Thursday, July 31, 2014

Worshipping the State

How Liberalism Became Our State Religion – April 5, 2013

Dr. Benjamin Wiker

Dr. Benjamin Wiker is one of the most popular speakers ever to appear on the campus of Colorado Christian University. He is enthusiastically remembered for his presentation on Ten Books That Screwed Up The World. Returning to CCU in April, Dr. Wiker will analyze “How Liberalism Became Our State Religion” and offer a "simple, step-by-step strategy for disestablishing the state church of secularism."
 
....
 
 
 
 
Praise for Worshipping the State

This wide-ranging and clearly-written account of the intellectual background of recent efforts to drive Christianity from public life makes clear the depth of the problem. Wiker's account covers figures from Machiavelli through Spinoza, Locke, Jefferson, and the founders of today's education system, and emphasizes the ways in which influential anti-Christian thinkers who may seem very different from each other agree on basic issues. It is a sobering call for the transformation of political and academic life that should be taken seriously by anyone alarmed by the current plunge into the soft totalitarianism of radical secularism.”
James Kalb, author of The Tyranny of Liberalism: Understanding and Overcoming Administered Freedom, Inquisitorial Tolerance, and Equality by Command
Ben Wiker’s book is a no-holds-barred assault on liberalism, as the established (secularist) religion of our times. Current discussions of American public philosophy have to confront these fundamental questions: Has liberalism taken an unfortunate turn – one that was not inevitable – and can it be rehabilitated? Or was it rotten at its core, from the start, and therefore irredeemable? This book lays out, with power and passion, one way of answering those questions, and deserves to be part of that discussion.”
Christopher Wolfe, Ph.D., Emeritus Professor of Political Science at Marquette University, Co-director of the Thomas International Center, and author of Natural Law Liberalism (Cambridge)
Benjamin Wiker's book is the most forthright and unblinking analysis yet published of the ubiquitous assault on religion in American society. Not only every religious believer but every believer in religious liberty should read it.'
James Hitchcock, Professor of History, St. Louis University and author of What is Secular Humanism?, The Recovery of the Sacred, and The Supreme Court and Religion in American Life.

Christianity is being deliberately pushed out of our culture—so that secular liberalism can be established in its place. I use the term “establish” quite deliberately. One religion is being actively disestablished, while another is being (in fact, largely has been) established in its place.

Liberalism is more than a political persuasion. It’s a religion with its own doctrines about cosmology and morality. I am aware that this is a controversial claim; it will take the bulk of this book to prove it.
The religious nature of liberalism is obscured by liberals' ostensible embrace of neutrality, pluralism, and tolerance. These are the reasons given for the disestablishment of Christianity. But what actually occurs is that ‘neutrality, pluralism, and tolerance’ are inevitably used as instruments for establishing liberal doctrines and dogmas in the place of Christian ones.
But just exactly what is liberalism? Historians have difficulty pinning down a definition that clears up the many different ways the term ‘liberal’ has been applied. To help clear up this confusion, we are going to have to do a little history, and the key to understanding the historical development of liberalism is the above-noted animosity of liberalism to Christianity.
When we follow the development from contemporary liberalism to its roots, we discover that the liberals in ascendancy in America today are the intellectual heirs of a way of thinking that from the beginning has been characterized by a desire to be free from the burden of Christianity. (Liber in Latin means free.) Anti-Christian liberalism is much older than the ACLU and the Freedom from Religion Foundation. It arose about five hundred years ago within an almost entirely Christianized culture. As a rebellion against Christianity, its negative goal defined its positive form: the desire to remove the church and replace it with the state gave liberalism its structure, beliefs, and goals.
Freedom from Christianity defines the political goal of liberalism. As the liberal state takes over the form and functions of the church, it excludes the actual Christian church from having any presence or influence in the public square. In its most virulent forms it actually persecutes Christians, as if Christianity were a kind of heresy deviating from the liberal religion.

