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Published: July 16, 2010
“Ban on public prayers”
Supreme Court police to praying students: Shut up!
News release from Alliance Defense Fund
July 15, 2010
WASHINGTON -- The Alliance Defense Fund sent a letter to U.S. Supreme Court officials Thursday that urges them to stop their police officers from prohibiting people from quietly praying outside the court building. Christian teacher Maureen Rigo, her students, and a few adults were told by a court police officer that they must stop praying there because it was against the law.
 “Christians shouldn’t be silenced for exercising their beliefs through quiet prayer on public property,” said ADF Senior Counsel Nate Kellum. “The last place you’d expect this kind of obvious disregard for the First Amendment would be on the grounds of the U.S. Supreme Court itself, but that’s what happened.”
On May 5, Rigo, a teacher at Wickenburg Christian Academy in Arizona, along with her students and a few adults, were taking an educational tour of the Supreme Court complex. After arriving at the Oval Plaza, they stood off to the side at the bottom of the steps, bowed their heads, and quietly prayed amongst themselves to God.
Even though they were not obstructing traffic, not demonstrating, and praying quietly in a conversational tone so as to not attract attention, a court police officer approached the group and told them to stop praying in that public area immediately. The prayer was stopped based on a statute, 40 U.S.C. §6135, which bars parades and processions on Supreme Court grounds.
“Mrs. Rigo was not engaging in a parade, procession, or assembly,” the ADF letter to court officials explains. “She was speaking in a conversational level to those around her with her head bowed. There is no reason to silence Mrs. Rigo’s activities since these activities do not attract attention, create a crowd, or give off the appearance of impartiality. The ban on public prayers cannot hope to survive First Amendment scrutiny.”
“The only logical explanation for prohibiting Mrs. Rigo’s activities, while allowing other conversations, pertains to the viewpoint of Mrs. Rigo’s expression,” the letter continues. “Evidently, people may engage in all sorts of conversational expression on Supreme Court grounds unless that expression happens to involve prayer. In doing so, the Supreme Court police have not targeted a subject matter or class of expression, but targeted a particular viewpoint for censorship. They have singled out and censored religious prayer as the only form of conversation to be silenced.”
Posted Friday, July 16, 2010 12:20 AM By JLS
This is all the doing of those Catholics who voted for Obama.
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Posted Friday, July 16, 2010 3:27 AM By ZEPOLNZ
Was the guard of the moslem faith?..'cause that's what they do in those Muslim countries!!
Mrs Rigo and her students should have stood their ground in the very place where it matters most and challenge the officer to take them to court and prove what they were praying about !!
"The evil that is happening (and increasing) in this world is not because of the people who are doing the evil but it is because of people like you and me who sit back and let it happen"
Do not fear it not "PC" Politically Correct" ...this was invented by politicians to politically win votes...please be "GC" Godly Correct !!
God bless
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Posted Friday, July 16, 2010 4:10 AM By NUTUNE
Sorry, Nate, but this is the FIRST place we are beginning to expect the whole Constitution to be obviously ignored.
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Posted Friday, July 16, 2010 5:24 AM By Canisius
Amen to that JLS, of course they will still find a way to rationalize their vote for this corrupt regime
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Posted Friday, July 16, 2010 9:32 AM By Kate
Of course, there are some that enjoy being the object of scorn or negative attention and seek it out for its own sake. They want to be viewed as martyrs. Surely the bottom of the steps of this iconic national landmark (16.2 million visitors per year to DC) is a very high-profile spot to try to "pray". Surely there were places nearby less conspicuous. Sorry, but I'm not buying this. And frankly, security guards probably have their hands full with all the nut jobs....
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Posted Friday, July 16, 2010 1:05 PM By dana
Oh, Kate, your cynicism is showing. Teenagers are so idealistic, especially from a Christian school! They were probably praying for the atheistic judges on the court. Obviously that's not something you'll be doing anytime soon...especially in such a 'public place'. If they'd been a football team in a huddle at the bottom of the steps, nothing would have been said. Let's support our Christian brothers and sisters.
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Posted Friday, July 16, 2010 1:13 PM By Abeca Christian
Kate oh how little faith you have.
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Posted Friday, July 16, 2010 2:00 PM By Stanly H
Would any of you allow Jew, pagans ot muslims the right to pray? I bet most of you would be the first to prevent people of other faiths praying on the steps of the Supreme Court.
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Posted Friday, July 16, 2010 2:00 PM By NUTUNE
JLS, are those other than Catholic then blameless?
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Posted Friday, July 16, 2010 4:44 PM By Kenneth M. Fisher
They should not have complied with this illegal order, they should have stood their ground!
Stanlye H., I know of no Christians that would complain in persons of other persuasions quietly prayed in front of the "Supreme" Court! I know of many who would defend their right to do so.
God bless, yours in Their Hearts,
Kenneth M. Fisher
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Posted Friday, July 16, 2010 5:10 PM By John F. Maguire
What are the facts in this case? Expectedly, an intitial answer to this question will be proffered by the Marshal of the Court. In the meantime, we might have been better served had the Court's information officer, Kathy Arberg, made EXPRESS mention that at issue is PUBLIC prayer on Court premises, that is, when Arberg sent her email on behalf on the Court to FOX Radio News. Still, in context, it remains a fair inference that Arberg's intention was NOT to exclude public prayer from the meaning of her email message to FOX Radio News. Here, in part, is what Arberg wrote: "The Court does not have a policy of prohibiting prayer. The Court's policy regarding the use of most public areas at the Court has been to permit activity related to the business of the Court, but not to permit demonstrations and other types of activity that may tend to draw a crowd or onlookers. In addition, under 40 U.S.C. section 6135, it is unlawful to parade, stand or move in processions in the building and grounds, including the plaza and steps, but not including the perimeter sidewalks." At issue then is whether a Court police officer proceeded within the scope of section 6135 when he ordered a teacher, her fifteen junior high history students, and six other attending adults, to move back down the Court's steps to the perimeter sidewalk -- this teacher and her students having formed a prayer circle, heads visibly bowed. ~ My point is a general one: if this matter can be resolved on non-constitutional grounds, it will be.
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Posted Friday, July 16, 2010 5:47 PM By JLS
Stanly, notice the word, "Supreme", referencing the Court? You pose the ancient question of which God is supreme. By refusing all relgions, then the ruler who presides de facto presumes to be the supreme god. Go ahead, Stanly H, tell us who it is?
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Posted Friday, July 16, 2010 5:50 PM By JLS
NUTUNE, as I have long argued, since half the Catholics voted for obama, and the bishops did not tell them to vote prolife, then it is the bishops' fault ... call it a grave communal sin resulting in millions of unborn babies being aborted to death. Those bishops control who gets elected, and they preferred the culture of death rulers.
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Posted Friday, July 16, 2010 5:51 PM By Judith Brown
Kate's response is definitely that of the "left". A few years back, several pro-life types were praying in front of an abortion mill (in a bubble zone, but not obstructing, no mention of the "A" word, etc - permissable activity). The police pulled up: 1 male, 1 female. The female pushed into me and then demanded to know my name. I said I didn't have to supply it. What? she says - don't you want everyone to know who you are? Isn't that why you are making a display of yourself?, etc, etc. Actually, my friend was teaching me how to pray the rosary in French - I probably had a very concentrated expression on my face. C'est tout!
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Posted Friday, July 16, 2010 8:19 PM By Joe
There is another consideration - Muslims at prayer time, blocking access to public places, which is happening in France. Another large Muslim "Prayer Group" was blocking access to the doors of the Duomo Cathedral in Florence, so much so that Catholics could not get through them to attend Mass. That could happen here, because of large scale Muslim Immigration into communities like Dearborn. So this is a case where the Constitution may save us. We may someday have to protest Muslim prayers at public places and offices here, or the public broadcast of the Islamic call to prayer five times daily. So in cases like the Christian Prayer group at the Supreme Court, perhaps it was best to obey the police. There are quiet places to pray, even in public, without attracting the attention of authorities.
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Posted Friday, July 16, 2010 8:20 PM By kate
I'm not saying they didn't have the right, I'm just saying it's a bit too show off for my taste. Look at us praying. Aren't we special? How contrary to eremitical thought. To the widow's mite. To being very small and very unnoticed as a practice of true piety. To always be on guard against the faintest whiff of self-serving....I'm very supportive of young people expressing their faith. Maybe I am a bit of a cynic!
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Posted Friday, July 16, 2010 8:20 PM By bev
Kate, John F. Maguire: I'm with you. I believe some groups deliberately engage in actions such as this to call attention to themselves and to see what will happen. Catholics, Christians need to be mature enough to use common sense just like everyone else. God would have heard their prayers from the sidewalk.
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Posted Friday, July 16, 2010 8:29 PM By JLS
bev, do you suppose calling attention to oneself as a prayer group is a wicked deed, and that homosexuality and abortion are the right things?
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Posted Friday, July 16, 2010 8:32 PM By JLS
kate, are you saying that the Pope should stay inside his chapel to pray and not make a public spectacle out of himself in front of millions of people gathered to see him pray?
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Posted Friday, July 16, 2010 8:34 PM By JLS
Joe, are you saying that Jesus was wrong when He said not to hide our talents under a bushel basket, and don't you think our talent is Catholicism?
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Posted Friday, July 16, 2010 8:37 PM By JLS
Maybe Kenneth Fisher will give a brief history of when the Church was suppressed in Mexico about two generations ago. The Masonic Lodge and the Marxists tried to obliterate the Church in that nation. I wonder if the people blogging for suppression are Masons or Marxists. Or homosexuals or abortionists, or culture of death bishops.
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Posted Friday, July 16, 2010 8:44 PM By perrywRinkle
If King Arthur's knights rode by that maze of buildings on their horses, spears at the ready, etc.-they would not be praying-but, oh, what a message! SIMILARLY, if a whole bunch of people "uniformed" in t-shirts emblazoned with the image of the Blessed MOTHER OF GOD were to simply be massed outside those infamous chambers, why would they even need PRAYER-(they would not need to say one word-and I guess ANY words could be a dead give-away of possible prayer)-but the message would STILL be loud and clear. "THERE ARE CATHOLICS OUT THERE WHO OFFICIALLY DON'T LIKE KILLING BABIES-but what can we do??" "Oh, yeah, there's a bunch of gays out there, but they aren't necessarily CATHOLIC-they're all over the place, so we don't need to suspect them." Gays are so prolific (not pro-life) that they can't be counted on to be Catholic-AND CERTAINLY NOT WITH THAT BUNCH WITH THAT WOMAN ON THEIR SHIRTS!. But WATCH OUT for that bunch of people with that WOMAN'S image on their clothes! It's rumored that they get a lot of things done!
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Posted Friday, July 16, 2010 8:47 PM By Laurette Elsberry
Good going, JLS.
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Posted Friday, July 16, 2010 8:48 PM By Kenneth M. Fisher
You apologist for the un-constitutional action of a D.C. Police Officer, most of whom don't really know the Law, is appalling.
I have been with many groups that spontaneously decide to pray. Besides, what better place to pray than at the site of the decision that brought about a holocaust far greater than the one cause by Hitler and his Naziis and Stalin and his Bolsheviks.
God bless, yours in Their Hearts,
Kenneth M. Fisher
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Posted Friday, July 16, 2010 8:52 PM By Abeca Christian
Who are we to make judgment that "some" groups are there to show off! Who are we to assume what is in the heart of a soul! Why generalize. I disagree with those negative backward comments! So are we saying that those who pray at abortion clinics are showing off too? Come on people, who cares, I ask " who are we to judge" So be it, it is still their rights to pray, it is called freedom! Even if some are filled with ill assumptions or hard ball cynical! Why voice such negative comments regarding peaceful prayers. It is not conducive, it is not productive and it does not help the cause for all Christians! I suggest we practice temperance and "hush" up negative comments that are not productive or helpful towards regaining our freedom to pray! You are not helpful then don't ruin it for the rest of us.
