder random Islamic hostages. But I do insist that it is right and proper that people of good will speak out against the teachings and actions of the Islamists -- and that we not hold back for fear of radicalizing those who object to such condemnations as treading upon what they hold sacred.

And to the Muslim who demands that we not blaspheme against the Koran or Muhammad, let me remind you of an inconvenient truth -- Islam's teachings that the Bible is corrupt and that Jesus is a human prophet and not the eternally preexistent Son of God constitutes blasphemy to the ears of Christians. Shall we impose upon you the penalties that you and your faith demand upon those who tread upon your religious sensitivities and sacred tenets?

H/T Blogs for Bush

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Riots?

Beheadings?

Media condemnation?

Hate crime prosecutions?

I doubt it -- they are only ridiculing Jesus and demonstrating hatred for Christians.

While college students are thrown in jail on multiple felony charges for pranks involving Korans, Hollywood merrily continues a campaign of ridicule against Christianity, which does not enjoy the favor Islam does in our politically correct establishment. The latest assault is The Ten, a comedy spoof of the Ten Commandments, which features a lecherous Jesus who corrupts a virgin librarian.

How daringly provocative, in a vulgar sixth-grade bully sort of way.

I'm curious -- where is the film mocking the false prophet Muhammad and the heresy of Islam?

H/T Moonbattery

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Human rights don't mean a thing if you are a religious believer in China.

Four priests from China's underground Roman Catholic church were detained by police, a U.S.-based monitoring group said Sunday.

Three priests were detained Tuesday in the northern region of Inner Mongolia after fleeing their hometown to avoid arrest for refusing to join the state-sanctioned church, the Cardinal Kung Foundation announced. It said the fourth priest was detained in early July in the northern province of Hebei following a motorcycle accident.

The world cries out in outrage when someone looks askance at a Muslim. Where is the voice of the world community on behalf of the oppressed religious believers of China?

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If you want your every religious dictate respected by the airline, I guess you'll just have to take some of your cash and start your own.

A Qatar sheik held up a British Airways flight at MilanÂ’s Linate airport for nearly three hours after discovering three of his female relatives had been seated next to men they did not know.

When none of the other business class passengers agreed to swap seats, the sheik, a member of QatarÂ’s ruling family, went to the pilot, who had already started the engine, to complain, an airport official said.

But the pilot ordered him and his traveling companions, the three women, two men, a cook and a servant, off the plane.

Some requests are reasonable. Demanding that other passengers be inconvenienced for your convenience is not. After all, reserving the seats in advance wouldn't have been so hard, would it? Or maybe you could have flown coach?

But if you want Islamic law imposed on airline flights, maybe you need your own airline.

UPDATE: This story is even worse than it initially sounded.

After passengers had fastened their seat-belts and the plane had taxied on to the runway, two male passengers in the entourage got up to protest about where the women were sitting.

According to the customs of Qatar and other Gulf states, women are not allowed to mix with men who are not relatives.

Cabin crew tried to rearrange the seats but passengers travelling together refused to give up their allotted places. The captain tried to mediate but after more than two and a half hours of wrangling he ordered the bulk of their royal party off the plane.

It is understood that five of the eight - including the princesses and the men who left their seats to protest - were removed.

So it appears that not only were did they demand that their views be accommodated, but they demanded that other passengers be seriously inconvenienced to make that accommodation. After all, they wanted to break up families and other parties traveling together to meet their convenience needs for their afternoon shopping trip. As it was, nearly half of those on the plane missed connecting flights because the captain took as long as he did trying to reach a compromise. A better solution would have been to give them 30 seconds to sit down, shut up, and and fly in their assigned seats -- or hump it back to Qatar by camel.

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Shakeel Ahmad Bhat has become the face of all that is extreme in modern Islam. Now Islamic Rage Boy speaks out -- and his perpetually outraged feelings are again hurt.

"I am not happy with people joking about me or making me into a cartoon, but I have more important things to think about. My protests are for those Muslims who cannot go out onto the streets to cry out against injustice. This is my duty and I believe Allah has decided this for me."

And after all, why would people possibly joke about Shakeel Ahmad Bhat or make him into a cartoon?

After all -- what is really so funny about a frothing-mouthed radical who calls for the death of the Pope, Salman Rushdie, or the editors who published the Muhammad cartoons?

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I'm generally supportive of employers accommodating religious workers. And indeed, federal law requires it, provided that there is no undue burden placed upon the employer. An interesting test case on this issue vis-a-vis Islam may be coming out of Nebraska.

