From Zenit
From God's church in Gaza to the beloved saints in Palestine and the rest of
the world,
The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ and the love of God and the fellowship of
the Holy Spirit be with you all.
From the valley of tears, from blood-drenched Gaza, whose one and a half
million residents have been robbed of the joy they once had in their hearts,
I send you these words of faith and hope. As for love, that's a word that
even we Christians no longer dare utter, not even to ourselves. Today, the
priests of the church are raising the banner of hope. May God have mercy and
pity on us and leave a remnant in Gaza. May he not put out the light of
Christ, which was spread by the deacon Philip at the time of the early
church. May the compassion of Christ be what reawakens our love for God,
which is currently like a patient in a hospital's intensive care unit. As a
priest and a father, I bear the sad news of the death of a beloved girl who
was a tenth grader at the Holy Family School and the first Christian to die
in this war:
Christine Wadi' Al-Turk
Christine passed away on the morning of Saturday, January 2, 2009, due to
fear and cold. The windows of her house were open to protect the children
from being hit by flying glass fragments, and as missiles passed over her
house and her neighbors fell victim to Israeli attacks, her entire body
would shake with fear. When she could not longer bear it, she cried on her
Creator's shoulder and asked Him for a home and shelter with no crying,
shouting, or wailing but joy and happiness.
My brothers and sisters in Christ Jesus, what you see and hear on your
television screens is not the complete painful truth about what our people
in Gaza are going through. Their suffering is so widespread over our land
that no television or radio could report the whole truth about it. The
brutal siege on Gaza is a storm that escalates by the hour; it is not only a
war crime but a crime against humanity. Today, the suffering people of Gaza
are appealing to the conscience of every human being with goodwill, but it
will soon be our just God who decides the case.
The children of Gaza have been sleeping with their families in the hallways
of their homes (if they have them) or in bathrooms, for protection. They
tremble with fear at every sound, every movement, and every violent F-16
attack. While it is true that so far the F-16 jets have for the most part
targeted the headquarters of the government and Hamas, they are located in
residential areas no more than six meters away from people's homes, the
minimum distance required by construction law. That's why people's houses
are severely affected by the violence, and it leads to the death of many
children. Our children are suffering from trauma, anxiety, undernourishment,
malnutrition, poverty, and lack of heating.
The situation in hospitals is unspeakably deplorable. Our hospitals were not
properly equipped before the war, and now there are thousands of injured and
ill patients streaming in, to the point that operations are being done in
the hospital hallways, and many patients are being sent to Egypt via the
Rafah Border Crossing. Some of them never return because they die on the
way. The conditions in the hospitals are horrifying, heartbreaking, and
hysteria-inducing.
I would like to tell you a short story about something that happened in a
hospital to the Abdul-Latif family. One of the children disappeared during
the first attack, and his parents spent the first two days of the war
looking for him but did not find him. On the third day, as the family was
walking around a hospital, they found some people from the Jarada family
gathered around a disfigured and injured boy whose leg had been cut off. His
face was distorted not because of the F-16 attacks he had suffered but
because of the glass that had fallen onto his face when part of the hospital
was attacked. The Adul-Latifs approached the Jaradas to console them. When
they reached the injured boy, Mr. Abdul-Latif realized that it was his son
and not the Jaradas'. The families argued with each other over the issue and
waited for the boy to wake up and tell them who he was so that he could be
taken by the Abdul-Latifs.
I will keep my letter brief. I lift our suffering up to God just as I have
presented it to you. Our people in Gaza are being treated like animals in a
zoo; they don't get enough to eat, and they cry but nobody wipes their tears
away. Instead of water, electricity, and food, there is fear and terror and
restriction. Yesterday, the baker refused to give me bread, because he did
not want to let me eat something made from flour not suitable for human
consumption -- which he had begun using when he ran out of good flour -- so
as not to insult my priesthood. I vowed not to eat any bread for the
remainder of the war.
We want you to pray to God fervently and continually and to mention the
suffering in Gaza before God in every mass or service that you hold. I send
short letters with Scripture to the Christian community here to bring hope
to their hearts. We have all agreed to say the following prayer every hour
on the hour: "O God of peace, shower us with peace. O God of peace, bring
peace to our land. Have mercy on your people, O Lord, and do not be angry
with us forever." I ask you to stand up now and say the same prayer. Your
prayers with us will stir the world, showing it that any type of love that
is not extended to your brothers and sisters in Gaza is not the love of
Christ and His church, which does not let religious and social obstacles or
even wars stand in its way. When your love is extended to us here in Gaza,
it makes us feel that we are an indispensable part of Christ's one universal
church. The Moslems among us are our brothers and sisters. We share with
them their joys and their sufferings. We are one people, the people of
Palestine.
