Easter Vigil 2008
Followed by this:
Inshallah.
Posted on 09/16/2012 2:27:03 PM PDT by marshmallow
The Holy Father met with Lebanese political and religious leaders in the Baabda Presidential Palace, where he was welcomed by the country’s President Michel Suleiman and his wife
The Pope’s second day of his three-day Apostolic Visit to Lebanon is being marked by a series of political and institutional meetings and an encounter with a group of young Middle Eastern people in the afternoon. After lunching with Lebanese patriarchs and bishops in the Armenian Catholic Patriarchate of Cilicia, Benedict XVI will move on to Bkerke, to meet with Lebanese and Middle Eastern young people.
Thousands of people waving Lebanese and Vatican flags gathered this morning in Beirut to greet Benedict XVI, who left the Apostolic Nunciature in Harissa (north of the capital) at 9:30 am to visit the Presidential Palace in Baabda.
The Pope was welcomed by Lebanon’s Marronite Catholic president, Michel Suleiman, in person, who invited locals yesterday to gather in the streets to greet the Pope. Today was declared a national holiday in Lebanon on the occasion of Benedict XVI’s Apostolic Visit to the country. A part from the President, the Pope also met with other State officials and leaders of the Muslim communities.
The Pope planted a Lebanese cedar tree (the country’s national emblem), together with President Suleiman in the Baabda Presidential Palace. The brief ceremony was held before the Pope addressed his speech on peace to Lebanese political, intellectual and religious figures in the May 25th Hall (the date of the Israeli retreat from Lebanon after the war in 2000) of the Baabda Presidential Palace. When Benedict XVI entered the Hall he was greeted with applause and music by Mozart in the background.
In an inflamed Middle East, Benedict XVI has called for collaborative action and “authentic dialogue bearing....
(Excerpt) Read more at vaticaninsider.lastampa.it ...
I doubt the irony was lost on Muslim listeners either.
I believe you are correct. He is referring to true believers in God.
Jesus--- who is the absolute fulfillment and summit of the revelation of God to Man --- makes that stunningly clear. Lest there should be any confusion.
The theoretical, pharmaceuticlly-pure robo-Muslim would be quite a killer. But not all Muslims “live down to” Koranic ideals.
He said “authentic” faith. It’s a tautology really. A “No True Scotsman” argument.
Followed by this:
Inshallah.
I think the Papacy is the only office in the world whose incumbent is automatically guilty of all the crimes of his predecessors, as well as every crime that was merely committed in the name of one of his predecessors. You might as well take Benedict to task for his hypocrisy in talking about "true belief" at all -- after all, Peter denied Christ THREE times, didn't he???
Is he ignorant of the long and bloody history of the organization he heads? Or he is he now redefining “true believers”?
Good point. But it's probably more accurate to say that "Reformation" is what Islam is going through before our eyes, in the form of radical Wahhabist, Salafist, jihadist belief and practice.
Wahhabism is Islamic Puritanism. That's fascinatingly explained in this article from H.W. Crocker which was a Free Republic thread a couple of years back (LINK).
Wahhabism (radical Reformation) calls for scriptural literalism independent of human reason or logic; destruction of statues, images, shrines; rejection of veneration of saints, strict moralism and the extirpation of all "impure" elements; conflation of Church and State on the basis of Cuius regio, eius religio (just like Reformation-era Church of England, Church of Sweden, Church of whatever-German-prince); et-freakin-cetera.
Radical and terrorist groups such as al-Qaeda and the Taliban, cannot be cured by Reformation for the very simple fact that they are the Reformation. Islam --- religious falsehood--- doesn't need a Reformation. It needs to be replaced by religious truth.
Neither.
He's attempting to protect Christians in the Middle East, many of whom have been thrown under the bus by US policy, firstly in Iraq (Bush) and secondly, by our unrestrained enthusiasm for the "Arab Spring" (Obama).
I would have thought those who truly consider Middle East Christians to be brothers in Christ would applaud his efforts. Naturally, if you think he's doing a lousy job or he has no business being there, perhaps you could nominate a substitute. I'm sure the Pope would be happy to lend his support. It's not like he has nothing else to do apart from risking his life on trips to the Middle East.
Someone more suitable, perhaps. Someone who wouldn't offend the naysayers who consider the Catholic Church to be disqualified from intervening in human conflict. Is the Jehovah's Witness big cheese available? How about Rick Warren or Paul Crouch?
This is the "whack a Pope" game, isn't it? If the Pope said nothing, folk would scream...."why isn't he doing something, instead of hiding in the Vatican?" When he does say something, the response is ...."shut up....the Catholic Church has no moral authority to criticize those who engage in violence.."
That's the beauty of being a naysayer. It's win-win.
I can't think of any Catholic saint who was canonized because of military or sanguinary exploits. You won't find sainted torturers, slavers or warrior-kings. I cant think even of any canonized Crusaders except maybe Louis IX of France, and he was mostly a peacemaker and a just lawgiver who died before actually getting to the Crusade (died of some plague-related infection in Tunis.)
The very --very --- few sainted soldiers are vastly outnumbered by sainted EX-soldiers like Ignatius of Loyola, Martin of Tours, Francis of Assisi, who --- rather like the ex-sword-wielding Apostle Peter --- put down the sword and took up the Cross.
There's plenty of sin in Catholic history. But the perps were in those instances violating, not exemplifying, Catholic doctrine. The one saint I can think of who was famed for a feat of arms (St. Joan of Arc) is a solitary rare bird; there's not another like her.
It is absolutely essential to keep in mind that there have been butchers, lechers, slave-abductors and so forth in Christian history, but they were acting outside-of and against the precepts and example of Christ, acting (at their worst) in disobedience to their own authorities, were seen by their more devout contemporaries as scandalous, and are seen in retrospect as abhorrent.
By contrast, the butchers, lechers, and slave-abductors in Islamic history were acting in accordance with the precepts and example of Mohammad, acting in conformity to their authorities, were seen by their contemporaries as devout, and are seen in retrospect (by fellow Muslims) as exemplary.
The more religiously observant a Muslim becomes, the more he or she wishes to conform to the Hadiths, to the Koran, and to Mohammad himself; and the more damnable their behavior becomes.
That's the utter perversion of it all.
“.... the ex-sword-wielding Apostle Peter”?
Peter was told he was wrong to wield the sword and he didn't go out to burn and torture “heretics”.
Maybe the Catholic church owes an apology to Bruno the Cathars and many others then.
Is THIS what you had in mind?
That there have been "unbelievers" in positions of authority within the Church is beyond dispute. There still are today.
Is the current plight of Christians in Syria, Iraq and other places no more than a window of opportunity to attack Catholicism? Or is your point here that this is an example of "what goes around, comes around" and that we've had this coming to us?
Is there some weird Jehovah's Witness Scripture interpretation which says that Catholics and Orthodox getting a good kicking from the Muslims, is all part of God's plan to punish the "Harlot of Rome"?
Unfortunately, that simply ignores the fact that wherever Christianity has not opposed islam by the sword, Christianity as a social/cultural force has died.
Would to God they all converted, but conducting oneself according to hopes that have an unblemished record of failure is simply insanity.
While ancient Rome may have been a ravening beast, it did have some measure of honor and nobility. By analogy, islam is little more than a disease; the more circumspect it’s adherents, the less human (in the philosophical sense) those adherents becomes.
That man was a paragon! But were the members of the Catholic Church not “ real believers” back then?
As a Pope? Which ones of these who claim to the successor to Peter, Vicar of Christ, etc.?
I didn't write Benedict's speechs or the history of the Catholic and Muslim warfare in the Middle East.
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