Supervisors at a meatpacking plant have fired or harassed dozens of Somali Muslim employees for trying to pray at sunset, violating civil rights laws, the workers and their advocates say.

The five- to 10-minute prayer, known as the maghrib, must be done within a 45-minute window around sunset, according to Muslim rules. The workers at the Swift & Co. plant in Grand Island say they quit, were fired or were verbally and physically harassed over the issue.

The Council on American-Islamic Relations has drafted a complaint to be filed with the federal Equal Employment Opportunity Commission. The petition compiles testimony from at least 44 workers who had planned to sign the complaint during a meeting Sunday. The signing was changed to a later date because of a logistical problem.

Jama Mohamed, 28, said he was fired in June for leaving a production line to pray. Supervisors would not allow him a break, he said.

However, the problem seems to be that there are over 100 Muslim workers at the plant -- and accommodating them could present a significant burden for the employer.

Donald Selzer, an attorney for Greeley, Colo.-based Swift, said only three Somali workers were fired for reasons relating to the issue, and that it was for walking off the line without permission, not for praying.

Unscheduled breaks can force unplanned shutdowns of lines, Selzer said.

"That is a significant number of employees, and there is not much of a way to accommodate that consistent with keeping the production online," he said.

Which raises the obvious question -- is shutting down production an unreasonable burden for the employer? I think the answer is obvious.

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No doubt we will hear screechings from liberal theologians, but this document issued by the Vatican does nothing more than restate what came out of the Second Vatican Council four decades ago.

Pope Benedict XVI has reasserted the universal primacy of the Roman Catholic Church, approving a document released Tuesday that says Orthodox churches were defective and that other Christian denominations were not true churches.

Benedict approved a document from his old offices at the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith that restates church teaching on relations with other Christians. It was the second time in a week the pope has corrected what he says are erroneous interpretations of the Second Vatican Council, the 1962-65 meetings that modernized the church.

* * *

It restates key sections of a 2000 document the pope wrote when he was prefect of the congregation, "Dominus Iesus," which set off a firestorm of criticism among Protestant and other Christian denominations because it said they were not true churches but merely ecclesial communities and therefore did not have the "means of salvation."

In the new document and an accompanying commentary, which were released as the pope vacations here in Italy's Dolomite mountains, the Vatican repeated that position.

"Christ 'established here on earth' only one church," the document said. The other communities "cannot be called 'churches' in the proper sense" because they do not have apostolic succession _ the ability to trace their bishops back to Christ's original apostles.

Now speaking as an ex-Catholic with four years of seminary training, I can tell you that there is nothing new or shocking here. And while you will have liberal Catholics rant about a betrayal of "the spirit of Vatican II", let me assure you that they are wrong. Indeed, my experience was that most folks who make that argument have never actually read the documents of Vatican II to see what they actually say.

In this case, the document does little more than restate what was written in 1964 in Unitatis Redintigratio -- and indeed also hearkens back to Lumen Gentium, which makes the following point.

This is the one Church of Christ which in the Creed is professed as one, holy, catholic and apostolic, which our Saviour, after His Resurrection, commissioned Peter to shepherd, and him and the other apostles to extend and direct with authority, which He erected for all ages as "the pillar and mainstay of the truth". This Church constituted and organized in the world as a society, subsists in the Catholic Church, which is governed by the successor of Peter and by the Bishops in communion with him, although many elements of sanctification and of truth are found outside of its visible structure. These elements, as gifts belonging to the Church of Christ, are forces impelling toward catholic unity.

In noting that groups not in union with Rome are somehow defective and/or not fully churches but are still part of the Body of Christ we have something that is hardly a novel development in the post-Vatican II era. Indeed, were it not for the theological ignorance of many in the journalistic world, I'd be surprised that this new document even merits a mention by the press. What's more, I don't see anything that merits the statement found in the article that the document has a "harsh tone".

And interestingly enough, it would appear that the Protestant spokespeople cited by Reuters to comment don't particularly know anything about the last four decades of Catholic teaching on ecclesiology or ecumenism.

But Bishop Wolfgang Huber, head of the Protestant umbrella group Evangelical Church in Germany (EKD), said the new Vatican document effectively downgraded Protestant churches and would make ecumenical relations more difficult.

Huber said the new pronouncement repeated the "offensive statements" of the 2000 document and was a "missed opportunity" to patch up relations with Protestants.

