A Few Observations

Every day I read things that disturb, perplex, amaze, outrage, and occasionally even delight me. Most often I just set these news bits aside with the idea of maybe addressing them in the future. But this week I decided to hold onto some of them and actually jotted down a few notes. Here goes…

Pray for Israel. The surprise attack on Israel by over a thousand Hamas terrorists is among the most brutal of recent times. Hamas is a Sunni Islamic terrorist group, a collection of sadists that governs the Gaza Strip. They seized control of Gaza after a landslide win in the 2006 election. Since then Hamas has done very little for the people, since it is focused primarily on doing all in its power to kill Jews and eradicate Israel. This is Hamas’ goal, and those who think otherwise are fooling themselves. Since Hamas uses Palestinian civilians as human shields, and stashes weapons and munitions in hospitals, schools, and civilian neighborhoods, we can safely ignore its purported love for the people of Gaza. Although I labeled Hamas as sadists, that’s likely an understatement. What Hamas has done in recent days simply confirms its vicious ways. Hamas terrorists not only targeted civilians but were purposely brutal, dragging women and children from their homes, raping and killing them, then emptying their weapons’ magazines into the faces of the dead. They slaughtered nearly 300 people, all civilians, who were attending a music festival, which ironically was dedicated to peace. They also took hostages, more than a hundred, including many women and children. Reportedly they have imprisoned them in the elaborate system of tunnels beneath much of Gaza. Today they threatened to begin executing hostages if Israel continues to carry out its response to the Hamas attack.

Israel really has no option but to destroy Hamas. At the moment the Biden administration has offered its full support to Israel, declaring it has a right to defend itself. I suspect that will change within a few weeks once the global anti-Israel hive begins to call for an immediate ceasefire. The weak, epitomized by the Biden administration, fear using their power, so they might as well not have it. Perceived weakness always enables terror and violence. Unfortunately, groups like Hamas respect only one thing: power, and a willingness to apply it. My concern is that this attack by Hamas is just the beginning. I expect, in the months, and perhaps only the weeks, to come, we will experience similar attacks throughout the world. Our enemies are not stupid and will take advantage of our political confusion and impotent leadership. Keep your eye on Iran, North Korea, China, Russia, and even the minor players like Nicaragua, Cuba, Syria, Venezuela, and so many others. We are entering very dangerous times.

Pray for Israel, good people. They just might need divine power to withstand the future that awaits them. 

Save Democracy! For a few years now the political left has been screaming its latest mantra — Save Democracy! — at high volume. Their attacks are aimed at anyone who believes in and openly defends what I’ll call American traditionalism. If you believe the U.S. Constitution is the greatest secular document every written, or at least humanity’s greatest political accomplishment, you are certainly an American traditionalist, and you will be attacked as a destroyer of democracy. After all, the Constitution is conspicuously anti-democratic because it purposely rejects democracy as a form of government, preferring instead a constitutional representative republic. In truth the founders abhorred pure democracy, for them a system that guaranteed a tyrannical majority would inevitably persecute a nation’s minorities. A constitutional system not only protects the rights and freedoms of the people from their elected government, but also protects the people from themselves. Of course, there’s an irony here. As the left screams its mantra, it simultaneously promotes policies designed to curb the basic freedoms of Americans. If you disagree with their far-left policies, you should be denied the freedom to state your case publicly. If your religious faith fails to promote gay marriage, or so-called transgenderism, or abortion, the legal system must be distorted so it can prosecute you. In a way, then, I suppose next year’s elections just might be a way to save the republic from the left’s skewed version of democracy. Otherwise, as my son said to me the other day, “It’s all over.” That might be an exaggeration, but then again, maybe not.

May Their Tribe Decrease. I suppose here, at the start, I need to explain myself and share a few pieces of my own psyche before I launch into criticism of others. I reveal this, not to impress, but in a spirit of true humility. First, I am not an ambitious man. Indeed, I can never remember being ambitious in a worldly, material, or competitive sense. I was blessed with intelligence, a desire to learn, and have always enjoyed a sense of satisfaction due to accomplishment. I was, therefore, able to achieve a reasonable amount of success at most of what life offered me. And for me that was enough. I had no desire to achieve human greatness; my object was far more confined and limited to the happiness that comes from family and friendships and the joys of daily life. Like the rest of humanity, I am a sinner, but one who struggles to get better at this business of living the Christian life. 

This being said, I trust the comments that follow don’t appear conspiratorial, or irrational, or simply petty. Now that I think about it, though, I don’t really care. So here goes: I don’t trust politicians — not just some politicians, but all of them, without exception. That being said, let me define my terms. To me, a politician is someone who spends the bulk of his adult life in or seeking elected office. This includes those who, having failed to get re-elected, gravitate either to appointed government positions, or to politically oriented jobs in so-called think tanks or foundations, or as temporary executives in the well-paying “military-industrial complex” where they remain positioned for another run at elected office. I suppose it boils down to my distrust of those possessed of unbridled ambition, the “professional” politicians. I find it amazing that so many, when they finally leave what they like to call “public service,” retire as multi-millionaires. Driven by greed and unwilling to sacrifice their personal ambition, these are the politicians who care more about their own re-election than the good of the people. The professional politician will never support term limits.

