Two weeks after the Bush-Laghi meeting, on March 19, 2003, Operation Iraqi Freedom commenced. Shortly after combat operations concluded on May 1, the real conflict began. Amid the chaos and sectarian violence that followed, Iraq’s Christians suffered severe persecution. Neither the military nor the State Department took action to protect them. In October 2003, human rights expert Nina Shea noted that religious freedom and a pluralistic Iraq were not high priorities for the administration, concluding that its “diffidence on religious freedom suggests Washington’s relative indifference to this basic human right.” Shea added, “Washington’s refusal to insist on guarantees of religious freedom threatens to undermine its already difficult task of securing a fully democratic government in Iraq”—more prescience that would be likewise disregarded.

Iraq’s diaspora Christian community in America had also foreseen the danger, and quickly took action, helping thousands of refugees with humanitarian assistance. The Chaldean Federation’s Joseph Kassab, himself a refugee from Baathist Iraq decades before, advocated zealously for their protection. Kassab’s brother, Jabrail, a Chaldean archbishop, helped organize relief in Iraq during the sanctions from 1991-2003, doing “all that he could to help the Iraqi people—Christians and Muslims together.” His brother remained at his post until October 2006, when a Syrian Orthodox priest, Fr. Paulos Eskander, was abducted and beheaded, after which Pope Benedict ordered him to leave Iraq. Fr. Eskander’s murder was part of a campaign that targeted the most conspicuous of Christians—the clergy.

In February 2008, Archbishop Paulos Rahho’s vehicle was attacked after he finished praying the Stations of the Cross in Mosul. His driver and bodyguards were killed. Rahho, wounded but alive, was put into the trunk of the assassins’ car and taken from the scene. He managed to pull out his cell phone and call his church to tell them not to pay his ransom, saying he “believed that this money would not be paid for good works and would be used for killing and more evil actions.” His body was found in a shallow grave two weeks later.

During this campaign of systematic violence, the U.S. military provided no protection to the already vulnerable Christian community. In some instances, the clergy went to local American military units to beg to for protection. None was given. As Shea noted two weeks later, the administration and the State Department—whose record on Christian minorities and religious freedom leaves much to be desired—still refused to “acknowledge that the Christians and other defenseless minorities are persecuted for reasons of religion.”

A month after the murder of Archbishop Rahho, President Bush addressed the National Catholic Prayer Breakfast in Washington, D.C.  Joseph Kassab had been invited to pray the Hail Mary and Our Father in Aramaic following Bush’s remarks, an act of solidarity with the Christians of the Arab world. “I had two or three minutes with the president behind the curtains,” Kassab said in a recent interview. “He said he thought you had to fix the whole picture before coming to the other elements. It was disappointing. He knew it was a failure and his administration refused to acknowledge that.”

Rosie Malek-Yonan, an Assyrian Christian who testified before Congress, would call the Bush administration a “silent accomplice” to “incipient genocide.” Anglican Canon Andrew White of Baghdad’s Ecumenical Congregation captured the reality with blunt precision: “All of my leadership were taken and killed—all dead.”

Those Iraqi Christians who fled to America would fare little better in seeking asylum. Many Chaldeans and Assyrians were detained, until their cases were heard, in what an attorney familiar with Chaldean-asylum cases describes as “prisons,” adding that she “never worked on a case where a Chaldean was granted asylum, but I heard that it happened.” Throughout these deportation proceedings, the administration and the State Department steadfastly refused to recognize the conditions—which the U.S. had helped to bring about—as “persecution.” In consequence, most were deported.

Most were deported. Good Lord, I had no idea. What a freaking disgrace upon my country and its government. And though not as bad as Bush, the current president is still at it:

Among the refugees are more Iraqi Christians, who originally fled to the relative freedom and tolerance of Syria, only to find themselves again fleeing persecution, often hunted by Syria’s rebels. Many of these rebels are members or affiliates of Osama bin Laden’s al-Qaeda network. The Obama administration, bewilderingly, has chosen to support Syria’s rebel groups without any apparent thought of the consequences. The extent of covert support remains unclear, though reports suggest it is significant. As in Iraq, the insurgent campaign in Syria targets priests, the most visible symbols of the Christian faith.

The protection and perseverance of minority religious communities—indeed, of religious freedom—continues to be a low priority for the Obama administration and the State Department.  The U.S. fails to recognize that the Islamist-Wahabbist commitment to eradicating Christian minorities today will result in the extinction of diverse modes of Islam tomorrow, a fact that is not lost on moderate Muslims.

A foreign correspondent I know, a thoroughly secular man of wide international experience, writes to me:

A hundred years from now, I suspect the lasting historical legacy of the American interventions in the Middle East and of the fall of the Mubarak dictatorship in Egypt will be the end of Christianity in the Middle East. Anyone wanting confirmation of Hegel’s axiom that history is a slaughter bench need look no further than the the fact that this process should have been hastened (for I suppose one could argue it was likely over the long term, anyway, because in the Middle East, as in Europe after World War I, multicultural and multi-confessional societies are no longer able to survive) by the decisions of American president whose Christian identity seems to have meant more to him than to any president since Jimmy Carter (not the ONLY parallel between them, by the way, though of course the suggestion would horrify both men). And why so many conservative Christians (not just neo-cons and liberal hawks) support doubling down on this mistake in Syria is a complete mystery to me.

I am working this morning from a hotel room in Texas, where I’ve come on business for a couple of days. I just had a heartbreaking conversation with the maid, an older woman who is a Kosovar Muslim war refugee. Dear lady, she talked about how thankful she is to America that our country offered her and her husband and children refuge from Milosevic’s persecution, but how humiliating it has been for her to work as a chambermaid all these years.

“I only make enough to pay my rent and my groceries, but I am happy for that,” she said. “At least I have my life. But it is hard, when you have everything taken from you, and you are so old when you come to this new country that the only thing you have the language skills for is cleaning rooms.”

I could tell that she felt bad that she had complained. She followed by saying that she is grateful that she and her family have their lives, and weren’t murdered by the Serbs. I told her I agreed, and that I feel sorry today for the Serbian Orthodox monks and nuns whose monasteries are today being desecrated and destroyed by Kosovar Muslim thugs. She smiled sadly.

Anyway, America gave this Muslim woman and her family a haven from persecution in a war we didn’t start. Yet we could not give Arab Christian families — people from our own cultural and civilizational roots — a haven, even though we started the war that led directly to their own murder and persecution.

Shame on America. Christian readers, let’s batter the offices of our members of Congress and our president on behalf of our brothers and sisters in the Middle East, who are suffering in part because of our country’s actions.

Read the entire article on the American Conservative website (new window will open).

In his column in the daily paper Il Giornale he gave several reasons, prominent among which is “Because this Church is weak vis-à-vis Islam”:

What more than anything else drove me away from the Church is its religious relativism, in particular the legitimization of Islam as true religion, of Allah as true God, of Muhammad as true prophet, of the Koran as sacred text, of mosques as places of worship. It is genuine suicidal madness that John Paul II went so far as to kiss the Koran on May 14, 1999, Benedict XVI put his hand on the Koran praying toward Mecca in the Blue Mosque in Istanbul on November 30, 2006, while Francis I began by extolling the Muslims “who worship one, living and merciful God.” On the contrary I am convinced that, while respecting Muslims who, like all people, possess the inalienable rights to life, dignity and freedom, Islam is an inherently violent ideology, as it has historically been conflictual inside and belligerent outside. Even more I am increasingly convinced that Europe will eventually be submitted to Islam, as has already happened from the seventh century to the other two sides of the Mediterranean, if it does not have the vision and the courage to denounce the incompatibility of  Islam with our civilization and the fundamental rights of the person, if it does not ban the Koran for apology of hatred, violence and death against non-Muslims, if it does not condemn Sharia law as a crime against humanity in that it preaches and practices the violation of the sanctity of everyone’s life, the equal dignity of men and women, and religious freedom, and finally if it does not block the spread of mosques.

This news has attracted national and worldwide media attention, just as the announcement of his conversion from Islam to Catholicism on 22 March, Easter Eve night, 2008 did, when he “received Baptism, Confirmation and Communion in St Peter’s Basilica from Pope Benedict XVI”.

Allam’s position has several Italian (and international) counter-jihad blogs sympathetic to it, carrying articles with titles like Islamic Fundamentalism and the Impossible Dialogue.

But his new decision to leave the Church has also attracted many criticisms in Italy. Journalist Filippo Savarese: “I do not know what could be worse than repudiating one’s conversion for (alleged) issues which are in fact mostly ‘political’.” Politician Maurizio Lupi who was Allam’s godfather: “I am sorry, but Christianity taught me to love the freedom of every man and to respect it even when I do not agree with his choices. In this case not even with the reasons (we are Christian for love of truth not for aversion to Islam), but I notice that, unfortunately, this is the attitude of many who say they accept Christ but not the Church.”

Gabriele Satolli, candidate to the 2013 Italian general election for the party founded by Allam, Io Amo l’Italia, left the party, called Magdi’s motivations “raving, and therefore impossible to agree with.”

Still, although we may dispute whether they are a good enough reason to leave the Catholic Church, Allam’s arguments are grounded in reality.

“Having a dialogue” is by definition a reciprocal verb, as “being a sibling.” They mean something only if what is true of the subject of the verb is also true of the object, be it a quality, relationship or activity. When a call for dialogue is not met with a response, it is a monologue.

As Raymond Ibrahim points out, the Muslim countries with some of the worst records on their treatment of Christians are also the most interested in interfaith initiatives in the West:

Few things offer surreal experiences as when Islam and the West interact—when 7th century primordialism encounters 21st century relativism.  Consider the issue of “interfaith dialogue.”  In principle, it is a decent thing: Christians, Jews, Muslims, and others trying to reach a common ground and professing mutual respect.  But what does one make of the gross contradictions that emerge when a human-rights violating nation calls for “dialogue,” even as it enforces religious intolerance on its own turf?

Enter Saudi Arabia.  Birthplace of Islam, the Arabian kingdom is also the one Muslim nation that regularly sponsors interfaith initiatives in the West—even as its official policy back home is to demonize and persecute the very faiths it claims to want to have an interfaith dialogue with.

There are different positions within the Catholic Church with regard to Islam, with a minority of voices, some of which are powerful, dissenting from the official stance.

The two positions at the extreme opposites are exemplified by the late Cardinal Carlo Maria Martini, who was Archbishop of Milan, and Cardinal Giacomo Biffi, Archbishop of Bologna.

The former is credited with having anticipated many bishops of Italy and Europe in stretching out an acquiescent hand towards Islam. As early as 1990 he dedicated his Saint Ambrose homely to “We and Islam.” In 2001, after 9/11, his Saint Ambrose homely had a title that substituted a clear stance with a list of concepts: “Terrorism, retaliation, self-defence, war and peace.”

On Islam, the most difficult issue of the decade, as well as on many other questions, Martini’s position has always been the search for a grey area, a balancing act: “We have to prevent the dramatic scenario of a clash of civilizations,” qualified by “We must not delegitimize the right to self-defence from terrorism and the need to extinguish its hotbeds.”

It is interesting how, replicating the ideological and political alliance between Islam and the Left in the Western lay world, Cardinal Martini, considered a progressive and constantly praised by the mainstream liberal media, was after his death eulogized by the leftist newspaper La Repubblica for having approved of policies ranging “from dialogue with Islam to yes to condoms” and because “he had never condemned euthanasia.”

Writer and blogger Antonio Socci thus sums him up rather unfavourably: “Everything imposed by ideological fashions found Martini open to dialogue and to all possibilities: ‘there is nothing wrong in two people, even homosexuals, having a stable relationship and in the State favouring them,’ he had said.”

At the other end of the spectrum is Cardinal Giacomo Biffi. As early as 30 September 2000, before 9/11, when not many people in the West worried about Islam at all, he delivered a speech at the Fondazione Migrantes seminar, “On Immigration”. The following [translated from Italian by the author] is what he said on Muslim immigration to Italy and Islam:

The case of Muslims

If we do not want to evade or censor realistic attention, it is apparent that the case of Muslims should be treated separately. And it is hoped that political leaders will not be afraid to face it with open eyes and without illusions.

Muslims – in their vast majority and with few exceptions – come here determined to remain alien to our “humanity”, individual and social, in its most essential, valuable, “secularly” non-renounceable aspects: more or less openly, they come here determined to remain substantially “different”, waiting for us all to become substantially like them.

They have different eating habits (not in itself a big problem), a different holiday in the week, a family law incompatible with our own, a concept of women very far removed from ours (going as far as practicing polygamy). Above all, they have a strictly fundamentalist view of public life, so much so that the perfect identification between religion and politics is part of their unquestionable and inalienable faith, although they prudently wait to become predominant before imposing it. It is therefore not the Church, but modern Western states that must think carefully about this.

I shall say more than that: if our state seriously believes in the importance of civil liberties (including religious) and democratic principles, it should work to make them more widespread, accepted and practiced at all latitudes. A small tool to achieve this goal is the request of being given a not purely verbal “reciprocity” by the immigrants’ countries of origin.

In this respect the Italian Bishops Conference wrote in 1993: “In many Islamic countries it is almost impossible to adhere to and freely practice Christianity. There are no places of worship, non-Islamic religious events are not allowed, not even minimal ecclesiastical organizations exist. That raises the difficult problem of reciprocity. And this is a problem that affects not only the Church, but also civil society and politics, the world of culture and even international relations. For his part, the Pope is tireless in asking everyone to respect the fundamental right to religious freedom” (n. 34). But – we say – asking does not help very much, even if the pope cannot do any more.

Although it may seem alien to our mentality and even paradoxical, the only effective and not unrealistic way to promote the “principle of reciprocity” by a really “secular” state,  truly interested in propagating human freedoms, would be to allow for Muslims in Italy only the authorization of institutions which Muslim countries actually allow for others. [...]

Conclusion

In an interview ten years ago, I was asked with great candor and with enviable optimism: “Are You among those who believe that Europe will either be Christian or cease to exist?” I think my answer then may well serve to conclude my speech today.

I think – I said – that either Europe will become Christian again or it will become Muslim. What I see without future is the “culture of nothing”, of freedom without limits and without content, of skepticism boasted as intellectual achievement, which seems to be the attitude largely dominant among European peoples, all more or less rich of means and poor of truths. This “culture of nothingness” (sustained by hedonism and libertarian insatiability) will not be able to withstand the ideological onslaught of Islam, which will not be missing: only the rediscovery of the Christian event as the only salvation for man – and therefore only a strong resurrection of the ancient soul of Europe – will offer a different outcome to this inevitable confrontation.

Unfortunately, neither “secularists” nor “Catholics” seem to have so far realized the tragedy that is looming. “Secularists”, opposing the Church in every way, do not realize that they are fighting against the strongest inspiration and the most effective defence of Western civilization and its values of rationality and freedom: they might realize it too late. “Catholics”, letting the knowledge of the truth they possessed fade in themselves and replacing apostolic anxiety with pure and simple dialogue at all costs, unconsciously pave the way (humanly speaking) to their own extinction. The only hope is that the seriousness of the situation may at some point lead to an effective awakening both of reason and of the ancient faith.