"The hope for a change in the ecumenical situation has been pushed further away by the document published today," he said.

A statement from The French Protestant Federation said that while the document was an internal pronouncement of the Catholic Church, it would have "external repercussions."

But given the reality that absolutely nothing has changed in the position of the Catholic Church on the issue of ecumenism and the nature of the Church, I don't see where anything substantive has changed. What we have instead is simply alarmism.

Now let me expand upon that a little bit more. The Catholic Church has a body, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, that is charged with pronouncing upon Church doctrine, as you noted. They tend to do so as questions are raised and brought before it, based upon the writings of various theologians. What seems to have happened here is that particular writers have begun to call into question the meaning of certain Vatican II pronouncements I have mentioned above. As a result, Cardinal Levada and his staff prepared a document that does no more than go back to the earlier documents and restates them in much the same language as originally used 43 years ago. Unfortunately, the fifth question (as did the fourth) goes back to a technical definition of terms as used in Catholic theology that engenders a certain amount of confusion. Indeed, it would have been helpful for the document to more fully cite Communionis Notio, which includes the following passage:

17. "The Church knows that she is joined in many ways to the baptized who are honoured by the name of Christian, but who do not however profess the Catholic faith in its entirety or have not preserved unity or communion under the successor of Peter". Among the non-Catholic Churches and Christian communities, there are indeed to be found many elements of the Church of Christ, which allow us, amid joy and hope, to acknowledge the existence of a certain communion, albeit imperfect.

This communion exists especially with the Eastern orthodox Churches, which, though separated from the See of Peter, remain united to the Catholic Church by means of very close bonds, such as the apostolic succession and a valid Eucharist, and therefore merit the title of particular Churches. Indeed, "through the celebration of the Eucharist of the Lord in each of these Churches, the Church of God is built up and grows in stature", for in every valid celebration of the Eucharist the one, holy, catholic and apostolic Church becomes truly present.

Since, however, communion with the universal Church, represented by Peter's Successor, is not an external complement to the particular Church, but one of its internal constituents, the situation of those venerable Christian communities also means that their existence as particular Churches is wounded. The wound is even deeper in those ecclesial communities which have not retained the apostolic succession and a valid Eucharist. This in turn also injures the Catholic Church, called by the Lord to become for all "one flock" with "one shepherd", in that it hinders the complete fulfillment of its universality in history.

Unfortunately, the fifth question was framed as asking why the term "ecclesial community" is used rather than "Church" when dealing with the various post-Reformation expressions of Christian community. It sticks strictly to a restatement of the definition, without delving deeper discussion of how those communities are viewed by the Catholic Church. Indeed, it appears presumed that those reading this new document (technically entitled Responsa Ad Qaestiones or Response To Some Questions -- doesn't the Latin have a classier ring to it?)

Now interestingly enough, there is an additional commentary released by the CDF to explain Responsa Ad Qaestiones more fully. Here's what it says about that fifth question:

The fifth question asks why the ecclesial Communities originating from the Reformation are not recognised as ‘Churches’.

In response to this question the document recognises that “the wound is still more profound in those ecclesial communities which have not preserved the apostolic succession or the valid celebration of the eucharist”. For this reason they are “not Churches in the proper sense of the word” but rather, as is attested in conciliar and postconciliar teaching, they are “ecclesial Communities”.

Despite the fact that this teaching has created no little distress in the communities concerned and even amongst some Catholics, it is nevertheless difficult to see how the title of “Church” could possibly be attributed to them, given that they do not accept the theological notion of the Church in the Catholic sense and that they lack elements considered essential to the Catholic Church.

In saying this, however, it must be remembered that these said ecclesial Communities, by virtue of the diverse elements of sanctification and truth really present in them, undoubtedly possess as such an ecclesial character and consequently a salvific significance.

This new document of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, which essentially summarises the teaching of the Council and the post-conciliar magisterium, constitutes a clear reaffirmation of Catholic doctrine on the Church. Apart from dealing with certain unacceptable ideas which have unfortunately spread around the Catholic world, it offers valuable indications for the future of ecumenical dialogue. This dialogue remains one of the priorities of the Catholic Church, as Benedict XVI confirmed in his first message to the Church on April 20, 2005 and on many other occasions, especially during his apostolic visit to Turkey (28.11.06-1.12.06). However, if such dialogue is to be truly constructive it must involve not just the mutual openness of the participants but also fidelity to the identity of the Catholic faith. Only in this way will it be able to lead towards the unity of all Christians in “one flock with one shepherd” (Jn 10, 16) and thus heal that wound which prevents the Catholic Church from fully realising her universality within history.