Our first politicians, the nation’s Founding Fathers, were citizen legislators. They were farmers, lawyers, judges, clergymen, teachers, merchants and traders, men who truly sacrificed to serve their fellow citizens. For example, of the 56 men who signed the Declaration of Independence on July 4, 1776, five were captured by the British and imprisoned and tortured. Nine signers fought in the War for Independence and either died of their wounds or from the hardships suffered. The sons of two signers joined the Continental Army and lost their lives in the war. The sons of two others were captured by the British and imprisoned. The homes of at least a dozen signers were pillaged and destroyed. Many, far too many, died impoverished. The founders were men who knowingly and publicly called for independence, fully aware of the dire consequences they would face. I wonder how many of today’s lifelong politicians would do the same. 

My advice: never vote for anyone who’s spent more than 10 years in political office.

We’re In a Religious War, But Don’t Know It

Note: the first part of this post was written over a week ago. Since then President Biden and the Taliban have confirmed that we will indeed pull all American forces out of Afghanistan on August 31. I simply got very busy with a number of ministry demands and hadn’t the time to complete the post.

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I think it’s time to tell the truth about the so-called “War on Terror.” No country, no civilization wages war on a tactic, for that’s what terror is. Terror is simply a means used to wage war on an enemy. It’s not unlike the use of air power, or submarine warfare, or blitzkrieg waged using armor (i.e., tanks). A military force can take steps to counter a particular tactic, but it certainly doesn’t wage war against it. It wages war against its enemy, and in most instances the enemy is a nation or an alliance of nations. But war can also be waged against an ideology, one that can motivate a large number of people. An ideology may be driven by religious beliefs, ethnicity, economics, or combinations of these. The ideology may be geographically fluid, and transcend the usual national, ethnic, and geographical boundaries. This makes Ideological warfare particularly challenging because the enemy can not always be easily identified and located. 

Today, whether or not we accept it, we are involved in an ideological conflict, a war with a determined enemy. Our enemy wants nothing less than the complete destruction or unconditional surrender of everyone who is not one of them. At least from our enemy's perspective, it is a war of survival -- our survival, for they are convinced they will ultimately prevail. 

The enemy are Islamists and they are waging war on everyone else, throughout the world. You might think they have no real hope of succeeding because they must contend with superpowers like the United States. They have, however, a number of real advantages. Perhaps foremost is the fact that very few of their enemies understand the nature of the conflict or even realize they are at war. It's always less of a challenge to defeat an enemy that refuses to accept it is engaged in a war with a determined foe. If we were to approach the average man or woman on the street in, say, Frankfurt or Copenhagen or Naples or Los Angeles or Charleston, and ask, "Is your nation at war?" I'm pretty sure every one of them would answer, "No, of course not." And that's the problem we face today. Only the enemy knows we are engaged in a war for survival. 

Now let's tighten things up a bit. This war isn't just ideological. At its core, it is a religious war. And that, dear friends, is something most Westerners, particularly West Europeans, don't want to hear. Indeed, they refuse to hear it, and in some nations to say we are in a religious war with Islam might well be a criminal offense. I'm sure I don't exaggerate when I say a significant majority of West Europeans are no longer believers. If a European discounts the importance of religious belief in his own life -- that is, if religion means absolutely nothing to him -- he's far more likely to project that unbelief on others. By ignoring the evidence of religious motivations, he will assume other causes lie behind the hostility he sees and cannot ignore. How can these Islamists be motivated by religion? After all, who would actually wage war for meaningless religious beliefs? No, they are obviously driven by poverty, or anti-colonialism, or resistance to Western imperialism, or pervasive Western arrogance, or climate change, or whatever...and, believing this, they ignore almost 1,400 years of history.

One need not be a historian to recognize the long and consistent record of Islamic belief put into practice. And yet our national leadership has been equally consistent in their failure, or perhaps simply their unwillingness, to face the truth about those who wage this war against us and all who do not share their hateful beliefs. We saw this when President Jimmy Carter and his foreign policy staff rejected the Shah and disregarded everything the Ayatollah Khomeini had preached before he took control of Iran. The result was predictable and led to the long hostage crisis that, along with a dozen other failures, cost Carter a second term, and led our enemies to underestimate us. Fortunately, Ronald Reagan came to the rescue, at least for a time.

The goals of the Islamists haven’t changed over the centuries. Back in the 14th century, the Islamic Arab philosopher Ibn Khaldun (1332-1406) wrote, “In the Muslim community, the holy war is a religious duty, because of the universalism of the Muslim mission and the obligation to convert everybody to Islam by persuasion or by force.” This isn’t an opinion of just one Muslim. This is the universal Koranic call to Jihad. Quite simply the desire is to create a worldwide social order based on the tenets of Islam and the imposition of Sharia law. That’s the goal. The means call for “persuasion or by force,” including violence of every kind, even terrorism and suicidal martyrdom. It also uses the infiltration of Islamists into Western nations through migration, both legal and illegal. Our response to this was the nation-building approach of multiple administrations, under the false assumption that the installation of a quasi-democratic political system and all it’s trappings would overwhelm these religious beliefs that have motivated Muslims from the beginning. Pick up a copy of the Koran, a good translation, and you can read exactly how Muslims are commanded to deal with unbelievers. 

Many Muslims, of course, do not accept the calls to violent Jihad that we hear from Islamist terrorists and leaders of such nations as Iran. They manage to follow the religious precepts of their faith without turning to hatred of those whose beliefs differ from theirs. But I  suspect many of these Muslims do not speak up and castigate the terrorists publicly for fear of their lives and the lives of those they love.

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Note: these final words were written today, August 31.