Despite all that is going on, our people in Gaza reject war as a way to
achieve peace and insist that the road to peace is peace itself. We in Gaza
are patient and have decided that we have no choice other than bondage or
death for our country. We want to live so we can praise God in Palestine and
to witness for Christ -- we want to live for Palestine, not to die for her
-- but if we must die, then we will die honorably and bravely.
Let us all pray together for the true peace that Christ gives. May wolves
and lambs one day live together, and bulls and cubs graze together, and
children be able to put their hands in the mouths of snakes without being
harmed.
And may the peace of Christ, "into which you were also called in one body,"
be with you all and protect you. Amen.
Your brother,
Father Manuel Musallam
Holy Family Priest
Gaza
January 3rd
HT; Charles Miller
Catholics are divided on many issues, but the great divide in my view is between those who wholly subscribe to the Magisterium and those who do not. I think of the former as conservatives (even though opposition to the death penalty is a liberal position) and the latter as progressives. I do not much care about the labels (one could distinguish between Magisterial Catholics and Dissenting Catholics, for example). The most conservative of Catholics will interpret the Magisterium (wrongly in my view) to permit the death penalty and modern instruments of war that are virtually certain to kill innocent civilians. Conservative Catholics tend to privilege the abortion issue in ways that would cause them to vote against Democrats.
Progressives, or dissenting Catholics, depart from the Magisterium (many regard the moral teachings of the Church as not infallibly taught and reject the claims of strong deference that the Vatican has claimed for non-infallible teachings of the Church). Progressives disagree with many of the sexual teachings of the institutional Church including teachings about gays. They reject the ban on women priests and the requirement of celibacy. They usually think that abortion is wrong, but disagree whether it is always wrong or wrong in many but not all circumstances. They have a variety of views whether abortion should be outlawed and, if so, in what circumstances. They do not privilege the abortion issue over other life issues in determining who to vote for. Progressives tend to be far more critical of the institutional Church than conservatives.
It is possible to not fit neatly into either of these categories. But the first group tends to congregate around First Things; the latter around Commonweal. Neither group is remotely homogeneous.
Michael S says that 9-11 of the bloggers in the last three months on this site voted for Obama or would have but for his views on abortion. One could vote for Obama and still be a conservative (see Kmiec), but the privileging of the abortion is a conservative position as I am using the term. Moreover, the issue I raised is not the diversity of the bloggers, but the predominance of posts by conservatives. On this site, it turns out that we progressives are a relatively quiet bunch.
Whatever the terminology, and wholly apart from the election, one of the recurring debates on this site is whether the institutional Church is right about various issues. The bloggers on this site include conservatives, progressives and those who cannot be classified. But the overwhelming majority of posts come from those who uniformly follow the Magisterium (or who interpret the Magisterium to permit the death penalty and certain instruments of war).
The problem with fewer progressive posts is not that the conservatives “win” by force of numbers (little is affected in the world by what we say here, and winners and losers are not declared) or that conservatives have an "advantage"; the problem is that we lose the richness and the diversity of the discussion that would be gained by a greater progressive presence, not in the list of bloggers, but in a posting presence. I do not criticize those conservative, progressive, or unclassifiable who do not post in substantial numbers. I do not blog much, have blogged even less in many months, do not plan to blog more, and could conceivably blog much less. I am not complaining about the number of conservative posts (as I have said it is a strength). My point is that so long as progressives are relatively quiet here, the depth and the diversity of the discussion would be enhanced by adding more progressives to the site.
Tomorrow is the anniversary of the Supreme Court's tragically bad decision in Roe v. Wade. Once again, tens of thousands of people -- mostly young people -- will march peacefully, providing a powerful witness to the sanctity of life. And, once again, the press will pretty much ignore the event and misrepresent its tone and demographics. (Here's the March for Life link. If you are in or near Washington D.C. -- for the inauguration, perhaps -- please consider participating.)
Greg has invited MOJ bloggers to share their hopes regarding ways that Pres. Obama might move the nation's policy's in a direction more in keeping with the Church's social and other teachings. I am going to hope that the President will make serious efforts to rescue his party's education policies from teachers-union and anti-religious-school captivity, and to craft an approach that is more consistent with the Church's clear teachings in this area.
Meanwhile, I read that, among the President's very first actions, during this week of the Roe anniversary, will be to undo the Bush Administration's ban on sending federal dollars to groups that promote and perform abortion abroad.