Catholic ecumenism might seem, at first sight, somewhat paradoxical. The Second Vatican Council used the phrase “subsistit in” in order to try to harmonise two doctrinal affirmations: on the one hand, that despite all the divisions between Christians the Church of Christ continues to exist fully only in the Catholic Church, and on the other hand that numerous elements of sanctification and truth do exist outwith the visible boundaries of the Catholic Church whether in the particular Churches or in the ecclesial Communities that are not fully in communion with the Catholic Church. For this reason, the same Decree of Vatican II on ecumenism Unitatis Redintegratio introduced the term fullness (unitatis/catholicitatis) specifically to help better understand this somewhat paradoxical situation. Although the Catholic Church has the fullness of the means of salvation, “nevertheless, the divisions among Christians prevent the Church from effecting the fullness of catholicity proper to her in those of her children who, though joined to her by baptism, are yet separated from full communion with her.” The fullness of the Catholic Church, therefore, already exists, but still has to grow in the brethren who are not yet in full communion with it and also in its own members who are sinners “until it happily arrives at the fullness of eternal glory in the heavenly Jerusalem.” This progress in fullness is rooted in the ongoing process of dynamic union with Christ: “Union with Christ is also union with all those to whom he gives himself. I cannot possess Christ just for myself; I can belong to him only in union with all those who have become, or will become, his own. Communion draws me out of myself towards him, and thus also towards unity with all Christians.”

Viewed in this light, there is not any trivialization of the post-Reformation expressions of Christianity or the action of God working though them for the sanctification of believers. Indeed, it is clear that there is a forward look towards a fuller unity/communion between all Christians -- but seeks to avoid minimizing the greater differences that exist between Catholicism and Protestantism than exist between Catholicism and Orthodoxy. After all, the differences between the Eastern and Western Churches are for the most part rooted in issues of primacy and governance, while the divisions that grew out of the Reformation have much deeper doctrinal issues at play.

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Proving once again that the paper's editors consider the US Constitution to be nothing more than toilet paper, today's editorial insists that the religious beliefs of a well-qualified nominee for public office be scrutinized carefully -- and that the nominee be rejected because of the religiously-based moral views he has expressed in the past.

What’s troubling is the view he once expressed — and may still hold — on homosexuality, through his activities as a lay leader in the United Methodist Church. On the church’s judicial council, he supported a minister who refused to allow a gay man to join his congregation and argued that a lesbian minister should be removed because church doctrine deems the practice of homosexuality to be “incompatible with Christian teaching.” His supporters say these rulings should not be read as his personal views because the council can’t change church doctrine. However, some council members opposed his views, and the bishops later rejected one decision.

His strongest statement on homosexuality can be found in a murky, loosely reasoned paper that he wrote for a church committee in 1991. Titled “Pathophysiology of Male Homosexuality,” the paper purported to be a scientific and medical review. It argued that gay sex was abnormal on anatomical and physiological grounds and unhealthy, in that anal sex can lead to rectal injuries and sexually transmitted diseases. Dr. Holsinger did not brand the large number of heterosexual women who engage in anal sex as abnormal, failed to acknowledge the huge burden of disease spread heterosexually and implied that women are more likely than men to avoid injuries with generous lubrication.

The Bush administration says the white paper reflected the scientific understanding of the time, but it reads like a veneer of science cloaking an aversion to homosexuality. The committee should examine whether Dr. Holsinger cherry-picked the literature or represented it objectively. Most important, it must determine whether Dr. Holsinger holds these benighted views today. The Senate should not confirm a surgeon general who considers practicing homosexuals abnormal and diseased.

This does, however, fly in the face of the clear command of Article VI of the US Constitution -- no religious test shall ever be required as a qualification to any office or public trust under the United States.

Interestingly enough, the paper produces no examples of Dr. Holsinger actually discriminating against homosexuals -- indeed, it notes that he has in the past stood up to political pressure to make sure that the health concerns of homosexuals are examined by medical professionals at government-sponsored conferences. Rather, they focus on one scientific paper that gay activists disagree with, and even more closely upon internal matters of church discipline and practice based upon his service in church leadership roles.