It is our hope, our commitment, our prayer.

Written in 2000. All predictions confirmed. Truer, if possible, now than it was even then.

Enza Ferreri is an Italian-born, London-based Philosophy graduate, author and journalist. She has been a London correspondent for several Italian magazines and newspapers, including Panorama, L’Espresso, La Repubblica.

She blogs at www.enzaferreri.blogspot.co.uk.

Read the entire article on the Raymond Ibrahim - Islam Translated website (new window will open).

This businessman didn't care that his act of kindness took place in public and that the injured man didn't share his faith.

This raises a haunting question for those involved in the church-state struggles surrounding the Health and Human Services mandate requiring most religious institutions to offer their employees, and often students, health-insurance plans covering sterilizations and all FDA-approved contraceptives, including "morning-after pills."

As Sister Mary Ann Walsh of the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops noted in an online memo: "HHS has such a narrow standard as to who operates a religious ministry, Jesus himself couldn't pass muster."

[...]

Read the entire article on The Republic website (new window will open).

We are reliving the true history of how the Islamic world, much of which prior to the Islamic conquests was almost entirely Christian, came into being.

Pope Tawadros II, the 118th pope of the Coptic Church of Egypt, leads the Easter Mass at St. Mark’s Cathedral in Cairo, Egypt

The U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom recently said: “The flight of Christians out of the region is unprecedented and it’s increasing year by year.”  In our lifetime alone “Christians might disappear altogether from Iraq, Afghanistan, and Egypt.”

Ongoing reports from the Islamic world certainly support this conclusion:  Iraq was the earliest indicator of the fate awaiting Christians once Islamic forces are liberated from the grip of dictators.

In 2003, Iraq’s Christian population was at least one million. Today fewer than 400,000 remain the result of an anti-Christian campaign that began with the U.S. occupation of Iraq, when countless Christian churches were bombed and countless Christians killed, including by crucifixion and beheading.

The 2010 Baghdad church attack, which saw nearly 60 Christian worshippers slaughtered, is the tip of a decade-long iceberg.

Now, as the U.S. supports the jihad on Syria’s secular president Assad, the same pattern has come to Syria: entire regions and towns where Christians lived for centuries before Islam came into being have now been emptied, as the opposition targets Christians for kidnapping, plundering, and beheadings, all in compliance with mosque calls telling the populace that it’s a “sacred duty” to drive Christians away.

In October 2012 the last Christian in the city of Homs—which had a Christian population of some 80,000 before jihadis came—was murdered.  One teenage Syrian girl said: “We left because they were trying to kill us… because we were Christians….  Those who were our neighbors turned against us. At the end, when we ran away, we went through balconies. We did not even dare go out on the street in front of our house.”.

In Egypt, some 100,000 Christian Copts have fled their homeland soon after the “Arab Spring.”  In September 2012, the Sinai’s small Christian community was attacked and evicted by Al Qaeda linked Muslims, Reuters reported. But even before that, the Coptic Orthodox Church lamented the “repeated incidents of displacement of Copts from their homes, whether by force or threat.

Displacements began in Ameriya [62 Christian families evicted], then they stretched to Dahshur [120 Christian families evicted], and today terror and threats have reached the hearts and souls of our Coptic children in Sinai.”.

Iraq, Syria, and Egypt are part of the Arab world.  But even in “black” African and “white” European nations with Muslim majorities, Christians are fleeing.

In Mali, after a 2012 Islamic coup, as many as 200,000 Christians fled.  According to reports, “the church in Mali faces being eradicated,” especially in the north “where rebels want to establish an independent Islamist state and drive Christians out… there have been house to house searches for Christians who might be in hiding, churches and other Christian property have been looted or destroyed, and people tortured into revealing any Christian relatives.” At least one pastor was beheaded.

Even in European Bosnia, Christians are leaving en mass “amid mounting discrimination and Islamization.”  Only 440,000 Catholics remain in the Balkan nation, half the prewar figure.

Problems cited are typical:  “while dozens of mosques were built in the Bosnian capital Sarajevo, no building permissions [permits] were given for Christian churches.” “Time is running out as there is a worrisome rise in radicalism,” said one authority, who further added that the people of Bosnia-Herzegovina were “persecuted for centuries” after European powers “failed to support them in their struggle against the Ottoman Empire.”.

And so history repeats itself.

One can go on and on.

• In Ethiopia, after a Christian was accused of desecrating a Koran, thousands of Christians were forced to flee their homes when “Muslim extremists set fire to roughly 50 churches and dozens of Christian homes.”
• In the Ivory Coast—where Christians have literally been crucified—Islamic rebels “massacred hundreds and displaced tens of thousands” of Christians.
• In Libya, Islamic rebels forced several Christian religious orders, serving the sick and needy in the country since 1921, to flee.

To anyone following the plight of Christians under Islamic persecution, none of this is surprising.  As I document in my new book, “Crucified Again: Exposing Islam’s New War on Christians,” all around the Islamic world—in nations that do not share the same race, language, culture, or economics, in nations that share only Islam—Christians are being persecuted into extinction. Such is the true face of extremist Islamic resurgence.

Original story on Fox News.

Read the entire article on the Pravmir.com website (new window will open)..

When we consider the oral tradition that preceded the writing of the Gospels, it is essential to consider its personal quality; only a few individuals were able to speak to the ministry and teaching of Jesus with recognized authority: the Apostles whom he had chosen. The Evangelists, in their composition, did not draw on rootless sources and anonymous testimonies. The canonical collectors, the men who gathered these writings into an authoritative corpus, were certain that each of the Gospels rested on the personal witness of one of the Twelve. In Mark, for instance, they knew they were dealing with Peter.

This is the reason we should study Peter's theology of the Atonement in conjunction with our examination of Mark. For now, two texts will suffice:

Writing of the Passion of Christ, Saint Peter declared, "It is better to suffer for doing good-if God's will so determines-than for doing evil. For also Christ suffered once for sins, a just man for unjust people, in order that he might bring you to God, being slain in the flesh but enlivened in the Spirit . . ." (1 Peter 3:18).

Several points in this compact text merit particular reflection:

First, Peter introduces this imagery for an exhortatory purpose; he is holding up Jesus as a moral example Christians are to follow. The immediate context discloses this purpose; in the preceding verses he tells his readers to be always ready to provide a "defense to everyone who asks you a reason for the hope that is in you, with meekness and fear; having a good conscience, that when they defame you as evildoers, those who revile your good conduct in Christ may be ashamed" (3:15-16).

Second, Peter's allusions to Isaiah 53 in this place are unmistakable. The prophet had written: "The Lord handed him over for our sins (paredoken avton tais hamatiais hemon). . .For the transgressions of my people he was led unto death" (Isaiah 53:6 & 8 LXX).

Third, in appealing to soteriological meaning of the Isaian text, Peter describes Jesus' own intention: "He suffered . . . in order . . ."—-apethanen . . . hina." That is to say, our access to God, according to Peter, was not simply the result of Jesus' suffering but its deliberate reason. The atonement was not only the objective purpose (telos) effected by Jesus suffering; it was also his subjective intention, his deliberate aim (skopos), in so suffering. The fulfillment of the Isaian prophecy was not only something Jesus did; it is something he had in mind to do.

This is a precious testimony, inasmuch as Peter was a witness to the thoughts and sentiments Jesus expressed during the period leading immediately up to his death, the timeframe indicated in the second half of Mark's Gospel. Peter heard each of the Lord's prophecies of the Passion.

Fourth, according to Peter the atoning work of Christ included, not only the removal of sins, but also a positive access to God. According to Peter, Jesus brings (prosagage) us to God.

With respect to the same Isaian prophecy, another passage in 1 Peter is more detailed and certainly more explicit: "Christ suffered for you, leaving you an example, that you should follow his steps, ‘who did not sin, nor was deceit found in his mouth’; who, when he was reviled, did not revile in return; when he suffered, he did not threaten, but committed himself to Him who judges righteously; who himself bore our sins in his own body on the tree, that we, having died to sins, might live for righteousness—-by his wounding you were healed" (2:21-24).

Once again, certain observations are in order:

First, Peter's intention, is exhortatory; he appeals to the sufferings of Christ by way of providing a practical example to his readers how they are to follow in his steps. Peter's intention is conveyed in the immediately preceding verses: "For what sort of credit is there if you bear it patiently when you are beaten for your faults? If, however, you endure it when you do good and still suffer, this is pleasing to God. For to this you have been called, because also Christ suffered for you . . ." (2:20-21).

Second, the reference to Isaian prophecy is indicated, not only by a verbal similarity, but also by a direct quotation: "he did not sin, nor was deceit found in his mouth" (Isaiah 53:9 (XX).

Third, Peter's direct quotation is surrounded with other echoes of Isaiah 53. For instance, his assertion, "by his wounding you were healed," is a near quotation of Isaiah 53:5, "by his wounding we have been healed" (Isaiah 53:5).

Very early in the Fourth Gospel, John the Baptist sees Jesus and exclaims, "Behold the Lamb of God, who takes away the sins of the world!" (John 1:29) The Evangelist tells us that John repeated this identification on the following day (1:36). For the rest of the Fourth Gospel, nothing more is said of John's exclamation; he identified Jesus as the sacrificial lamb, but the theme is not further pursued in the story.

When Jesus dies, however, the Evangelist suddenly comments on the fact that Jesus' legs were not broken on the Cross. Interpreting this fact as a fulfillment of biblical prophecy, he quotes the Book of Exodus: "Not one of his bones shall be broken" (19:36; Exodus 12:46). John expects his readers to be familiar with that text; he assumes they will recognize that this verse pertains to the Paschal Lamb. In citing it, John identifies Jesus as the true Paschal Lamb.

If we look closely at this imagery, however, we recognize that the image of Jesus as Paschal Lamb has passed through a filter, so to speak. In the Mosaic Law the paschal lamb was not a sin offering. It was a special sacrifice immediately tied to Israel's deliverance from Egyptian slavery. It represented—-if the expression be allowed—-the embodiment of liberation from slavery.

How, then, does John the Baptist, who identifies Jesus as the Paschal Lamb, declare that he takes away the sins of the world? Here is where I want to employ the metaphor of the filter: the theme of the paschal lamb has been filtered through the Isaian image of the Suffering Servant, whom the prophet declares, "He was led as a sheep to the slaughter, and as a lamb is silent before his shearers, so he opens not his mouth."

The original lamb was not a sin offering; it was offered in the context of Israel's deliverance from slavery. The blood of that lamb marked the doorposts of the houses of the Israelites, so that the angel of the Lord would spare those houses the dreadful tenth plague which was visited on Egypt on the night of Passover.

This new Lamb of God, however, does more than free the Israelites from servitude in Egypt. He is the Suffering Servant of the Lord, described in the Book of Isaiah as a sin offering. This new Paschal Lamb takes away the sins of the whole world. He does not perish for one people only, but to gather into one all the scattered children of God. This verse from Exodus, cited at the scene on the Cross, ties the end of John's account back to the exclamation of John the Baptist in the first chapter.

This imagery ties St. John's theology to that of St. Paul, who wrote to the Corinthians, "Christ, our paschal lamb, has been sacrificed." It ties John also to Peter, who declared our redemption by "the precious blood of Christ, as of a lamb without blemish and without spot" (1 Peter 1:19).

We are now observing the Christian Passover, that feast of which St. Gregory the Theologian wrote, "Then comes the Sacred Night, the anniversary of the confused darkness of the present life, into which the primeval darkness is dissolved, and all things come into life and rank and form, and that which was chaos is constrained to order. Then we flee from Egypt; that is, from sullen persecuting sin; and from Pharaoh the unseen tyrant . . . (Orations 45.25).

St. Gregory perceives the conflation of the imagery from Exodus 12 and Isaiah 53. Here is how he describes the Paschal Lamb: "Thus then and for this cause the written Law came in, gathering us into Christ; and this is the account of the Sacrifices as I account for them. And that you may not be ignorant of the depth of His Wisdom and the riches of His inscrutable judgments. He did not leave even these unhallowed altogether, or useless, or with nothing in them but mere blood. But that great—-and if I may say so—-in its first [divine] nature 'unsacrificeable' Victim was intermingled with the Sacrifices of the Law, and was a purification, not for a part of the world, nor for only a short time, but for the whole world and for all time."

Recognizing that the wool of the lamb—-though it is the lamb's native nakedness—-provides the clothing for the human being, Gregory transposes this imagery to the case of Christ, whose very innocence becomes the proper clothing for the wedding feast, the very garment of incorruption: “For this reason a Lamb was chosen for its innocence, and its clothing of the original nakedness. For such is the Victim offered for us, who is both in name and fact the garment of incorruption.”

Gregory continues the symbolism of the lamb, finally identifying it with the suffering Victim in Isaiah 53: “And he was a perfect Victim not only on account of his divinity, than which nothing is more perfect; but also on account of that which he assumed, having been anointed with the divinity, and having become one with Him who anointed it, and I am bold to say, made equal with God . He was a male, because he was offered for Adam . . . He both took on Him our sins and bore our weakness (Isaiah 53:4), yet he did not himself suffer anything that needed healing. For he was tempted in all points like as we are yet without sin. For he that persecuted the Light that shines in darkness could not overcome him” (45.13).

This is the meaning of the Passover, said Gregory, because “the Lamb is slain, and act and word are sealed with the Precious Blood” (45.25). He goes on, “we will feed on the Lamb toward evening— for Christ's Passion was in the completion of the ages; because, in addition, he communicated his disciples in the evening with his Sacrament, destroying the darkness of sin” (45.26).

Here we perceive the symbolism of the darkness that covered the earth for three hours, as the true Paschal Lamb was being slain. Here we detect the mystery of the redemptive blood that flowed from his side to anoint our hearts and minds against the avenging angel.

Nor is the Gosnell trial the first case of alleged killings of babies born alive after an attempted abortion. In 2003, a woman named Sycloria Williams discovered she was pregnant at about 23 weeks. She decided to abort and the abortionist, Pierre Jean-Jacques Renelique, gave her drugs to induce premature labor.

When her contractions began, she went to the abortion clinic, but Renelique wasn't there to kill the fetus. Before he could arrive, her baby girl was born alive. A clinic co-owner named Belkis Gonzalez, entered the room. cut the baby's umbilical cord, and placed the live baby, placenta and afterbirth in a medical waste bag. Staff at the clinic did not call 911 or seek medical assistance for Williams or the baby, the subsequent lawsuit [by Williams] said. Police were notified of the incident by an anonymous caller, and her corpse was later discovered in a clinic closet.

Because Renelique wasn't present, he only lost his medical license in Florida. Because the autopsy couldn't state categorically that the baby died because of negligence, Gonzales eventually pled guilty to practicing medicine without a license, receiving five years-probation.

The murdered, Dr. George Tiller, became infamous for performing very late-term abortions in Kansas. Under Kansas law, before abortions can be performed post viability, the abortionist must obtain a second medical opinion as to the reasons for the abortion and mental health status of the mother. Tiller's friend, Dr Ann Kristin Neuhause, often provided the required second opinion—or perhaps better stated, the rubber stamps. In 2012 she lost her license to practice medicine "for performing inadequate mental health evaluations on 11 patients, ages 10 to 18, who had late-term abortions at Tiller's clinic from July to November 2003."