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Posted Friday, July 16, 2010 8:58 PM By Kenneth M. Fisher
Actually, JLS, it started with an Indian who was given an education by the good Jesuits and paid them back by becomming the first Mason President and persecuting the Church as much as he could then get away with. He was the much wrongly praised Benito Juarez. It somewhat climaxed with Calles who murdered Blessed Miguel Pro, S.J. amongst many others.
The Mexicans of those days put to rank shame the Mexicans who are now demonstrating and voting on behalf of the Party of Death. the Democrat (Demoncrat) Party!
God bless, yours in Their Hearts,
Kenneth M. Fisher
God bless, yours in Their Hearts,
Kenneth M. Fisher
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Posted Friday, July 16, 2010 9:24 PM By NUTUNE
JSL-I've waited a long time to CATCH YOU in something you have written which actually makes sense. To my chagrin, I have just read something which you cited that ALMOST eases my humiliation at having given you ANY encouragement! The actions of Masons is documented in many places as they encouraged the Mexican government in the actions which they took to suppress the Catholic Church. Of course, those actions led to the martyrdom (wet, dry, or quick-frozen) and sainthood of Catholic Mexicans. Hey, JLS, those are VERY RECENT saints and I hope immigrants to the U.S. from Mexico have brought that same inspiration with them. I'm morally sure that Kenneth's Mexican ancestors carry, "Viva, Christo Rey!" in their hearts and that those martyrs may be egging him on in his many Catholic endeavors. Viva, Kenneth! It really COST to be identified as a Catholic in those recent days-the SAME identity these days will still be recognition of the devotons to the Blessed Mother that Mexican Catholics carry with them. I don't recall just WHICH of the invaders cut off the arms of women holding up their rosaries in supplication to the Dispenser of All Graces, but I have heard of the stories of witnesses of those events. Many old gramdma's were missing one arm for the remainder of their lives. If your Latina grandmother is missing an arm, you might be surprised at her answer as to "how come"! I, myself, am surprised at how valueless our identities as Lovers of Our Lady is to modern American "Catholics". JLS, my main regret is that I was not the first to write about this. You and Ken need to publicize what other "Christians" have done to our Catholic Church. I believe that a lot of my non-Catholic friends would resist the idea that their holy club has the capabilities for what it HAS!
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Posted Friday, July 16, 2010 10:48 PM By Rose
Judy Brown, nice to see you on here again. Thanks for all you do for prolife. You're the best speaker I ever heard for defending unborn children. God bless.
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Posted Friday, July 16, 2010 11:10 PM By John
Mr. Maguire, Kate, bev,
Given these kinds of attitudes, you needn't be surprised when the populace of America takes a desperately indifferent view to law and politics.
When we start ignoring the First Amendment for such flimsy reasons as have been given, we needn't expect the populace of America to care a whit about anything important.
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Posted Friday, July 16, 2010 11:51 PM By Rose
PerrywRinkle and NUTUNE, thank you for the attention you bring to the power given to The Holy Mother of God. I can attest to how She brings people to attention without a word being spoken. Once a year through America Needs Fatima, a group of us gathers at a local park near a busy city street. We put up two huge banners that have Her picture on them, one in English, one Spanish. The people stop in their tracks and they just gaze at Her while we pray the Rosary for two hours and sing hymns. You can see their wheels clicking and feel the Power of God!
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Posted Saturday, July 17, 2010 12:21 AM By Rose
The pictures are not in English and Spanish but the words on the banners are :)
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Posted Saturday, July 17, 2010 4:23 AM By Lion
Kate and bev use the method of aspersion to assign an evil intention to those praying - e.g. they want to grab attention. That is what Jesus means by do not judge in the Bible. This is their subtle way to eliminate God from the public square. Maguire talks about the details of the law, which reminds me of how Julian the Apostate abused Christians using bad laws and selective enforcement in the 4th century.
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Posted Saturday, July 17, 2010 8:38 AM By JLS
NUTUNE, I'm happy to read that you actually try to understand what I write. I intentionally force the reader to put some effort into connecting the dots; this is the opposite of ... say ... composing and playing music which does it all for the listener. I can vary the "distance" between ideas as I choose. One of the things that helps keep the brain in shape and unclogged is mental effort; thus, I do what I can to force this effort from readers. No pain, no gain. Lesson from life, albeit a humble lesson: As a recruit in '66 I managed to tick off the old grizzled staff sergeant whose rap sheet included Chosin Reservoir. Next I knew, I was in the sand pit doing six count burpies ... Evidently he assessed me as being wicked, and decided I needed to be upgraded to "devil dog" and his way of seeing to this was to keep me going at the burpy routine. He stopped counting at some point and ordered me to simply keep doing them. Even though I had already attained the condition known as spring steel, I found my knees dragging. At some further point I realized there was a personal and emotional engagement and he was working me through any thoughts that might be lurking inside of seeing himself and his brother drill instructors as friends rather than as life savers. He was "depersonalizing" the Corps for my benefit. It was called "keep on going on" without end. In this he was instilling a sense of the eternal in me, and replacing my childlike sense of fun and games with the real life sense of mortality and how to optimize it. One optimizes mortality by not giving in, by continuing full steam, open throttle, by renouncing the lusts of the flesh for the greater glory of what Jesus teaches, "laying down one's life for one's brother". As Thomas A Kempis says, there is no time to rest in this life, but only in eternity. So, NUTUNE, I'm happy you struggle to see what I'm saying. After all, they're only words that attempt to motivate one to seek the reality of Christ.
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Posted Saturday, July 17, 2010 8:59 AM By JLS
perryWinkle, have you never heard of the annual March for Life? Sometimes over a quarter million people show up for it and march right by the Supreme Court building. They stage for speeches from the steps of the Congress building, only a hop, skip and jump from the Court bldg. The speeches begin with prayer, and these prayers are led by various people including Protestant ministers, bishops, cardinals, members of congress, and proliffe leaders. But if you plan on wearing your monty python regalia, perhaps you should not show up in January with the March for Life, but in April for the "ProChoice" crowd. I protested that with eleven others the first time it gathered in '87 ... Alone with my overhead sign I walked among that quarter million gathering of death promoters for two hours. That regimented crowd stretched thick from the Capital steps to the Lincoln Memorial ... maybe about a mile. And, perryWinkle, I was praying. Prayer works. The looks on those faces were demonic and would have frightened you off, unless of course you would have been accoutered in your knight's garb and waving your plastic sword. BTW, did you also miss out on last year's political gathering that overflowed from the vast area of the capital grounds into the streets of downtown Washington DC ... more than a million people showed up, perryWinkle, and none of them was wearing a monty python cape with plastic helmet ... you would have enjoyed that honor all by yourself. One thing reassuring when I was there were the Capital Police dogs, all Dobermans straining at their leashes. But since I like dogs I was able to get them to smile on me and then go back to baring their teeth at the prodeath crowd.
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Posted Saturday, July 17, 2010 10:16 AM By bev
Abeca Christian: When engaging in public prayer, I believe the setting needs to be taken into consideration. There is a difference between a "conversational tone" that is prayer which can be overheard, and "silent" prayer. Yes, freedom of prayer is one of the rights we enjoy as Americans but it is equally important that we respect the rights of others...even those who do not think as we do. Praying while walking in an organized public march for life or in front of an abortion clinic is different than 22 people praying in a conversational tone on the steps of the Supreme Court when other people were present. The group could have prayed on the sidewalk. God hears our prayers no matter where we are.
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Posted Saturday, July 17, 2010 10:58 AM By John F. Maguire
In reply to John: I think you're right to this extent: there are segments of the American populace that, in point of fact, DO take "a desperately indifferent view to law and politics." The Catholic population in the United States, by contrast, constitutes a creative minority for whom law -- including even the simulacrum of law that comprises gravely unjust laws -- is not a matter of indifference but instead a matter of signal importance. See generally St. Thomas Aquinas, _Treatise on Law_. In this connection, we need only apply one of the maxims of Church law, which however is also a maxim of secular law: Quote: RATIO EST ANIMA LEGIS: REASON IS THE SOUL OF THE LAW." ~ In the present case, is 40 United States Code section 6135 unreasonable? If so, in what respect? Is section 6135, on its face, violative of the Constitution? If so, in what respect? Is section 6135, as applied in the group-prayer-on-the-steps case, violative of the Constitution? If so, in what respect? ~ In this thread, John, I've been criticized even for mentioning the details of the specific regulatory code section here in question. In reply, I would point out that indifference to the details of code sections must surely be overcome if we are to determine whether the code section in question is, in whole or in part, unreasonable. Indifference to the details of this code section must surely be overcome if we are to determine whether this code section is unconstitutional, either on the face of this code section or as this section has been applied.
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Posted Saturday, July 17, 2010 11:21 AM By John F. Maguire
In reply to Bev: No where did I say -- or suggest, even remotely -- that a party to this case had planned a provocation or a set-up.
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Posted Saturday, July 17, 2010 11:34 AM By JLS
bev, the rights of others extend to hearing the Word of God shouted from the rooftops. Oh, but excuse me, there I go getting Scriptural again and away from the real Catholicism which burns Bibles because Scripture taxes them beyond their comfort zone.
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Posted Saturday, July 17, 2010 11:37 AM By JLS
Good news for Ski Ven and others: Finally one can see the nature of all those words used by Maguire, such as "simulacrum": It is now so obvious, that he is merely spelling out the sound he makes when he clears his throat or swallows his words.
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Posted Saturday, July 17, 2010 11:40 AM By JLS
Yes, bev, God hears our prayers wherever we are, which is why we always beg God to hear our prayers, in light of the teaching by Jesus which told of two people, one of whom was wasting his prayers which God refused to listen to. And the great news is, bev, that God may hear our prayers if they are mumbled or shouted on the steps of the Supreme Court. Do you think God refused to listen to the prayers of those faithful and bold for Jesus souls who got arrested by some chump probably on the orders of some other chump, supported by lilly livered Catholics out there in chumpland?
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Posted Saturday, July 17, 2010 11:54 AM By Kate
It's been a fun one to follow. Interesting that I'm called to not judge, yet am labeled a cynic, unprayerful, a person of little faith, leftist, and someone who casts aspersions and assigns evil intentions. Not my purpose in commenting. Just suggesting that this news article could be interpreted in a different light. There really wasn't enough information to draw a conclusion. As to the Pope staying inside to pray, JLS. How silly. When he prays publicly at the Vatican he's on Church grounds isn't he? As to most DC police officers not knowing the law....that's a bit unfair. Let's assume these good men and women do know something about the law and have a job to perform which is to protect EVERYONE. Drawing a crowd of onlookers and creating a bottleneck at this potentially high value target might set any law enforcement officer on edge. I would argue that 21 people praying out loud in a circle, heads bowed, would very much draw attention and cause people to stop and look out of curiosity. Everyone's assuming the police had a personal grudge against Catholics! Maguire's comments seem the most reasoned, and rational. Altogether, some of you folks need to chill out. You're too strident.
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Posted Saturday, July 17, 2010 11:54 AM By John F. Maguire
In reply to Lion: You're roaring up the wrong tree. I quoted Kathy Arberg's email to FOX Radio News because Kathy Arberg is the United States Supreme Court's information officer and in this and just this capacity Kathy Arberg is speaking, however provisionally, for the Supreme Court of the United States. Now the Supreme Court has the privilege of replying to the charge that the Court, for its part, has imposed a "ban on public prayers" on its steps. From within this perspective, Kathy Arberg, whatever you think of her email to FOX Radio News, has responded to this charge. Is the Supreme Court -- or rather, Kathy Arberg as its information officer -- to be denied the privilege of replying? Is the article on the group-prayer-on-the-steps case to be left standing as its stands in the article above, namely, as citing ONLY the Alliance Defense Fund charge and not Kathy Arberg's reply to that charge? Am I to be called an apostate, Julianite or otherwise, for wanting to
quote the Court's response per Arberg to the Alliance Defense Fund's charge? ~ NUMQUAMNE REPONAM? Must I be called an apostate for wanting to square up both sides of the argument by quoting Kathy Arberg's reply -- proffered on behalf of the Court -- to the Alliance Defense Fund's charge?