There was a time when the New York Times actually believed in the US Constitution as a matter of editorial policy. There was a time that civil rights and civil liberties were viewed as fundamental rights and freedoms not to be violated by the government. Today, however, that formerly great media outlet has clearly rejected the fundamental freedoms protected by that document, and in the name of political correctness demands that Congress do what is prohibited by the blueprint of American liberty. Congress -- indeed, every real American -- must reject the fundamentally unAmerican proposition put forth by the paper today.

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Pope Benedict XVI has finally promulgated his new document allowing wider use of the Tridentine Mass.

Pope Benedict XVI removed restrictions on celebrating the old form of the Latin Mass on Saturday in a concession to traditional Catholics, but he stressed that he was in no way rolling back the reforms of the Second Vatican Council.

Benedict issued a document authorizing parish priests to celebrate the Tridentine Mass if a ''stable group of faithful'' request it. Currently, the local bishop must approve such requests -- an obstacle that fans of the rite say has greatly limited its availability.

''What earlier generations held as sacred remains sacred and great for us too, and it cannot be all of a sudden entirely forbidden or even considered harmful,'' Benedict wrote.

Why bring it back?

Benedict said his overall goal was to unify the church. In the past, he wrote, ''at critical moments when divisions were coming about, not enough was done by the church's leaders to maintain or regain reconciliation and unity.''

This constitutes a wise pastoral move -- and one which really does not call into question any of the Vatican II reforms, despite the fears of extreme liberals and hopes of extreme conservatives.

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And this time the victim is a former Muslim who is trying to exercise her human right to follow the religion in which she believes -- because she dared to reject the Islamic faith in which she was raised. And remember, Malaysia claims to be a secular state, despite its Muslim majority.

A Muslim-born woman who was forced to spend six months in an Islamic rehabilitation center because she wants to live as a Hindu said Friday after her release that she will never return to her original faith.

Revathi Masoosai, 29, said officials at the center tried to make her pray as a Muslim, wear a head scarf and eat beef, a practice sacrilege to Hindus.

``Because of their behavior, I loathe Islam even more now,'' she told reporters. ``They say it's a school, but it's actually a prison.''

Her case is one of a growing number of conflicts in Malaysia between religious freedom and state policies that favor Islam, the official faith of this southeast Asian nation. The battles have strained ethnic relations in the multicultural nation.

Malaysia is considered one of the world's most relaxed Muslim countries, having enjoyed racial peace for nearly four decades. But it follows a dual justice system. Islamic, Shariah, courts administer the personal affairs of Muslims, while civil courts govern Hindus, Christians, Buddhists and other religious minorities.

Under Islamic law, a person who is born Muslim cannot convert to another religion.

What is more, the Muslim religious authorities seem to believe that she can still be coerced back into Islam, so they have ordered that she live with her mother and continue to receive their "counseling -- and insist that she stay away from her husband.

What is more, the sharia courts have also seized the couple's 18-month-old daughter from her father and turned her over to Revathi's mother to be raised as a Muslim, despite the wishes of both parents to the contrary -- another violation of internationally recognized human rights norms.

This just goes to prove one of two things -- either Muslims do not qualify as human beings, or Islam is a crime against humanity. Or perhaps a third possibility -- Western nations and international organizations lack the courage to stand up and forthrightly act to end violations of human rights in the name of Islam because they fear Muslim violence.

Past Articles on Islamic violations of religious freedom in Malaysia:
Malaysian Muslims Steal Hindu Hero's Body From Family
Religious Freedom -- Islamic Style
More On Lina Joy
Malaysian Court Rules Islam Trumps Internationally Recognized Human Rights Norms
Lina Joy May Flee Malaysia

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And this time the victim is a former Muslim who is trying to exercise her human right to follow the religion in which she believes -- because she dared to reject the Islamic faith in which she was raised. And remember, Malaysia claims to be a secular state, despite its Muslim majority.

A Muslim-born woman who was forced to spend six months in an Islamic rehabilitation center because she wants to live as a Hindu said Friday after her release that she will never return to her original faith.

Revathi Masoosai, 29, said officials at the center tried to make her pray as a Muslim, wear a head scarf and eat beef, a practice sacrilege to Hindus.

``Because of their behavior, I loathe Islam even more now,'' she told reporters. ``They say it's a school, but it's actually a prison.''

Her case is one of a growing number of conflicts in Malaysia between religious freedom and state policies that favor Islam, the official faith of this southeast Asian nation. The battles have strained ethnic relations in the multicultural nation.