Many among the pro-choice community support a right to late term abortion, and indeed, some even refuse to say that babies born alive during an abortion should be treated medically like any other infant. Most recently, a lobbyist for the Florida Alliance of Planned Parenthood Affiliates named Alisa Laport Snow made headlines when she testified before a committee considering state legislation to require treatment of babies that survive abortion. Asked by Representative Jim Boyd, "If a baby is born on a table as a result of a botched abortion, what would Planned Parenthood want to have happen to that child that is struggling for life?" she replied,"We believe that any decision that's made should be left up to the woman, her family, and the physician."

Planned Parenthood later "clarified" its position, stating that such children should be treated. But one need not be a cynic to question the organization's sincerity.

Meanwhile, a documentary about four late term abortionists, entitled "After Tiller," was screened "to cheers" at the Sundance Film Festival. According to the Hollywood Reporter, "The audience gave a standing ovation for the filmmakers as well as the four featured doctors who were on hand to take questions from the audience after the film"

More famously, the President of the United States once stated he supports abortion rights through the ninth month. Even more extremely, when he was an Illinois State Senator, he voted against a born alive protection bill on the basis that it might "burden the original decision of the woman and the physician to induce labor and perform an abortion."

Many see these cases and advocacies as shocking. I view them as merely the first forays of what may one day become legalized infanticide. Indeed, advocacy for killing newborns has achieved outright respectability. Peter Singer, as just one example, has repeatedly stated that infanticide is no different morally from late term abortions. Because of such advocacy—not in spite of it—he was appointed to the world's most prestigious endowed chairs in bioethics at the misnamed Center for Human Values at Princeton University.

This raises a cogent question: How is what happened in Philadelphia morally different from what Peter Singer's "ethical" supposedly "human values" would allow? At a 2010 Princeton conference Singer explicitly said, "The position that allows [late term] abortion also allows infanticide under some circumstances…If we accept abortion, we do need to rethink some of those more fundamental attitudes about human life."

So, to answer my own question, other than technical issues of clinical procedures and sanitary methods, and absent the jars of trophy body parts found at the Gosnell clinic, I can't think of a single reason why Singer's values would not permit a "professionally" operated abortion/infanticide abattoir.

So would the ethics of the authors of "After Birth Abortion: Why Should the Baby Live," published in the Journal of Medical Ethics. As I discussed last year here at tothesource, two bioethicists supported infanticide on the basis that aborting a fetus and killing a born baby are no different morally, stating, "The position that allows abortion also allows infanticide under some circumstances. . . . If we accept abortion, we do need to rethink some of those more fundamental attitudes about human life."

Blatant infanticide isn't just talk in the Netherlands. Rather, it is a technically illegal but widely accepted extension of the country's legalized euthanasia policy. Not only are Dutch doctors who kill babies rarely prosecuted, and never meaningfully punished, but in 2005 the New England Journal of Medicine—perhaps the world's most prominent medical journal—respectfully published "The Groningent Protocol," in its august pages.

What is the Groningen Protocol, you ask? A bureaucratic checklist published by a Dutch pediatrician by which doctors at the Groningen Medical Center determine which terminally ill or disabled babies should be euthanized.

So this is where we are: Late term terminations are part of abortion practice in the United States. Many prominent voices believe that legal abortion amounts to a right to a dead fetus—no matter how late in the pregnancy. Late term abortions, in turn, sometimes result in the killing or lethal neglect of born babies, e.g., infanticide. And infanticide is actively promoted as ethical among some of the most prominent bioethicists and in medical journals in the world, and practiced in the Netherlands without meaningful consequence.

It is tempting to dwell on these shocking events and thereby miss the bigger picture. Late term abortion and infanticide are merely the most provocative front in an all-out war being waged in medical clinics and Ivory Tower publications against Judeo/Christian morality based in human exceptionalism and adherence to the principle of universal human rights. We ignore that bigger picture at our substantial moral peril.

Read the entire article on the To the Source website (new window will open).

This shift, if it didn’t begin with Roe v. Wade, could be said to have been dramatically accelerated by it. Despite continuing opposition by over 50 percent of the American people, abortion is now universally available, in some places through the ninth month. Two states have legalized assisted suicide for the terminally ill—once strictly prohibited by the Hippocratic Oath. Now, some doctors actively collaborate in lethally overdosing their patients.

Advocacy for legalizing “after birth” abortion—e.g., infanticide—as a natural extension of the abortion right is growing more prominent, and not just among acolytes of Princeton’s Peter Singer. A Florida Planned Parenthood representative, opposing a bill that would require medical treatment for an infant who survives abortion, said the choice to care for the child should be a private one made between a mother and her doctor. The President of the United States expressed similar views while an Illinois state senator. The blind eye demonstrated by the media on the Kermit Gosnell murder trial—in which he is charged with snipping the spines of newborn babies and keeping fetal body parts in jars—has convinced some observers that “post-birth abortion” is no big deal among many on the “choice” left.

More futuristically, transhumanists urge society to devote its intellectual and financial resources to expensive research aimed at enabling individuals to radically redesign themselves in their own image. The ultimate goal of transhumanism is designing a “post-human” species in which everyone could freely change their appearance and capacities at will.

There is now even serious talk about allowing doctors to amputate healthy limbs as a “treatment” for a terrible mental illness known generally as “body integrity identity disorder.” BIID sufferers obsess about becoming disabled, a few as paraplegics or quadriplegics, but most desperately desire to become amputees—which they perceive as their true identities. Some defenders of voluntary amputation note, correctly, that we permit sex change operations—and even legally “reassign” males to be females and vice versa—so it is only logical that we also accommodate “amputee wannabe” self-identity.

To what extent is society required to help facilitate the choices of radically autonomous individuals? Based on what I am seeing, it seems clear that identity, health, and lifestyle choices may soon trump all—particularly when these desires conflict with traditional values and norms. For example, in Colorado, the parents of a first grade boy are suing his elementary school for discrimination because their son, who identifies as a girl, is not allowed to use the girls’ restroom. Similarly, a bill has been filed in the California legislature that would require schools to permit transsexual boys and girls to use opposite-sex bathrooms. That boys and girls might not want to share toilet facilities with girls and boys is of no consequence.

This collapse of comity is happening most acutely in the health field, in which “choice” increasingly trumps the values of medical professionals. In Victoria, Australia, every doctor must be complicit in abortion—either by doing the deed when requested or referring to a colleague who they believe will. A few doctors have gotten in hot water for being unwilling to participate in the taking of human life, including a doctor who refused to refer for a sex-selection abortion.

Similarly, the Royal Dutch Medical Association issued an ethics statement telling their members that if asked for euthanasia by a legally qualified patient, they have to either do the deed or refer to a doctor willing to kill. The American College of Obstetricians and Gynecologists issued a similar ethics opinion in 2007 concerning physicians opposed morally to “standard reproductive services.” Advocates for BIID amputation also assert that doctors ethically opposed to the procedure should be required to refer patients to a colleague who will amputate.

Referrals to willing practitioners may one day be insufficient. In California, an infertility doctor objected on religious grounds to providing artificial insemination to a lesbian patient. Despite referring the patient to a doctor who she knew would provide the service, she was successfully sued for discrimination.

We have now reached the point that others are expected to pay for individuals’ “choices” and maximizing others’ self-identity—even when it violates the payer’s own beliefs. The contraceptive mandate under Obamacare requires religious organizations and business owners opposed to contraception on faith grounds to provide their female employees free access to birth control, sterilization, and the sometimes-abortifacient morning-after pill. San Francisco taxpayers now pay for sex change operations of city employees, and that procedure will soon be covered by “Healthy San Francisco,” the city’s universal health insurance plan. A bill pending in the California legislature would require group health insurance to pay for infertility treatments for all gay and lesbian people who want children as if they were biologically infertile.

Parents are now subservient to their own children’s sexual “choices.” In many states, minor girls can obtain an abortion without parental consent, and in some cases, even without notice. The Federal Drug Administration just made the morning-after pill available on store shelves for girls age fifteen and up.

Not too long ago, Americans mostly believed in “live and let live.” The ironic motto for the current day: “You do it my way.” That’s not paradoxical. The maxim that applies just depends on the choice that is being made.

Read the entire article on the First Things website (new window will open).

The West has now reached a point when we can no longer afford to ignore the rapid zombification of contemporary man. These people are now legion. Their affronted and mindlessly militant worldview has been brewing since at least the 1960s. Of course, the causes of how and why the West has been brought to this ominous condition cannot be entertained in a vacuum, without first addressing the nature of man.

Aristotle is correct that character is created over time, through the exercise of virtue. In the absence of virtue, it is not difficult to understand how some people can be easily exploited into becoming "angry" zombies. Angry is the new chic. Virtue is definitely not in vogue at the moment. Virtuous people are not cool. Remember, ours is an age that is very susceptible to what is “trending.” We are infatuated with hollow fashions.

Take a young child; indoctrinate him or her from the cradle to think of human reality merely in terms of race, gender or class categories, as the trend dictates, and follow where that leads. Groupthink cannot allow the cultivation of spontaneity or thoughtfulness. Plant envy and resentment, and see what kind of person you will reap. Eventually, this politically constrained view of human reality blinds people into embracing a noxious belief system that incapacitates them to lead happy lives. Predictably, these politically useful souls can no longer think other than in social/political terms.

This is analogous to watching a young athlete build muscle through weight lifting. However, in the education of children, the inverse is the case. Here, the ability for rational discernment and the soul’s capacity for self-knowledge and autonomous action are atrophied. Don’t scratch your head, though. Nothing happens by coincidence in this radicalized age. Curiously, being angry today, besides being modish, is out of proportion to our unprecedented material well being. Our abundant worldwide economic statistics demonstrate this. The angry types, you will notice, are highly affected and disingenuous. They are also masters of deception and hypocrisy, for their anger is blatantly selective. However, such theatrical anger is costly. The cacophony that these hapless souls produce is driving Western culture into an unprecedented abyss.

Western man now meanders through life without recourse to meaning and purpose, without regard for the calming effect that beauty and truth can have on daily life. This is what issues forth from self-loathing relativists and nihilists, people who crave meaning at any prize, while forging a world that negates transcendence and God.

Ironically, the elites who have fomented our social/political dissolution feel that they are the only people qualified to get us out of our dismal predicament. Go figure. This is a classic tale of Marxist self-delusion, which has poisoned the well of all aspects of western life and culture, whether many people today suspect this reality. The funny thing is that Marx referred to such elites as fomenters of false consciousness. Hypocrisy and intellectual dishonesty are perhaps better words to describe these elites. If history has taught us anything, it is that the ire and cynicism of demythologizers brings societies to ruin. The subsequent move in this hypocritical and destructive dialectic is to convince people that things are so bad that only a radical fix can save us. Stay tuned. This is textbook radicalism. Twentieth century history has taught us this. Yet how many of the angry ones care to study history?

Marxism, especially under the tutelage of its most brilliant twentieth century agent of mayhem, Antonio Gramsci, perfected this stealthy, angry dialectic. Gramsci provided fashionably angry people with a visible, can’t-go-wrong-while-appearing-angry agenda, while creating a following of those who imagine themselves the guardians of popular causes. How is this possible? Because Gramsci understood that if Marxist theory and its many neo-derivatives were to be effective in annihilating objective values, truth and the nuclear family, for instance, appearance had to take precedence over truth. The best way to accomplish this, Gramsci proposed, is to destroy both, high and popular culture. Just think of Aristotle’s prescience, when he writes that everyone wants to philosophize at the expense of truth. It is not a coincidence that today the West is ruled by morally corrupt individuals who lack constructive ideas.

Lamentably, the average person does not realize that for Gramsci and his current cadre, man is just cattle, grist for the mill of the sinister notion that the end justifies the means. This, we cannot forget, is the altar and substance of secular religion. Radical ideologues must wage perpetual war on human reality. Even more menacing still is the realization that the educational establishment has not only swallowed the Gramsci pill to-end-all-our-woes, it actually relishes it. Thoughtful people have tremendous cause for trepidation today; our moral/spiritual havoc issues from the world’s allegedly educated elite.

Stanislaw Witkiewicz and Aldous Huxley were right when they assessed that the brave new world of the future would become violently consumed by the happy pill. It is also ironic that the happy pill, the murti-bing pill, as Witkiewicz called this, is making man violently ill. This feel-good, entitlement pill has destroyed Western man’s ability to reason and our capacity to cultivate genuine emotions. We have also lost the instinct to identify danger and the will to resist the totalitarian impulse. The glare of technological barbarism can’t be too far behind. George Santayana, who is best known for his observation that those who do not remember the past are condemned to repeat it, defined radicalism as "redoubling your effort after you’ve forgotten your aim."

Currently, many of the institutions, customs and manners that dominate our world are based not on genuine, but rather politicized values. This is exploitive and high combustible. However disingenuous, the latter is promoted through the power of public relations. Virtuous people are being conned by morally corrupt, idea-deprived people whose purpose it is to push the status quo as the new norm.

Our vicious spiral into the maelstrom of radicalized, technocratic savagery is the inevitable result of our destruction of objectivity and time-proven values. This goes against the whole point of learning from our mistakes, doesn't it? The greater the clatter, the less societies need wisdom. Of course, wisdom has always been a threat to power. Our present predicament has hardly come about through common accord. This sets a very dangerous precedent for the future of democratic institutions and human liberty.

Sensibly speaking, there is no convincing reason why our culture must embrace experimental values just because intellectual hipsters urge the rest of us to accept the latest and coolest moral trends.

A fruitful question for us to ask today is whether moral relativism begins or ends with the emptying of the human soul: nihilism? Regardless of the imaginative, up to date monikers that nihilism embraces: neo-this, relative-that, or post-something-or-other, immorality can’t hide its vile talons. Regardless of the fancy names, we are left with mind-numbing and character-annihilating noise. The lasting effects of relativism on democracy are ominous. The value-free existence of people in the West is devouring the worth and purpose of free societies.

If Marx is correct to assert that bourgeois hegemony creates institutions and values which protect the people who benefit from them the most, then we can be certain that our progressive nihilism is the product of morally corrupt people who are merely protecting themselves. These are C.S. Lewis’ men without chests. This is also the curious case of adaptation preceding evolution.

The denizens of moral relativism have succeeded in creating a self-indulgent world order in which only they can flourish. While embracing self-serving values, they promote veiled nihilism as the greater good. This is a winner take-all formula. How can they go wrong with the popular appeal of this formula? As Jacques Barzun effectively argued, we now have the culture we deserve.

It is now next to impossible for people of good will to have a fighting chance to embrace virtue. How can young people today embody the virtuous life that Socrates envisioned or the values of Christianity, in light of the barrage of social/political mendacity and aberrant cultural/spiritual nonsense that dominate contemporary life?