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Posted Saturday, July 17, 2010 11:55 AM By Abeca Christian
Yes Bev but we must discern that not everyone has reached the higher levels of prayer discernment. Some people may be new at it and that is their first step towards a deeper prayer life, as a person grows spiritually in the Lord, they will eventually discern but for now let freedom ring. I would rather have that than the large advertisement boards on public display showing almost nude models of underwear.
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Posted Saturday, July 17, 2010 11:56 AM By Abeca Christian
PLUS the article says "they stood off to the side at the bottom of the steps, bowed their heads, and quietly prayed amongst themselves to God.". It is a public place, so be it, that does not bother me! Let freedom live!
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Posted Saturday, July 17, 2010 1:47 PM By John F. Maguire
It's been 45 years since Jean Cardinal Danielou wrote
_Oraison, probleme politique_ (Paris: Libraire Artheme Fayard, 1965). Thanks to J. R. Kirwan's excellent translation, Danielou's book is available in English under the title _Prayer as a Political Problem_ (London: Burns and Oates, 1967 [New York: Sheed and Ward, 1967]). Today as yesterday -- in 2010, I should say, as in 1965 -- it is abundantly evident that prayer remains a political problem. At the same time, as a weighty consequence, it is also abundantly evident that prayer has become a legal problem. ~ On April 22, 2010, for example, the Obama administration filed a brief in the Seventh Circuit Court of Appeals asking the Seventh Circuit to strike down District Court Judge Barbara Crabb's ruling that a law authorized a National Day of Prayer is violative of the establishment clause of the First Amendment. What needs to be noted here is that although the Obama administration's brief is NOT wrong to ask the Seventh Circuit to reverse Judge Crabb's ruling, nonetheless the brief itself, in its fundamental stance, falls short of the tradition of Abraham Lincoln, within which tradition the authorized custom of a National Day of Prayer was inaugurated (and later resumed in 1952). With Lincoln as our benchmark, it is worthwhile looking up Obama's tepid brief and comparing it with Lincoln's robust language on the subject of national prayer. Quote: Lincoln: "It is fit and becoming in all people, at all times, to acknowledge and revere the Supreme Government of God; to bow in humble submission to His chastisement; to confess and deplore their sins and transgressions in the full conviction that the fear of the Lord is the beginning of wisdom; and to pray, with all fervency and contrition, for the pardon of their past offenses, and for a blessing on their present and prospective action."
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Posted Saturday, July 17, 2010 3:01 PM By JLS
The US Supreme Court is getting a bit uppity and needs to be put down by the bishops and all Catholics and anyone else who cherishes freedom of religion.
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Posted Saturday, July 17, 2010 3:41 PM By Lion
In reply to John Maguire, you misinterpret my response. I was in no way calling you Julian the Apostate since you are not the law enforcers saying that such prayer is banned. What your comments about the details of the law(s) reminded me of how the secular government, particularly Julian the Apostate, used bad laws and selectively interpreted laws (or parts of them) in such a way as to persecute the Christians. Ditto here - prevent public Christian display so as to enforce paganism, all under the guise that separation of church and state means to suppress public display of faith.
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Posted Saturday, July 17, 2010 4:00 PM By John F. Maguire
In reply to Lion: I do not think that "separation of Church and State" -- an equivocal phrase to begin with -- can be plausibly invoked in the context of interpreting the scope and meaning of section 6135, pursuant to which the Court's police official made his intervention, be that intervention well-ad advised or ill-advised. Nor is enforcement of "paganism" at issue, that is, given the civic-republican character of the Supreme Court of the United States as one of the three branches of America's federal Republic.
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Posted Saturday, July 17, 2010 4:03 PM By bev
John F. Maguire: My apologies.
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Posted Saturday, July 17, 2010 5:23 PM By bev
Abeca Christian: Please see John F. Maguire's post of 7/16, 5:10p in which he quotes Kathy Arberg, information officer for the Supreme Court in part: "The Court's policy is...not to permit...types of activity that may tend to draw a crowd of onlookers. In addition under U.S.C. section 6135 it is unlawful to parade, STAND or move in procession in the building and grounds, including the plaza and steps, but not including the perimeter sidewalks."
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Posted Saturday, July 17, 2010 6:12 PM By MarkF
I would not get too worked up over this story. There is a simple, rational and non-incendiary truth behind this story. Since the events of Sept. 11 the guard around our national buildings have been both given a lot more responsibility and are under a lot more pressure. They make mistakes. At worse, they can become dime store dictators. I work in the DC area and I see it all the time. They will yell at you for nothing, they will tell you to leave when you have a right to be there and sometimes they will even hold you captive till things get straightened out. As the spokesman for the Court said, this is not their policy. I see people praying outside the Supreme Court all the time. By the way, there is NO gutter out side of the Supreme Court. I've lived here for 26 years. I know the area better than most. There is a curb out side of the building, that's all. This story is a mistake and is a bit sensationalized.
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Posted Saturday, July 17, 2010 6:36 PM By JLS
bev, it sounds like you've bought into the socialist line. It is better to worship Jesus than to worship the Supreme Court.
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Posted Saturday, July 17, 2010 7:14 PM By bettybbret
I say :If they want to pray, let 'em! without searching into what motives they might have had or not had. Who cares?
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Posted Saturday, July 17, 2010 7:22 PM By C.B.
Bev, If a group of Moslems were praying at the same spot do you think that they would have been treated in the same way as the Christian students? Just curious.
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Posted Saturday, July 17, 2010 10:15 PM By Jon
In 1962 the U. S. Supreme Court correctly ruled that a New York State Board of Regents written and required "prayer" was unconstitutional because: "It is no part of the business of government to compose official prayers for any group of the American people" (Engel at 370 U. S. 425). In 1963 the Court wrote: "The command of the First Amendment that the Government maintain strict neutrality . . . does not permit a State to require a religious exercise even with the consent of the majority of those affected" (Abington at 374 U. S. 225).
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Posted Saturday, July 17, 2010 10:53 PM By John F. Maguire
Thanks, Bev, for your comment -- it is much appreciated,
especially since agreement with me on however small a point risks getting you barned with the fantasy-socialists that figure so prominently in the Underblogger Imaginary!
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Posted Saturday, July 17, 2010 11:16 PM By JLS
Maguire, you sound frustrated that you cannot get Catholics to agree with you and Kmiec that the way to stop abortion is to increase it by supporting Obama. You might find such frustration would disappear if you turned from your sin and embraced the effort to actually stop abortion. But be warned that it will require humility.
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Posted Sunday, July 18, 2010 2:01 PM By Stanly H
JLS , I am opposed to what the people did. I am not a marxist or mason. I ahve take aprt in pro life demonstrations in DC. I am rather conservative, but think before I say. Again you smear all of your opponents or people who disagree with you with your "holier than thou" attitude.
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Posted Sunday, July 18, 2010 2:47 PM By JLS
Stanly H, so I am to conclude that you do not know which is more supreme, the Court or God? Pope Benedict XVI has said that relativism is the same as going in whichever way the wind happens to blow. So when it is convenient for you to believe in God, you do; then when it is convenient for you to believe in the state, you do? So you do that which is relative to what is more convenient for you?
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Posted Sunday, July 18, 2010 2:53 PM By Life Lady
Do not look for justice in this world of the flesh. It will get you more flesh and abuse of the natural laws of God. Rahter than argue in this forum, seek out a church that is pastored by a couple of FSSP priests, who will teach sound Catholic doctrine from the puplit, and give you the proper response to things like this. Prayer has done more for people on the brink of falling into hell than anything. Rather than argue the point, pray about it, and ask the conversion of the government from the top down. Stranger things have happened and it can't hurt. We are already seeing the effects of even the elect being deceived.
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Posted Sunday, July 18, 2010 3:19 PM By Lion
John Maquire, by focusing so much on the detail of the law, you are missing the forest through the trees. This denial of prayer is an instance of the corrupt mindset of eliminating public display of Christianity. All the nit picking over how to interpret the detailed law is part of the plan to make it difficult to have Christianity publicly displayed, as did Julian the Apostate more than 1500 years ago. The general pagan mantra today is "separation of church and state."
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Posted Sunday, July 18, 2010 3:29 PM By John F. Maguire
JLS: One doesn' t work to reduce the number of abortions by "increasing" that number -- that's absurd on the face of it. At the same time, there is a distinction to be made in regard to the question of "supporting" President Obama. On the one hand, there has arisen in our political culture an absolute antipathy towards President Obama -- I've seen such antipathy on this website -- an antipathy, I mean, that so hates President Obama as (a) not to support him even by praying for him (but we are obliged to pray for all who are in positions of power). This absolute antipathy to President Obama, moreover, involves (b) not supporting him in the sense of extending to him the proper respect that must needs be rendered to all presidents as presidents. Notice that this absolute antipathy introduces a spirit of excessive resentment not only against all Americans who voted for Obama but against all co-religionists who voted for him -- in your case, JLS, so severe a resentment that when a Supreme Court police officer (whether well-advisedly or not) intervenes on the Court's own steps, you declare: "This is all the doing of those Catholics who voted for Obama." JLS, what Supreme Court security does on the Court's steps has nothing to do with President Obama or those who voted for him. I'm afraid you've given yourself permission to think otherwise. When for example I point out, in the context of the politics of prayer, that the Obama administration has asked the Seventh Circuit to overturn District Court Judge Barbara Crabb's ruling against a law authorizing a National Day of Prayer, do we find you commending the Obama administration's appeal in favor of a National Day of Prayer? Do we find you granting, even as a general matter, that the decisions of any presidency, taken as a whole, constitute a mix of good and bad? ~ JLS, let's do please oppose President Obama as an abortocrat, but at the same time not give way to the evil the Church calls absolute antipathy.
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Posted Sunday, July 18, 2010 3:52 PM By JLS
Maguire that is what you were advocating in the elections of 08. You said Obama would reduce abortions in a way that could not be explained at the time. We told you that he would increase abortions if elected. You said to just wait and abortions would drop way down. That is tantamount to saying Obama would decrease abortions by increasing them. We told you this over and over in many different ways and you insisted on Obama. You have never recanted. Instead all you say is that it is ok to vote for someone who will increase abortions or maintain their numbers because they might do something else that is good. You never explained what would be worth increasing abortions ... the Pope says nothing is worth increasing abortions, but you dissent because you say the Pope has his opinion and you have yours. Last year you began saying explicitly that you are against abortion, and you had not said this during your stumping for Obama even though you were requested to clarify it. But so far your version of being against abortion is lip service.
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Posted Sunday, July 18, 2010 3:56 PM By JLS
And once again, Maguire, you radiate your dishonesty or ignorance of US government when you say that Obama or his voters have no influence over the Supreme Court. As was explained to you during the electioneering, the Congress can set aside the jurisdiction of the Court, and Obama can appoint additional members. They chose not to do so, and I and maybe others cited the Constitutional provision for such actions. You never owned up to it even though it was clearly posted, and you continue to either feign ignorance or perpetuate your occlusion of honesty and ethical debate.
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Posted Sunday, July 18, 2010 4:14 PM By Mark from PA
Mr. Maguire, your points are well taken. I think people have to understand though that in this country there are many people who just cannot accept the fact that we have an African-American President. Because of this many people feel that they cannot extend to President Obama the respect that should be rendered to all presidents as presidents. Their feelings against him because of who he is are just too strong.