Today I am ashamed to be an American. Our government, a government that represents us, has, for completely political and largely irrational reasons, abandoned hundreds of American citizens and their families, plus thousands of Afghan allies who worked and fought alongside American troops over the past 20 years. But we didn’t just abandon these people. That would be bad enough. No, we left them in the hands of a collection of barbaric terrorists who enjoy torturing and butchering those whom they consider their enemies. And, believe me, their most hated enemies are Americans and any Afghans who supported us.

Today we mourn the deaths of 13 young Americans — marines, soldiers, and a Navy corpsman — who lost their lives in Kabul while serving their country by helping others in dire need. They and the many other Americans and Afghans wounded in that terrorist attack are the latest casualties of this centuries-long religious war. Pray for their immortal souls and for their families who are suffering today and will mourn for years to come. Listening to the president as he spoke to the nation just moments ago, it’s apparent how completely out of touch he is. Based on how he acted in his meetings with those families as the bodies of their loved ones arrived at Dover AFB, one also realizes how completely self-centered he is. More worrisome, he and his foreign policy team certainly don’t realize they’re in the midst of a religious war.

This is a religious war, and if we do not actually come to understand this, we will lose…unless, of course, our living and loving God, the God of Father, Son, and Holy Spirit, the God of Abraham, Isaac, and Jacob, takes pity on us and in His mercy answers our prayers and comes to our aid. Faith and trust, brothers and sisters…

“Do not put your trust in princes, in mortals in whom there is no help. When their breath departs, they return to the earth, so that very day their plans perish. Happy are those whose help is the God of Jacob, whose hope is in the Lord their God” [Ps 146:3-5].

Remembering 9/11

I suppose everyone over the age of 25 has a 9/11 story, a story that answers the question, "Where were you when the terrorists attacked?" My own story isn't very dramatic, and compared to those directly involved, I was a mere spectator, and a distant one at that. 

As I recall that day, September 11, 2001 -- like December 7, 1941, a "date which will live in infamy" -- I find it particularly odd that I first heard of the attack from a woman seated in an office in London, England. At the time I was employed by Excel Switching, a manufacturer of programmable telecommunications switches, located in Hyannis, Massachusetts. We had recently been acquired by Lucent Technologies and were integrating into their organization.

That morning I was on a conference call with a dozen or so people from around the world, when the woman in London exclaimed, "Oh, heavens! I just saw it on the telly. A plane flew into the World Trade Center in New York. It looks very bad indeed." I asked her, "Can you see what the weather's like in New York?" I knew it was a beautiful September day on Cape Cod, but it could be very different 200 miles away in New York City. "It looks like a nice, sunny day," she said, "Blue sky and I can see no clouds." Hearing that, and based on some common sense and my years as a Navy pilot, I knew one thing: it was no accident. No pilot accidentally flies into a large building in Manhattan on a beautiful, clear, sunny day. I was certain it was intentional, and, given the target, likely a terrorist attack, and said so. The others were not so certain. Of course, at this point we didn't know the type of aircraft involved. Was it a small civilian plane or a commercial airliner? But knowing a plane had crashed into the World Trade Center was disturbing enough that I suggested we end the call so we could sort out what had happened. I was thinking of our technical support people in the field, especially those who might be in New York working on or installing equipment.

Leaving my office I ran into one of our VPs and together we made our way to our spacious lunchroom where many of our employees had already gathered to witness the events on a large-screen TV. Minutes later we saw the second plane, another large Boeing 767, fly into the south tower and any lingering doubts about the nature of the attack disappeared. The tragedy then accelerated as we heard of the attack on the Pentagon and watched in horror as the two towers collapsed before our eyes. Finally, we heard the news of the crash of United 93 in that farmer’s field in Shanksville, PA. I later learned that two people I knew well, one a Navy intelligence officer and the other an employee of Washington Group International, died in those attacks on the Pentagon and New York. 

The suddenness and enormity of the attacks united the nation. In our grief for the victims and their families, and our outrage over those responsible, we seemed to come together as a nation determined to do what was necessary to bring the terrorist leaders to justice and prevent more attacks. 

Did we accomplish this? Well, during those 19 years we killed a lot of terrorists, along with most of their original leadership. But leadership vacuums fill quickly by those waiting in the wings, and terrorists are especially good at forming new organizations to attract another cadre of discontents. I suspect it wasn’t hard to convince the new recruits that all their problems had Western and Judeo-Christian roots. We also tried to effect major societal change in nations like Afghanistan. But despite our best efforts, we were unable to consummate the marriage of Islam and representative democracy, quite likely a hopeless task that never should have been attempted. 

The costs of all this have been tremendous, both in lives — the lives of young Americans, the very best of their generation — and in national treasure. What should we have done? On this, my thoughts haven’t changed, but this is not the time or place to air them — perhaps some other time.

Today, 19 years later, our nation is certainly different. Seemingly divided by almost every measure — political, economic, racial, spiritual... — as a people most of us stand on the sidelines watching a tiny minority rampage through our cities as they try to destroy the very fabric of the nation that tolerates their gross stupidity. Do we face a new kind of terrorist, one spawned by our own communities and nurtured in families where God has been evicted and replaced by a materialism that never satisfies? Is this new terrorism taught overtly in our schools and universities where academic freedom has been crushed by the political correctness of the far left? I suppose we are all, in a sense, guilty because, wrapped up in our own lives, we have turned away and allowed this to happen. 

Pondering our societal inaction, the lack of courage displayed by our unwillingness to confront that which is tearing us apart from within, I can't help but recall the true courage of the passengers on United 93. As that Boeing 757 flew above Pennsylvania, speeding toward our nation's capital, those passengers knew exactly what awaited them if they did nothing. Faith and courage overpowered their fears that morning and they did what had to be done. How did Jesus put it?