In Warning to the West, Alexander Solzhenitsyn points out key ways in which the totalitarian impulse has come to rule the West. One of these is the retreat through which older, wiser generations have yielded “their intellectual leadership to the younger generation.” Solzhenitsyn argues that this goes against common sense and human experience: “For those who are youngest, with the least experience of life, to have the greatest influence in directing the life of society.” This is a formula for disaster on all levels: cultural, spiritual, economic and social/political. Why do it, then? Because it is a winning formula for radical ideologues to have the passion of youth do their dirty work. They understand that young people do not fear the precipice.

The April 22nd kidnapping of Syrian archbishops Mar Gregorios Ibrahim of the Syriac Orthodox Church and Paul Yazigi of the Greek Orthodox Church of Antioch, and the killing of their driver, has reminded us once again of the vulnerability of ancient Christian peoples living in the Middle East. More than 1,000 Christians have been killed to date in the Syrian conflict and more than 80 churches have been destroyed. The majority of Christians in Syria are Greek or Syriac Orthodox or Melkite Greek Catholic. This recent violence in Syria can remind us to pray for suffering Christians in the Middle East and afford us the opportunity to practice solidarity with our Greek Catholic and Orthodox Christian brothers and sisters.

Catholic World Report had the recent privilege of asking Archimandrite Robert Taft, SJ for his perspective on current Orthodox-Catholic relations. Father Taft has been the leading scholar in Byzantine liturgical studies for decades. Taft has devoted his life to preserving the liturgical treasury of the East and building bridges between Orthodox and Catholic Christians. As a young Jesuit, Taft first became interested in the liturgical traditions of the Christian East while teaching at the Baghdad Jesuit College in Iraq (1956-1959).

In 1963, Taft was ordained a Catholic priest of the Byzantine Slavonic (Russian) Rite. He is Professor-emeritus of Oriental Liturgy at the Pontifical Oriental Institute, Rome, where he received his doctorate in 1970 and remained to teach for 38 years. The Oriental Institute is the most prestigious institute in the world for Eastern Christian studies.

A prolific writer, his bibliography comprises more than 800 articles and 26 books, including A History of the Liturgy of St. John Chrysostom (vols. II-VI), Orientalia Christiana Analecta, Rome, 1978-2013. Several of his writings have been translated into other languages.

Taft is the personal friend of many prominent Orthodox scholars, living and deceased, like Father Alexander Schmemann and Father John Meyendorff. He has many friends in and ties to the Russian Orthodox community, where he is admired and respected. For example, he directed the doctoral studies for both of St. Vladimir Seminary’s liturgical professors: Paul Meyendorff and Father Alexander Rentel.

CWR: Father Robert, thank you very much for your willingness to share with us some of your recent thoughts on Eastern Christian ecumenism.

Many people who are sensitive to Orthodox-Catholic dialogue noticed that when Pope Francis appeared on the balcony a month ago, he was not only very humble, but spoke of the Church of Rome as the Church “which presides in love” and referred to himself as the bishop of Rome concerned for the Christians of Rome. These past few weeks he has definitely set the tone for his pontificate.

This quotation from the second-century letter of St. Ignatius of Antioch to the Roman Church, “which presides in love,” could not have been coincidence considering Pope Francis’ noteworthy sensitivities to Eastern Christian ecclesiology. Plus, the historically unprecedented response to Francis’ election in the form of Ecumenical Patriarch Bartholomew’s attendance at the papal installation Mass seems to mark Pope Francis as another welcomed bridge-builder between East and West. As an aside, I think it is beautiful that pontifex means “bridge-builder” in Latin. Perhaps Pope Francis will bring a new understanding of that title through his ecumenical dialogue and his local focus on the duties of the bishop of Rome? Could you comment on how you think Pope Francis’ humble “style” will be viewed by Orthodox Christians?

Taft: Pope Francesco is making a wonderful impression on most of the world by just being himself, the self of a real Christian in love, not with himself or his image, but with what real Christians love…God and all His creatures He died to save, especially the poor and needy and downtrodden. This has come across clearly to all of us, including Orthodox I know, who as real Christians can spot a fellow-Christian a mile away.

In addition, even more interesting from the ecumenical perspective is Francesco’s emphasis on his primary title, “Bishop of Rome.” Because a prelate’s title to his primacy comes from his local primatial see, not from some personal or super-imposed ecclesiological distinction. I can’t imagine that any of our attentive Orthodox observers have missed that!

CWR: Most Catholics probably envision future unity between the Orthodox Churches and the Catholic Church as a re-installment of one world Church organization with the pope of Rome at the top of the governing pyramid. A look at history shows that such a model never existed, so what could Orthodox-Catholic communion actually look like if it were achieved? A renewal of Eucharistic communion? The possibility of an eighth ecumenical council? A resolution for the dating of Pascha/Easter?

Taft: What it would look like is not a “reunion” with them “returning to Rome,” to which they never belonged anyway; nor us being incorporated by them, since we are all ancient apostolic “Sister Churches” with a valid episcopate and priesthood and the full panoply of sacraments needed to minister salvation to our respective faithful, as is proclaimed in the renewed Catholic ecclesiology since Vatican II and enshrined in numerous papal documents from Paul VI on, as well as in the wonderful Catechism of the Catholic Church. So we just need to restore our broken communion and the rest of the problems you mention can be addressed one by one and resolved by common accord.

CWR: According to the most recent joint statement of the North American Orthodox-Catholic Theological Consultation (2010), future communion would include several key elements:

Mutual recognition: The numerous Orthodox Churches and the Catholic Church would have to “explicitly recognize each other as authentic embodiments of the one Church of Christ, founded on the apostles”;

A common confession of faith: The “Filioque” ought to be dropped in order to reflect the common Confession of Faith “canonized at the Council of Constantinople in 381”;

Accepted diversity: Orthodox-Catholic Christians would “live in full ecclesial communion with each other without requiring any of the parts to forego its own traditions and practices”;

Liturgical sharing: “Members of all the Churches in communion would be able to receive the sacraments in the other Churches”;

Synodality/conciliarity: “Bishops of all the Churches would be invited to participate fully in any ecumenical councils that might be summoned.

Synodality would operate at various levels of ecclesial institutions: local, regional, and worldwide”;

Mission: “As sister Churches, they would also engage in common efforts to promote the realization of a Christian moral vision in the world”;

Subsidiarity: “Those elected to major episcopal or primatial offices would present themselves to other Church leaders at their level”;

Renewal and reform. They would “commit themselves to continuing [Christian] renewal and growth—together.”

The statement goes on to say, “Conscience holds us back from celebrating our unity as complete in sacramental terms, until it is complete in faith, Church structure, and common action.” Can you clarify what you mean by “restoring our broken communion” so that the other existing problems “can be addressed one by one and resolved by common accord”? It seems like we already have “mutual recognition,” “accepted diversity,” and “mission”; what is the next step and how many steps will it take before we get to “liturgical sharing” which is what I think of when you say “broken communion?”

Taft: Yes, much that is put forward in this excellent historic document is already a reality or on the way to being so. For instance there is no “Filioque” in the Creed Russian Catholics chant in our Slavonic liturgy, and some years ago Rome issued a clarification of its Trinitarian belief about which the late French Orthodox theologian Olivier Clément said if that is the Catholic teaching on the issue then the problem has been resolved. As for “ecumenical councils,” the Catholic Church might specify more clearly its list of those, which as far as I know we have never defined. Are the purely Roman Catholic post-schism councils to be considered ecumenical councils of the undivided Church? If so, says who?

CWR: How could the papal claims of Rome be modified in a way that would be both acceptable to the Orthodox Churches and faithful to the tradition of the Catholic Church? Do you think the jurisdiction issue really is a hang-up for the Orthodox since they also practice cross-jurisdiction throughout Western Europe, the Americas, Australia, and East Asia?

Taft: The new Catholic “Sister Churches” ecclesiology describes not only how the Catholic Church views the Orthodox Churches. It also represents a startling revolution in how the Catholic Church views itself: we are no longer the only kid on the block, the whole Church of Christ, but one Sister Church among others. Previously, the Catholic Church saw itself as the original one and only true Church of Christ from which all other Christians had separated for one reason or another in the course of history, and Catholics held, simplistically, that the solution to divided Christendom consisted in all other Christians returning to Rome’s maternal bosom.

Vatican II, with an assist from those Council Fathers with a less naïve Disney-World view of their own Church’s past, managed to put aside this historically ludicrous, self-centered, self-congratulatory perception of reality. In doing so they had a strong assist from the Council Fathers of the Melkite Greek Catholic Church whose concrete experience of the realities of the Christian East made them spokesmen and defenders of that reality.

In this context I would recommend the excellent new book by Robert Louis Wilken, The First Thousand Years: A Global History of Christianity (New Haven & London: Yale U. Press 2012). Professor Wilken, a convert to Catholicism who is a recognized expert on Early Christianity and its history and literature, shows that Early Christianity developed not out of some Roman cradle but as a federation of local Churches, Western and Eastern, each one under the authority of a chief hierarch who would come to be called Archbishop, Pope, Patriarch, or Catholicos, each with its own independent governing synod and polity, all of them initially in communion with one another until the vicissitudes of history led to lasting divisions.

CWR: Many Orthodox theologians claim that even if the Ecumenical Patriarch of Constantinople or the Patriarch of Moscow were to unite with Rome tomorrow, the lay faithful and the monastics would probably not accept it and therefore there would be no actual union. Given the history of Lyons and Florence do you think this is true, or has the Orthodox mood changed recently?

Taft: Part of the problem is that some Orthodox do not instruct their people adequately and update them, so ecumenical progress on the upper level often does not filter down to the ordinary faithful. In addition of course, there is the problem of the bigotry of many of the monastics and others towards anyone who is not Orthodox. On how they square this with what Christianity is supposed to be according to Jesus’ explicit teaching in the New Testament, we still await their explanation. One Catholic remedy for this—its usefulness proven by the rage it provokes in the exposed bigots—is the factual diffusion of their views, objectively and without editorial comment, in publications like Irénikon in French, or in English Father Ronald Roberson’s highly informative monthly SEIA Newsletter on the Eastern Churches and Ecumenism, distributed gratis to subscribers via email and eventually preserved for permanent reference in the Eastern Churches Journal. These publications just give the news without comment, including quotations from the bigots permanently recorded for posterity, thereby exposing them to the public embarrassment they merit. This is especially important for some representatives of Orthodoxy who speak out of both sides of their mouth, saying one thing at international ecumenical venues, and quite another for the consumption of Orthodox audiences or in publications they do not expect the non-Orthodox to read.

CWR: You mentioned the fact that documenting statements from Orthodox representatives has the potential to nail down the real arguments and eradicate equivocation. How has modern technology, especially the Internet, helped (or hindered) ecumenical dialogue?

Taft: Anything that helps spread the news and the flood of ever-new documentation on inter-church relations can only be viewed positively. And it is a mistake to think that this is not true in countries of the less-developed so-called “third world,” where those interested in the rest of the world are often more computer-literate than those of us in the West. Some of my Orthodox friends in far away countries are computer whizzes compared to me!

CWR: It seems as though Western Catholic theologians have been interested in Eastern theology for the past 1,500 years and have generally sought to integrate it into their own theology. On the other hand, many modern Eastern Orthodox theologians are very leery about anything Western and have furthermore severed themselves from their roots in Hellenic philosophy. Is this statement accurate? Is this a recent phenomenon? And are there any schools of Eastern Orthodox theology that do not see the integration of Western theology and philosophical inquiry as a threat to Eastern theology?

Taft: First of all, the roots of ALL of us include a Neo-Platonic heritage that no one has abandoned in East or West since it is part of Christianity’s DNA, so drop that notion. As for Orthodox theologians, we must distinguish the second-stringers from the best ones. Lest my list be endless, let me mention just a few in each Orthodox Church who are fully conversant with present western Catholic theology. Among the Greeks: Metropolitans Kallistos Ware and Ioannes Zizioulas, Archpriest Stefanos Alexopoulos, Prof. Pantelas Kalaitzidis of Volos, and the professors of Holy Cross Hellenic Greek College in Brighton, Massachusetts. Among the Russian Orthodox: Metropolitan Ilarion Alfayev, Sr. Dr. Vassa Larin, Protoierej Mixail Zheltov, and numerous others. Then in the USA we have the Professors of St. Vladimir’s Orthodox Seminary of the OCA, and on and on. So there are in fact plenty of top Orthodox theologians au courant in modern non-Orthodox theological thought.

St. Gregory of Nyssa

St. Gregory of Nyssa (1954) would have us understand that the core of the meaning of this beatitude is that we are called to become "sons of God." Following Moses’ description of the "holy of holies" (Ex 25, 26), St Gregory points out that all the Beatitudes are holy. A special consideration, however, is that the "holy of holies" had a purer, even holier, inner part. St. Gregory called this sanctum, adyton [impenetrable]. It was inaccessible to anyone except the 'high priest.' St. Gregory points out that the impenetrability of the innermost center of the "holy of holies" makes it a fitting symbol of the "inner region of the soul, in which the mystical life is lived." This symbolism applies to the Beatitudes themselves.

This I believe also to be the case of the beatitudes that have been shown us on this mountain. All that the Divine Word has so far laid down is indeed perfectly holy. But what we are now invited to contemplate is truly adyton, and the Holy of Holies. For if the blessedness of seeing God cannot be surpassed, to become the son of God transcends bliss altogether.

Icon of the Creation

Following the Fathers of the Old Testament, St. Gregory notes that Abraham likens man to dust and ashes (Gn 18: 27), Isaiah (40:26), as well as David (Ps 36:2 ), likens man to grass and Solomon proclaims that all that man concerns himself with is vanity (Ecc 1: 2). St. Paul (1Cor 15: 9) counts himself as the least and bespeaks speaks for all mankind that we are as nothing: "For I am the least of the apostles, who am not worthy to be called an apostle." However, God's bestowal of sonship on us lifts us to a Divine dimension. St. Gregory tells us:

Man is esteemed as nothing, as ashes and grass and vanity among the things that exist, yet he becomes akin to this great Majesty that can neither be seen nor heard nor thought; he is received as a son by the God of the universe.

Becoming sons of God does not happen automatically. In this Beatitude Jesus points out to us what we must do to be favored with God's free gift of sonship. We must be peacemakers. Having been favored with the free gift of sonship, we then have the duty to continue to be peacemakers, and in this we find our blessedness, we grow into the likeness of the God of peace.

The Bliss of Making Peace

In his homily on this Beatitude, St. Gregory gives us an unexpected spiritual insight. Normally, it might be expected he would go into what making peace means and how it can be accomplished. However, this holy Father of the Church, using the analogy of combat, warfare and competition, tells us that the "contest" of making peace is actually a reward in and of itself. Most contests, at best, involve tremendous, intense, strenuous physical and mental struggle, at worst, fierce fighting involving bloodshed, lament, atrocities and slaughter. But the contest of making peace is different. Yes, winning leads to the reward of spiritual sonship, but of great importance, St. Gregory points out, is that peace is intrinsically a reward in itself. This leads him to say: "So even if no further hope was promised a man, those who have sense would prize peace for its own sake above all else." Does not the psalmist tell us "Behold how good and how pleasant it is for brethren to dwell in unity?" (Ps 132:1).