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Posted Sunday, July 18, 2010 4:32 PM By John F. Maguire
Lion: Neither I nor Kathy Arberg, the Supreme Court's information officer, are picking nits when we point to the governing law in this case. That law includes both the Constitution and 40 U.S.C section 6135. If there is nothing in section 6135 that is unconstitutional, whether on the face of section 6135 or section 6135 as applied, then section 6135 is the governing (dispositive) law in this case. ~ Lion, no more in the Kingdom of Simba than in the American Republic would we commonly find a law that governs a given case, getting itself dismissed as a nit.
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Posted Sunday, July 18, 2010 8:53 PM By John F. Maguire
JLS: In response to your odd decision to place in question the common American practice -- the everyday civic-republican practice -- of using the word Supreme in reference to the American Republic's high Court (what, JLS, as if you think this use derogates the social kingship of Christ?), we need first of all to be clear about the proper use of the word Supreme in reference to the traditional civic-republican understanding of the co-supremacy of the Supreme Court as one of the three branches of government within the American polity. ~ The judicial power of the United States, we know, is a properly secular, a properly limited, and a properly relative power. The reason why _Cohens v. Virginia_ (1821) is a famous case in American legal history pivots on the fact that in _Cohens_ Chief Justice John Marshall gives us a succinct account of that power that is specific to the high Court. Here is John Marshall's discussion of the Supreme Court's co-supremacy within the American polity: "We think that in a government, acknowledgedly supreme, with respect to objects of vital interest to the nation, there is nothing inconsistent with sound reason, nothing incompatible with the nature of government, in making all its departments supreme, so far as respects those objects and so far as is necessary to their attainment. The exercise of the appellate power over those judgments of the state tribunals which may contravene the Constitution or laws of the United States is, we believe, essential to those objects." As a matter then of political science in the strict sense, "The judicial power of every well-consitituted government must be coextensive with the legislative, and must be capable of deciding every judicial question which grows out of the Constitution and laws...."
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Posted Sunday, July 18, 2010 9:11 PM By John F. Maguire
What I advocated for on this website during the 2008 Presidential election was Cardinal Ratzinger's voting ethics letter which, though written in response to the Bush-Kerry contest, also applied -- why would it not? -- to the Obama-McCain contest. My posts also chimed with the decision of the American bishops -- correct today no less than yesterday -- NOT to endorse any candidate during the campaign. Moreover, I did deny then, and still deny today, that a vote for any one of the candidates in that contest could, as a matter of moral theology, be regarded as *necesarily* a mortal sin. (An extremist view at the time held otherwise.) But partisan advocacy? No, for the sake of my sticking to the voting ethics question without confusing matters, I shunned partisan advocacy. The CCD archives bear me out on this.
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Posted Sunday, July 18, 2010 9:39 PM By Abeca Christian
Some say that there is nothing wrong with Obama. Oh yes that is right, what is wrong is his followers, they are the ones we have to be concerned with. His followers are the real problem, they gave him the power. Some say Obama is a good person and cares for us all, oh yes that's right, it is his followers whom we have to worry about. Obama is their puppet whom they have used to carry on the liberal agenda because he is so appealing. yea right!
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Posted Monday, July 19, 2010 4:32 AM By JLS
Maguire, you're always explaining how some document is more important than the unborn babies who are being butchered.
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Posted Monday, July 19, 2010 4:34 AM By JLS
Maguire, if it were clear to you, then your posts would reflect that, and they don't.
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Posted Monday, July 19, 2010 11:39 AM By John F. Maguire
No, JLS, what you dismiss as a mere "document" is precisely that section of federal law that governs the group-prayer-on-the-Court-steps situation. It is this situation, and just this situation, that is discussed in the article above -- I mean, the article that pegs this thread. In point of fact, JLS, if you take the time to re-read this same article you'll see that it identifies the Code section that governs the prayer-on-the-steps question, viz.: 40 U.S.C. section 6135. ~ JLS, is this Code section "more important" than the right to life of preborn infants? The answer is -- irremovably -- No. At the same time, as I've pointed out, and as the Supreme Court's information officer, Kathy Arberg, has pointed out, section 6135 is, after all, the law that establishes the steps/sidewalk distinction. That distinction, JLS, is a good part of what is at issue in the group-prayer-on-the-steps incident.
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Posted Monday, July 19, 2010 2:55 PM By John F. Maguire
In reply to Kenneth Fisher: You're right to call Stalin and "his Bolsheviks" mass murderers but your post at July 16: 8:48 PM stands in need of a footnote to the effect that, in point of fact, Stalin would come to include his own senior Bolshevik leaders among those marked for death. See J. Arch Getty and Oleg V. Naumov, _Road to Terror: Stalin and the self-destruction of the Bolsheviks, 1932-1939_, translations by Benjamin Sher (Yale University Press, 1999); also see David Remnick, "Moscow Clears Names of Executed Bolsheviks; Stalin Era's 'Physical, Moral Terror' Cited," _The Washington Post_, June 14, 1988 ("The Soviet Union continued its painstaking attempt to emerge from the shadows of the Joseph Stalin era today as the Supreme Court rehabilitated a group of senior Bolshevik leaders [Lev Kamenev, Grigori Zinoviev, Karl Radek, and Yuri Pyatakov] -- all Bolshevik revolutionaries who were tried and convicted after Stalin accused them of plotting against him...").
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Posted Monday, July 19, 2010 7:37 PM By John F. Maguire
In reply to JLS: Given the common law recognition of preborn infants as persons; given the common law recognition of preborn infants as possessing the right to life, do you really think that I think that a federal statute
regulating the Supreme Court steps, however relevant this statute is in the present case, is "more important" than the common law right to life?
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Posted Monday, July 19, 2010 8:17 PM By JLS
Maguire, preborn babies were persons long before there was common law. It is a matter of action, Maguire, as to what your words mean.
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Posted Monday, July 19, 2010 11:58 PM By Kenneth M. Fisher
As one who has and is suffering (I have back, neck, and other injuries to prove it from as far back as Holy Saturday 1989) from the cowardice of those who refuse to stand up to the Judicial Oligarchy our Founding Fathers so amptly warned us about. What will you say to the real Supreme Court Chief Justice when He asks you what you did when this inferior court was trampling on our Constitutional God given Rights?
See how I said this in so few words compared to your diatribes Maguire? You prove nothing with your multiplication of words. I have said this before to you and you still rant on.
Maguire, do you really delude yourself into thinking I don't know about Stalin's persecuting the fools that supported him? What do you think I learned under the tutelage of the late Congressman Clyde Doyle (D), then Ranking Member of the House Committee on Un-American Activities?
God bless, yours in Their Hearts,
Kenneth M. Fisher
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Posted Tuesday, July 20, 2010 7:57 AM By Lion
John Maguire, yes nit is a good word in our debate. The foundational concepts and amendment to the Constitution properly allows freedom of religion, whereby law-nits today are used to suppress that God-given right. Remember - forest and trees...
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Posted Tuesday, July 20, 2010 9:24 AM By John F. Maguire
Even lions have been known to get lost in the forest.
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Posted Tuesday, July 20, 2010 9:42 AM By John F. Maguire
In reply to Kenneth Fisher: You seem to assume that I've entered into a discussion of the MERITS of the group-payer-on-the-Court-steps case. I assure you, Mr. Fisher, I wouldn't be comfortable discussing those merits until I had read the briefs submitted by both parties, should this matter proceed to that stage. In the meantime, I have confined myself to underscoring the (I take it, undeniable) relevance of the statute governing the Court steps. This statute would be inapplicable only upon a finding that it is in part or as a whole unconstitutional, either on its face or as applied.
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Posted Tuesday, July 20, 2010 10:12 AM By John F. Maguire
In reply to Mark from PA: Your sobering post on racial bias echoes Pope Benedict's call to Catholics worldwide to fight against racism in each and every one of its forms. In this connection, Pope Benedict -- in a spirit of grave apostolic solicitude -- has reminded us that "One of humanity's greatest conquests has been, precisely, the overcoming of racism. Unfortunately, however, in several countries, new, worrisome displays of racism are manifesting themselves" (August 17, 2008). ~ I agree with you, Mark -- it is within the context of these worrisome displays that we as Americans must work to ensure that America, for her part, not become -- to quote the _L'Osservatore Romano_ (Jan. 12, 2010) -- the site of this "more than disgusting" regression back to "the mute and savage hatred
towards those with another colored skin...."
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Posted Tuesday, July 20, 2010 4:52 PM By Mark from PA
Mr Maguire and Mr Fisher, the comments about Stalin are interesting. I took 2 courses in Russian History in college and have read several books about Stalin. It is beyond horrific how he killed so many of his comrades in the purges, not to mention all the Catholics and Orthodox and Ukrainians, amoung others that lost their lives due to Stalinist terror. Thank God that Russia today is finally recognizing the victims of Stalinist terror. Also thank you for your post of 10:12 AM, Mr Maguire. I think we need to listen to the words of Jesus, "You your neighbor as yourself." If we could just follow this what a wonderful world it would be.
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Posted Tuesday, July 20, 2010 4:59 PM By Mark from PA
Sorry for the error, that should be "Love your neighbor as yourself."
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Posted Tuesday, July 20, 2010 5:30 PM By JLS
Maguire, lions do not live in forests.
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Posted Wednesday, July 21, 2010 9:18 AM By John F. Maguire
Lions do not live in heavy forests or for that matter dense jungles, but then blogger Lion is no lion.
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Posted Wednesday, July 21, 2010 10:24 AM By Anne T.
Lions chase their prey on savannahs and grassland, so those are the areas you will usually find them, although they do go into forests and other areas. Also, someone I know saw two Muslim women praying at night on the grounds of a major Catholic Shrine in California. She went around in her car twice to make sure she saw what she saw, and she was correct. No one chased them away.
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Posted Wednesday, July 21, 2010 11:06 AM By Abeca Christian
All this talk on lions is funny. Who says we don't have a sense of humor. LOL
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Posted Wednesday, July 21, 2010 12:17 PM By JLS
There are lions in California as well. They can be found where the deer are found, which includes desert, rangeland and forests. I was only tossing a curve ball to Maguire to fake him out.
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Posted Wednesday, July 21, 2010 1:07 PM By Ski Ven
I am more interested in learning about lions being found in the desert. How does a predator that big find enough food and water in the desert? What about shade? Could there be a different species called a desert lion that is significantly different from the lions that are featured in the show Big Cat Diary?
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Posted Wednesday, July 21, 2010 1:30 PM By John F. Maguire
Muslim women -- notably those who are drawn to the devotion to Our Lady of Fatima -- are drawn by the very "cords" of Fatima to Holy Church, to her pilgrimages, and to her shrines. This attraction is entirely expectable. We need only recall that the worldwide devotion to Our Lady of Fatima discloses itself -- providentially -- as congruent with Muhammad's homage to Mary as the mother of him whom Muhammad, early on, acknowledged as "the greatest of all prophets"; it also discloses itself -- again providentially -- as congruent with Muhammad's corollary homage to his daughter Fatima as Mary's helper in heaven. Indeed, it is the signal cooperation of these two women -- Mary and Fatima -- that speaks to the hearts of Muslim women as it does to the hearts of all who yearn to understand the signs of the times.
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Posted Wednesday, July 21, 2010 1:44 PM By Rick DeLano
John Maguire's post of July 21 1:30 is most welcome. The Mohammedans have held fast with an inspiring courage and steadfastness to the morality of the Old Testament Scriptures, which they themselves acknowledge as Divinely inspired. We Catholics could learn a lot from the simple, unambiguous, un "nuanced" "NO" which the Islamics extend to the Masonic New World Order and its despicable, evil tactics- tactics which have had notable success, alas, on the other hand, in persuading many Catholics to quibble, and compromise, and legislatively caucus with, and offer ecclesiastical funerals for the facilitators of, the satanic evils of abortion and pseudo-marriage. I think the Mohammedans will make great Catholics in God's good time......