"No one has greater love than this, to lay down one's life for one's friends" [Jn 15:13].

Those men and women of Flight 93 are indeed our friends, and we must never forget them and all those others who gave their lives that fateful day. And let us remember, too, all our service men and women who have sacrificed so much so others can live their lives in peace.    

As we struggle to regain our courage as a people, perhaps we should embody those words of Todd Beamer who led the charge on Flight 93. As he rose from his seat to confront the hatred and evil that faced him and his companions, Beamer simply said:

"OK, let's roll!"

I think we've got some rollin' to do.

 

Sad Happenings...and Odd

The slaughter of Christians in the Middle East and Africa continues, but at least our president openly addressed this ongoing tragedy when he spoke to the gathering of the leaders of Muslim nations in Saudi Arabia. He didn't parrot the foolish political correctness of the previous administration, but identified the enemy as Islamist terrorists.

President Trump in Saudi Arabia

It was also refreshing to hear him scold those leaders for their halfhearted, at best, efforts to rid Islam of this cancer. Now we'll see if they actually do anything. I'm not holding my breath because in far too many of these nations a sizable percentage of the population actually support some of the terrorists' goals, specifically the universal imposition of sharia law. (See Pew Research Center's polling results.)

I also applaud President Trump's strong support for our ally, Israel, perhaps the only nation in that part of the world that doesn't hope for our destruction.

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Yesterday's slaughter of Coptic Christians in Egypt provided an interesting juxtaposition alongside the recent terrorist attack in the UK. While the UK attack has almost monopolized the news for several days,  I suspect we'll hear much less about the wholesale murder of a larger number of Egyptian Christians, many of whom were also children. I'm not belittling the tragedy in Manchester, far from it, but what happened in Egypt is no less tragic.

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In a related story Thomas Mair, the mayor of Greater Manchester, speaking about the horrific terrorist bombing in his city, stated: “This is an extremist act and the person who did it no more represents the Muslim community than the person who killed Jo Cox represents the white Christian community.” Jo Cox, you might recall, was the Labour MP who was stabbed to death a week before the "Brexit" referendum. The problem with the mayor's statement is that I'm pretty certain the vast majority of the UK's white Christian community doesn't support the indiscriminate killing of Muslims and would report such plots to the authorities. Sadly, a recent poll indicated that a majority of the UK's Mulims would not report suspected Jihadist activity to the police.
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I found it interesting that Nancy Pelosi, now perhaps the most irrelevant of left-coast politicians, for some unknown reason chided the president for visiting Saudi Arabia on his first international trip. She seems to think he instead should have visited Canada, or perhaps one of those needy foreign people's republics like San Francisco. I expect some in her party are urging her to retire before she does even more damage to their collective credibility.
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Greg Gianforte, Body-Slammer

And speaking of the credibility of the Democrat Party...Things must be very bad indeed when a Montana Republican, Greg Gianforte, wins a special election for a U.S. Congressional seat the day after he's charged with misdemeanor assault for body-slamming a pesky reporter. The Democrats had expected the election to result in an anti-Trump win for their party, an expectation considered a certainty after the Wednesday assault. Last-minute radio and tv ads by the Democrats focused almost exclusively on the assault, and three Montana newspapers pulled their endorsements of Gianforte. But the Repblican still won, and by a decent margin. I certainly don't support assualting reporters, even those who are purveyors of fake news, but the incident certainly says something about the mood of the country. Mr. Gianforte has since publicly apologized for his ill-considered aggression toward the media.
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Wolfgang Schäuble, Germany's Finance Minister, another of Europe's brighter lights, suggests that Germany's Christians can learn from its growing Muslim population. What can they learn? In the minister's words, “Many human values are very strongly realised in Islam. Think of hospitality, and other things like, what is there… And also tolerance, I believe, for example.” Hospitality and tolerance were certainly in evidence in Manchester and Nice and Paris and San Bernardino and Egypt and...the list goes on. Of course many, perhaps most, Muslims are hospitable and tolerant, but to deny the religious basis of Islamist terrorism is not just foolish in the short term, but suicidal in the long term. 
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I have to admit, I've pretty much written off all career politicians, a class of people epitomized primarily by their inability to tell the truth. It's no wonder people are rejecting the liars and increasingly voting for politically inexperienced men and women. It's a trend I suspect (and hope) will continue. 

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One of my heroes, the late Archbishop Fulton Sheen, believed strongly that the Islamic world would eventually convert to Christianity through the intercession of the Blessed Mother. He expected that Mary, because she occupies an especially exalted position in Islamic theology, would draw the Islamic world to her Son and Christianity. She will bring this about as Our Lady of Fatima, a title that has some fascinating Islamic roots.

I've always thought that Archbishop Sheen was likely correct about all this and that our politicians, as usual, will follow a much less productive course. This, of course, is just another good reason for all Catholics to pray the Rosary daily, not just for the conversion of Russia, but for the conversion of the entire world. After all, as St. Paul reminds us: 

"This is good, and it is acceptable in the sight of God our Savior, who desires all men to be saved and to come to the knowledge of the truth" [1 Tim 2:3-4].

"All men to be saved..." Why not? With God all things are possible.

And how fitting that we should turn to Our Lady of Fatima this year, the 100th anniversary of her apparition to the three children of Fatima. Our Lady of Fatima, pray for us.