Christ the Foundation of all Peace

Spiritual peace means freedom from slavery to the passions and bondage to sin. St. Mark the Ascetic tells us: "Peace is a deliverance from the passions, which is not found except through the action of the Holy Spirit." (Philokalia I). St. Isaac of Syria (Holy Transfiguration Monastery, 2011) goes on to explain the relationship between the passions, sin and peace in more detail: "As long as your senses are alive to every occurrence, understand you are [spiritually] dead, for the burning of sin will not be absent from all your members and peace will not be able to settle in your soul." St. Isaac also notes that peace is a step upward in the ladder of the beatitudes from the previous step of being merciful. Harkening to Christ's beatitude of mercy (Mt 5:7), he tells us, "a harsh and merciless heart will never be purified. A merciful man is the physician of his own soul, for . . . he drives the darkness of the passions out of his inner self." The result is peace: ". . .let a merciful heart preside over your entire discipline and you will be at peace with God."

Humility the pathway to peace

St. Isaac links the acquisition of peace to humility. He speaks of it as ". . .the peace that is born of humility." In his Homily 48, St. Isaac tells us exactly what humility is: "The man who has reached the knowledge of the extent of his own weakness has reached perfect humility." This means that we need to develop an awareness of the passions that beset us, our sensory responses to these passions and the sinful desires and actions that follow. In his Homily 51, the saint uses the analogy of separating ourselves from things of this world as the way to develop this humble spiritual awareness: "Seek understanding, not gold. Clothe yourself with humility, not fine linen." His next sentence gives us the outcome of this endeavor: "Gain peace, not a kingdom."

St. Theophylact

The importance of acquiring humility to obtain peace cannot be overstated. It is implicit in the first beatitude. Blessed Theophylact (2006) tells us:

Blessed are the poor in Spirit, for theirs is the kingdom of heaven. First He lays down humility as a foundation. Since Adam fell through pride, Christ raises us up by humility; for Adam had aspired to become God. The "poor in spirit" are those whose pride is crushed and who are contrite in soul.

In meditating on the words of Blessed Theophylact, it would be well to ponder an important point made in a previous article (Morelli, 2012). In his Homily on Blessed are the poor in spirit, St. John Chrysostom asks a deep question: “. . .why did Christ choose the word “poor” [in spirit] and not the word “humble?” St. John’s answer is that the choice of the word "poor" emphasizes that the poor would be awestruck and tremble at God's words, as Isaiah the Prophet (66: 2) said, "My hand made all these things, and all these things were made, saith the Lord. But to whom shall I have respect, but to him that is poor and little, and of a contrite spirit, and that trembleth at my words?" St John then distinguishes two types of humility. The first he calls "one humble in his own measure," and the second type "another with all excess of lowliness.” Clearly, the second type is true spiritual humility. St. John likens it to “contriteness of heart,” as David tells us: ". . .sacrifice to God is a broken spirit; a broken and humbled heart God will not despise" (Ps 50: 19). St. John, the Golden-mouthed saint, sees that pride is "the greatest of evils" and the consequence of pride is that it has brought "havoc on the whole world." Lack of peace, that is to say, inner warfare within the soul and outer warfare with those around us, is the resulting mayhem.

St. John of Kronstadt (2003) notes:

People who seek to attain such a disposition of spirit are truly blessed because they have attained God's grace, they have attained the source of peace and joy of the Holy Spirit. . . . St. Theophylact of Bulgaria says "peace is the mother of God's grace; the indignant soul must become a stranger to quarrels with people and within itself if it wishes to attain God's grace."

It is no wonder that the proper translation in English of the hymn sung by the angels at the Birth of Christ should be: "And suddenly there was with the angel a multitude of the heavenly army, praising God, and saying: Glory to God in the highest; and on earth peace to men of good will." (Lk 2: 13-14). The angels did not proclaim God's words as 'peace on earth good will toward men.' Rather, we see men have to cultivate the "good will" to acquire peace through humility and then they will be blessed with the good will of God: the Godly peace and joy of the Holy Spirit. Once we have attained inner peace, we are spiritually prepared to extend peace to others.

St. John of Kronstadt

It is important to consider that the call to peace is not passive, it is not merely 'being' peaceful. It is a call to action, a call to be makers of peace. I cannot do better than to quote St. John of Kronstadt on this matter. He tells us we must "become peacemakers to our neighbors." This especially must extend to our parishes. He specifically singles out clergy: "Pastors of the Church have a special obligation to be peacemakers. . .this is precisely what they are appointed to do." In any disagreements, no matter what the reason, insult, unfairness, encroachment on our rights or property, we must do all in our power to end it and reconcile. This may involve sacrificing "our property, or our honor, or our precedence." This extends to reconciling those whether "in church, society and family" who have animosity between themselves.

Forest (1999) would have us start by understanding peace as it was meant by the ancient Hebrews.

Consider King David's words in Psalm 121: 6-9: "Pray ye for the things that are for the peace of Jerusalem: and abundance for them that love thee. Let peace be in thy strength: and abundance in thy towers. For the sake of my brethren, and of my neighbors, I spoke peace of thee. Because of the house of the Lord our God, I have sought good things for thee." Now the Hebrew word for peace as rendered in English is Shalom.

The Greek Pagan goddess Eirene

This word allows for multifaceted understandings, but these can be summarized in the most general way as meaning: completeness, good relationships, prosperity and welfare. For the Hebrew people and for King David it would have been applied to the relationship between God and man, between states and cities and between individuals. In Greek, peace is rendered eirene, originally derived from the name of a pagan goddess.

The interpretation of the statue in the museum located in Munich Germany is that she is shown maternally gazing at her trusting infant. The meaning for the pagan Greeks was that prosperity occurs only under the protection of peace (Eirene). It is easy to see how the Greek-speaking Hebrews writing the Septuagint version Old Testament Sacred Scripture, the text used by Christ Himself, would see God as the protector of the people of Israel and as the God of peace (eirene). Psalm 75 reads: "In Judah God is known, His name is great in Israel. And His abode has been in Salem, and His dwelling in Zion. There He broke the powers of the bows, the shield, the sword and the battle. You shine forth in wonder, from the everlasting mountains." In this context, then, we can understand the prophesy of Isaiah:". . .and they shall turn their swords into ploughshares, and their spears into sickles: nation shall not lift up sword against nation, neither shall they be exercised any more to war. O house of Jacob, come ye, and let us walk in the light of the Lord.” (Is 2:4-5). Such a sense of peace requires action. It means to do what it takes to make peace. We have to break the powers that make conflict.

The Mind of Christ and His Church on the meaning of peace is easily seen in St. Paul's Epistle to the Colossians (3: 12-15):

Put on for yourselves, therefore, as elect of God, holy and beloved, compassion from your inward parts, kindness, humbleness of mind, meekness, long-suffering, bearing with one another, and graciously forgiving one another, if anyone hath a complaint against someone; even as the Christ graciously forgave you, thus also do ye. And over all these things, put on love, which is the bond of perfection. And let the peace of God be presiding in your hearts, to which also ye were called in one body; and keep on becoming thankful.

As St. Paul told the Corinthians: "God hath called us in peace." (1Cor 7:15). We should see that when we work at making peace it is extending the work of Christ Himself. Christ opened to us the pathway to peace through His death on the Cross. St. Paul makes this clear when he tells us that it pleased the Father "through Him to reconcile all things to Him, having made peace through the blood of His Cross, through Him, whether the things on the earth or the things in the heavens." (Col. 1:20). St. John Chrysostom tells us: "Yea, for this became the work of the Only Begotten, to unite the divided, and to reconcile the alienated." Thus, as Christians, we must put into action the counsel that St. Paul gave to the Romans (14:19): "Let us then pursue the things of peace and the things of building up of one another."

A seeming paradox: make peace but go to war

The teachings and actions of Christ, as recorded in the Holy Gospels and the other books of New Testament Sacred Scripture, as well as the teachings of the Scripture writers themselves pose a seeming contradiction. Many of Jesus' teachings would have us focus on peace. Of course, foremost:"Blessed are the peacemakers for they shall be called sons of God." (Mt 5: 9). Consider some other of Jesus’ words written in Sacred Scripture on making peace:

• “But when ye enter into the house, salute it, saying, ‘Peace be to this house.’" (Mt. 10:12])
• "And He [Jesus] said to her, “Daughter, thy faith hath made thee well; go in peace, and be sound in body from thy scourge.” (Mk. 5:34)
• "Be having salt in yourselves and keeping peace with one another.” (Mk. 9:50)
• “And into whatsoever house ye enter, first say, ‘Peace be to this house.’" (Lk. 10:5)
• Jesus Himself stood in the midst of them, and saith to them, “Peace be to you.” (Lk. 24:36)
• “I have spoken these things to you, abiding with you; “but the Paraclete, the Holy Spirit, Whom the Father will send in My name, that One shall teach you all things, and shall remind you of what I said to you. “Peace I leave to you, My peace I give to you; not as the world giveth, give I to you. Let not your heart continue being troubled, nor being fearful." (Jn. 14:25-27)

We can also reflect on the words and actions of the Apostles:

• “Now he [Moses] was supposing his brethren understood that God through his hand was giving them salvation; but they understood not. “And on the following day he appeared to those who were fighting, and he constrained them toward peace, saying, ‘Men, ye are brethren; why is it that ye wrong one another?’" (Acts 7: 25-26)
• "Then indeed were the churches throughout all of Judæa and Galilee and Samaria having peace, being built up and proceeding in the fear of the Lord, and in the comfort of the Holy Spirit they were being multiplied." (Acts 9:31)
• "Then Peter opened his mouth and said, “In truth, I comprehend that God is not a respecter of persons, “but in every nation, the one who feareth Him and worketh righteousness is acceptable to Him.” “The Logos Whom He sent forth to the sons of Israel, preaching the Gospel, peace through Jesus Christ—this One is the Lord of all." (Acts 10: 34-36)
• " . . .Paul answered, “What are ye doing, weeping and breaking in pieces my heart? For I not only hold myself in readiness to be bound, but also to die in Jerusalem for the name of the Lord Jesus.” And when he would not be persuaded, we held our peace and said, “The will of the Lord be done.”" (Acts 21: 13-14)
• ". . .Jesus Christ our Lord, by Whom we [St. Paul and the other Apostles] received grace and apostleship to an obedience of faith among all the nations in behalf of His name, among whom are ye also called of Jesus Christ, to all those who are in Rome, beloved of God, called saints: Grace to you and peace from God our Father and Lord Jesus Christ." (Rm 1:4-7)
• "For they that are according to the flesh mind the things of the flesh, but they that are according to the Spirit, the things of the Spirit. For the mind of the flesh is death, but the mind of the spirit is life and peace. Because the mind of the flesh is enmity toward God; for it is not subject to the law of God, for neither can it be." (Rm. 8: 5-7)
• “How beautiful are the feet of those preaching the glad tidings of peace, of those preaching the glad tidings of good things!” (Rm 10: 15). [St. Paul referencing Is 7: 52: "How beautiful upon the mountains are the feet of him that bringeth good tidings, and that preacheth peace: of him that sheweth forth good, that preacheth salvation, that saith to Sion: Thy God shall reign!"]
• ". . .for the kingdom of God is not eating and drinking, but righteousness and peace and joy in the Holy Spirit. For the one who serveth Christ in these things is well-pleasing to God and approved by men. Let us then pursue the things of peace and the things of building up of one another." (Rm 14: 17-19)
• "And the God of peace shall crush Satan under your feet quickly. The grace of our Lord Jesus Christ be with you. (Rm 16: 20)
• "Grace to you and peace from God our Father and the Lord Jesus Christ." (1 Cor 1: 3)
• "Finally, brethren, keep on rejoicing, keep on being perfected, being comforted, being of the same mind, being at peace, and the God of love and peace shall be with you." (2Cor 13: 11)
• "But the fruit of the Spirit is love, joy, peace, long-suffering, kindness, goodness, faith, meekness, self-control; against such things there is no law." (Gal 5: 22-23)
• "But now in Christ Jesus ye who once were afar off came to be near by the blood of the Christ. For He is our peace, the One Who made the both one, and broke down the middle wall of the hedge, having abolished by ordinances the enmity—the law of the commandments—in His flesh, in order that He might create in Himself the two into one new man, making peace, and might thoroughly reconcile them both in one body to God through the Cross, having slain the enmity by it. And He came and preached the good tidings, peace to you who were afar off and to those who were near. For through Him we both have access in one Spirit to the Father. So then ye are no longer strangers and sojourners, but fellow citizens of the saints and of the household of God, who were built up on the foundation of the apostles and prophets, Jesus Christ Himself being the cornerstone, in Whom every building, being joined together, increaseth to a holy temple in the Lord...". (Eph. 2: 13-21)

The Holy Land at the time of Melchisedek

• ". . .walk worthily of the calling in which ye were called, with all humility and meekness, with long-suffering, bearing with one another in love, giving diligence to keep the unity of the Spirit in the bond of peace." (Eph 4: 1-3)
• ". . .be comforting one another and building up one another, even as also ye do. And we ask you, brethren, to know those who labor among you, ... be esteeming them exceedingly in love on account of their work. Be at peace among yourselves. Now we exhort you, brethren, be admonishing the disorderly, be consoling the fainthearted, be supporting the weak, be long-suffering toward all. See ye that no one render evil for evil to anyone, but always be pursuing the good both toward one another and toward all. Be rejoicing always; be praying unceasingly. In everything be giving thanks, for this is the will of God in Christ Jesus for you. (1Th 5: 11-18)
• "For this Melchisedek, king of Salem, priest of God the Most High—who met Abraham returning from the slaughter of the kings and blessed him, . . . which indeed is first interpreted “king of righteousness,” and then also “king of Salem,” that is, “king of peace,” without father, without mother, without genealogy, having neither beginning of days nor end of life, but having been made like the Son of God [a prototype, a prophetic prefigure of Christ], remaineth a priest in perpetuity." (Heb 7:1-3)
• Melchisideck Icon at the Royal Doors of the Wooden church of St. Archangels of Libotin, Maramures, County, Romania"But the wisdom from above indeed is first pure, then peaceable, equitable, easily entreated, full of mercy and of good fruits, impartial and without hypocrisy. And the fruit of righteousness is sown in peace for those who make peace ... From what place come wars and fights among you? They are from this place, from your desires after pleasure which war in your members, are they not? ... Whosoever therefore would be a friend of the world is rendered an enemy of God . . . .But He giveth greater grace. Wherefore it saith, “God setteth Himself against the proud, but giveth grace to the humble.” Be subject therefore to God. Stand against the devil, and he will flee from you." (Jas 3: 17-18, 4: 1,4,6-7)
• "Grace to you and peace be multiplied in a full knowledge of God and of Jesus our Lord..." (2Pt. 1: 2)

In the spirit of St. Gregory of Nyssa discussed above, that likens obtaining peace to combat, we can consider that the seeming paradox of making peace by warfare does not mean warfare literally, but rather refers to the ascetic struggle and discipline that is necessary to overcome the passions that beset us. We may be inclined to vengeance, anger and tempest, but this is not what we are to do. St. Paul writes to the Romans (12: 18), "If possible, as to that which depends on you, be at peace with all men." We are to hold on tenaciously to the teachings of Christ and His Church, but we are to do so by adopting a kindly demeanor toward any who may oppose us. Not to do so would be to send a message of aggression, discord and most probably have any you are interacting with focus on your dysfunctional, un-Godly angry emotion rather than on any Godly message you may want to be communicating. (Morelli, 2006a,b,c; 2011b). This would be in the spirit of St. John Chrysostom who comments:

Do thine own part, and to none give occasion of war or fighting, neither to Jew nor Gentile. But if you see the cause of religion suffering anywhere, do not prize concord above truth, but make a valiant stand even to death. And even then be not at war in soul, be not averse in temper, but fight with the things only. . . .But if the other will not be at peace, do not thou fill thy soul with tempest, but in mind be friendly, as I said before, without giving up the truth on any occasion.” (Hom. 22, P.G. 60: 682 (col. 611) in The Orthodox New Testament, 2004).