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Posted Wednesday, July 21, 2010 1:57 PM By Ski Ven
Maguire didn't episcopally adjudicate me yet.
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Posted Wednesday, July 21, 2010 2:52 PM By Abeca Christian
John F. Maguire since you are on the topic of Muslim women. They are not drawn to Mary in the way you see it but they are drawn to her for other reasons. They respect her that is all but do not accept Jesus as the savior. I am part Arabic due to my dad's side. I wouldn't give the Muslim religion a break just because they respect our lady, that means nothing to me if they don't convert. Reminds me of a time when I tried talking to a few Muslim women and I brought up our lady, they laughed, one of them said "you Christians always try to meet us half way by bringing up Mary...." I don't recall her exact words nor do I remember how she explained it to me but I can assure you that it was not a positive one.
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Posted Wednesday, July 21, 2010 3:21 PM By C.B.
Abeca, with prayer anything is possible. Through Mary the Muslims can be converted. Mary is mentioned in the koran many times more than in the Bible. Something to think about. Yah?
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Posted Wednesday, July 21, 2010 3:25 PM By Mark from PA
Rick, your post of 1:44 PM is somewhat scary. It seems that you have more respect for fanatical Muslims than you do for most of your fellow Catholics. The Muslim creed holds no allure for me. They may hold more steadfastly to Old Testament morality but Jesus was not bound by the Old Testament morality. He came to fulfill the promise of God. Jesus freed us from many of the Old Testament laws. He brought to us a New Way, God's message of love.
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Posted Wednesday, July 21, 2010 3:33 PM By Kenneth M. Fisher
Anne T.
How did you even know that they were Muslims? Traditional Catholic women still heed the Gospels of St. Paul, and they cover their heads in Churches and Shrines, thanks be to God!
God bless, yours in Their Hearts,
Kenneth M. Fisher
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Posted Wednesday, July 21, 2010 3:34 PM By Abeca Christian
Yes that is true C.B. I appreciate your positive note on that. The protestants know Jesus and still not all of them convert. I wish I can convey exactly what is really on their minds regarding our blessed Mother. It is hard for me to put in words. It is not always how it looks. But I guess we can try to be optimistic just don't let that be a trap from the devil to make their cult religion seem harmless because it is not, it is a very dangerous cult. Sometimes we need to approach with caution.
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Posted Wednesday, July 21, 2010 3:41 PM By Kenneth M. Fisher
C.B.
Yes it is true that with prayer anything is possible, but don't get excited over the Koran mentioning Our Lady. It never says that she is the Mother of the Incardinate Word!
Rick,
They don't hold fast to the Old Testament Morality when it comes to polygamy and rape of their victims and murder of their prisoners who refuse to convert! All non Catholics will make good Catholics in God's good time.
God bless, yours in Their Hearts,
Kenneth M. Fisher
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Posted Wednesday, July 21, 2010 4:23 PM By John F. Maguire
It is to fail to understand one of the essential dimensions of the message of Fatima to blink away the signal relationship between Mary as Theotokos and Fatima as the daughter of Muhammad.
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Posted Wednesday, July 21, 2010 4:33 PM By C.B.
Kenneth, we should count our blessings that many muslims don't read the koran, otherwise we would all be wiped out.
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Posted Wednesday, July 21, 2010 4:49 PM By Kenneth M. Fisher
The muslims who read the Koran and don't adhere to all of it, are not really muslims, so thank God that not all are really muslims.
God bless, yours in Their Hearts,
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Posted Wednesday, July 21, 2010 4:55 PM By JLS
Ski Ven, I have put in some time in the desert in Calif and Nevada. We find springs and shade here and there. Sometimes little mountains rise up suddenly and steeply and they have some small areas with actual trees. There are plenty of old mines, and some of these have shafts filled with still water. I was once out near the deep space tracking station about 20 miles north of Barstow where the nearest shade was a mile or several miles, and I don't know where the springs were. I found cat tracks large enough to place the front half of my large boot into. Also, my dog flushed and chased two bobcats there. We find burro sign sometimes and figure also that there are mule deer out there at times. Once in a while we find bleached bones from cattle or mustang. There are lots of mustangs out in the desert. I saw a small maybe 20 pound lion in the scrub once, as it slinked rapidly over the edge of the forest road. These vast military bases are off limits to hunters and maybe the deer find refuge there. Lots of cover in the desert looks from the highways to be short, but when you get out into it, it will be thick and high in some areas. Water is often underground, and the animals dig for it. Their populations wax and wane according to wet years and dry years. I was camped 27 miles from the pavement west of Needles one january, near a one acre shallow pond. In the morning I discovered my dog had walked out onto its frozen half. Had he broken through, it would have been one heck of a fun time wading out there to retrieve him; although maybe he could have swum through the ice. There was one duck sitting out on the non-frozen part, twenty miles from the Colorado River where the rest of the flock would be.
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Posted Wednesday, July 21, 2010 4:59 PM By A
Kenneth, when two figures dressed in black from head to foot except their pretty faces showing are prostrating themselves on a prayer rug facing East, then rising and prostrating themselves again, they are not Traditionalists in the Catholic sense. Just believe me, they were Muslim, not Trads. Most of us are well aquainted with how the Muslim women in our area dress and know the difference.
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Posted Wednesday, July 21, 2010 5:03 PM By JLS
Lots of interesting speculation as to what a Muslim is. Has anyone read the Promise to Ishmael lately, to be found in one of those obscure parts of the Old Testament? Islam pretty much covers most of Ishmael and his kin. When I first began going to Mass, I was amazed that so many Catholics looked like middle easterners. Relative to northwestern European culture, the rest of Catholic culture is rather more like middle eastern to me. My ethnic Danish father even looked more middle eastern than northern European. I wonder if there was a movement of populations way back in time that might account for it. Or perhaps Muslims and Jews have been steadily converting to Catholicism for many centuries? And finally, are we to suppose that the Koran has the power to make people literally follow it? If not, then what is the unifying power? Or is it the power of confederation? Is it a material or a spiritual power?
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Posted Wednesday, July 21, 2010 5:06 PM By Rick DeLano
Mark from PA: It is to be expected that you would, as if instinctively, dissent from Catholic teaching. I am only surprised on those rare occasions when you do not. In this case you reject the teaching of the Second Vatican Council's Dogmatic Constitution "Lumen Gentium", which teaches (#16): "But the plan of salvation also includes those who acknowledge the Creator. In the first place amongst these there are the Mohamedans, who, professing to hold the faith of Abraham, along with us adore the one and merciful God, who on the last day will judge mankind." Catholics of a certain stripe often detest this passage, since it interferes with their desire to dehumanize Mohamedans and legitimize wars of aggression launched against their homelands. Catholics of a different stripe detest it because it points out what I earlier highlighted: it is the cooperation with the Mohamedans which has enabled the Church to defeat the satanic agendas of abortion and pseudo-marriage in numerous international venues, because, as Lumen Gentium teaches, the Mohamedans share with us an imperfect but real aspect of God's Revelation. The warrior spirit of the Mohammedans will be very useful once they are converted to the True Faith, just as , in an earlier age, the warrior spirit of the barbarian tribes was indispensible for the defense of Christendom, once they had been converted to the True Faith.
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Posted Wednesday, July 21, 2010 5:25 PM By Rick DeLano
Ken: The Old Testament permits polygamy. Solomon, King Of Judah, King of Israel, had 700 wives, and it is not difficult to multiply examples. Lumen Gentium does not teach that the Mohamedans hold the True Faith, only that they do possess an imperfect, but real, part of it, in their worship of the One God, and in those aspects of the Abrahamic Faith which they manage to hold uncorrupted. As I have said before, they are similar in many ways to the barbarian Arian tribes of the Patristic age, and I believe they may bring many similar virtues- and vices- along with them when they convert, as did the barbarians. Just my opinion, of course.
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Posted Wednesday, July 21, 2010 5:29 PM By John F. Maguire
Thanks to Ignatius Press, we've had, since 1996, an easily obtainable, new edition of Archbishop Fulton J. Sheen's book, _The World's First Love: Mary, Mother of God_. It is in this book that Archbishop Sheen -- famously -- concludes: "Mary, then, is for the Moslems the true Sayyida, or Lady. The only possible serious rival to her in their creed would be Fatima, the daughter of Mohammed himself. But after the death of Fatima, Mohammed wrote: Thou shalt be the most blessed of all the women in Paradise, after Mary. In a variant of the text, Fatima is made to say, I surpass all the women, except Mary." This fact leads Archbishop Sheen to make an important point, namely, "why the Blessed Mother, in the 20th century, should have revealed herself in the significant little village of Fatima, so that to all future generations she would be known as Our Lady of Fatima." Sheen's answer: "Since nothing ever happens out of heaven except with a finesse of all details, I believe that the Blessed Virgin chose to be known as Our Lady of Fatima as a pledge and sign of hope to the Moslem people, and as an assurance that they, who show her so much respect, will one day accept her divine Son too."
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Posted Wednesday, July 21, 2010 5:36 PM By Rose
Excellent comments Rick Delano and John Maguire.
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Posted Wednesday, July 21, 2010 7:15 PM By Anne T.
Acturally, Kenneth, the two women each had her own prayer rug. Trads do not carry prayer rugs.
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Posted Wednesday, July 21, 2010 7:31 PM By Mark from PA
Rick, you are living in a dream world if you think the warrior spirit of the Muslims will be very useful. Our pastor has been to the Holy Land several times. He tells of how sad it is to go to Bethlehem, which was once a mostly Christian town. He said that every time he goes, there is a higher and higher percentage of Muslims there. The situation of Christian Arabs is very sad. They are more and more outnumbered. Many Christians have fled Iraq. You seem to have an idealized view of Muslims. Many are good people and not fanatics but things are not easy for the Christians in their lands. The Christians there are not allowed in most cases to try and convert Muslims.
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Posted Wednesday, July 21, 2010 8:58 PM By Anne T.
And all those foreign wives, Rick, led to the downfall of Solomon's kingdom and Israel falling into idolotry. Does anyone realized that Mohammed had a wife, after his first wife died, named Aisha who was only, at the most, nine years old when he consummated his marriage to her. In some Muslim countries they are still marrying women that young. Sounds kind of primitive to me. Yes, they do need to convert.
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Posted Wednesday, July 21, 2010 9:36 PM By Anne T.
JLS, some Muslims did get all the way up into the Russian area and possibly Northern Europe. Some websites say the Vikings and Muslims traded together in Russian territory. So, "Hi there, JLS Mohammed!" Now don't think that is cause for conversion. Your Christian mama will whip you from heaven.
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Posted Wednesday, July 21, 2010 9:49 PM By Abeca Christian
Rick Delano the old testament only permitted it because of the hearts of men but don't forget why God gave us the 10 commandments. Yes Solomon had many wives but look at what it caused, many scandals, some of his wives had idols and such. You can't tell me that God wanted that. I guess it all depends on how we intrepid things. In some instances some of the women in the old testament were concubines not wives. I believe that the Muslim religion came from one of the concubines sons. I'm sure that is another punishment due to the sins of men. Same thing regarding divorce, because of the ill hearts of men it is permitted! I am very saddened that some of these comments are 'Muslim friendly", such a pity that many are ignorant on how dangerous this cult is and how fast it is growing.
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Posted Thursday, July 22, 2010 8:20 AM By JLS
Abeca, Islam came from Muhammed in the sixth century AD. It seems to be a construct from the Jewish and Christian ideas. But the core cultures it encompasses appear to have stemmed from Ishmael, the son of Hagar, the handmaid to Sarah wife of Abraham: Sarah had not conceived and the custom was for the handmaid to then conceive and bear a son. She did. Later Sarah conceived and bore Isaac. The story is profound and has to do with one of the more profound mysteries of all time.