News from Israel: Old and New

I thought it might be interesting to share a few recent news items out of Israel -- some relate to current events while others touch on the nation's ancient roots. The first item says much about the attitude of the United Nations with regard to the state of Israel.

UNRWA School in Gaza

UN Schools Teach Palestinian Children to Hate Israel and Jews. In the West Bank and Gaza the United Nations operates a number of schools attended mainly by Palestinian children. These schools, which receive funding from the United Nations' Relief and Works Agency (UNRWA), use textbooks provided by the Palestinian Ministry of Education. As you might imagine, these textbooks are strongly anti-Israel. They purposely do not recognize the existence of Israel, even excluding the country from maps of the region. Equally disturbing, the books claim that the holy sites in Israel are exclusively Muslim sites, fail to mention their Jewish origins, and even accuse the Jews of trying to control them illegally. The books also contain no historical reference to the Jews or the Hebrew language. In effect these UN schools simply continue the racism and antisemitism that typify the official Palestinian position. Is it any wonder that peace between Israel and the Palestinians is so illusive since one side refuses to accept the existence of the other? It also explains the recent anti-Israel resolution passed by the UN, a resolution which the Obama administration supported by its refusal to exercise its veto.

Gaza-based Jihadist: Ban Christmas. If you're a Jihadist (aka, a terrorist) a good place to hang out is in Gaza where you will be well protected by the Palestinian authorities. You'll also have access to some cool textbooks. Anyway, one of these jokers, who's been given the label of "Senior Islamic State Jihadist," goes by the name of Abu Omar Almaqdesi. (Let's just call him Abe.) It seems Abe has been very vocal of late. Discussing recent terrorism in Turkey, Germany, and Jordan, he announced that such attacks are "the price these states must pay for positioning themselves as part of the Crusader Coalition of infidel countries fighting against Islam." Just a thought, but I suspect the German. Turkish, and Jordanian governments (or, for that matter, the US government) do not consider themselves as part of a Crusader Coalition. Too bad. If they did we might actually get somewhere in our misnamed war on terror. 

Abe also added a few seasonal comments relating to Christmas: "If somewhere there are Christians who insist on celebrating Christmas with the support of the heretic authorities, one must unleash upon them all one's might and deploy all the available means." He went on to explain that "all methods are admissible when it comes to preventing blasphemy against Allah and his commandments. Yes, including killing and blowing up." Then, apparently getting into the Christmas spirit, Abe added, "But...we believe that first you should act politely and explain that living in Islamic countries is conditioned on accepting Sharia and refrain from openly practicing rituals other than Islam." I guess after you've been polite, you can go ahead and blow them up. Don't you just love these guys? Abe sounds like a prime candidate for an extended vacation at Gitmo.

Having been promised by God to Abraham about 4,000 years ago, the Holy Land is a remarkable treasure trove for archaeologists. Like much of the Middle East, modern day Israel has lots of interesting stuff beneath its surface just waiting to be uncovered. Here are a couple of cool stories I found particularly interesting.

Egyptian Slab -- Ancient Hebrew? Inscriptions

Hebrew is #1. A Canadian archaeologist, Douglas Petrovich, has generated a whole lot of controversy among his colleagues by claiming that the Hebrew alphabet might just be the world's oldest. One can only assume his claims will not be well-received in Gaza. Petrovich believes that the Hebrews, when they were in Egypt, converted the local hieroglyphics into their own alphabet so they could express their Hebrew language in written form. He dates this alphabet to almost 4,000 years ago. He also claims to have found specific Biblical references from Genesis and Exodus -- to Moses, Ahisamach and Asenath -- as he translated various inscriptions. He's taking a lot of heat from the skeptics, but who knows? He might be right. After all, we know God was partial to Hebrew.

One of the many Temple Floor Tiles recovered

Second Temple Floor Tiles Discovered. Jerusalem's
second Temple, the one started by Herod and destroyed by the Romans in 70 A.D., is now covered by a Muslim shrine. This makes excavations a bit tense since the Muslims do not want Jewish access to this holy site. The second Temple is also the Temple of the Gospels at which Jesus and his disciples worshiped. As a result of excavations that began in 2005, over 600 of the Temple's floor tiles have been found and many have been restored. These are the only known physical elements of the Temple so they are considered extremely important. They are also of interest to Christians since Jesus quite possibly walked on many of these floor tiles.

I find it amazing that today, thousands of years after these events, we continue to discover such wondrous things. And so often these finds support the Biblical narrative that so many have considered unreliable at best. It would seem that God delights in leading us to that which magnifies His Word.

Atrocity in Orlando

Early Sunday morning, not far from where we live here in central Florida, a young Muslim man murdered at least 49 people at an Orlando gay nightclub before being shot dead by law enforcement. The FBI quickly declared the murders an act of terrorism and indicated that the lone terrorist had possible connections with the Islamic State.  The FBI also revealed that this young man, a native-born American citizen of Afghan descent, had made two trips to Saudi Arabia in recent years and had been investigated several times for connections with terrorists and for threats of violence, but they had subsequently "closed the case." 

His beliefs, however, were nothing new and seem to have been formed years ago. His high school classmates report that on the morning of September 11, 2001, he openly celebrated the terrorist attacks. We have also learned that his ex-wife had to be rescued by her parents after only four months of marriage because he had beaten her so frequently she feared for her life. And it now seems his father, an Afghan living in the USA, actually ran for the presidency of Afghanistan. His father also hosted a California-based satellite TV show in which he regularly condemned the United States and strongly supported the Taliban. Indeed, despite this questionable background the Orlando terrorist was permitted to continue his employment with a major security firm that is a key subcontractor with the Department of Homeland Security and the Central Intelligence Agency. 

