Cardinal Sarah on Mass Migration


"It is better to help people flourish in their culture than to encourage them to come to a Europe in full decadence,” he said. “It is a false exegesis to use the word of God to promote migration. God never wanted these heartbreaks.”

The Guinean cardinal, one of the most conservative voices in the Vatican, said priests, bishops and even cardinals were today afraid to proclaim divine teaching.

“They are afraid of being frowned upon, of being seen as reactionaries. So they say fuzzy, vague and imprecise things to escape criticism, and they marry the stupid evolution of the world,” he said.

Migrants arriving in Europe were parked somewhere without work or dignity, he added. “Is that what the Church wants?” he asked.

 

The Church should not support “this new form of slavery” because the West, with its low birth rate, risked disappearing, he argued. “If Europe disappears, and with it the priceless values of the Old Continent, Islam will invade the world and we will completely change culture, anthropology and moral vision.”

 

Many of us Catholics were praying for an African Pope to follow Benedict XVI due to their orthodoxy, strength and great understanding of real Christianity in the real world.  Unfortunately we will have to wait.

This list is a bit old but interesting:  Catholic Dioceses in the USA listed by size

Rockville Centre is # 8 and our neighbor and 'parent' Diocese of Brooklyn is #5.  We used to be part of the Brooklyn Diocese so if RVC were not created, the combined Diocese would be #2.

Here are the top twenty:

#	Catholics	Population	Percent Catholic	Diocese	Year	Source
1	4,174,304	11,096,200	37.62%	Los Angeles (Archdiocese)	2004	ap2005
2	2,521,087	5,602,418	45.00%	New York (Archdiocese)	2004	ap2005
3	2,442,000	6,104,000	40.01%	Chicago (Archdiocese)	2004	ap2005
4	2,077,487	3,970,026	52.33%	Boston (Archdiocese)	2004	ap2005
5	1,826,592	4,694,705	38.91%	Brooklyn	2004	ap2005
6	1,486,058	3,872,783	38.37%	Philadelphia (Archdiocese)	2004	ap2005
7	1,481,866	4,441,551	33.36%	Detroit (Archdiocese)	2004	ap2005
8	1,428,563	2,753,913	51.87%	Rockville Centre	2004	ap2005
9	1,319,558	2,835,594	46.54%	Newark (Archdiocese)	2004	ap2005
10	1,170,480	3,000,000	39.02%	Orange in California	2004	ap2005
11	1,041,123	4,972,544	20.94%	Galveston-Houston (Archdiocese)	2004	ap2005
12	1,017,196	3,556,631	28.60%	San Bernardino	2004	ap2005
13	930,379	3,041,195	30.59%	San Diego	2004	ap2005
14	930,352	3,371,300	27.60%	Dallas	2004	ap2005
15	904,000	4,755,500	19.01%	Seattle (Archdiocese)	2004	ap2005
16	888,004	1,044,711	85.00%	Brownsville	2004	ap2005
17	856,783	4,036,799	21.22%	Miami (Archdiocese)	2004	ap2005
18	815,719	1,966,067	41.49%	Pittsburgh	2004	ap2005
19	812,675	2,852,331	28.49%	Cleveland	2004	ap2005
20	780,925	2,000,235	39.04%	Trenton	2004	ap2005

All In The Family: ISIS Edition

 

Why is this news not a major news story?  Whenever I see an article on a 'right wing' or 'left wing' site, I always google it to confirm other major news sources have the same details more or less.  I see mostly local Texas news covering the original story and the AP story is here.  But Americans going overseas to join the Islamic State, or Al Shabab, or any other terrorist organization (or anyone covering up for them) should warrant major news coverage.  Now that ISIS has been mostly defeated, we need to bring to justice ALL the people who joined them.  We should not allow what happened with the Nazis to happen with ISIS - hundreds of them starting a new life somewhere else and living freely for decades. No country should allow anyone to return from Syria or Iraq, let them rot in jail or be executed where they caused such evil.

 

"Arman (28) and Oman (27), ISIS fighters and ideologues to their core, haven’t turned up from the battlefield. The brothers were last known to be fighting with ISIS in Syria after allegedly traveling there from Egypt between October and December 2014. Their father, Mohommad Hasnain Ali, is set to be released from a Dallas halfway house on April 17 as part of his year-long federal prison sentence for covering their tracks. Their mother, Sumaiya Ali, is in federal prison in Carswell, New Mexico until April 2020 for lying on their behalf to investigating FBI agents, although she is writing letters to the judge begging for earlier transfer to home confinement. More on that later.