Connections: The Orthodox Services and Prayers

In a previous article I comment on the connection between the Beatitude on Mercy and the Orthodox Services: "One need go no further than the ordinary prayers, such as Morning Prayer, Evening Prayer, Liturgy of the Hours, the Divine Liturgy and other services in the Eastern Church, to meet the phrase that God, our God is a God of Mercy." (Morelli, 2012). Similarly, this Beatitude on Peace is a repeated theme in the Liturgical Services and Prayers of the Church. It is significant that the entryway into the Kingdom of God is by peace. The Divine Liturgy begins by announcing the presence of the Kingdom of God: "Blessed is the Kingdom of the Father and of the Son and of the Holy Spirit." The petition of the first prayer that immediately follows is that this be done in peace: "In peace let us pray to the Lord." This same petition is repeated constantly in the numerous Holy Mysteries of the Church. Forest (1999) has an excellent, more detailed discussion and references to peace in the Divine Liturgy.

Peace in times of tribulation and conflict

It should be noted that peace does not remove us from the tribulations and conflicts in the world. It merely gives us the armor and shield of God in passing through life's troubles. The words of the psalmist come to mind: "For though I should walk in the midst of the shadow of death, I will fear no evils, for thou art with me. Thy rod and thy staff, they have comforted me." (Ps 22:4) Did not Jesus Himself tell His Apostles in His priestly discourse at the Last Supper, words that we now to apply to ourselves as well, “These things I have spoken to you, in order that ye may have peace in Me. In the world ye shall have affliction; but be of good courage, I have overcome the world.” (Jn. 16:33).

It is in this sense that we can understand Our Lord's words in commissioning His Apostles: ". . .the Lord appointed seventy others also, and sent them forth two by two before His face into every city and place where He Himself was about to go. Therefore He was saying to them, “The harvest indeed is great, but the workers are few. Entreat therefore the Lord of the harvest that He would send out workers into His harvest. “Go; behold, I send you forth as lambs in the midst of wolves." (Lk. 10:1-3)

St. Cyril of Alexandria

St. Cyril of Alexandria would understand these words to mean:

How can a sheep prevail against a wolf? How can one so peaceful vanquish the savageness of beasts of prey? ‘Yes,’ He says, ‘for they all have Me as their Shepherd—small and great, people and princes, teachers and taught. I will be with you and aid you, and deliver you from all evil. I will tame the savage beasts, I will change wolves into sheep. I will make the persecutors become the helpers of the persecuted....For I will make and unmake all things, and there is nothing that can resist My will.’ (Hom. 61, Commentary, Ch. 10, 264 in: The Orthodox New Testament. 2004).

Also, we can reflect on St. Paul's words to the Ephesians:

Put on the full armor of God, for you to be able to stand against the wiles of the devil; because for us the wrestling is not against blood and flesh, but against the principalities, against the powers, against the cosmic rulers of the darkness of this age, against spiritual hosts of evil on account of the heavenly things. For this cause take up the full armor of God, in order that ye might be able to withstand in the day, and having counteracted all things, to stand. Stand therefore, having girt your loins with truth, and having put on for yourselves the breastplate of righteousness, and having shod your feet in readiness of the Gospel of peace; on the whole, take up the shield of faith, with which ye shall be able to quench all the fiery darts of the evil one. And take the helmet of salvation, and the sword of the Spirit, which is the word of God—by means of every prayer and entreaty, praying in every season in the Spirit, and being vigilant toward this same thing with all perseverance and entreaty for all the saints. . . . (Eph. 6:11-18)

While St. Paul uses the accoutrements of warfare to describe how we are to engage the evils in the world, he means it in the spirit of peace and to bring about peace. Blessed Theophylact understands this and considers that St. Paul's speaking of "the cosmic rulers of the darkness of this age" refers to the "wicked practices [of] the world.” (The Orthodox New Testament. 2004). However, these wicked practices are to be countered with the Gospel of Peace. Blessed Theophylact explains it this way: “He means it is needful to be in readiness for the Gospel and to preach. For, ‘Beautiful are the feet of one preaching glad tidings of peace, as one preaching good news [cf. Is. 52:7]’

Tribulation and conflict was not present at the onset of creation. But it was not that way in the beginning of creation. God created mankind who was made and placed in Paradise in a state of wholeness. The brokenness that is in the world stems from the original sin of pride of our ancestral parents. Becoming a peacemaker is working toward reestablishing the end for which we were made.

Bringing about peace

One of the first steps of being a peacemaker is to develop inner peace of mind and soul. This will be brought about by having undistorted cognitions (thoughts) and will be manifested by emotional stability and appropriate behavior toward others. Specific helpful strategies toward achieving this are available through Cognitive-Behavior Therapy (CBT) It is commonly known that CBT has been successfully applied to a host of emotional and interpersonal problems in adult populations. It is less well-known that these interventions can be applied effectively to a variety of children's and adolescent's psychological problems (Friedman & McClure, 2002).

Cognitive denominator

It is important to note that children's cognitive capacity is not as developed as an adult’s, therefore, a less complex cognitive factor structure should be considered. For example, when working with children clinically, I have found it useful to compress the more complex adult cognitive structure delineated by Ellis, (1962) and Beck, (1976) that I have discussed in other articles relating to adults (c.f. Morelli, 2009a.c) to two cognitive distortions or thinking errors: demanding expectations and over-evaluations (catastrophizing).

• Demanding Expectations: Belief that there are laws or rules regarding the world, others and self that must always be obeyed. Furthermore, world, others and self will always be the way one thinks they 'should' be. This distortion is sometimes referred to as the “tyranny of the shoulds.” Jack thinks because something is his, he as the right to it and can do anything he wants to maintain possession of it, even if it means picking a fight with another child that takes or is trying to take his possession from him. A program of conflict resolution focusing on alterative appropriate responses would be a way of helping the child settle the matter in a 'peaceful' way. Rewards for appropriate behavior and punishment for inappropriate behavior, administered without anxiety or depression, would be the constructive response to apply here (Morelli, 2006a,b,c).
• Catastrophizing: The perception that something is worse than it actually is. Jill erroneously reacted to her average job evaluation as if it represented a grave and catastrophic event and thus reacted with even more anxiety.

An alternative to consider is to change the names of the cognitive distortions to a more elementary vocabulary. Creed, Reisweber and Beck (2011) present children and adolescents with the cognitive distortions now renamed as "Thinking Traps":

• The repeat: Thinking that if something happened once, it will always happen the same way.
• It's all about me: Blaming yourself for bad things that happen, even when they have nothing to do with you.
• The pessimist: Expecting that things will always turn out for the worst.
• Selective sight: Not seeing the good parts of a situation, but picking out all of the dangerous or bad things that could/did happen.
• Ignoring evidence: Picking out the evidence that tells you that the worst thing is going to happen, instead of looking at all the evidence to decide what will happen.
• The jumper: Jumping to conclusions before getting all the facts about a situation.
• The mind reader: Reading minds, but not in a good way—such as deciding that someone is thinking something bad about you without any evidence.
• Shoulds: "Should" thinking—"I should start a fight with every person who crosses me" or "I shouldn't ever get mad."
• The crystal ball: Predicting what will happen in the future, and that things will probably go wrong.
• A perfect disaster: Thinking that if something is less than perfect, it is a complete failure.

Cognitive complexity

There may be a network of complex, interconnected cognitive distortions. These may be hierarchically ordered. George Kelly's Personal Construct Theory (1955) contends that individuals have cognitive constructs and postulates that they function according to a set of corollaries. One important corollary is the "Organizational Corollary." It is defined as "each person characteristically evolves, for convenience in anticipating events [their understanding and behavior in the world by predicting future occurrences], a construction system embracing ordinal relationships between constructs." An individual's construct system is formed and modified by their experiences. The meaning of construct systems being ordinal is that particular constructs may be subsumed by superordinate constructs. For example, a set of (subordinate) constructs, smart-stupid, may be subsumed by the superordinate set, good-bad. In Kelly's model, constructs are always in dichotomous pairs specific to a particular individual. The person's construct system makes the world, and others, more predictable, but at the same time, if the construct system strays too far from reality, the construct system would be the basis of emotional dysphoria and dysfunctional behavior. A person's unique construct system must be discovered, interpreted or revealed by the individual themselves. Others (e.g., clinician, friends, parents or teachers) can only serve as facilitators of the discovery process. Current research suggests that this complexity extends to genetic and differential physiological brain activities and structures as well.

Clinical example

A clinical example may be helpful. Several years ago I had a female patient engage in counseling for problems in interpersonal relationships. During sessions she would consistently describe certain individuals as "friendly," while giving no description of those who were not described as "friendly." I knew I did not understand her cognitive world view, so to speak, so picking up on Kelly's clinical model I inquired: "You know Lyn, you described (here I named a few persons she had mentioned) as "friendly." Now, there are others around you, if they were not "friendly" what would they be? What is the opposite of friendliness for you?" I was expecting an answer like, "stand-off-ish," or "quiet," or even "aloof," but she answered, "critical." Obviously, her answer opened a whole new view of her 'cognitive life space,' that is to say, how she viewed others around her, and this revelation was very helpful in her treatment.

CBT: the Beyond

Judith Beck's (2011) modification of the Cognitive Behavioral Therapy model extending cognitive processing to the underlying beliefs of automatic thoughts may be somewhat similar to Kelly's Organizational Corollary. She postulates that Core Beliefs, followed by Intermediate Beliefs, are the foundation of Automatic Thoughts. She considers Core Beliefs as the most fundamental belief level. These lead to Intermediate Beliefs, which are rules, attitudes and assumptions that are regarded as "global, rigid and overgeneralized." In turn, these lead to Automatic Thoughts that are the actual words and images an individual is thinking in specific situations. An example provided is a Core Belief: "I am incompetent," that leads to an Intermediate Belief: Attitude: "It's terrible to fail," Rule: "I should give up if challenge seems to great," and Assumptions: "If I try to do something difficult, I'll fail. If I avoid doing it, I'll be okay."

Of clinical utility for working with children, adolescents and even adults is the Case Conceptualization Model based on Beck (1995), discussed and presented by Creed, Reisweber & Beck, (2011). It consists of answering questions about:

• Early Experiences: What are the significant early experiences that have affected the student [child, adolescent, adult].
• Underlying Beliefs: What are the student's [child's adolescent’s adult’s] beliefs about him- or herself and the world. What are the . . .beliefs about how to get by in the world—as directly related to his or her core beliefs?
• Thinking and Feeling Patterns: What are the quick, evaluative thoughts that occurred in a specific situation? What are the emotions linked to the thoughts?
• Behavior Patterns: What does the student [child, adolescent, adult] do based on his or her beliefs?

An alternative conceptualization of core beliefs is that they may refer to a kernel evaluation of self. These may be expressed as statements of 'being' that contain some form of the word am. For example: "If someone bullies me and I do not fight back that would mean I am a 'wus.' If I let him or her get away with that, I am a coward.” Such distorted self evaluations are similar to what J. Beck (2011) labels as intermediate or core beliefs. Unfortunately, societal evaluations support such irrational beliefs: Attila the Hun, Hitler and Idi Amin, for example, are (a statement of being) intrinsically evil.

In an earlier seminal work delineating the pathway of irrational beliefs leading to dysfunctional emotions, Ellis (1962) would describe such thinking as a "quite erroneous, belief or assumption that he is worthless, no good, valueless as a person for having done wrong." Certainly a human being does evil things, makes errors, mistakes and gravely sins. As we know from the Orthodox Funeral Service: ". . .there is no man who liveth and sinneth not."

"Statements of Being": Bad Psychology and Bad Orthodoxy

Not only are statements of being psychologically irrational, but they are incompatible with Orthodox Christian anthropology. All mankind is made in God's image. That is the core of everyone's being. We are called to be like Him, and that is the sum of what we do in synergy with God's grace.

One way to discover these unarticulated erroneous self-evaluations is to ask a question such as: "If you did not fight back, what would that say about you?" or "If you did apologize, what would that say about you?"

Some practical interventional suggestions

Some practical suggestions to facilitate the psychological interventions above and relate them to the Mind of Christ and His Church (e.g.: Morelli, 2007, 2010) would be to:

• Model appropriate temperate speech and behavior oneself. (2006b,d)
• Respond to a perceived conflict by first asking what they think the problem is?
• Talk over alternative ways of responding to identified problems. Possible responses may not always be objectively rational in terms of societal or spiritual norms. For some, a core belief regarding maintaining a good "self image" (e.g., I am not a 'wus,'" or "I'm strong, I am no pushover.") may mean it is worth doing harm to others or be subject to punishing consequences. In such cases, the value of "moral courage" versus societal adulation (Morelli, 2012) should be addressed.
• Avoid speaking in an adult 'pontificating' way. Speak in an attentive, collaborative manner in order to validate the feeling of the other. (c.f. Morelli, 2007)
• Repeating what you have been told in the child's own words may help the child to know they are understood. Facing the child and maintaining eye contact also facilitates their knowing that they are being listened to and heard.
• In previous papers, "role playing" conflict resolution was recommended (Morelli, 2011a,c) . For example, with a young child: "Children can be prompted to make up sharing agreements for toys, games, and video play. Role-modeling scripts can be practiced. Initially, the parent may have to model such cooperative dialogue with the child. "Ok, lets take turns, you choose the first game and I'll choose the second game," etc."
• Icon Christ is our Reconciliation (Monastery of Saint John in the Desert (Jerusalem)Behavioral "homework assignments" is a well known technique in CBT following after role playing. (Edelman & Chambless, 1995). The child or adolescent may be asked to suggest something they could "practice" after the session, in real life.' Collaborate with the child to choose something doable/manageable. For example, a child or adolescent may initially practice keeping a distance from someone they previously had fights with. Be prepared to 'de-brief' the homework exercise, to go over any obstacles and come up with needed changes. Positively reinforce even small increments of appropriate problem-solving behavior. (Morelli, 2008). Remember to reinforce the behavior, e.g.. "Good job, walking away;" not the child: as in: "Johnny, you're great."
• Initial stages of peacemaking and conflict resolution may be indirect.
• It is important to keep in mind that cognitive-behavioral change is incremental and may take several attempts to achieve success. Spiritual growth will take a lifetime.
• All peacemaking should done on the foundation of Christ, the Prince of Peace, begotten by His Father and nurtured by His Holy Spirit, thus working toward spiritual happiness. (Morelli, 2009).

