Tag: pope benedict xvi

Shut up! – Muslim cleric at Al-Azhar warns: “The new pope must not attack Islam” – Re-blog Jihad Watch

Peanut Gallery: The Muslim “Vatican” is firing a warning shot over the upcoming Papal Conclave in Rome – Shut up about Muslim persecution of Christians, particularly Coptic Christians in Egypt. “Stay quiet and you’ll be OK.” Really…

Muslim persecution of the Egyptian Christians is widespread and increasing, but Al Azhar was infuriated not with that persecution, but with the Pope’s daring to notice it. He should have heeded the advice Muhammad Atta gave to the passengers on the plane he hijacked on September 11, 2001: “Stay quiet and you’ll be OK.” Except they weren’t.

Muslim/Christian dialogue typically goes like this: Christians tell the Muslims what they like about Islam. And then Muslims tell the Christians what they like about Islam.

Robert Spencer unmasks the sham in the following article – well worth the read.
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Muslim cleric at Al-Azhar warns: “The new pope must not attack Islam” 
posted by Robert Spencer at Jihad Watch

Cairo - Islamic district - Al Azhar Mosque
Cairo – Islamic district – Al Azhar Mosque

In other words, the new pope must not speak the truth about jihad and Islamic supremacism — or else. The papacy of Benedict XVI offered numerous illustrations of this. “Muslims Seek Dialogue With Next Pope,” by Harvey Morris for the New York Times, March 1:

LONDON — As the Catholic Church’s cardinal electors gather at the Vatican to choose a new pope, Muslim leaders are urging a revival of the often troubled dialogue between the two faiths.

During the papacy of Benedict XVI, relations between the world’s two largest religions were overshadowed by remarks he made in 2006 that were widely condemned as an attack on Islam.

Not by rampant, worldwide Muslim persecution of Christians. No, that didn’t hurt relations at all. Only Benedict’s remarks were at fault. Continue reading “Shut up! – Muslim cleric at Al-Azhar warns: “The new pope must not attack Islam” – Re-blog Jihad Watch” →

“Are Christians the New Jews?” – Rabbi Yitzchok Alderstein Re-Blog

Peanut Gallery: Special thanks to Rebecca Hamilton at Public Catholic for bringing this article to our attention. I have re-blogged Rabbi Alderstein’s entire article below – it’s well worth the read.

persecuted Christians

Today, Christians—especially those who take their faith most seriously—report that they feel like a scorned stepchild within general culture. They are mocked and derided, and treated as intellectual pygmies who have nothing to offer the better, more enlightened people around them.

Hamilton’s article is also worth the read “Christian Persecution: Are We the New Jews?” In it she applies Rabbi Alderstein’s analysis to the current state of the Roman Catholic Church in this critical time of change. She quotes Cardinal Ratzinger’s (Pope Benedict XVI) comments from 1969, “The church will become small”:

And so it seems certain to me that the Church is facing very hard times. The real crisis has scarcely begun. We will have to count on terrific upheavals. But I am equally certain about what will remain at the end: not the Church of the political cult, which is dead already, but the Church of faith. She may well no longer be the dominant social power to the extent that she was until recently; but she will enjoy a fresh blossoming and be seen as man’s home, where he will find life and hope beyond death. 

In an earlier post I lamented my feelings of frustration at becoming marginalized in America’s post-Christian culture. Rabbi Alderstein reminds me that Christians are not alone… and Pope Benedict XVI reminds me that God is in the midst of it all.

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Are Christians the New Jews?

If you are fortunate enough to possess the truth, you do not compromise or sacrifice it, even if it means that you continue on only as tiny fleck of mankind.

By Rabbi Yitzchok Adlerstein, February 20, 2013

“If you want to understand us, study our story, learn of our pain.” That is what Jews told Christians who wanted to build new bridges of respect after the Holocaust. Ironically, when Christians begin listening to the story of the Jews, they are finding reflections of themselves.

Christians who listened learned of a Jewish history written in blood from ancient to modern times. When they thought of Christian martyrdom, on the other hand, they had to turn for the most part to antiquity, to early Christianity under the thumb of Roman emperors.

That has all changed. While Jews feel threatened by the massive explosion of global anti-Semitism in the last years, coupled with Iranian and Islamist calls for the genocidal destruction of all Jews, very few Jews in 2013 are dying because of their faith or their roots. Christians, on the other hand, have become the New Jews. Continue reading ““Are Christians the New Jews?” – Rabbi Yitzchok Alderstein Re-Blog” →