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Part I: The War on Christianity
Chapter 1: Reading the Signs of Our Times
Part II: Christianity Destroys the Pagan Idol of the State
Chapter 2: Back to the Beginning: the Church versus Pagan Imperial Rome
Chapter 3: How the Bible Kept the Church from Becoming a Department of the State
Chapter 4: From the Conversion of Constantine to the Fall of Rome

Chapter 5: The Middle Ages: Defining the Church-State Distinction

Part III: The Rise of Liberalism and the Re-Paganization of the State

Chapter 6: Machiavelli Invents the Secular State and Its Church
Chapter 7: From Henry VIII to Thomas Hobbes: the State Church, Leviathan, and the Sovereign Individual
Chapter 8: Spinoza: the Liberal Elite and the Established Secular Church
Chapter 9: Rousseau’s Radical Liberalism: Establishing Civil Religion
Part IV: The New Big Picture
Chapter 10: Liberalism Triumphs in the Modern World
Chapter 11: Sorting Out the Confusions
Chapter 12: John Locke and the Two Faces of Liberalism
Part IV: Liberalism Comes to America
Chapter 13: The First Wave: Locke, Deism, and the Founders
Chapter 14: The Second Wave: Radicals at the Universities
Chapter 15: Secularization, American Style
Part VI: Disestablishment
Chapter 16: Disestablishing Secular Liberalism

....

Taken from: http://www.benjaminwiker.com/worshipping-the-state.html

The ‘Pope Francis effect’—changing the way the world sees the papacy


 
By Phil Lawler (bioarticlesemail) | Jul 29, 2014
 
….
 
A long-overdue reform of the Vatican’s media operations is still only in the planning stages, yet the “Pope Francis effect” has already become evident in the way the Vatican handles the news.
Take a look at today’s statement from the Vatican Information Service (VIS), about the Pope’s visit to the Church of Reconciliation in Caserta. The Vatican release summarizes the Pope’s remarks to the Evangelical congregation. Of course. That’s what you would expect.
But what you would not expect, if you read Vatican releases on a regular basis, is equal treatment for the remarks of the Pope’s host, Pastor Giovanni Traettino. I have been reading VIS releases on a daily basis for nearly 20 years now, and I can testify that in the past, when the Pope has been one of two or more speakers at a public event, the Vatican barely mentions the others; the focus is always on the Pontiff. A speech by the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople or the Cardinal Secretary of State may merit a summary, but never as much coverage as the Pope’s talk. Yet here the Vatican news service took pains to provide a fair summary of the talk given by an Evangelical pastor. L’Osservatore Romano’s coverage was remarkably similar, devoting roughly equal space to the Pope’s remarks and those of Pastor Traettino.
Now if you’re tempted to think that the Vatican is slipping into religious indifferentism, by putting a Protestant minister on equal footing with the Pope, please stop. VIS is a news service, serving the needs of journalists. A statement by the Roman Pontiff is certainly more authoritative than one by a Protestant leader, but it is not necessarily more newsworthy. The Vatican evidently wanted to call attention to the words with which Pastor Traettino greeted the Pope.
Still I have no question that this new approach represents a shift in the way Vatican officials view the papal office—a shift that Pope Francis is doing everything that he can to encourage. The “old” approach treats the Pope like an 18th-century monarch, and suggests that when he is in the room, everyone else present pales into insignificance. The “new” approach treats the Pontiff as an ordinary human being—admittedly one with extraordinary responsibility and commensurate authority—in conversation with other human beings who might have interesting things to say.
Clearly Pope Francis is on a campaign to remind the world—and, yes, to remind his aides at the Vatican—that the Bishop of Rome is not a temporal potentate, and the spiritual authority of the papacy should not be camouflaged by the trappings of an archaic monarchy. That message, I sense, is beginning to sink in.
Ready for another illustration of my point? Check out this report from Vatican Radio, on the Pope’s earlier visit with Catholic priests in Caserta. To be more specific, take a good look at the photo that appears on the top of the Vatican Radio report. Do you notice anything unusual?
I do. The Holy Father is sitting beside another bishop (I assume that’s Bishop Giovanni D’Alise of Caserta) at a small table. The Pope is not seated on a throne, not set apart, not alone on a raised platform, not even on a higher chair. He is seated beside his brother bishop as any other man might be seated beside a colleague at a business meeting. At first glance it seems so natural, and in fact it is. But again I can testify that in 20+ years of following news from the Vatican, I cannot recall similar staging for any public appearance by a Roman Pontiff.
Some good Catholics regret this Pope’s approach, I realize. Some people love the traditional honors reserved for the Roman Pontiff. For myself, I have trouble imagining St. Peter in a cappa magna let alone a sedia gestatoria. Traditions can enrich us, but they can also sometimes imprison us. If the “old ways” of the Vatican have interfered with the exercise of the Pope’s spiritual leadership, then the changes wrought by the “Pope Francis effect” may be a tonic.
 