The fruits of peace not only provide inner peace that is intrinsically blissful and ensures peace among men of good will, but also proclaim the glory of Father, Son and Holy Spirit, God, to all mankind and contribute to a person’s theosis. Consider the words of St. Seraphim of Sarov:

Acquire the spirit of peace and a thousand souls around you will be saved.

Only God knows what the state of the world will be by the time this "Chaplain's Corner" is published. So, my spiritual reflection is really dated as of the state of the world at the writing of this article (the second week of April, 2013). News sources report an unusually high awareness among Americans of the current threat of a nuclear war crisis incited by the extreme bellicose threats and actions of North Korean leaders. Words such as "represents threat," "public pessimism" and that "Americans are listening are now being heard worldwide." Such reports also indicate that a poll across all demographic groups in the United States, is that if the North's neighbor, South Korea, is attacked, the United States should respond militarily. How close is the nuclear annihilation clock to ticking to '0?' As of this writing, very close.

All this brings to my mind the words of the psalmist: "All too long have I dwelt with those who hate peace. When I speak of peace, they are ready for war." In other words, peace is precious; it is a treasure. This reflection bespeaks the necessity for all of us at all times to preserve peace and to work and hope to bring about peace. Peace is one of the fundamental teachings of most of the world's religious traditions. An example is Thich Nhat Hanh, the Vietnamese Buddhist Zen master, who, since the Vietnam War, has worked tirelessly for peace. He pointed out that “Many people think excitement is happiness. . . . But when you are excited you are not peaceful. True happiness is based on peace. Mahatma Gandhi points out that “An eye for an eye will only make the whole world blind.” Christ told his followers: "Blessed are the peacemakers: for they shall be called sons of God." (Mt 5: 9).

Becoming sons of God does not happen automatically. We must be peacemakers and be committed to continue to be committed to this task throughout our lives. It is in this that we find our blessedness; in this we grow into the likeness of the God of peace. Interestingly, a 20th Century scientist, Albert Einstein, points out a pathway to peace: “Peace cannot be kept by force; it can only be achieved by understanding." Our Holy Church Father St. Isaac of Syria, writing centuries before, tells us that such a road to peace can be traveled, but we must first begin with understanding of ourselves. St. Isaac links the acquisition of peace to humility. He writes of ". . .the peace that is born of humility. . .the man who has reached the knowledge of the extent of his own weakness has reached perfect humility."

REFERENCES

i http://politicalticker.bl...

ii A Short Breviary for Religious and Laity. (1962) Collegeville, MN: Liturgical Press.

iii Thich Nhat Hanh. (2007). The Art of Power. NY: Harper-Collins.

iv http://www.goodreads.com/...

v http://www.goodreads.com/...

vi Holy Transfiguration Monastery. (ed., trans.). (2011). The Ascetical Homilies of Saint Isaac the Syrian (revised, 2nd edition). Boston, MA: Holy Transfiguration Monastery.

Alexandr Solzhenitsyn at typewriter

Godlessness is always the first step to the concentration camp. Tragically, that same process is now at work in America and many other parts of the world. Too many refuse to see it or believe it.

America has long been a beacon of freedom for millions of souls who came here seeking liberty and opportunity. It achieved this unique place in history by recognizing the authority of God and his moral laws and declaring that men have the unalienable rights to life, liberty, and the pursuit of happiness. Founded by faithful and God-fearing men who despised government tyranny and sought religious freedom and individual liberty, America incorporated these universally true principles in its Declaration of Independence and Constitution. These ideals eventually became the bedrock upon which all our laws, government, and institutions were originally built.

America's Founding Fathers understood and proclaimed that all rights come from God alone, not governments. They insisted that government must always serve man and that man was created by God to be free. Their deep faith and reverence of the Almighty inspired and guided their actions and motivated their decisions. It is this belief and trust in God's authority and wisdom that ultimately transformed America from a tiny British colony with a handful of refugees to the mighty economic and military superpower and an oasis of freedom, opportunity, and prosperity for tens of millions of immigrants.

The Founding Fathers, like Solzhenitsyn, understood the dependence of freedom on morality. A virtuous and faithful people who placed God at the center of their lives and the foundations of their institutions helped America become that shining city on a hill "whose beacon light guides freedom-loving people everywhere," said President Ronald Reagan. "We've staked the whole future of American civilization not on the power of government," wrote James Madison, "far from it. We have staked the future of all our political institutions upon the capacity of each and all of us...to govern ourselves according to commandments of God. The future and success of America is not in this Constitution, but in the laws of God upon which the Constitution is founded."

This same theme is found throughout the writings of the Founders. John Adams clearly understood that our "Constitution was made only for a moral and religious people. It is wholly inadequate to the government of any other." "He who is void of virtuous attachments in private life is, or very soon will be, void of all regard for his country," observed Samuel Adams. Patrick Henry wrote that "virtue, morality, and religion ... is the armor that renders us invincible[.] ... [I]f we lose these, we are conquered, fallen indeed[.] ... [S]o long as our manners and principles remain sound, there is no danger."

Solzhenitsyn warned that by forgetting God, America and the West faced a "calamity of a despiritualized and irreligious humanistic consciousness" that would weaken their foundations and make them vulnerable to moral decay and internal collapse. Only by turning back to God from the self-centered and atheistic humanism where "man is the touchstone [measure] in judging and evaluating everything on earth" would the West have any hope of escaping the destruction toward which it inevitably moves.

Unfortunately, America did not heed Solzhenitsyn's warnings. In the last several decades, America has been rapidly transformed from a God-fearing and worshiping nation into a secularist and atheistic society, where communist and atheistic ideals are glorified and promoted, while Judeo-Christian values and morality are attacked, ridiculed, and increasingly eradicated from the public and social consciousness of our nation. Under the decades-long assault and militant radicalism of many so-called "liberal" and "progressive" elites, God and His moral laws have been progressively erased from our public and educational institutions, to be replaced with all manner of delusion, perversion, corruption, violence, decadence, and insanity.

"Those people who will not be governed by God will be ruled by tyrants," warned William Penn. Throughout history, the most serious threats to man's freedom always arise when men refuse to acknowledge that God is ultimately the source and protector of real and lasting liberty and freedom. When that timeless truth is erased from men's consciousness, when God's wisdom and laws are forgotten, when morality is no longer a virtue to be treasured and emulated, when human life is no longer sacred, and man becomes the only standard of all that is true, then genuine freedom will begin to vanish from any group, institution, community, or society. Carnality, greed, selfishness, and worldly pleasure and power become the main goals of human existence. The moral and ethical clarity, conviction, and courage required to defend freedom and protect genuine liberty ultimately disappear, to be replaced by the most cruel, unethical, tyrannical, and godless ideologies.

It is no coincidence that advocates and followers of Fascism, Nazism, and Communism — all secular, immoral, atheistic, and godless ideologies — enslaved and murdered the greatest number of people in the history of mankind. All produced some of the most cruel, violent, and evil tyrants this world has ever known — despots who persecuted their own citizens, slaughtered the innocent, destroyed their own people, and brought calamities to other nations. All subjugated the liberty and property of men to the absolute power and control of the state. All were enemies of God and blasphemers of His Holy Scriptures. All viciously persecuted the most devout and religious members of their societies, primarily the religious Christians and Jews who righteously and faithfully followed the Lord.

This is the lesson the 20^th century expended so much blood to teach us. It appears that without a marked change in course, the Western world is going to have to learn it again.

Chris Banescu is an Orthodox Christian attorney, conservative blogger, and university professor. He regularly blogs at www.orthodoxnet.com/blog and www.chrisbanescu.com.

Read the entire article on the The Voice blog (new window will open).

So what exactly is accomplished by most of Eastern Orthodoxy in the United States being affiliated with the National Council of Churches (NCC)?

First, we must ask what the effective purpose of the NCC is today.  Its member communions include neither the Roman Catholic Church nor more than an increasingly narrow fraction of American Protestants.  Given its growing narrowness, penchant for divisive rhetoric, and the rather unloving, disdainful ways in which NCC leaders take pains to distance themselves from other Christians, especially evangelicals, it is clear that the NCC’s noble founding goal of Christian unity is not much of a priority for current NCC leaders.

The NCC has served a purpose in the past with its New Revised Standard Version (NRSV) Bible translation and its annual Yearbook of American and Canadian Churches. But the former is a fait accompli while the latter represents only a tiny fraction of the NCC’s work. So neither of these is the council’s raison d’être.

No, the first and foremost effective purpose of the modern NCC is to promote the values of theologically liberal/heterodox Protestantism and to use the name and resources of churches as a politically convenient tool to promote partisan public-policy agendas, including ones that directly oppose clear Scriptural teachings.

Devout Eastern Orthodox prize their church’s identity as the bearer of what they see as unbroken Christian tradition. Of course, important parts of this tradition’s moral teachings are the basic Christian moral values of valuing the lives of unborn children and honoring the God-given boundaries of sex only within man-woman marriage.

Yet over the years, IRD has documented numerous instances of the NCC defending abortion and/or homosexual practice while demonizing those who stand up for Christian values (at least nominally shared by Eastern Orthodox leaders) on such issues. To say nothing of the over-the-top interpersonal rudeness that NCC staffers have been known to aim at Christians who do not share their liberal Protestant values.

[. . .]

Do Eastern Orthodox leaders really have no problem with the direction and values of a church council of which they are a part being shaped by the input of people who deny the divinity of Christ, while Protestants who actually believe in the Nicene Creed are often disproportionately excluded from such discussions in the NCC? Do Eastern Orthodox leaders really have no problem with their name, through the NCC, being associated with a radical group’s work to promote religious support for abortion and sexual immorality?

If Eastern Orthodox leaders choose to remain silent, this would tragically be consistent with their past behavior.

[. . .]

As any Greek readers may discern from my last name, Eastern Orthodoxy is part of my own family heritage. So I really do sympathize with how important it must have been decades ago for religious leaders of struggling new immigrant communities in an often very intolerant America to be invited to have a seat at the table with leaders of the cultural mainstream. But after a century of an established presence of Eastern Orthodoxy in America, shouldn’t such church leaders want more than merely being seen but not heard?

Greek Orthodox, Russian Orthodox, and other Eastern Orthodox members of the NCC could follow the example of their Antiochian Orthodox brethren by withdrawing their membership in the NCC and pursuing other areas of ecumenical engagement, a move that would be enthusiastically cheered by countless conservative Protestants within and beyond NCC member communions (including this United Methodist writer). Or they could try to use their seats at the table to seek genuinely meaningful dialogue by respectfully yet firmly challenging tablemates who have recently strayed from biblical moral values. At the very least, they could pro-actively make sure that as long as the council uses their names, the NCC will not say or do anything against Eastern Orthodox moral teaching.

[. . .]

But America’s NCC-endorsing Eastern Orthodox leaders (with the notable exception of the Antiochian Orthodox) have, by and large , chosen none of these things. Instead, they choose to continue their path of having no discernible moderating influence on the council (and having little to no apparent interest in doing so) while offering a blank-check endorsement of the NCC’s work, which the NCC’s Liberalprotestant staffers are all too eager to tout as a tool to shield the council from being dismissed as the decaying, ideologically narrow, Liberalprotestant dinosaur that it is.

[. . .]

Of course, I understand that Eastern Orthodox polity is fundamentally different from any Protestant body, and that, to the disappointment of the NCC and its allies like the Unitarian-led Religious Institute, no official Eastern Orthodox body is going to formally vote to, say, endorse abortion. And for what it’s worth, it is now widely agreed that the United Methodist Church is unlikely to change our official, conservative position on homosexuality for at least the foreseeable future.

But in both cases, there is a huge crisis of integrity when the church leadership chooses to shrink back from defending the very church values their offices charge them with promoting, and even passively allow their church’s name to be used to promote agendas directly contrary to the church’s own teachings.

Among U.S. leaders of both the United Methodist Church and Eastern Orthodoxy, there appear to be a number of leaders who love the Lord and accept the authority of Scripture, to whom God has given great opportunities to be witnesses for Christ and Christian truths affirmed in the on-paper position statements of both churches, but who inexplicably choose to bury their talents in the ground.

Read the entire article on the Juicy Ecumenicism blog (new window will open).

September 19, 2008

I am a liberal Democrat. And I do not favor same-sex marriage. Do those positions sound contradictory? To me, they fit together.

Many seem to believe that marriage is simply a private love relationship between two people. They accept this view, in part, because Americans have increasingly emphasized and come to value the intimate, emotional side of marriage, and in part because almost all opinion leaders today, from journalists to judges, strongly embrace this position. That's certainly the idea that underpinned the California Supreme Court's legalization of same-sex marriage.

But I spent a year studying the history and anthropology of marriage, and I've come to a different conclusion.

Marriage as a human institution is constantly evolving, and many of its features vary across groups and cultures. But there is one constant. In all societies, marriage shapes the rights and obligations of parenthood. Among us humans, the scholars report, marriage is not primarily a license to have sex. Nor is it primarily a license to receive benefits or social recognition. It is primarily a license to have children.

In this sense, marriage is a gift that society bestows on its next generation. Marriage (and only marriage) unites the three core dimensions of parenthood — biological, social and legal — into one pro-child form: the married couple. Marriage says to a child: The man and the woman whose sexual union made you will also be there to love and raise you. Marriage says to society as a whole: For every child born, there is a recognized mother and a father, accountable to the child and to each other.

These days, because of the gay marriage debate, one can be sent to bed without supper for saying such things. But until very recently, almost no one denied this core fact about marriage. Summing up the cross-cultural evidence, the anthropologist Helen Fisher in 1992 put it simply: "People wed primarily to reproduce." The philosopher and Nobel laureate Bertrand Russell, certainly no friend of conventional sexual morality, was only repeating the obvious a few decades earlier when he concluded that "it is through children alone that sexual relations become important to society, and worthy to be taken cognizance of by a legal institution."

Marriage is society's most pro-child institution. In 2002 — just moments before it became highly unfashionable to say so — a team of researchers from Child Trends, a nonpartisan research center, reported that "family structure clearly matters for children, and the family structure that helps children the most is a family headed by two biological parents in a low-conflict marriage."

All our scholarly instruments seem to agree: For healthy development, what a child needs more than anything else is the mother and father who together made the child, who love the child and love each other.

For these reasons, children have the right, insofar as society can make it possible, to know and to be cared for by the two parents who brought them into this world. The foundational human rights document in the world today regarding children, the 1989 U.N. Convention on the Rights of the Child, specifically guarantees children this right. The last time I checked, liberals like me were supposed to be in favor of internationally recognized human rights, particularly concerning children, who are typically society's most voiceless and vulnerable group. Or have I now said something I shouldn't?

Every child being raised by gay or lesbian couples will be denied his birthright to both parents who made him. Every single one. Moreover, losing that right will not be a consequence of something that at least most of us view as tragic, such as a marriage that didn't last, or an unexpected pregnancy where the father-to-be has no intention of sticking around. On the contrary, in the case of same-sex marriage and the children of those unions, it will be explained to everyone, including the children, that something wonderful has happened!