Malaysia is considered one of the world's most relaxed Muslim countries, having enjoyed racial peace for nearly four decades. But it follows a dual justice system. Islamic, Shariah, courts administer the personal affairs of Muslims, while civil courts govern Hindus, Christians, Buddhists and other religious minorities.

Under Islamic law, a person who is born Muslim cannot convert to another religion.

What is more, the Muslim religious authorities seem to believe that she can still be coerced back into Islam, so they have ordered that she live with her mother and continue to receive their "counseling -- and insist that she stay away from her husband.

What is more, the sharia courts have also seized the couple's 18-month-old daughter from her father and turned her over to Revathi's mother to be raised as a Muslim, despite the wishes of both parents to the contrary -- another violation of internationally recognized human rights norms.

This just goes to prove one of two things -- either Muslims do not qualify as human beings, or Islam is a crime against humanity. Or perhaps a third possibility -- Western nations and international organizations lack the courage to stand up and forthrightly act to end violations of human rights in the name of Islam because they fear Muslim violence.

Past Articles on Islamic violations of religious freedom in Malaysia:
Malaysian Muslims Steal Hindu Hero's Body From Family
Religious Freedom -- Islamic Style
More On Lina Joy
Malaysian Court Rules Islam Trumps Internationally Recognized Human Rights Norms
Lina Joy May Flee Malaysia

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I'm saddened by the guilty plea by Chicago's Father Dan McCormack -- a guy I spent four years with in the seminary. Not just because someone I regularly broke bread with has done something unspeakably evil, but also because the sentence imposed seems unconscionably short to me.

Voicing no contrition for his crime, Rev. Daniel McCormack, the Chicago priest whose sexual-abuse case rocked the Chicago Catholic Archdiocese and led to an overhaul of church policy, pleaded guilty to molesting five boys and was sentenced to 5 years in prison.

With McCormack's admission of guilt, church officials vowed to permanently remove him from the priesthood.

As part of the plea deal worked out with prosecutors, McCormack, 38, pleaded guilty to five felony counts of aggravated criminal sexual abuse and was promptly sentenced by Circuit Judge Thomas Sumner to 5 years in prison. He was taken from the courtroom to begin serving the sentence.

Within an hour of the court proceeding, church officials said they would move quickly to petition Rome for McCormack's removal under church law. But they said they hope McCormack, the former pastor of St. Agatha Church on Chicago's West Side, will request his own termination.

Frankly, this sentence is not nearly enough in my book -- Dan needs spend a lot more time in prison than this, because he has admitted to raping no less than five boys. A year a piece is shockingly short -- though admittedly more than he would have gotten had he been a buxom young female school teacher.

I'm also angry that Dan McCormack was not required to stand up like a man and admit to the exact nature of his crimes -- and that his attorney even tried to get the true extent of his abuse of these children kept off the record. Not only that, but McCormack refused to even offer a word of apology or contrition for what he had done. I always considered Dan to have an arrogant streak, I am horrified that it runs this deep. Indeed, had I been the judge this would have been sufficient basis to reject the plea deal and move forward so that Dan McCormack could have received a longer, much more punitive sentence for his indefensible deeds.

I hope, and I pray, that Dan spends every single day of this sentence behind bars -- and that he spends each and every one cowering in a corner, praying that the guards can keep the other inmates from using him like he used those little boys.

Posted by: Greg at 03:14 AM | No Comments | Add Comment
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This would be an interesting development in the Catholic Church -- but is it nearly the calamity that liberals think it is?

It was one of the most radical reforms to emerge from the Second Vatican Council. The Mass, root of Roman Catholic worship, would be celebrated in the local language and not in Latin.

Now, little more than a generation later, Pope Benedict XVI is poised to revive the 16th-century Tridentine Mass.

But wait -- it is not an abandonment of the post-Vatican II liturgical reforms. Rather, it is simply the grant of greater freedom to use the Tridentine Missal -- revised and updated to eliminate any hint of anti-Semitism in light of Vatican II reforms -- where there are a sufficient number of people to warrant it.

And there is a pastoral need, both among Catholics who have remained loyal to the Vatican and schismatic groups that Benedict seeks to bring back into the fold. While I never found the Tridentine Rite to be particularly moving, I understand that there are those whose spirituality does benefit from the older form. Ultimately, it is the meeting of those spiritual needs that is central to the Pope's decision, which is appropriate given his role as the universal pastor of the Catholic Church.