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Posted Thursday, July 22, 2010 8:46 AM By Rick DeLano
Mark: You are living in the dream world, my friend. Christianity is being overrun in vast stretches of the world because of the lack of a fighting and a warrior spirit, which we had, and which we have lost, and which, please God, we shall have again. In the meantime, just keep this in mind, because it is a prophetic teaching from the Holy Catholic Church, which once converted the barbarian tribes (you would have been scandalized by them as well): "But the plan of salvation also includes those who acknowledge the Creator, in the first place amongst whom are the Moslems: these profess to hold the faith of Abraham, and together with us they adore the one, merciful God, mankind's judge on the last day. "
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Posted Thursday, July 22, 2010 8:49 AM By Rick DeLano
See here's the thing Abeca. If you have a (nominal) Catholic who teaches in favor of pseudo-marriage, and a Muslim who teaches in favor of polygamy, the Muslim is closer to the Truth than the (nominal) Catholic. This will help situate the prophetic teaching of the Second Vatican Council: "But the plan of salvation also includes those who acknowledge the Creator, in the first place amongst whom are the Moslems: these profess to hold the faith of Abraham, and together with us they adore the one, merciful God, mankind's judge on the last day. "
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Posted Thursday, July 22, 2010 9:03 AM By JLS
Abeca, Islam is not a cult! It numbers over a billion souls, and has been up and running for fifteen hundred years. It almost conquered Europe a couple times. Islam shares moral values with Catholicism, which the rest of the world does not ... such as opposition to abortion and homosexuality. Its customs on marriage are pretty much like Old Testament customs for Jews. But with a billion adherents, there are a lot of deviations. It is growing fast because it does not abort and people find a need for morality which is being tossed out the window by countless bishops and does not exist in the secular world or the pagan world where material success is paramount. Islam may very well go after China which forcefully puts down families, and thus defies God's first commandment to people. Islam advances according to the moral weakness of others and the potent moral strengths it has.
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Posted Thursday, July 22, 2010 1:30 PM By Abeca Christian
Cult: a religion or sect that is generally considered to be unorthodox, extremist, or false. There are also a few rules that define if something is considered a cult. I was raised being taught that Muslim's are another cult. It doesn't matter how long they have been around, they are still the wrong faith. My dad would tell me stories of when he was a boy in his country, he remembers watching people being killed right in front of them because the Muslims hated Christians. LOL (laughting out loud) JLS you want to make me work, I am finally relaxing but I will soon be forced to pull my resources that prove my point but frankly, I don't want to. (me tired today) Lets just agree to disagree. I respect your opinions on this matter but I don't agree. I admire you and Rick, thanks fellows but I choose not to bore people with more of my long posts regarding this topic. LOL
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Posted Thursday, July 22, 2010 10:05 PM By Abeca Christian
Islam makes great use of fear to restrain its adherents and to influence the conversion of unbelievers. As the Koran states "Anyone who after accepting faith in Allah, utters Unbelief - except under compulsion, his heart remaining firm in faith-but such as open their breast to unbelief on them is wrath from Allah, and theirs will be a dreadful penalty" (Sura 16:106). In this life that penalty is a sentence of death, whenever and wherever Muslims are able and willing to carry it out. Source found from the book: Inside Islam: A guide to Catholics by Ali and Robert Spencer Foreward by Fr. Mitch Pacwa. S.J
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Posted Thursday, July 22, 2010 10:19 PM By Abeca Christian
According to the Koran Jesus was not born in a manger, but under a palm tree outside the city. About Mary, the Koran says: "And the pains of childbirth drove her to the trunk of a palm tree: She cried (in her anguish): "Ah! would that I had died before this! Would that I had been a thing forgotten and out of sight!" (Sura 19:23). The Muslims feel that with these words they correct the biblical verses, they are unmoved by Christians saying different.
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Posted Thursday, July 22, 2010 10:34 PM By Abeca Christian
The Koran calls Jesus the servant or slave of Allah. Abdullah: Abd is slave, and Allah, of course, is God in Suras 4:172, 19:30 and 43:59. The Muslims use this when they wish to proselytize Christians, by saying that Jesus was a slave to Allah, they dismiss the claims of Jesus' divinity.
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Posted Thursday, July 22, 2010 11:12 PM By Abeca Christian
JLS I understand why you posted that it is not a cult because it is generally classified as one of the three great monotheistic religions along with Judaism and Christianity and because it contains ties to the Judeo-Christian tradition. We Catholics placed great emphasis on Orthodoxy (right belief) whereas Muslims are generally more concerned with orthopraxis (the unity of religious practice.) But one has to define what makes a cult and what traits does it contain. You have the occult and the cult. Knowing very well of how extreme they can be, thus making me label them a cult.
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Posted Friday, July 23, 2010 12:06 AM By Anne T.
Abeca Christian, I have read all the Koran, and they can have it. It is just a mismash of the Old and New Testament with Mohammed's twist on it. At first Mohammed thought the supposed angel he was seeing might be the devil tricking him, but his first wife before she died convinced him it really was the angel of God -- Gabriel. Since the so-called angel contradicted many of the teachings of both the Old and New Testament, I think Mohammed was right the first time. It was a devil. Sorry! guys, but I go along with Hillaire Belloc's opinion was about Islam. It is a Christian heresy. He told us we would have trouble with it again. I know that decent and good Muslims can be saved if they live as Christlike as possible if they do not know any better, but it is a heresy. And as far as polygamy goes, it works both ways. Some societies have worked quite well with women having two husbands.
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Posted Friday, July 23, 2010 12:21 AM By JLS
GK Chesterton called Islam a Christian heresy. But whatever Islam is, it can be distinguished from the people it rules. It is not only important but crucial for Catholics to learn what Islam is and what Muslims are.
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Posted Friday, July 23, 2010 12:52 AM By JLS
It is important to read the story of Ishmael, because he generated a vast people, most of whom are under Islam today. For the first five centuries of Catholicism, the Ishmaelites would be under the Church. But there was still severe odds between them and Israel. I wonder if the Church in that setting of N Africa and the middle east was not so strong, not so faithful and rife with heresies that weaken the unity with God. How else would Islam have risen so quickly and taken over? Sometimes the parallels of how regions go about things is extremely subtle and hard to see the difference and even then hard to understand the significance of the differences. BTW, I put a lot of trust in Fr. Mitch Pacwa. I used to listen to him explain the occult, and I read a book he wrote if I recall. Interesting, Anne T., the recounting of what the Koran says about Mohammed's vision and then yielding to the temptation presented by his wife. Where have I heard this type of story before? I wonder if the key is not to dispel the fear by which Islam manages itself. If we knew some of the significant traits put forward by Muslims, then we might be surprised to recognize these traits in some of the posts. Are there only disgruntled semi-Catholics, Protestants, occultists, pro homosexual pro abortion secularists, and so forth ... or Muslims, Jews and others entering into the discussions? Some ideas are particular to only one other religion, and so when spotting this trait then one can identify the religious influence over the poster.
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Posted Friday, July 23, 2010 4:31 AM By Mark from PA
Rick, the fighting and warrior spirit of some Muslims is what has caused pain and trouble for many in the world. Add this to a disturbed person and you end up with people such as suicide bombers. Jesus was the Prince of Peace and He is the one that I follow.
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Posted Friday, July 23, 2010 6:10 AM By Canisius
Folks a bit of an aside I read where Islam is actually losing adherent to Christianity (not necessarily Catholicism) this is especially true in Africa. The Church is thriving there, where Islam is seen as rigid and dogmatic. Also the local animistic religion many of whom believe in magic have been able to accept Christ, Islam they cannot relate to. For all its aggressiveness it is my opinion that Islam is losing not winning. They must use force and fear to convert, in time I also believe that Our Lady will appear somewhere in the Muslim world and a mass conversion will occurr much like in Guadalupe. Can you believe SSPX has chapels in Africa roll on traditionalist roll on. Lastly within the next 100 years the East and Western Churches will reunite
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Posted Friday, July 23, 2010 8:31 AM By Rick DeLano
JLS: It was Chesterton's buddy and fellow Catholic of the red-meat variety, Hillaire Belloc, who changed my entire orientation toward Islam (as well as Lutheranism and Protestantism), with his utterly brilliant, profoundly insightful "Five Great Heresies". It is difficult to retain and develop catholicity in one's viewpoint toward other religions when one is formed essentially by the fables of Hell's Bible (the New York Times), or by the Masonic-tinged Calvinism (or, alternatively, various forms of neo-Jansenism) which surround us like the air we breathe. But the Church's Second Vatican Council will be seen to have been prophetic in this respect. Our enemies are not the Muslims, however much Hell's Bible spins One Thousand and One Tales of Osama in the Bat Cave. Our enemies are, always have been, and always will be the principalities and powers who sustain the Architects of the New World Order.
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Posted Friday, July 23, 2010 8:52 AM By Abeca Christian
I disagree with you Rick on such a comment "Our enemies are not the Muslims". Some may not be "our" enemies but they are the enemies of our faith.
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Posted Friday, July 23, 2010 9:04 AM By Rick DeLano
Abeca: I know that you do. Let us agree to disagree on this. The Church in her Holy Wisdom has discerned the signs of the times, and She recognizes that the Muslims are not,despite the savagery of their error, our enemies. Our enemies, as I have said, are the principalities and powers- the spiritual powers- who have embarked upon an all-out attempt to supplant the Faith in the minds of men throughout the world, through a Masonic counterfeit. Please do not be disturbed that we do not agree. I simply am completely persuaded that the Church has seen this from a prophetic and true vantage point, one which is Wise.
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Posted Friday, July 23, 2010 9:05 AM By Abeca Christian
Excerpt take from the book "Inside Islam: A guide for Catholics by Daniel Ali and Robert Spencer" : Islam is the name of the religion itself. It means, in Arabic, "Submission to the will of Allah." Muslim is a related word that can be roughly translated as "one who submits" to Allah and his will. A Muslim, then, is someone who believes in Islam. Allah literally, the word is Arabic meaning for " the God". Their God is significantly different from the God of Christianity.
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Posted Friday, July 23, 2010 9:22 AM By Abeca Christian
Rick Delano I am part of the church too and when you say "the church". You are forgetting that many disagree as well especially those who are Arabic Catholics because, as I can speak for myself, have experienced first hand how dangerous and evil this religion is. I take very personal what they have done to my family (from my dad's side) in the past generations. My dad and his family had to escape their country because they were being persecuted because they were Christians. For their safety and their children safety, they came here. Growing up we had friends who were Muslim, they were modern Muslims, even Islam who spit them out because their daughters did not cover their heads. I understand that they are not bad people but what they stand for and follow I refuse to take any part.
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Posted Friday, July 23, 2010 9:47 AM By JLS
Abeca, there is a gap between submission to Allah and belief in Allah. The key to what this means would be in how the two concepts, "submission" and " belief" are used by various groups.
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Posted Friday, July 23, 2010 9:52 AM By Abeca Christian
Under Islamic law if a Catholic (Christian) attempts to evangelize the faith in an Islamic state, he is signing his death sentence. Even here, a supposedly Christian country, we have to be cautious. In an Islamic state a Christian must pay a special tax and must hire their own protection. The fact that Christians have to pay for their protection in Islamic states is tantamount to extortion. Christians are categorized as Ahl Al-Dhimmi. The word dhimmi derives from dhema, which means "blamed, dispraised, or cencured."
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Posted Friday, July 23, 2010 9:54 AM By Abeca Christian
JLS that's true there is a gap.