For me, what we are encouraged or permitted to say, or not say, to one another about what our society owes its children is crucially important in the debate over initiatives like California's Proposition 8, which would reinstate marriage's customary man-woman form. Do you think that every child deserves his mother and father, with adoption available for those children whose natural parents cannot care for them? Do you suspect that fathers and mothers are different from one another? Do you imagine that biological ties matter to children? How many parents per child is best? Do you think that "two" is a better answer than one, three, four or whatever? If you do, be careful. In making the case for same-sex marriage, more than a few grown-ups will be quite willing to question your integrity and goodwill. Children, of course, are rarely consulted.

The liberal philosopher Isaiah Berlin famously argued that, in many cases, the real conflict we face is not good versus bad but good versus good. Reducing homophobia is good. Protecting the birthright of the child is good. How should we reason together as a society when these two good things conflict?

Here is my reasoning. I reject homophobia and believe in the equal dignity of gay and lesbian love. Because I also believe with all my heart in the right of the child to the mother and father who made her, I believe that we as a society should seek to maintain and to strengthen the only human institution — marriage — that is specifically intended to safeguard that right and make it real for our children.

Legalized same-sex marriage almost certainly benefits those same-sex couples who choose to marry, as well as the children being raised in those homes. But changing the meaning of marriage to accommodate homosexual orientation further and perhaps definitively undermines for all of us the very thing — the gift, the birthright — that is marriage's most distinctive contribution to human society. That's a change that, in the final analysis, I cannot support.

David Blankenhorn is president of the New York-based Institute for American Values and the author of "The Future of Marriage."

Read the entire article on the Los Angeles Times website (new window will open).

Doors of the Church of the Holy Sepulcher

JERUSALEM — Every Christian knows the holiest places in Christendom are in Jerusalem. The holiest of all, the Church of the Holy Sepulchre, was erected in 325, over the site where it is believed Jesus was crucified, buried and rose from the dead.

Yet, few know that it is a Muslim who opens and closes the only door to this holiest of Christian sites.

In fact, it’s two Muslims: one man from the Joudeh family and another man from the Nuseibeh family, two Jerusalem Palestinian clans who have been the custodians of the entrance to the Holy Sepulchre since the 12th century.

Every morning, at 4:30, Adeeb Joudeh travels from his apartment outside the walls of the Old City to bring the cast-iron key to the church, just as his father and his forebears did before him.

Once there, he entrusts the key — looking like a 12-inch (30-centimeter) long iron wedge — to Wajeeh Nuseibeh, who knocks at the gate to call the priests and the pilgrims who spend the night praying inside. From inside the church, a wooden ladder is passed through a porthole to help him unlock the upper part of the enormous door.

Then, he unlocks the lower one before handing the precious key back to Joudeh. The ritual is reversed every evening at 7:30, after hundreds of tourists and pilgrims have left the church.

During holidays, such as Holy Week, which culminates Sunday with the Christian Easter, the elaborate opening and closing ceremonies take place several times a day.

Why the elaborate ritual? As often happens in Jerusalem, a city holy to several peoples and religions, there are different versions to explain why two Muslim families hold the key to the holiest site in Christendom.

“After the Muslim conquest in 637, the Caliph Omar guaranteed the Archbishop Sophronius that the Christian places of worship would be protected and so entrusted the custodianship to the Nuseibehs, a family who originated in Medina and had had relations with the Prophet Muhammad,” said Nuseibeh, a retired 63-year old electrician, while waiting in a nearby cafe to carry out his duties at the Holy Sepulchre.

“It happened again in 1187, after Saladin ended the Crusader Kingdom of Jerusalem. He chose our family again to look after the peace between the different Eastern and Western Christian confessions, which were at odds over control of the Sepulchre,” he said with a gentle smile, sitting next to his son, Obadah.

To this day, coexistence among the several Christian churches sharing the Holy Sepulchre is a delicate one. Catholic, Greek, Armenian, Coptic, Syriac, and Ethiopian Orthodox monks have resorted to fists more than once to defend their respective denomination’s rights and privileges in the church, as defined in an decree by the Ottoman Empire, known as the Status Quo of 1853.

Such impious brawls between clergy proved Saladin’s prescience 1,000 years ago, when the sultan sealed the second front gate of the church and entrusted control of the remaining entrance to neutral custodians.

The Nuseibehs claim that the Joudehs entered this story only in the 16th century, after the Ottoman Turks gained control of Palestine and decided to charge a second family with the responsibility of guarding the key.

“Yes, we share the responsibility with the Joudehs, and sometimes we argue, as happens in a family,” Nuseibeh said.

Each Maundy Thursday since the end of the 19th century, the two Muslim families give the key to the Holy Sepulchre to the local Franciscan friars, for as long as it takes to walk to the church in a procession and to open the door after the morning liturgies. When those are completed, the friars return the key to the families.

This ceremony, which confirms in practice the validity of the Muslim families’ custodianship, is repeated with the Greek and Armenian communities, on Orthodox Good Friday and Holy Saturday, respectively.

“Right now, I have in my hands the keys to Christendom’s heart. This is a very important moment for us,” said the Rev. Artemio Vitores, the Spanish Franciscan who is the vicar Custodian of the Holy Land, during the Maundy Thursday procession.

“For centuries, Christian pilgrims were denied entry to the church, or had to pay huge sums to pray on the Sepulchre,” he said, all while holding the key.

At the head of the procession, Vitores was flanked on one side by Wajeeh Nusseibeh, his son Obadah and two cousins, all of whom were equally compensated by the friars for their services with the symbolic sum of $60.

On Vitores’ other side were Adeeb Joudeh, wearing an impeccable dark gray suit, and his 19-year-old son Jawad.

For about 20 minutes, Joudeh ceded control of the only existing key to the Holy Sepulchre. While there is another key, it is broken and no longer used. The functioning key is normally kept in a small office attached to the church and is guarded by an employee of the Joudeh family.

“This key has seen Saladin and every generation of my family since 1187. To me, it’s an honor to be in charge of the holiest of Christian places,” Joudeh said, while walking the cobblestoned alley leading to the Holy Sepulchre.

He insisted on showing on his smartphone what he claimed are 165 official decrees confirming the Joudeh family’s role as custodian of the church over the centuries.

“My ancestor who was given the keys was a sheik, a highly respected person, who was not supposed to perform physical labor, such as climbing the ladder to open the gate,” Joudeh explained. “That’s why the Nuseibehs were called in to perform this duty. Unfortunately, they feel still ashamed of being just the doorkeepers.”

At the end of the procession, the key was welcomed by cheerful pilgrims waiting in front of the church.

For a few minutes, everybody stared at the solemn opening of the gate before rushing in.

Moments later, Adeeb Joudeh walked home with his son, as did Wajeeh Nuseibeh. They will come back here, time and again, at the gate of the Holy Sepulchre: two Muslims, coming in peace to bear the key to the heart of Christianity.

Read the entire article on the International Business Times website (new window will open).

How many of us really take the time to reflect on the things we do to others and do to ourselves in our daily lives? There are some good reasons for doing such a self- analysis. Not the least of which is that by thinking over how we may have hurt others and ourselves we may foster compassion for others in terms of the misdeeds they may have done and this in turn may lead to more civility in our evaluations of others and also in our dealings with them. It is so easy for us to justify our own aberrations while seeing the immoral, improper or wicked behavior of others.

In ancient Chinese tradition Confucius (551-479 BC) sadly comments: "I have not yet seen one who could perceive his faults and inwardly accuse himself." (Analects, bk. v., c. xxvi.). On the other hand, Mencius (372 – 289 BC), the disciple and commentator of Confucius, speaks about the joys of true self-reflection: "There is no greater delight than to be conscious of sincerity upon self-examination." (Bk. vii., pt. i., c. iv., v. 2.). It is only in such sincere understanding of self that true virtue can be practiced. This helps in comprehending the meaning of Confucius' statement: "To be able to practice five things everywhere under heaven constitutes perfect virtue: Gravity, magnanimity, sincerity, earnestness, and kindness." (Analects, bk. xvii., c. vi.)

Psychologists would label such a process of reflection a self-inventory. For example, Robert Enright, PhD, (2012), notes the need for an “ uncovering phase” in which an individual lists their own faults and the consequences of them. This self-understanding promotes understanding of the factors that may have influenced others’ untoward behaviors. Such understanding nurtures compassion, and compassion fosters civility.

Religious traditions would consider such a reflection-inventory procedure to be an examination process. In Buddhism, the habit of self-examination is attainable through contemplation, a mental training exercise developed by self-introspection (http://www.sacred-texts.c...). In Christianity, the examination of conscience is critical to growth in the spiritual life. St. Paul writes: "Try your own selves if you be in the faith; prove ye yourselves. Know you not your own selves, that Christ Jesus is in you, unless perhaps you be reprobates?. . . For we rejoice that we are weak." (2Cor 13: 5, 9; trans. http://www.drbo.org). The Eastern Church Father St. Nikitas Stithatos writes (Philokalia IV)) about the fruit of self-knowledge obtained by what he calls a "cross-examination of the conscience," saying: "you gain greater knowledge of your own limitations and recognize the weakness of human nature; at the same time your love of God and your fellow beings waxes until you think that sanctification flows simply or from the proximity of those with whom you live."

REFERENCES

Enright, Robert D.( 2012). The Forgiving Life: A Pathway to Overcoming Resentment and Creating a Legacy of Love, Washington D.C.: American Psychological Association.

(Palmer, G. E. H., Sherrard, P. & Ware, K. (trans.) (1995). The Philokalia: The Complete Text; Compiled by St. Nikodimos of the Holy Mountain & St. Makarios of Corinth, (Vol. 4). London: Faber and Faber.)

Florida legislators considering a bill to require abortionists to provide medical care to an infant who survives an abortion were shocked during a committee hearing this week when a Planned Parenthood official endorsed a right to post-birth abortion. Alisa Laport Snow, the lobbyist representing the Florida Alliance of Planned Parenthood Affiliates, testified that her organization believes the decision to kill an infant who survives a failed abortion should be left up to the woman seeking an abortion and her abortion doctor.

“So, um, it is just really hard for me to even ask you this question because I’m almost in disbelief,” said Rep. Jim Boyd. “If a baby is born on a table as a result of a botched abortion, what would Planned Parenthood want to have happen to that child that is struggling for life?”

“We believe that any decision that’s made should be left up to the woman, her family, and the physician,” said Planned Parenthood lobbyist Snow.

Remember, Peter Singer was appointed to the most elite bioethics chair in the world at Princeton–not in spite of, but because–he preaches for the propriety of infanticide. And despite all the fuss over the pro “post birth” abortion article published in the Journal of Medical Ethics awhile ago, many of the most mainstream bioethicists support the agenda because they oppose human exceptionalism and believe that humans with low present capacities lack full moral value.  

Thus, I don’t know why anyone is surprised about the PP endorsement. It is just another indication that infanticide continues its slow movement toward respectability. 

By the way: If a baby born during a botched abortion can be killed, why not also an unwanted baby born in the usual manner?

Read the entire article on the National Review website (new window will open).

“The Negro cannot win as long as he is willing to sacrifice the lives of his children for immediate personal comfort and safety. Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.”

 - Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr.

In the early 1970’s, even though some Black voices were protesting against forced sterilization, artificial chemical birth control methods and abortion, there were many who were fooled and misled by propaganda that promoted such strategies. I was among those who were duped. As a result, I suffered one involuntary and one voluntary “legal” abortion.

My involuntary abortion was performed just prior to the passage of Roe v. Wade by my private pro-abortion physician without my consent. I had gone to the doctor to ask why my cycle had not resumed after the birth of my son. I did not ask for and did not want an abortion. The doctor said, “You don’t need to be pregnant, let’s see.” He proceeded to perform a painful examination which resulted in a gush of blood and tissue emanating from my womb. He explained that he had performed an abortion called a “local D and C.”

Alveda King

Soon after the Roe v. Wade decision, I became pregnant again. There was adverse pressure and threat of violence from the baby’s father. The ease and convenience provided through Roe v. Wade made it too easy for me to make the fateful and fatal decision to abort our child. I went to a Planned Parenthood sanctioned doctor and was advised that the procedure would hurt no more than “having a tooth removed.”

The next day, I was admitted to the hospital, and our baby was aborted. My medical insurance paid for the procedure. As soon as I woke up, I knew that something was very wrong. I felt very ill, and very empty. I tried to talk to the doctor and nurses about it. They assured me that “it will all go away in a few days. You will be fine.” They lied.

Over the next few years, I experienced medical problems. I had trouble bonding with my son, and his five siblings who were born after the abortions. I began to suffer from eating disorders, depression, nightmares, sexual dysfunctions and a host of other issues related to the abortions. I felt angry about both the involuntary and voluntary abortions, and very guilty about the abortion I chose to have. The guilt made me very ill.

I pray often for deliverance from the pain caused by my decision to abort my baby. I suffered the threat of cervical and breast cancer, and experienced the pain of empty arms after the baby was gone. Truly, for me, and countless abortive mothers, nothing on earth can fully restore what has been lost.

My children have all suffered from knowing that they have a brother or sister that their mother chose to abort. Often they ask if I ever thought about aborting them, and they have said, “You killed our baby.”

This is very painful for all of us. My mother and grandparents were very sad to know about the loss of the baby. The aborted child’s father also regrets the abortions. If it had not been for Roe v. Wade, I would never have had that second abortion.

My birthday is January 22, and each year this special day is marred by the fact that it is also the anniversary of Roe v. Wade — and the anniversary of death for millions of babies. I and my deceased children are victims of abortion. The Roe v. Wade decision has adversely affected the lives of my entire family.

My grandfather, Dr. Martin Luther King, Sr., twice said, “No one is going to kill a child of mine.” The first time Daddy King said this was to my mother, who was facing an “inconvenient pregnancy” with me. The next time, I was facing a pregnancy, and told him about it. In both instances, Daddy King said no.

Martin Luther King

Tragically, two of his grandchildren had already been aborted when he saved the life of his next great-grandson with this statement. His son, Dr. Martin Luther King, Jr. once said, “The Negro cannot win as long as he is willing to sacrifice the lives of his children for immediate personal comfort and safety. Injustice anywhere is a threat to justice everywhere.”

How can the “Dream” survive if we murder our children? Every aborted baby is like a slave in the womb of his or her mother. In the hands of the mother is the fate of that child — whether the child lives or dies — a decision given to the mother by Roe v. Wade. That choice, the final choice of whether the child lives or dies, should be left to God, Who ultimately says “choose life!”

Like my Uncle Martin, I too have a dream. I still have a dream that someday the men and women of our nation, the boys and girls of America will come to our senses, humble ourselves before God Almighty and receive His healing grace. I pray that this is the day and the hour of our deliverance. I pray that we will regain a covenant of life and finally obtain the promised liberty, justice and pursuit of happiness for all.

Let us end injustice anywhere by championing justice everywhere, including in the womb.

This article appeared on The Orthodox Church of Tomorrow website.

Read the entire article on the Life News website (new window will open).