None of this apparently triggered any alarms within the local, state or federal law enforcement bureaucracies. As a security professional, he therefore had no problem legally purchasing the two weapons he used in the attack.

I realize that, unlike the FBI investigators, we have the advantage of hindsight, but I can't help but wonder whether political correctness played a role in the lack of scrutiny this man received from both his employer and law enforcement. Did his immediate supervisors fear the backlash that might arise if they had disciplined or fired him because of the threats he had made to coworkers and others? Did he get a pass because he was a Muslim? After all, that's exactly what happened in the case of the Fort Hood terrorist, an Army psychiatrist who was investigated by the FBI for his terrorist connections and then went on to murder 13 innocent human beings. Lots of red flags that seem to have been overlooked.

My major concern, however, is that as a nation we apparently have not accepted the obvious fact that we are at war and have been since well before September 11, 2001. Equally disturbing, we seem unable to define the enemy. For example, just moments ago I  heard one supposed expert declare that we are engaged in a "war on terror." It would seem that few people recognize the stupidity of such a statement. Terror is not our enemy; rather, it is a means of waging war. One might as well say we are engaged in a war on strategic bombing or a war on anti-personnel mines. It makes absolutely no sense unless one's purpose is to obfuscate. It's not unlike the president blaming the Orlando atrocity on guns rather than on the Islamist terrorist who repeatedly pulled the trigger. At some point, if we hope to defeat our true enemies, we must be willing to identify them. Quite simply, we are at war with Islamic Jihadists, those Muslims who believe that Islam must wage war with the infidel nations -- i.e., the rest of the world -- and are more than willing to use terrorism to achieve this goal.

Of course, most Muslims just want to live their lives and have no desire to join the jihadists in their war against infidels like you and me. But a surprisingly large percentage of the world's Muslims accept much of what the jihadists preach. Islam's teaching on homosexuality is particularly relevant given what happened in Orlando where the terrorist chose as his target a nightclub catering to the LGBT community. By doing so he actually carried out the demands of sharia or Islamic law which calls for the death sentence for homosexuality. It's important to realize that many, if not most, of the world's Muslims believe that sharia should be the "law of the land" throughout the world. In many Muslim nations a majority believe the death penalty should be applied for such offenses as adultery, homosexuality, and apostasy. Indeed, in Iran, Saudi Arabia, and several other Muslim nations, homosexuals are regularly executed. Even here in the United States too many Muslim leaders preach the same. Ironically, just a few weeks ago, an imam speaking in Orlando stated that gays should be executed "out of compassion."  (See the video below.)

To see the eye-opening results of the Pew Research polling of Muslims worldwide on these and other issues, click here: Muslim Beliefs about Sharia.

Strangely, though, the notables of the political left are so blinded by political correctness they cannot accept even the most obvious truths. Yesterday I read that lawyers of the American Civil Liberties Union had declared, quite incredibly, that the "Christian Right" was responsible for the terrorist attack in Orlando because "they created this anti-queer climate." And, trust me, the ACLU includes the Catholic Church among the Christian Right because of its moral teaching on the homosexual lifestyle. The Church, of course, does not in any way condemn homosexuals, who like the rest of us are sinners for whom our Lord Jesus Christ suffered and died. We don't condemn the sinner; we condemn the sin.

The left simply cannot bring itself to criticize Islam and instead attacks the soft target of Christianity knowing it has little to fear from Christians. I cannot recall having heard any Christian leader call for the killing of homosexuals, and to my knowledge no terrorist attacks have been perpetrated by Methodists, Episcopalians, Jewish rabbis, Benedictine monks, or the Little Sisters of the Poor.

Pray for the dear souls, God's children, who lost their lives in Orlando. Pray for those who mourn them. And pray for our nation as its citizens try to decide which adolescent to elect as our president.

Pope Francis on the Martyrs of Yemen: the Missionaries of Charity

In my last post I quoted the Holy Father as he spoke about the four Missionaries of Charity who were murdered in the nursing home they ran in Aden, Yemen. Here's a video of the Pope as he commented on these four martyred nuns during his weekly Angelus address.

Persecution Update

I haven't done one of these updates in a while, but it's not been from a lack of news. Indeed, the persecution of Christians throughout the world has only increased. In some parts of the world it has become nothing less than genocide. The source of persecution hasn't really changed, and the usual suspects are responsible for most of it. The communist governments of North Korea, Beijing, Hanoi, and even Cuba, continue to persecute Christians. But the most wide-spread persecution, on a scale not seen in recent years, is being carried out by Islamic extremists.

I suspect that most American Christians believe this persecution is limited to that by groups such as the Islamic State (ISIS or ISIL) and other Islamist terrorist groups, such as al-Qaeda, Hezbollah, Hamas, Boko Haram, and Al-Shabaab. When the persecution of Christians manages to make its way into the mainstream media, it's usually to cover persecution by one of these groups. And while it's true that these terrorist organizations are responsible for much of the most severe persecution of Christians in Asia and Africa, it's important to realize that the governments of many of our so-called allies are just as guilty.

Open Doors is an organization that publishes its annual watch list of the nations in which Christian persecution is worst. At the top of the list for 2016 is North Korea, the communist nation run by the barbaric Kim Jong-un. He has imprisoned close to 100,000 Christians in labor camps where the conditions are beyond despicable. But North Korea is a kind of aberration. Because it is ruled by one man with total power, it is also a nation in which a change of leadership could bring about radical change in its treatment of Christians. That isn't true of many of the other nations on the Open Doors list.

