ISIS and Passion Sunday
ISIS attacked again yesterday, their favorite target, apparently, Christians, this time worshiping Coptics participating in Palm Sunday Mass. Forty seven were killed in the two suicide bombings in Egypt, with dozens more injured, the victims living in a more real and vivid way than they imagined, and likely hoped, the Passion of their Lord and Saviour. God rest their souls, and bring healing to the injured.
We must pray for the victims and perpetrators, but also face the truth of the ongoing struggle, ‘jihad’ in their terms, between Christianity and Islam, many of the tenets and principles of which are incompatible.
Islam did not begin as a religion of peace, and will likely not end as one either. To see it as such will lead to more outcomes like this tragedy. The Catholic Church has no ‘authority’ to define what Islam is, or is not, for such falls outside divinely revealed truth, the only proper object upon which the Magisterium may propound and bind in conscience. Islam is not a religion revealed by God, and therefore the Church has no power to declare whether Islam is, or is not, a ‘religion of peace’, like she does with Christianity. Individuals within the Church may have their own opinions and hopes, but that is a different matter.
Rather, we must make up our own minds about Islam, its place in our ‘multicultural’ society, what freedoms are given, and not given, to its adherents, what security measures are put in place, immigration policies and restrictions, and all the other complex particulars that go into ensuring ‘just public order’ as Dignitatis Humanae, the Vatican II decree on Religious Freedom, declares.
But the further we drift from our Christian foundation, the more difficult it will be to discern these particulars, for our principles will become more unsound, more unreliable, more false, and we will not see what we should, and see what we should not, through distorting rose-tinted multi-culti glasses. The spirit of ereinism, of seeking peace at all costs, when there is no peace, is strong indeed.
Only the truth will set us free, and allow us to see clearly what is at stake.
Carney’s Amoral Majority
After five defections – euphemistically described as ‘crossing the floor’ – and three by-elections, Mark Carney and his Liberals how have their coveted majority. One wonders what bowls of pottage were offered in back-room deals. In the archaic monarchical system that is the Dominion of Canada, this majority allows the newly-minted Prime Minister to rule[…]Continue reading→
Saint Kateri , Canada’s Protectress
This was the title given to Saint Kateri Tekakwitha, by Pope Benedict XVI, when he canonized her on October 28th, 2012, along with six others, in Saint Peter’ Square (she had been beatified by Pope John Paul II back in 1980). With Saint Joseph as our protector, along with the Canadian martyrs, we seem to[…]Continue reading→
Remembering Father Alphonse de Valk
(Today marks the sixth anniversary of the death of Father Alphonse de Valk, C.S.B., a faithful, courageous and indefatigable Basilian priest, pro-life-and-family apostle, and the founder of Catholic Insight magazine. Here is what we wrote those on his entering into eternity five years ago, as we continue to remember him in our prayers and thoughts)[…]Continue reading→
A Tale of Two Benedicts
A grace-filled Holy Week to all our readers! As we await and prepare for the Resurrection about to dawn upon us, we might keep in mind two Benedicts: Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI, requiescat in pace, elected on this day in 2005; and today’s commemoration of the mystic pilgrim, Benedict Joseph Labre, who died on this[…]Continue reading→
My Name is Bernadette
April 16th is a propitious day, for besides the anniversary of Father de Valk’s death, who founded Catholic Insight in its print form decades ago, and the commemoration of the ‘two Benedicts’, mentioned in accompanying posts, today we also recall Saint Bernadette Soubirous, the young visionary to whom the Virgin Mary appeared numerous times at[…]Continue reading→
Saint Lydwina of Schiedam and Suffering Joyfully
Saint Lydwina of Schiedam (1380 – 1433) was one of the countless and glorious ‘victim souls’ in the history of the Church, those whose lives are filled with suffering, often of an unimaginable intensity, but who suffer joyfully. She was a fifteen-year old Dutch girl, out skating one day, when she fell and broke one[…]Continue reading→
The Glorious Martyrdoms of Martin and Maximus
As we enter into Eastertide, we recall on this 13th of April Pope Saint Martin I (+655), one of the noblest, if most tragic, of the successors of Saint Peter. Born in Umbria, Italy, he was of noble lineage, with great intelligence combined with charity and love of the poor and the Church. While still[…]Continue reading→
Canonizing Sister Faustina and Divine Mercy
HOMILY OF THE HOLY FATHER MASS IN ST PETER’S SQUARE FOR THE CANONIZATION OF SR MARY FAUSTINA KOWALSKA Sunday, 30 April 2000 1. “Confitemini Domino quoniam bonus, quoniam in saeculum misericordia eius”; “Give thanks to the Lord for he is good; his steadfast love endures for ever” (Ps 118: 1). So the Church sings on the Octave of[…]Continue reading→
Divine Mercy Sunday – An Echo of Every Mass
Reach out your hand and put it in my side. Do not doubt but believe’… ‘My Lord and my God!’ (Jn. 20:18)). Today is Divine Mercy Sunday, and as we celebrate the end of the Easter Octave, we contemplate the wounded side of our Saviour, the Church’s source of life. On Good Friday in the[…]Continue reading→
Saint Stanislaus of Szczepanów
We celebrate Saint Stanislaus today (+ April 11, 1079), in light of this Easter Octave, a bishop and martyr who accepted the episcopacy only at the direct order of Pope Alexander II. He proved a wise and courageous leader of his flock, put to death by his own king, Boleslaus, for rebuking the monarch’s ‘immoral[…]Continue reading→