Showing posts with label hatred. Show all posts
Showing posts with label hatred. Show all posts

Wednesday, April 15, 2009

Homeland Security vs. the conscience

From CNA:

Washington D.C., Apr 14, 2009 / 02:28 pm (CNA).- According to a Homeland Security Report distributed to law enforcement organizations, abortion opponents are as great a threat to national security in the immediate future as white supremacists.

The nine-page document was sent to police and sheriff's departments across the country on April 7 under the headline, "Rightwing Extremism: Current Economic and Political Climate Fueling Resurgence in Radicalization and Recruitment." The report is unclassified, but is accompanied by a warning that says it “contains information that may be exempt from public release under the Freedom of Information Act.”

The report was prepared by the Extremism and Radicalization Branch of the Department of Homeland Security and claims it was “coordinated with the FBI.”

“Rightwing extremists,” the document says, “have capitalized on the election of the first African American president, and are focusing their efforts to recruit new members, mobilize existing supporters, and broaden their scope and appeal through propaganda, but they have not yet turned to attack planning.”

Nevertheless, according to the report, the combination of a prolonged economic downturn, the election of the first African American President and the return of many veterans with "combat skills" could create an environment similar to the early 90's, which lead to the Oklahoma City bombing.

The report describes "Rightwing extremism" broadly as “those groups, movements, and adherents that are primarily hate-oriented (based on hatred of particular religious, racial or ethnic groups), and those that are mainly antigovernment, rejecting federal authority in favor of state or local authority, or rejecting government authority entirely. It may include groups and individuals that are dedicated to a single issue, such as opposition to abortion or immigration.”

Under the title “Revisiting the 1990s,” the report claims that “paralleling the current national climate, rightwing extremists during the 1990s exploited a variety of social issues and political themes to increase group visibility and recruit new members.”

“Prominent among these themes were the militia movement’s opposition to gun control efforts, criticism of free trade agreements (particularly those with Mexico), and highlighting perceived government infringement on civil liberties as well as white supremacists’ longstanding exploitation of social issues such as abortion, inter-racial crimes, and same-sex marriage.”

The report “is provided to federal, state, local, and tribal counterterrorism and law enforcement officials so they may effectively deter, prevent, preempt, or respond to terrorist attacks against the United States.”


From InsideCatholic:


Pro-Lifers On the Post Office Wall
Posted on April 14, 2009, 5:57 PM | Deal W. Hudson

The headline on the Drudge Report really didn't do justice to the content of the Homeland Security report issued by its new director, Janet Napolitano, warning against "right wing" terrorism.

Basically any interest group opposing the Obama administration is listed as potentially dangerous -- pro-lifers, anti-immigration activists, gun owners, and -- get this-- military veterans who find it hard to integrate into society upon their return from active service.

The report is being used, obviously, to set up hate crimes' legislation, supported by Obama, that would criminalize specific language used about, among other groups, homosexuals (yes, also lesbians and the transgendered).

The report describes right-wing extremism as "divided into those groups, movements, and adherents that are primarily hate-oriented (based on hatred of particular religious, racial or ethnic groups) and those that are mainly anti-government, rejecting federal authority in favor of state or local authority, or rejecting governmental authority entirely. It may include groups and individuals that are dedicated to a single issue, such as opposition to abortion or immigration."

Anti-government? Heavens, we better all get ready to bend our knee to the new administration or we will be accused of "rejecting federal authority."

(No wonder the great state of Texas passed a resolution today calling for state sovereignty!)

Single-issue? That should read a "crackdown" on Evangelicals and Catholics who care enough about the protection of human life, as quaranteed in the Declaration of Independence, to organize, educate, protest, and vote on the basis of the moral principle upon which all other moral principles are based.

Will Fr. Pavone's picture soon be hanging in the local post office? Or Fr. Euteneuer's, or Judie Brown's, or Congressman Chris Smith's.

The post office wall could become the place d'honneur during the Obama years.

Saturday, March 28, 2009

Bishop Says Christianity Is Most Persecuted Faith

Laments Indifference, Ignorance of Western Church

BASEL, Switzerland, MARCH 25, 2009 (Zenit.org).- A bishop of Switzerland is lamenting not only growing persecution of Christians, but that the faith is losing its soul by its reduction to a private, individual affair.

In an article published by Giornale del Popolo, Bishop Kurt Koch of Basel said that "80% of people persecuted for their faith today in the world are Christians."

He reported: "The Christian religion is the most persecuted in the world today. In 2008 alone, of the close to 2.2 billion Christians, 230 million suffered discrimination, marginalization, permanent hostility and even persecution because of their faith."

As documented by Aid to the Church in Need in this year's report on "Religious Liberty in the World," the persecution of Christians takes place especially in the former Soviet Republics, in the People's Republic of China and in neighboring countries, as well as in several Arab and North African countries.

Christians are mistreated, imprisoned or killed for their faith in at least 25 countries.

Bishop Koch said that is it "particularly sad" that "in our Western countries this tragedy is not even known by Christians themselves." He added, "A reason for this lack of interest might be the fact that, while persecuted brothers proclaim their faith publicly, we have reduced it to a private matter."

"We shut ourselves up in our own internal problems and do not take serious consideration of our public mission in society, in politics, in the State, if we don't forget it all together," the prelate noted.

Recalling Benedict XVI's words, that "if Christians are resigned to consider faith and Church as a private individual matter, then faith itself loses strength," Bishop Koch pointed out that "the more religion becomes a private matter, the more it loses its soul."

Saturday, March 21, 2009

Moscow Patriarchate Backs Pope's Stance on Condoms

From Zenit.
Says They Can't Be Considered Remedy Against AIDS

MOSCOW, MARCH 20, 2009 (Zenit.org).- The Russian Orthodox Church is supporting Benedict XVI's position that condoms are not an acceptable solution to AIDS.

A message on the French official Web site of the Church stated, "The Patriarchate of Moscow is in solidarity with Pope Benedict XVI's position on the means in the fight against AIDS, and on the fact that condoms cannot be considered as a remedy against this sickness."

This statement came as a response to the Pope's words to journalists on his flight to Africa, in which he affirmed: "This problem of AIDS cannot be overcome only with publicity slogans.

"If there is not the soul, if the Africans are not helped, the scourge cannot be resolved with the distribution of condoms: on the contrary, there is a risk of increasing the problem."

Today the deputy chairman of the Moscow Patriarchate Department for External Church Relations, Archpriest Vsevolod Chaplin, said "It is incorrect to see condoms as a panacea for AIDS."

He noted that AIDS can be prevented not by contraceptives but by education and a righteous life, as the Orthodox Church also teaches.

"The spread of AIDS will only be halted with the ethical education of the affected peoples, and not with recourse to condoms," states the Church's communiqué.

The Russian agency Interfax reported Friday that Father Tchapline took part in a round table in Moscow on the subject. He pointed out that at present certain organizations attempt to simultaneously emphasize the idea of sexual freedom and the fight against AIDS, but that it is impossible to reconcile both of these.