Posted on 03/07/2011 6:19:48 AM PST by marshmallow
More than 20,000 Christians from all over Pakistan flocked to the remote village of Kushpur in the Faisalabad Diocese for the funeral of Shahbaz Bhatti, Pakistan’s assassinated minister for minorities.
Peter Jacob, executive secretary of the Pakistani bishops’ justice and peace commission, told the Catholic News Service by phone from Kushpur: “It was a very emotional funeral, with the people wailing and weeping all through.”
Bhatti, 42, a Catholic, was assassinated by unidentified gunmen who pumped bullets into his car from automatic weapons as he was being driven to his office in Islamabad last week.
The final leg of the funeral was led by Bishop Joseph Coutts of Faisalabad, joined by two Protestant bishops and dozens of Catholic priests.
Bhatti’s body was flown to Kushpur in the afternoon from Islamabad, about 300 miles away, after a memorial Mass at Our Lady of Fatima Church in Islamabad. Bishop Rufin Anthony of Islamabad-Rawalpindi was principal celebrant.
Thousands of Christians, religious leaders, foreign diplomats and government officials led by Prime Minister Yousaf Raza Gilani attended the Islamabad service, which included a state salute.
“Today is a very sad day,” said Mr Gilani, describing Bhatti as a “very rare leader”.
“All the minorities [in Pakistan] have lost a great leader,” he added.
Bhatti founded the Christian Liberation Front in his student days and launched the All Pakistan Minority Alliance in 2001. He joined the Pakistan Peoples Party in 2002. When the party, under President Asif Ali Zardari, assumed power in early 2008, Bhatti was named to the National Assembly under the quota reserved for Christians and was soon the federal minister for minority affairs.
An outspoken critic of Pakistan’s blasphemy laws, Bhatti became a target of Islamic extremists in November after he initiated a clemency petition for Asia Bibi, a Christian mother of five sentenced to death for blasphemy.
That must be kinda cool. Knowing your ticket's punched and all that.
Is there a list of the elect?
I mean, let's say I decide to abandon Catholicism. Where would I go to sign up and get "elected"? Apparently a Methodist church wouldn't be any help either, from what you've written. I guess Episciopalianism would be a no-no, too?
How about PCUSA? Are they among the "elect"?
I’m surprised they didn’t gun the mourners down.
Why don’t you just crawl off and join the Phelps group.
Remark is totally out of line.
You’re a sick, arrogant fool.
So you’re happy that hateful Moslem fanatics (but I repeat myself) killed a Christian. I suppose you’re happy when hateful Moslem fanatics kill anyone who doesn’t belong to your strange little sect of Christianity, and probably dance for joy when the hateful Moslem fanatics kill Hindus, Jews and Buddhists.
You’re a sick little man.
From what the sick little man has said elsewhere, you’re born elect. So if you’re born elect, you do any damn thing and still go to “heaven”, apparently. And if you’re not born elect, there’s not a thing you can do about it.
So most of us are obviously not going where he’s going.
Which IMO is a very good thing.
You may be “elect” but you’re an idiot.
And quite smug, to boot.
The little man has left the building.
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