….
 
Taken from: http://www.catholicculture.org/commentary/otn.cfm?id=1046

Sunday, July 27, 2014

"Brothers and sisters, never war, never war!" Pope Francis.



Pope Francis in emotional peace plea

Pope spoke of first world war centenary and said his thoughts were on the Middle East, Iraq and Ukraine in particular
 
Pope Francis
Pope Francis made his comments at the end of his weekly Angelus address in St Peter's Square. Photograph: Andreas Solaro/AFP/Getty Images



Pope Francis made an emotional plea for peace on Sunday in an impromptu addition to his weekly Angelus address in St Peter's Square.
Wrapping up his regular address to the faithful, the Argentinian-born pontiff spoke of the centenary of the outbreak of the first world war and said his thoughts were on the Middle East, Iraq and Ukraine in particular.
His voice appearing to crack with emotion as he broke off from his scripted remarks to make a direct appeal for fighting to end, he said: "Please stop, I ask you with all my heart, it's time to stop. Stop, please."
The pope made no direct reference to the situation in Gaza, but his comments came after a humanitarian truce broke down on Sunday and fighting resumed. More than 1,000 people, mostly civilians and including dozens of children, have been killed since the outbreak of the current conflict.
"Brothers and sisters, never war, never war! I am thinking above all of children, who are deprived of the hope of a worthwhile life, of a future," he said. "Dead children, injured children, mutilated children, orphaned children, children whose toys are things left over from war, children who can't smile any more."
....




Thursday, July 24, 2014

Sudanese woman spared death for apostasy meets Pope Francis

Pope Francis meets Meriam Ibrahim at the Vatican
Pope Francis meets Meriam Ibrahim at the Vatican. Photograph: AP



Meriam Ibrahim was sentenced to death for apostasy in May, sparking an international campaign to save her life





and in Rome


Meriam Ibrahim, a Christian Sudanese woman spared a death sentence for apostasy after an international outcry, has met Pope Francis after arriving in Italy.
The 27-year-old and her family were received at the pontiff’s guesthouse for just under 30 minutes in an atmosphere “of serenity and tenderness”, the Vatican spokesman Federico Lombardi said in a statement.
“The pope thanked Meriam and her family for their courageous demonstration of constancy of faith. Meriam gave thanks for the great support and comfort which she received from the prayers of the pope and of many other people who believe and are of good will.”
Francis, 77, also wanted the meeting to have a symbolic aspect, Lombardi said. “With this gesture the pope wished also to show his closeness, attention and prayer for all those who suffer because of their faith and in particular Christians who suffer persecution or restriction to their freedom of religion.”
Earlier on Thursday, Italian television showed Ibrahim leaving the aircraft at Ciampino airport in Rome accompanied by her husband, two children and Italy’s vice-minister for foreign affairs, Lapo Pistelli.
Ibrahim was sentenced to 100 lashes for adultery and to death for apostasy in May, sparking an international campaign to lift the death sentence. More than a million people backed an Amnesty International campaign to get her released, with David Cameron, the British prime minister, and the US civil rights activist Jesse Jackson among world leaders who clamoured for her release.
While on death row, Ibrahim, a graduate of Sudan University’s school of medicine, gave birth in shackles in May. It was a difficult birth as her legs were in chains and Ibrahim is worried that the girl may need support to walk.
Ibrahim was told that her death sentence would be deferred for two years to allow her to nurse the baby.
Under the Sudanese penal code, Muslims are forbidden from changing faith, and Muslim women are not permitted to marry Christian men.
During her trial in Khartoum, she told the court that she had been brought up as a Christian, and refused to renounce her faith. She and Daniel Wani – an American citizen – married in 2011. The court ruled that the union was invalid and that Ibrahim was guilty of adultery.
Her convictions, sentences and detention in Omdurman women’s prison while heavily pregnant and with her toddler son incarcerated alongside her caused international outrage. After an appeal court overturned the death sentence, Ibrahim, Wani, and their two children tried to leave last month, but were turned back. The Sudanese government accused her of trying to leave the country with false papers, preventing her departure for the US.
Her lawyer, Mohaned Mostafa, said he had not been told of her departure on Thursday.
“I don’t know anything about such news but so far the complaint that was filed against Meriam and which prevents her from travelling from Sudan has not been cancelled,” Mostafa told Reuters.
Ibrahim and her family had been staying at the US embassy in Khartoum.