Once we move past North Korea, the next nine nations among the top ten are all Islamic. See the image below:

To view the complete list of 50 nations, click here, then scroll down: Open Doors World Watch List

Open Doors has also prepared a full report, world map, and reports on the individual countries included on its list. The map -- which you can download as a PDF file -- provides a nice visual of places throughout the world where Christians are most unwelcome. Click here. to see the list of  all downloadable files.

One of our supposed closest allies, Saudi Arabia, is #14 on the list. Famous (or infamous) for its religious police, the Kingdom prohibits any form of public Christian worship, and many Christian immigrant workers, imported from places such as the Philippines, suffer greatly under the heavy hand of sharia law. Interestingly, conversions to Christianity, particularly among the youth, are growing in Saudi Arabia due largely to the Internet.

#11 on the list is Yemen, a country where Christians suffer great persecution. Just this past week four of Mother Teresa's Missionaries of Charity nuns were murdered, along with 12 others, in Aden where they ran a nursing home for the elderly. Speaking of this tragedy, Pope Francis said:

“These are the martyrs of today! They are not on the front page of newspapers; they are not news. They are the people who give blood for the Church. These people are the victims of those who have murdered them but also of the indifference, of this global indifference of those who do not care.”

Such is the level of hatred by the persecutors, and the level of indifference by the once-Christian nations of the West.

Some Western Christians might be surprised to find India relatively high on the list (#17), but the persecution of Christians has increased dramatically since the Bharatiya Janata Party came to power a few years ago. The party actively supports the radical Hindus who have been responsible for the severe persecution of Christians. No longer can India bill itself as the world's largest democracy when its government openly sanctions the persecution of religious minorities.

The Knights of Columbus, working in partnership with the group, In Defense of Christians, has prepared a comprehensive report on the persecution of Christians in the Middle East. You can download a copy of this report here: Genocide Against Christians in the Middle East.

Just to give you a sense of the nature of this persecution, read the words of Mark Arabo, a California businessman and Chaldean-American leader. Speaking to CNN's Jonathan Mann, Arabo called what's happening in Iraq a "Christian genocide" and said "children are being beheaded, mothers are being raped and killed, and fathers are being hanged."

"They are systematically beheading children, and mothers and fathers. The world hasn't seen an evil like this for generations. There's a park in Mosul where they actually beheaded children and put their heads on a stick...this is a crime against humanity. They are doing the most horrendous, the most heartbreaking crimes that you can think of."

Take a moment to sign the Knights of Columbus' petition which will be sent to Secretary of State John Kerry. The petition asks that the United States government declare what's happening to Christians in the Middle East a genocide. Here's a direct link to the petition: Stop the Christian Genocide.

Pray for our Christian brothers and sisters throughout the world who suffer persecution simply because they keep the faith.

G. K. Chesterton on Islam

I thought my tiny but select group of readers might find these comments by the great G. K. Chesterton (1874-1936) of interest:

“…but out of the desert, from the dry places and the dreadful suns, come the cruel children of the lonely God; the real Unitarians who with scimitar in hand have laid waste the world. For it is not well for God to be alone.” -- from Chesterton's wonderful book, Orthodoxy, a book every human being should read. It was written 108 years ago, in 1908.

“There is in Islam a paradox which is perhaps a permanent menace. The great creed born in the desert creates a kind of ecstasy out of the very emptiness of its own land, and even, one may say, out of the emptiness of its own theology. It affirms, with no little sublimity, something that is not merely the singleness but rather the solitude of God. There is the same extreme simplification in the solitary figure of the Prophet; and yet this isolation perpetually reacts into its own opposite. A void is made in the heart of Islam which has to be filled up again and again by a mere repetition of the revolution that founded it. There are no sacraments; the only thing that can happen is a sort of apocalypse, as unique as the end of the world; so the apocalypse can only be repeated and the world end again and again. There are no priests; and yet this equality can only breed a multitude of lawless prophets almost as numerous as priests. The very dogma that there is only one Mahomet produces an endless procession of Mahomets. Of these the mightiest in modern times were the man whose name was Ahmed, and whose more famous title was the Mahdi; and his more ferocious successor Abdullahi, who was generally known as the Khalifa. These great fanatics, or great creators of fanaticism, succeeded in making a militarism almost as famous and formidable as that of the Turkish Empire on whose frontiers it hovered, and in spreading a reign of terror such as can seldom be organised except by civilisation…” -- from Chesterton's brief book, really a eulogy, on Lord Kitchener (1917).

“When people talk as if the Crusades were nothing more than an aggressive raid against Islam, they seem to forget in the strangest way that Islam itself was only an aggressive raid against the old and ordered civilization in these parts. I do not say it in mere hostility to the religion of Mahomet; I am fully conscious of many values and virtues in it; but certainly it was Islam that was the invasion and Christendom that was the thing invaded." -- from Chesterton's book, The New Jerusalem (1920)

The above comments make one wonder what Chesterton would have thought of Islam today, particularly those expressions of Islam that manifest themselves as ISIS, al-Qaeda, Hamas, Hezbollah, et al.