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Posted Friday, July 23, 2010 9:55 AM By Rick DeLano
Actually,. Abeca, you are now in danger of placing yourself in opposition to the Church. You can quote all of the books you like. These are written by men, and contain their opinions or scholarly conclusions. None of these is to be compared in the slightest degree to the teachings of a Dogmatic Constitution of a solemn ecumenical Council. Abeca, it is just as easy to go over the fence one way as it is to go over the fence the other (I am still of the opinion we should agree to disagree) but I am conscience-bound now to defend the Wisdom of the Church over and against any and all opinions which contradict Her teaching. Here is what the Catholic Church teaches us about the God the Muslims worship:"But the plan of salvation also includes those who acknowledge the Creator. In the first place amongst these there are the Mohamedans, who, professing to hold the faith of Abraham, along with us adore the one and merciful God, who on the last day will judge mankind." Now it is true that they reject the supernatural Revelation of God in Christ, the Divine Trinity. It is also true, however, that they worship the One God, and they do so within the teachings they have received- however corrupted!- from the Old Testament, and the covenant of Abraham. The Muslim is much closer to the Truth than is the atheist, the polytheist pagan, the worshipper of Lucifer in the Endarkenment, or the Modernist heretic who cloaks himself in the trappings of the Catholic Faith while sophistically undermining Her Doctrines at every opportunity. The Church is very Wise to remind us of this. Hell's Bible wishes to bullbait us into a savage war of aggression against these people who share much more with us than does the Lodge, and who are our natural allies against the Lodge's Luciferian agenda of child murder and the destruction of the family.
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Posted Friday, July 23, 2010 9:55 AM By JLS
It is a critical point to grasp, that our battle is with "powers and principalities, ie spiritual beings". Only Catholicism integrates Heaven and earth; thus, a Catholic consists of both. No others do. Islam is a spiritual being, and Muslims are material beings, of course with souls. But souls cannot be united with the principalities and powers, etc in the way that a soul can be brought into union with God. Thus there is a divide between Muslims and what they are in submission to or believe in. This is where Catholicism works the divine miracle of salvation, where the Gospel is preached and where the nations are discipled. St Paul teaches how the Corinthians' idol to the unknown God can be a point of contact with the nonCatholic. One then has only to find the point of contact with the nonCatholic and then explain the Gospel. Sounds easy, but is the hardest thing there is to do. We can see how hard it is by gazing on Jesus suffering on the Cross.
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Posted Friday, July 23, 2010 10:04 AM By Abeca Christian
Even though Pope John Paul II' visited the Omayyad mosque in Damascus, Syria, in May of 2001, they only allowed it because he was not there to preach, but he was there to reach out to Islam to build bridges of understanding between Christians and Muslims. Our Pope was fruitful and courageous to go, God bless him. In the Koran it is VERY clear, unless a Muslim take up arms against the infidels (meaning us non-believers), he is not a true Muslim and has no part in the Paradise promised to Muslims. Join in a Jihad against unbelievers. Sura 9:5 slay the idolaters wherever you find them. etc etc
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Posted Friday, July 23, 2010 10:29 AM By Abeca Christian
LOL Rick your assumptions of me are not correct. Just because I disagree with a few of your earlier opinions and have pointed some facts on Islam, does not make one in danger of opposition with the church just because you can't simply know my heart. But I will reflect on your words because I know that you are a faithful soul and I appreciate you for that. The way you worded things are simply insulting but I must not let my pride get the best of me. You are human yourself and can also misinterpret me and the church, how about reading information completely from even early saints of the church who also know first hand on Islam. I have studied the teachings of those early saints and they did not come from the modern day ecumenical council, are you discrediting them as being in opposition with the church when the church has made them saints? Well that does not matter my friend. I obviously did not convey well what I intended because I have a few here misinterpreting my posts. To just simply sum it up, we must not ever take Islam so lightly, my family has experienced first hand through persecution. I will not insult my families history with that, in memory of those who were beheaded and murdered, I hope that people would understand the spiritual battles we are faced with today through these religious persecutions. JLS you put it so eloquently on last post of July 23, 2010 9:55 AM By JLS.
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Posted Friday, July 23, 2010 10:41 AM By Anne T.
Rick and Abeca Christian, it is quite clear that Mohammed was fairly tolerant of Christians and Jews until they refused to accept him as a great prophet. They could not since much of his Koran was contrary to the teachings of both the Old and New Testament. That is when he lost his tolerance for them, and it shows in the Koran with the later Suras you mentioned, Abeca. He did call us the People of the Book, but one never knew where one stood with him. Also, his "marriage" to an under-aged girl at that time was and is just totally unacceptable. Perhaps the pagan tribes he came from did such things, but it was not according to Jewish and Christian laws. Any decent man would have done something such as St. Nicolas of Myra did, give money to support her poorer family or took her in as a sister or daughter.
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Posted Friday, July 23, 2010 10:47 AM By Rick DeLano
Abeca: I sincerely apologize if you felt insulted- it was absolutely not my intention to insult you. But it is a matter of the magisterial teaching of the Catholic Church, and not merely of anyone's opinion, that the Muslims worship the One God. My opinions are not important. The Dogmatic Constitution of the Church from the Second Vatican Council, Lumen Gentium, is important. I appreciate the difficulties the savage history of the Muslims present- they are similar to the difficulties that some of my Jewish friends face when considering the Catholic Church. Only the Truth can overcome such grievous wounds. The Truth is that both the Muslims and Jews, despite specific rejections of the fullness of revelation in Christ, do in fact share with us the worship of the One God, and aspects of His Revelation. God be with you.
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Posted Friday, July 23, 2010 11:17 AM By Rose
Rick DeLano, thank you for your absolute fidelity to The Church's teachings. Abeca Christian, the early Church Fathers are never in opposition to The Church, but The Church Itself says that It comes to a fuller understanding of The Truth throughout time. Thank you both for your faith.
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Posted Friday, July 23, 2010 11:17 AM By Abeca Christian
Rick apology accepted. Thank you for your kind words. You are a good soul. I do enjoy all your other posts, you and JLS are very intelligent and have special qualities in which show love of faith. I admire that. I'm reminded of St Paul and St. Peter sometimes they both didn't agree on a lot of things when it came to spreading the faith. They sometimes bumped heads. It did not mean that they were in danger of being in opposition of the Church. Thanks Rick. Many blessings in Christ.
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Posted Friday, July 23, 2010 11:21 AM By Rose
Canisius, your words, "in time I also believe that Our Lady will appear somewhere in the Muslim world", if you are not already aware, you might be interested to google Zeitun, Egypt, regarding apparitions of Our Lady since 1968, approved by the Coptic Church, involving multitudes of Muslims and others.
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Posted Friday, July 23, 2010 11:29 AM By Abeca Christian
Anne T. thanks for a brief history on Mohamed. My concern is the way this religion is spreading because not many people understand the truths in regards to their teachings. It is good that we talk about the dangers of their beliefs, facts on what makes them in opposition to our Christian faith. Many Catholics are now converting. I think that understanding these differences are good. We had a friend convert and is now a Muslim. The drastic changes and her rejection of Jesus, just hit a huge reality check. No one spoke to them about it (except we tried but it didn't help when fellow Catholic friends embraced their conversion and thought us to be hateful when we tried to intervene by evangelizing.) nor did they know how because they don't know anything about Islam. They thought it was a positive move.
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Posted Friday, July 23, 2010 12:09 PM By Rick DeLano
Please tell your friends that they have lost the Faith, if they ever had it, Abeca. Any Catholic who would "rejoice" over the apostasy of a member of the Mystical Body of Christ has imbibed some very strange religion indeed. Here is what the Catholic Church teaches Truthfully about this: "Basing itself on Scripture and Tradition, the Second Vatican Council teaches that the Church is necessary for salvation. Christ is the mediator and way of salvation. He is present to us in His body, which is the Church. He explicitly asserted the necessity of faith and baptism. By doing so, He affirmed at the same time the necessity of the Church, which people enter through baptism. Because of that, there are people who could not be saved who, knowing that the Catholic Church was founded as necessary by God through Christ, would refuse either to enter it or remain in it" (cf. Catechism of the Catholic Church, no. 846)
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Posted Friday, July 23, 2010 1:31 PM By Anne T.
JLS, it is true some some Muslims are more moral than Mohammed was, just as some Roman pagans were more moral than their gods and goddesses. I think there is hope for those people to finally "see the light". We do need to pray for them. Nevertheless, we should not whitewash the truth just to keep peace. We should try to recognize our own sins but not accept guilt when guilt is not deserved. It might be all right for the individual to do so to build character, humility to be specific, but we must defend others when they are unjustly attacked, even if it was done in the past.
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Posted Friday, July 23, 2010 3:15 PM By Abeca Christian
Thank you Rick Delano I will keep that in mind, if they accept our dinner invitation soon, then I will quote what you suggested.
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Posted Friday, July 23, 2010 3:52 PM By Mark from PA
I just got home from work and have read today's discussion. Abeca Christian, I must say that I agree with what you post here. I think you have a good understanding of this matter and part of this comes from your families' history and experiences. Rick, you are right in saying that Muslims and Jews share with us the worship of the One God. I agree with the teachings of the Church in regard to the Muslims but don't totally agree with your opinions.
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Posted Friday, July 23, 2010 7:16 PM By Kenneth M. Fisher
It is true that our true enemies are the ones who follow the evil "principalities and powers who sustain the Architects of the New World Order.", and when one closely examines the so called leadership of Islam, guess what one comes up with. Once again "a peacefuly muslim is not really a muslim"! Reading the Koran will tell you that.
God bless, yours in Their Hearts,
Kenneth M. Fisher
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Posted Friday, July 23, 2010 7:36 PM By Kenneth M. Fisher
Abeca,
I have been trying to read the Koran for several years. It is so boring I can't read it for any real period of time, I admire those of my brethren who actually got through it all.
I wish all of you would make an effort to view "The Stoning of Sorriah M."
Abeca, thanks for the great Surah references, I have recorded them for my apologetics.
God bless, yours in Their Hearts,
Kenneth M. Fisher
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Posted Friday, July 23, 2010 7:39 PM By Kenneth M. Fisher
Rick D.,
Once again, none other than Pope Benedict XVI has stated that the Vatican Council II was not a Dogmatic Council only a Pastoral one, and had no authority to change any of the Church's prior teachings!
God bless, yours in Thier Hearts,
Kenneth M. Fisher
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Posted Friday, July 23, 2010 7:59 PM By Abeca Christian
Kenneth M. Fisher LOL (laughing our loud), yes it can boring but it does influence many, so it is a good tool to brainwash too just like anything else I suppose. Oh yes Kenneth my friend recommended that movie to me a few weeks ago. I will make it a point to watch it soon. Glad some of my posts helped for your apologists work. Actually Kenneth Muslims are required to say prayers only in Arabic. One of their prayers that they have to repeat over and over again is actually cursing the Christians, the unbelievers. So even if a Muslim appears to be peaceful, his prayers are not, they are recited daily. Like a trance of darkness, even though they have some beautiful prayers worshiping Allah, they also curse over and over those who are not Muslim. I'm sure you already know that. Just wanted to post just in case others were not aware of that.
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Posted Friday, July 23, 2010 10:46 PM By Kenneth M. Fisher
Abeca,
I thought Abeca was an Arabic Christian name. A very phonetic name was well.
It makes one wonder what kind of mind would be swayed by such boring rantings in the Koran, and to give them such high acclaim!
I have also been told by Arab Christians, that they have a toned down version for FREE distribution to gullible Christians. That is how I got mine and it is different from yours, slightly, but different.
God bless, yours in Their Hearts,
Kenneth M. Fisher
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Posted Friday, July 23, 2010 10:57 PM By Abeca Christian
Kenneth M. Fisher thank you for your post of July 23, 2010 7:39 PM. After these posts I knelled and prayed and then guess what God reassured me with your post. Thank you Ken that is what I wanted to say but was so drained with discussions on the Koran that I just couldn't type the words and you did that for me. Kenneth God truly loves you, you are a good soul, your faithfulness has been shown after a humble prayer of supplication. Only God knows what I am talking about, sorry don't mean to puzzle you. God bless you always!