….




Taken from: http://www.theguardian.com/world/2014/jul/24/sudan-woman

Tuesday, July 22, 2014

As Christians Abandon Mosul, Pope Francis Prays for End of Persecution in Mideast

 
By Katherine Weber , Christian Post Reporter

July 22, 2014|8:30 am
 
Pope Francis prayed for an end to Christian persecution in the Middle East on Sunday, one day after Christians were forced to flee the village of Mosul in Iraq following threats from the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant (ISIS), a jihadist militant group.
While leading a moment of silence in St. Peter’s Square at the Vatican on Sunday, Francis said that Christians suffering persecution in the Middle East will be the subject of his “constant prayers.”
“Violence isn’t overcome with violence. Violence is conquered with peace,” the pope told the crowd gathered at St. Peter’s Square. “Our brothers and sisters are persecuted, they are chased away.”
 
Pope Francis arrives for a meeting of the Renewal of the Holy Spirit organization at the Olympic stadium in Rome June 1, 2014.
pope francis
(Photo: Reuters/Giampiero Sposito)
 

The Catholic leader’s plea came one day after thousands of Christian families were forced to pour out of Mosul, Iraq’s second largest city with a 6,000-year-old Assyrian history. The families chose to flee to northern Iraq, where they would be protected by Kurdish forces, after members of the Islamic State of Iraq and the Levant demanded that they either pay the “jizya,” or tax for being non-Muslim, convert to Christianity, or die.
Members of the jihadist militant group announced the demand on Saturday, reportedly painting the doors of Mosul inhabitants who were Christian. In response, media outlets are reporting that the vast majority of Christians have fled the area, packing up their cars and family members and heading for safer areas in the north.
According to Fox News, while Iraq’s Christian population used to be about one million before the U.S.-led invasion in 2003, the number has since diminished to 450,000 as Islamic militants target Christian churches and pressure them into leaving the country.
Recently, Islamic militants have taken over the Chaldean Catholic and Syriac Orthodox cathedrals in Mosul. Chaldean Catholic Patriarch Louis Sako recently penned an open letter to Iraqis, warning them that the disappearance of Christians from the country could result in a serious humanitarian crisis.
“[…] for the first time in the history of Iraq, Mosul is now empty of Christians,” Sako’s letter read, in part. “Iraq is heading towards a humanitarian, cultural and historical disaster,” the patriarch added.
Since June, the ISIS has made significant advancements in gaining security control in both Syria and Iraq. In response to the recent persecution of Christians in Mosul, Kurdish Prime Minister Nechirvan Barzani has asked international humanitarian agencies to set up relief and aid for the thousands of Christian families displaced from their homes.
….

 

Monday, July 21, 2014

Jesus Christ Alone Holds the Key to Time









Dr. Hans-Ulrich Niemitz’s comments below, as expressed in his radical revision of AD time,


 


Did the Early Middle Ages Really Exist?


 


regarding the difficulties associated with bringing to the academic community an entirely different-from-conventional chronological paradigm (and the AMAIC does not necessarily accept all of the Phantom Time Hypothesis theories or explanations), are highly applicable as well to the efforts by many to introduce a much-needed revision of ancient history.