UPDATE: Looks like the Pope has signed off on this and will shortly be passing the word to the faithful through the bishops.

Pope Benedict XVI has approved a document that relaxes restrictions on celebrating the Latin Mass used by the Roman Catholic Church for centuries until the modernizing reforms of the 1960s, the Vatican said Thursday.

Benedict discussed the decision with top officials in a meeting on Wednesday and the document will be published in the next few days, the statement said. The meeting was called to ''illustrate the content and the spirit'' of the document, which will be sent to all bishops accompanied by a personal letter from the pope.

Now there are a variety of objections from the usual suspects to allowing this change -- including objections from Jewish groups to Good Friday prayers for the conversion of the Jews. However, given the Great Commission to go forth in the world and make all its inhabitants disciples, I don't see where that should carry any weight with those who still believe that Scripture means what it says and says what it means.

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I guess nobody told Barack Obama that he is running for President of the United States, not Theologian-in-Chief. And since he is espousing the theology of his dying, apostate denomination, I don't know why any of us are supposed to take his theological positions seriously.

Sen. Barack Obama told a church convention Saturday that some right-wing evangelical leaders have exploited and politicized religious beliefs in an effort to sow division.

"Somehow, somewhere along the way, faith stopped being used to bring us together and faith started being used to drive us apart," the Democratic presidential candidate said in a 30-minute speech before the national meeting of the United Church of Christ.

"Faith got hijacked, partly because of the so-called leaders of the Christian Right, all too eager to exploit what divides us," the Illinois senator said.

"At every opportunity, they've told evangelical Christians that Democrats disrespect their values and dislike their church, while suggesting to the rest of the country that religious Americans care only about issues like abortion and gay marriage, school prayer and intelligent design," according to an advance copy of his speech.

"There was even a time when the Christian Coalition determined that its number one legislative priority was tax cuts for the rich," Obama said. "I don't know what Bible they're reading, but it doesn't jibe with my version."

Of course, Obama doesn't back up that statement -- it is impossible to do so because it is called, in common parlance, a "lie". While the Christian Coalition did support tax cuts across the board for all Americans, it never supported tax cuts for the rich only. I guess that Obama's version of the Bible has only Nine Commandments, having deleted "Thou shalt not bear false witness."

But remember what Obama and the dying, apostate denomination he addressed believe is in keeping with their version of the Bible.

Obama is a member of the United Church of Christ, a church of about 1.2 million members that is considered one the most liberal of the mainline Protestant groups.

In 1972, the church was the first to ordain an openly gay man. Two years ago, the church endorsed same-sex marriage, the largest Christian denomination to do so. Obama believes that states should decide whether to allow gay marriage, and he opposes a constitutional amendment against it.

Funny, every version of the Bible I've ever encountered calls homosexuality an abomination or some synonym for that word. Would the Senator care to let us know what version of the Good Book he's reading that leaves that book out -- or should we assume that he doesn't read the Bible at all?

By the way, I'm curious -- when will Americans United for the Separation of Church and State and all the other left-wing groups that bleat about "theocracy" issue their condemnation of this theocrat?

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June 01, 2007

Lina Joy May Flee Malaysia

Given the notorious violation of human rights countenanced by the Malaysian judiciary, I suppose that leaving her homeland may be the only option other than martyrdom available to this sister in Christ.

A woman who lost a court battle to change her religion from Islam to Christianity suggested she might leave Malaysia rather than stay without the right to practice the religion of her choice, her lawyer said Thursday.

Malaysia's highest civil court on Wednesday rejected Lina Joy's appeal to have the word "Islam" stricken from her national identity card. The verdict was seen as a blow to religious freedom in this ethnically diverse country made up of Muslims, Christians, Buddhists, Hindus and Sikhs.

"I am disappointed that the Federal Court is not able to vindicate a simple but important fundamental right that exists in all persons: Namely, the right to believe in the religion of one's choice," Joy said in a statement released through her lawyer, Benjamin Dawson.

"The Federal Court has not only denied me that right but (denied it) to all Malaysians who value fundamental freedoms," she said.

Sadly, the international community has remained silent on this case. There has been no statement from the United States government, nor has the UN spoken out against this violation of human rights. Have we, as a planet, become so dhimmified that our leaders will not speak out in support of a fundamental human right for fear of inciting the Muslims?

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May 30, 2007