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Posted Saturday, July 24, 2010 12:11 AM By Abeca Christian
Kenneth you are right, I promised earlier on that I wasn't going to bore people with my long posts regarding Muslims but because I recently had a friend convert and now she is a Muslim (was a Catholic) well I decided that this was my way to get the word out in hopes that it may help people see the difference and hopefully they will not be swayed into becoming a Muslim.
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Posted Saturday, July 24, 2010 12:17 AM By JLS
It may not be wise to dig too deeply into Islam or the Koran. Recall the Seven Letters to the Seven Churches, and that two of the Churches were cautioned to leave off with their plunging into the deep mysteries of something that was not so good. They were being snared and the Lord was calling them to stop hiding in those errant mysteries. Another word of caution: Generalizing about something as complex as Islam will not bring about any kind of victory. It is a spiritual battle or war ... As soon as one generalizes that is when the enemy gains the upper hand and moves in for a strike. Keep in real time.
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Posted Saturday, July 24, 2010 5:07 AM By Mark from PA
Abeca Christian, from what I read, Muslims regard Christians as infidels. That is tragic about your friend. In my mind she has abandoned Christ for Mohammed. I think that if she had possessed a love for the Eucharist she would not have left the Catholic faith.
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Posted Saturday, July 24, 2010 11:27 AM By JLS
Which Muslims, PA. There are about a billion Muslims, and from many nations and tribes and families around the globe ... which Muslims are you claiming claim Christians to be infidels? Have you heard each Muslim make this claim, any Muslim at all, or are you generalizing or perhaps equating all people under Muslim rule to be ardent devotees of the Koran? If the Koran, then what exactly is the clear teaching in it? Have you read it, and can you itemize each doctrine? What is left of it after you itemize all the Koranic doctrines? Lastly, do you find any Koran verses or sections which clearly contradict others? Are there several distinct sets of doctrines that Muslims and those under its rule follow and which are not congruous?
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Posted Saturday, July 24, 2010 12:07 PM By Abeca Christian
PA you are probably right. Who knows. I agree with one Apologist, Jessie Romero, that we can't stay quite about Islam. Jessie did a great presentation on Islam once, and also having family from my dad's side who were persecuted by them for generations, well, I guess no one can understand my take. I don't think we can dig up to deeply into Islam unless someone converts and then comes back, but oh well such is life, our efforts will not go in vein.
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Posted Saturday, July 24, 2010 12:09 PM By Abeca Christian
One of my biggest pet peeves PA is that some people take lightly Islam. Like my dad said "unless one has seen and lived around them and what they really believe, no one can comprehend". Thanks for being compassionate PA. PA my dad is not doing well, he is getting close to his time. My dad had an interesting life growing up. He came from the Holy Land. He walked where Jesus walked, where Jesus was baptized. My dad knew studied 6 languages, when he was a small child, she saw wars, people being killed right in front of him. Wow he would tell good stories and I praise God that he survived all that. We know how the Arabic culture well. Praise God his family were Catholic. Since he is the eldest son he was suppose to study and become a priest. It was a tradition that the first born was to become a priest but he did not feel that it was his calling and disappointed his family by not honoring that tradition. Pretty interesting I say!
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Posted Saturday, July 24, 2010 12:15 PM By Abeca Christian
JLS you are blowing this out of proportion. I think PA meant to say that the Koran teaches that we are infidels and if a Muslim adheres to it's teachings then that is what they call anyone who is not a believer. PA JLS is right not all Muslims say that about us but their religion Islam does teach that. Hope this helps clarify, JLS not worth fighting over. My apologies for keeping this thread. I don't want you guys fighting over this. The devil wants this quarreling. Kenneth was right to much ranting. Peace with you.
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Posted Saturday, July 24, 2010 12:50 PM By JLS
Abeca, I'm beginning to explore Islamic people.
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Posted Saturday, July 24, 2010 6:40 PM By Mark from PA
JLS, some fanatic Muslims think that all non-Muslims are infidels. Many Muslims are good people and don't hate Christians. I had a friend who visited Istanbul last fall and said how wonderful that people there were and what a great city it was. Most people in Turkey are Muslims but Turkey is a secular country. I have learned quite a bit here though by listening to Abeca Christian tell of her family history.
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Posted Saturday, July 24, 2010 7:03 PM By Anne T.
Actually, Christians call Muslims infidels too, but it is usually the ones who were born Christian and then converted to Islam. Christians used to call Saladin, the Muslim leader, the Beloved Infidel because, I take it, he was not as mean towards the Christians he ruled as some other Muslim leaders.
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Posted Saturday, July 24, 2010 7:09 PM By Anne T.
According to most websites, Saladin was known and respected by many Christians for his great chivalry.
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Posted Saturday, July 24, 2010 7:36 PM By Abeca Christian
Anne T well last I checked with all the modern day Catholics, not many use that word on any unbeliever anymore, nor do the born again Christians. You can add to your post that perhaps Christians USE to call them infidels but in today's younger generation, they don't use that word, well at least the youth in my area. I definitely know that the Islamic religion still call us that. BUT WHO CARES, PA just made a statement that was true, just because he didn't say Christians use too, well it does not make his statement wrong. But we are the real Christian faith and if you ask the traditionalist, we probably have the authority to call unbelievers infidels but for some reason I don't hear people use that word much. JLS you are beginning to explore the Islamic religion? Well you will not get that info by knocking down PA over it. Well since I admire you JLS, please forgive me if I let off some fumes, great that we can dialogue honestly and still be friends.
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Posted Saturday, July 24, 2010 7:43 PM By Abeca Christian
Anne I just asked my good friend and she said that some traditionalist still use that word infidels and since we are the true faith that the church has the real authority to use that word because it then is valid. Kenneth we are still looking for that movie you recommended on this thread, thanks for reminding me to rent it. God bless you.
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Posted Saturday, July 24, 2010 7:56 PM By JLS
I wonder if the Church is holier under Muslim rule or under secular humanist rule, under Chinese rule or under Marxist rule, under Protestant rule or under Jewish rule.
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Posted Saturday, July 24, 2010 8:03 PM By Mark from PA
Abeca Christian, I don't know if you knew that today is the feast day of St. Sharbel Makhlouf. He is a Catholic saint of the Maronite Rite.
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Posted Saturday, July 24, 2010 11:14 PM By JLS
Abeca, ok I will go about improving my conversation with the rascal PA.
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Posted Saturday, July 24, 2010 11:27 PM By JLS
Abeca, yes I have wandered into a situation where I now will be engaging Muslims on a neighborly level, as friends. I've been invited to Ramadan but of course have had to recuse myself due to the conflict of interest. Although as I think about it, there is no reason I cannot add some prayer into the friendship mix. A few years back another neighbor, an immigrant from Palestine, a Muslim on the outs with his wife, brought over an eligible Muslim woman also from that region of the world ... All I could see in my mind's eye was the old movie Casablanca as a kind of social ambiance. As alluring as the situation was, I really could not proceed with any proposal; although that was the idea he had carefully prepped me for. He had previously gone to the trouble to comprehensively explain to me Islam. But he would hear nothing of my Catholicism ... but the conversation took place in my house and I had him facing my 26" authentically painted statue of Our Lady of Guadalupe. I figured that said it all to him. There is a large crucifix on the wall above the statue as well. Because of this, you may wonder if I take your stories lightly ... no, I understand what you are saying and have no issue to take with it.
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Posted Sunday, July 25, 2010 12:18 AM By Abeca Christian
JLS you think a lot, not that I don't either, guess we both think a lot much. LOL Well it can be good but sometimes it can work against us, I suppose. JLS I have been building friendship with a few Muslims as well. It hasn't been easy, I definitely know that they do not like me because I am Catholic. I think that the ones that don't talk to me anymore because they gave up trying to convert me, LOL. Oh well, God bless you for living your faith, sometimes we don't have to say much but living our faith faithfully speaks louder than words, has a stronger witness. JLS you are good, thanks for sharing your story with me in regards your current friendships with Muslims. You have the faith to protect you.
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Posted Sunday, July 25, 2010 12:24 AM By Abeca Christian
PA yes I know about the feast day of St. Sharbel, they had a celebration at one of my near by Maronite church. I am also part Spanish and French. Just so you know. Without giving too much info on my personal life or disclosing more on my identity on this site, just thought I tell you.
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Posted Sunday, July 25, 2010 5:24 AM By Mark from PA
JLS, I am off to spend another full day at church so I must be brief but I have to say that you are the first person to ever call me a rascal.
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Posted Monday, July 26, 2010 7:13 PM By Kenneth M. Fisher
Annet T., I read somewhere that Saladin abolished the tax for non Muslims! He also is reported to have told St. Francis that if all Christians were like him (St. Francis), he would be obliged to become a Christian.
God bless, yours in Their Hearts,
Kenneth M. Fisher
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Posted Monday, July 26, 2010 9:42 PM By Anne T.
As I sit at my computer, I am looking at my small picture of St. Sharbel. I bought it when the Israelis and the Palestinians were sending missiles back and forth, and the the Carmelite Monastery was in between having missiles missing (excuse the pun) and landing on their property at times. I asked his interecession for the safety of the Carmelites and for peace. The shelling stopped and no one was hurt at the monastery as far as I know. I have his chaplet also. A great Saint!
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Posted Monday, July 26, 2010 10:55 PM By JLS
PA, perhaps it is because I have an extensive vocabulary.
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Posted Tuesday, July 27, 2010 9:38 AM By Abeca Christian
St. Sharbel pray for us. May God bless Bishop Luigi (Italian) who recently was beheaded this year. Also Bishop Luigi Padovese, the Pope’s apostolic vicar in Anatolia, was fatally attacked by Islam, in his home in the Mediterranean port of Iskenderun May God protect our priest, nuns and lay faithful that are in Islamic countries. My prayers are with them daily. For the conversion of more sinners especially Muslim people, St. Sharbel pray for us.
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Posted Tuesday, July 27, 2010 10:04 AM By Abeca Christian
On Monday, October 9,2006 a prominent Assyrian (also known as Chaldean and Syriac) priest, Fr. Paulos Iskander (Paul Alexander) was kidnapped and then was beheaded. That very year the Islamic Group Beheads Assyrian Priest and Crucifies 14 Year Old Boy in North Iraq. May our Lord help us not forget these religious persecutions. God have mercy on us all and heal us. May His love shine through as we face these tough and many more challenges to come. St. Sharbel pray for us. In memory of all martyrs we pray. Amen
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Posted Friday, July 30, 2010 10:32 PM By Editor
To the individual who goes by several aliases: The Editor does has the right to edit and/or censor any comment submitted. You have been accommodated many times. In the future refrain from posting rude messages to the Editor as you did this evening. [Editor]
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Posted Friday, July 30, 2010 11:12 PM By JLS
Abeca, it is intriguing what you are posting about the spiritual conflict in the near east.
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Posted Friday, July 30, 2010 11:17 PM By JLS
I wonder if the ritual of beheading religious or other Christian figures is a sort of statement. Although lambs are not beheaded, yet the knife is used in a similar manner perhaps. Symbolically then, sawing the neck of someone associated with Christianity would be a ritual act that mocks the sacrifice of the Lamb of God ... Recall that a Psalm of David says the One sacrficed shall not have a bone broken ... so here is one more little element in the sawing of the neck, which likely breaks the spine, which in a sense is one bone or a composite bone maybe. Sometimes ritual symbolism is masked to varying extents.
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Posted Saturday, July 31, 2010 10:15 AM By C.B.
There is a verse in the Koran: "When you meet the unbelivers in the battlefield, strike off their heads and,when you have laid them low, bind you captives firmly" [Sura 47:4] Muslims believe that this command from Allah must be respected.
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Posted Saturday, July 31, 2010 11:46 AM By JLS
Religion intrinsically includes ritual and sacrifice. If there is no provision is a religion for valid sacrifice, then the ritual sacrifice will show up in various ways. Read the story of Cain and Abel for a bedrock view of what it is all about.
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