 




 


.... How is it possible to do research work of this kind inside the scientific community? Is it perhaps necessary to research outside the scientific community, because it would demand a big change of paradigms, which means the end of certainty with regard to chronology. Usually a program of research relies on given research problems, which the general public defines. What will happen when the new research program in regard with its thesis or approach is too far from general public interest or too far from the academic society?


(Who shall give financial support?) Then we don’t have the capability of joining ‘normal science’. I am aware of standing on the shoulders of our predecessors and that we work using


their results, I can only emphasize again and again my respect for archaeologists and other


scientists who are able to uncover artifacts and construct theories on them.


I would like to repeat that our method consists in questioning specific research problems of


archaeology and historiography. I must emphasize that the thesis of the phantom years is one


proposal for solving those problems. It works surprisingly well and yields amazing results. It


seems that scientists today do not see the common pattern in all the problems, which repeatedly appear, because there exists an unexpressed and unconscious prohibition against questioning the chronology as if it were unimpeachable. My request therefore is: where and


how could our research work possibly join? What could we do together? Until today our research work was done marginally, but from now on it enters an important stage. The project


has become so big that it cannot be worked out by a few people with small resources. Support


from official institutions has become necessary so that we can continue our work at the edge


of specialty (“im Rand des Faches”) as suggests Krohn and Küppers; papers in their book “The self-organization of science(-society)”: “It is only through activities in the margin of scientific institutions that outsiders can amplify the disturbances, so that instabilities will appear, which in the end will restructure existing research.” (Krohn, Küppers 1989,95).


 


If some colleagues accuse us of unrealistic or even fantastic behavior, I wish to express that it


could not be a mortal sin in the business of science to question paradigms and slaughter holy


cows. In case we are forced to turn to the general public in order to raise funds, this strategy


will do as well. But: “One of the strongest but unwritten rules of scientific life is the interdiction against appealing to statesmen or to the general public in matters of science” (Kuhn 1970). Kuhn supposes: “As the unity of the scientific performance is a solved problem


and as the group knows well which problems are already solved, only few scientists would be


willing to take up a standpoint that reopens research on many already solved problems.”


(Kuhn 1970). Our thesis produces new problems and questions – especially seemingly solved


ones. But it promises to solve more problems than ever before in the historiography of the early Middle Ages.


What can I request from the historian, the archaeologist of the Middle Ages, the philologist


and the philosopher? What would I do in their place? Important is the need for discussion and


sponsorship. There exist two attitudes toward research: One of them is direct professional approach (history, archaeology, and philology); the other is discussing the theory of knowledge and science. Obviously our project is one of interdisciplinary research. Only in this way we can produce the expected change of paradigms with the necessary emotional distance. …

Sunday, July 20, 2014

Pope Francis the Devil and the End Times

July 19, 2014

By ....



To most of the world, Pope Francis is the pope of the poor, foe of unrestrained free-market capitalism, reformer engaged in shaking up the Roman Curia, ecclesiological innovator committed to consultation, collegiality and decentralization in the governance of the ChurchFrancis is all that, but he’s also more — something his image as a social activist and agent of structural change might not lead you to expect.
In short, this pope is a believer in the end times who’s convinced they aren’t merely coming but are, in a sense, already being played out before our eyes. This, likewise, is someone who believes the devil is real and perceives a demonic hand at work in current events.
 
Read the whole article here.

Thursday, July 17, 2014

The Apocalypse of Selfishness and The Shroud of Turin

 


“When it is evening, you say, ‘It will be fair weather for the sky is red.’ And in the morning, 'There will be a storm today, for the sky is red and lowering.' You know then how to discern the face of the sky, and can you not know the signs of the times?”

Matthew 16:2-4

It is my premise that the Shroud of Turin is the authentic burial cloth of Jesus, called Christ, and that it offers evidence that supports the claim of his resurrection within three days of his crucifixion. The scientific examination of the Shroud began with the Secondo Pia photographs in 1898. Until then, the facts concerning the death and purported Resurrection were essentially matters of faith drawing on the four Gospels accounts, the Epistles of Christ’s apostles and oral traditions of cloudy provenance. There were even those who claimed that Christ never existed at all. Science has now provided a rock of fact to which believers may cling. But so what?
Here’s what: Humanity now faces an apocalyptical extinction as a species. Revelations and other apocalyptical writings have been until now mystical allegories and metaphors. But science is not prophesying in metaphors or allegories ‑ its prophecies of doom are based on hard facts.