The Ali family is hardly alone these days as the remnants of destroyed ISIS society are somehow fit back into various parts of the world. Not more than 250 Americans attempted to join the caliphate; not all successfully. Now comes the final chapter of the story, the returnees."

This looks like an interesting TV show on EWTN.  The broadcast times are strange, I have only watched one episode but it is well done and should be on in Prime Time. 

REAL LIFE CATHOLIC

Chris Stefanick dives into the everyday life of everyday Catholics, who are working, serving, building, and exploring the world with their faith at their side.

All Our Children

Presented by The Sheen Center for Thought & Culture


April 6 - May 12, 2019

 

"A terrible crime is taking place in a German clinic for disabled children. The perpetrators argue that it will help struggling parents and lift the financial burden on the mighty Third Reich. One brave voice is raised in objection. But will anyone listen?
Stephen Unwin’s riveting new play is set against a forgotten chapter of the Holocaust, the murder of disabled children and young people, remembering those who died and those who fought against this injustice. Tony Award^® winner John Glover (Saint Joan, The Drowsy Chaperone,  Love! Valour! Compassion! on Broadway;  “Smallville”) is featured in a company including Jennifer Dundas (The Little Foxes, Arcadia on Broadway), Karl Kenzler (Fiddler on the Roof, You Can’t Take It With You on Broadway; “Law & Order,” “House of Cards”), Tasha Lawrence (Good People and Wilder Wilder Wilder on Broadway; “The Looming Tower,” “Royal Pains”) and Sam Lilja (The Iceman Cometh on Broadway). Directed by Ethan McSweeny (Gore Vidal’s The Best Man, A Time to Kill on Broadway).
The persecution, sterilization and murder of hundreds of thousands of disabled people is one of the most overlooked chapters in the whole ghastly history of Nazi Germany. Between 1939 and 1945, it is estimated that well over 200,000 people with a wide range of disabilities were dismissed as Lebensunwertes Leben (‘lives unworthy of life’) and systematically killed in six converted psychiatric hospitals across Austria and Germany. Public opposition to the program was limited. The most striking intervention came from the Bishop of Münster, Clemens von Galen, who will be played by John Glover.
All Our Children is a timely work of historical fiction, but rooted firmly in the true evils of the past.
Not appropriate for children under 13."


The above play looks interesting - you can read more about Bishop von Galen here: 

The Lion of Munster

 

The Catholic Church’s Culture Clash

The above link is to a great article by Fr. Dwight Longenecker.  He talks about the consumerist attitude of Catholics today compared to the original idea of a geographic parish in the days where people could not travel easily.  Go read the whole thing.  He says the old way of geographic parishes does not work any more and suggests an alternative that is interesting.  It sounds a lot like the Oratory in Brooklyn I recently found out about. 


"The administrative, sacramental and pastoral structure of our church is geographical. The kingdom of God (which is the church on earth) is divided into Archdioceses, dioceses and parishes.
This system was established when people had a national and regional identity. They were local. They lived in a village where they were born. They lived within an extended family, and the parish had its own hierarchy. “The rich man in his castle, the poor man at his gate.” The church and the priest contributed to the spiritual part of that model.
This works just fine as long as people remain local. Without modern transportation everyone walked everywhere or at most, rode a horse or took a carriage.
The parish church was simply a part of this larger social structure.
But we don’t live that way anymore. We are mobile and globalist. The family is broken. We go anywhere, live anywhere and settle (if we settle at all) anywhere."

Recently there were dozens of wealthy parents, including a couple of celebrities indicted for bribery to get their children into high priced elite Universities.  George Weigel looks at the state of these Universities and offers an alternative:

The high-priced spread, revisited


"....I said that a first-class liberal arts education at a college or university with a strong Catholic identity would prepare their sons and daughters for anything. Absolutely not, parents insisted. The kid had to get into Harvard, or Stanford, or Duke — or some other academic version of the high-priced spread — lest his or her life be ruined.
When I pointed out that undergraduates at so-called “elite” universities are frequently taught by graduate assistants rather than by senior faculty, the parents were unmoved. When I reminded them that few, if any, members of the philosophy departments at elite schools are convinced that there is something called “the truth,” rather than just “your truth” and “my truth,” they didn’t budge. When I cited the experience of my daughters, who had gone on to premier graduate schools and successful professional careers after attending a small, demanding Catholic liberal arts college, I was met with blank stares.  When I asked why they were willing to spend north of a quarter-million dollars to send their children into a decadent environment in which corruption (chemical, intellectual, sexual, political, or all-of-the-above) was a real and present danger, the mantra continued: the kid must attend an elite school to have any chance in life, because that’s where you begin to “network.”