Unplanned Thoughts

Occasionally I find the time just to sit down, usually outside on our lanai, and think a bit about all the strangeness that typifies our world. Because I am currently trapped here in our home, afflicted by an ailment, I have a lot more time to ponder such things. I am suffering through an attack of shingles, which is a very mundane name given to a very irritating illness. I had it once before, 15 or 20 years ago, but that time it manifested itself on my chest. This time it has attacked my head -- shingles on the roof, so to speak. It's extremely irritating, maddening even, since it offers both itching and pain. I am, of course, taking the prescribed medications and hope to be back to normal soon. We'll see. My mother would have told me to suffer these symptoms gladly and offer them to Our Lord for those who are in need of God's grace...so I will do so with minimal complaining.

In the meantime, there is good news today for those of us who are relatively poor. Early this morning, after praying Morning Prayer, I turned on the news and saw that the stock market was anticipating a severe plunge to rival that of the previous week. When the market opened, the Dow Jones Average dropped over 1,000 points before rallying somewhat. The last time I looked it was down 600 or so points, although the last 30 minutes of trading might be the most telling of the day. Now, for me this is good news since I no longer own a single share of stock. I am, therefore, relatively untouched by all the volatility experienced by the stock and commodity markets. While owners of oil company stock are bemoaning the drop in the price of oil (now somewhere around $39 a barrel), I am happily paying far less at the pump to fill up my Kia. As I said, good news for the poor.

Another thought that struck me this afternoon was that the Black Lives Matter people really don't care about black lives. If you really cared about the lives of black people, you would also care about the lives of all people. But they don't. The Black Lives Matter movement (Can I call it a movement?), seems to focus solely on young black men who have been killed by white policemen. This probably represents only a tiny percentage of the young black men who suffer violent deaths. Sadly, the vast majority of these young men die at the hands of other young black men. But for some reason these lives don't matter. Black Lives Matter is no more than radical, racial politics in action. Just latch onto a clever slogan designed to appeal to the low-information citizen, look for venues to disrupt, and you can be certain of good coverage by the mainstream media.

The three young Americans who disrupted the vile plans of the Islamist terrorist on that French train deserve all the accolades they have received. Even the Socialist prime minister of France, François Hollande, couldn't resist honoring them. Indeed, Hollande presented each with the Legion d'Honneur, France's highest medal, for their remarkably brave actions. What impresses me most about these three young men is their humility. Each one praised the other two and those others on the train who came to their assistance. How refreshing to encounter such humility in these days of blatant self-promotion. How different from our politicians who actually seem to believe the world revolves around them. I can't think of three better role models for our youth than these three young Americans --  Spencer Stone, Alek Skarlatos, and Anthony Sadler. May their tribe increase.

That's enough for now. My head hurts. Perhaps a glass of Merlot before dinner. Couldn't hurt.

Pax et bonum...

Swapping a Deserter for Five War Criminals

I won't speculate as to why the president felt it was necessary to release five very nasty war criminals from Guantanamo in exchange for the release of an American soldier who deserted his post and his comrades. Sadly, there also seems to be fairly strong evidence that Sgt Bergdahl engaged in some level of collaboration with the enemy. As one wag observed, "We traded five grenades for one water pistol." There certainly doesn't appear to be any national security rational for this "deal," which will likely return these five nasties to active involvement in the conflict. If anything, our willingness to negotiate with these terrorists will only energize them to seek out high-value Americans and kidnap them knowing that they can expect to be rewarded.

The Five War Criminals

The Deserter

To my knowledge all of the president's senior military advisers were completely against the swap, which appears to have been supported only by his political team. The reasons offered by the White House, specious reasons which seem to dribble out anew every few hours, aren't very likely. For someone supposedly on death's door, Sgt Bergdahl appeared to be in reasonably good health. Even Senator Feinstein, a Democrat and chair of the Senate Intelligence Committee, stated that she believed there was no "credible threat" against the life of Bergdahl. Not surprisingly national security advisor Susan Rice was intent on once again making a fool of herself on national tv by claiming that this deserter "served with honor and distinction." And then the president went public and attributed any opposition to the deal to politics, which I find especially odd since a growing number of his own party publicly oppose him on this. I suppose he's hoping that most of the public won't know this and will just accept whatever he and the mainstream media tell them. Unfortunately, he's probably right.

According to the Obama administration the five released Taliban commanders would be subject to “restrictions on their movement and activities." In other words the government of Qatar would keep a tight rein on these terrorists and ensure that they would not re-enter the conflict, for at least a year.  And then come the reports from Qatar. The released terrorists will have no restrictions on their movements within the Arab Emirate. Such a good deal!

But more disturbing than all this misinformation are the reports issuing from the administration that the sergeant's platoon-mates, who have come out strongly against him, are perhaps a group of undisciplined psychopaths. These accusations are absolutely despicable and are certainly unworthy of the commander in chief. As someone who wore the uniform of our nation for nearly 30 years, I just don't know what to make of it. I simply cannot conceive of a commander in chief who would do such a thing. 

Vice Admiral James Stockdale

I'll make one prediction: Sgt Bergdahl will not face a court martial. I base this opinion on the precedent set at the end of the war in Vietnam. In addition to the hundreds of unbelievably brave POWs, several of whom I knew personally,  there were a tiny handful who collaborated with their communist captors and accepted special treatment, including early release. When the other POWs were finally released, their senior officer, Vice Admiral James Stockdale, brought charges against those who had collaborated. Stockdale who earned the medal of honor for his heroism as a POW, was rebuffed by the Department of Defense. DOD decided not to prosecute, believing that doing so would only result in more division in a country already polarized because of the war. 

I can't believe that our current administration will act any differently.