The Apocalypse that threatens us is an apocalypse of selfishness. The heedless exploitation of our environment has resulted in multiple crises that demand immediate, concerted international cooperation and action, but the very apostles of selfishness that are driving humanity to the brink of extinction bar our way.

For prophecy of an apocalypse, let us turn to the current Roman Catholic Pope.

Small yet strong in the love of God, like Saint Francis of Assisi, all of us, as Christians, are called to watch over and protect the fragile world in which we live, and all its peoples.

Pope Francis
¶216 Evangelii Gaudium


Despite some criticisms from conservative elements in the Church, Francis has not retreated from his elevation of the environment to a religious issue. On May 21, 2014, Pope Francis told an audience; “If we destroy creation, creation will destroy us.”

Is Francis right? Was his statement hyperbole or prophecy? Creation destroying us! Is he prophesying an Apocalypse?
 
....
 

Wednesday, July 16, 2014

Woman's Indispensable Role in Salvation History



H.H. Pope John Paul II
General Audience
March 27, 1996


1. The Old Testament holds up for our admiration some extraordinary women who, impelled by the Spirit of God, share in the struggles and triumphs of Israel or contribute to its salvation. Their presence in the history of the people is neither marginal nor passive: they appear as true protagonists of salvation history. Here are the most significant examples.
After the crossing of the Red Sea, the sacred text emphasizes the initiative of a woman inspired to make this decisive event a festive celebration: "Then Miriam, the prophetess, the sister of Aaron took a timbrel in her hand; and all the women went out after her with timbrels and dancing. And Miriam sang to them: 'Sing to the Lord, for he has triumphed gloriously; the horse and his rider he has thrown into the sea'" (Ex 15:20-21).
This mention of feminine enterprise in the context of a celebration stresses not only the importance of woman's role, but also her particular ability for praising and thanking God.
 
Positive contribution of women to salvation history
 
2. The action of the prophetess Deborah, at the time of the Judges, is even more important. After ordering the commander of the army to go and gather his men, she guarantees by her presence the success of Israel's army, predicting that another woman, Jael, will kill their enemy's general.
To celebrate the great victory, Deborah also sings a long canticle praising Jael's action: "Most blessed of women be Jael, ... of tent-dwelling women most blessed" (Jgs 5:24). In the New Testament this praise is echoed in the words Elizabeth addresses to Mary on the day of the Visitation: "Blessed are you among women ..." (Lk 1:42).
The significant role of women in the salvation of their people, highlighted by the figures of Deborah and Jael, is presented again in the story of another prophetess named Huldah, who lived at the time of King Josiah.
Questioned by the priest Hilkiah, she made prophecies announcing that forgiveness would be shown to the king who feared the divine wrath. Huldah thus becomes a messenger of mercy and peace (cf. 2 Kgs 22:14-20).
3. The Books of Judith and Esther, whose purpose is to idealize the positive contribution of woman to the history of the chosen people, present—in a violent cultural context—two women who win victory and salvation for the Israelites.
The Book of Judith, in particular, tells of a fearsome army sent by Nebuchadnezzar to conquer Israel. Led by Holofernes, the enemy army is ready to seize the city of Bethulia, amid the desperation of its inhabitants, who, considering any resistance to be useless, ask their rulers to surrender. But the city's elders, who in the absence of immediate aid declare themselves ready to hand Bethulia over to the enemy, are rebuked by Judith for their lack of faith as she professes her complete trust in the salvation that comes from the Lord.
After a long invocation to God, she who is a symbol of fidelity to the Lord, of humble prayer and of the intention to remain chaste goes to Holofernes, the proud, idolatrous and dissolute enemy general.
Left alone with him and before striking him, Judith prays to Yahweh, saying: "Give me strength this day, O Lord God of Israel!" (Jdt 13:7). Then, taking Holofernes' sword, she cuts off his head.
Here too, as in the case of David and Goliath, the Lord used weakness to triumph over strength. On this occasion, however, it was a woman who brought victory: Judith, without being held back by the cowardice and unbelief of the people's rulers, goes to Holofernes and kills him, earning the gratitude and praise of the High Priest and the elders of Jerusalem. The latter exclaimed to the woman who had defeated the enemy: "You are the exaltation of Jerusalem, you are the great glory of Israel, you are the great pride of our nation! You have done all this single-handed; you have done great good to Israel, and God is well pleased with it. May the Almighty Lord bless you for ever!" (Jdt 15:9-10).
4. The events narrated in the Book of Esther occurred in another very difficult situation for the Jews. In the kingdom of Persia, Haman, the king's superintendent, decrees the extermination of the Jews. To remove the danger, Mardocai, a Jew living in the citadel of Susa, turns to his niece Esther, who lives in the king's palace where she has attained the rank of queen. Contrary to the law in force, she presents herself to the king without being summoned, thus risking the death penalty, and she obtains the revocation of the extermination decree. Haman is executed, Mordocai comes to power and the Jews delivered from menace, thus get the better of their enemies.
Judith and Esther both risk their lives to win the salvation of their people. The two interventions, however, are quite different: Esther does not kill the enemy but, by playing the role of mediator, intercedes for those who are threatened with destruction.
 
Holy Spirit sketches Mary's role in human salvation
 
5. This intercessory role is later attributed to another female figure, Abigail, the wife of Nabal, by the First Book of Samuel. Here too, it is due to her intervention that salvation is once again achieved.
She goes to meet David, who has decided to destroy Nabal's family, and asks forgiveness for her husband's sins. Thus she delivers his house from certain destruction (1 Sm 25).
As can be easily noted, the Old Testament tradition frequently emphasizes the decisive action of women in the salvation of Israel, especially in the writings closest to the coming of Christ. In this way the Holy Spirit, through the events connected with Old Testament women, sketches with ever greater precision the characteristics of Mary's mission in the work of salvation for the entire human race.

Taken from:
L'Osservatore Romano
Weekly Edition in English
3 April 1996



Return to Main Page: John Paul


....

http://www.piercedhearts.org/jpii/general_audiences/gen_aud_1996/mar_27_1996.htm

Tuesday, July 15, 2014

Liberation theology 'archaic', says prominent Mexican bishop



Rome, Italy, Jun 2, 2014 / 12:21 pm (CNA).- While in Rome last week, the president of the Latin American Bishops’ Council said at a news conference that the Church in the region has fortunately moved beyond liberation theology.“The relevant figures of liberation theology are all very elderly, and liberation theology as such, as the expression of what it was, is very archaic, if not already dead,” commented Archbishop Carlos Aguiar Retes of Tlalnepantla May 27 at the offices of the Pontifical Commission for Latin America.

"There were efforts by some liberation theologians to clarify their theology,” he said. “But that was during the 1970s and 80s, and today, thank God, we have a much wiser theological reflection that does not neglect the necessary, comprehensive, liberation of man.”
"Now it is not about class warfare, with the confrontation between rich and poor, because as we know, for the Church this is not the way to social liberation.”
Archbishop Aguiar explained that liberation theology "had been put forth with a sociological foundation that did not square with theological foundations," and that consequently "that is where it fell apart."

True liberation, he said, "is showing the merciful face of God the Father, the tenderness of God among us”; this strengthens the human condition, the family as the place where the person matures and is educated, and prepares future generations to be leaders in all areas of society, "whether social, economic, or political."

This task, Archbishop Aguiar reflected, “is one that Pope Francis has described in ‘Evangelii Gaudium.’”
The Latin American Bishops’ Council was in Rome May 19-29 for its annual report on its work with Latin American bishops’ conferences and the direction the Church there needs to take.

Archbishop Aguiar also announced that the council will hold in August a preparatory meeting for October’s synod of bishops on the family. Bishops and experts in family ministry from the 22 bishops' conferences of Latin America are expected to attend the meeting.

....