I agree that for the most part the Christians themselves are afraid and those that can are leaving these unstable countries.

But the discussion focused on Christian leaders and from what I can tell, they are not afraid to die for the Faith.

Here's an article which is but a sample of religious leaders who have been murdered.

Lulapilgrim, not sure how the words Hamas and Hezbollah turned into a discussion of Church leaders, but what the heck. At what point in your 2 previous posts, did you say anything about how tough you guys are when confronted with radical Islamists … I must have missed it??? While I admire this Priest for his moral fortitude, I do not think he had much of a choice at all now did he? Send all the prayers and condolences you deem necessary to build your fragile courage … I would prefer to send him congratulations for living to continue his self-imposed mission, but that is just me. Let me know how successful your Christian-strong-arming works in Libya. I am sure you will have as much influence there as you did in Iraq.

I am irritated with the closed-mindedness of organizations with causes. If there is only one way (YOUR way) to reach God … why are there so many divergent paths and religions making the same claim? What makes you think it is even conceivable that a paper trail in excess of 2000 years could contain much resemblance to the original fictions?

I am sure you have heard of the test that goes like this: Get a group of 10 people in a circle and whisper a statement to one person. Then they whisper it to the next and so on. There has never been a valid documented case where the original statement bore much resemblance to the 10^th person’s statement. This is simply explained with the fact that people are different and they think ‘differently’. Organizations do not like this concept which they classify as ‘self-serving individualism’. 

I must be a fool (as you are want to tell me) because I do not believe that the concepts of lying, deceit and conspiracy, power struggles, suppressing the masses, limiting real knowledge, murder, deception and intrigue are new to this century or any other for that matter. But of course, religious theology was not susceptible to human contamination … of course. I believe these concepts were in existence long before recorded time. Why would this befouling of the truth affecting all of human history, exclude ONLY Christian Doctrine? Only mind dead robots could believe this absurdity.

Catholics live in these Middle East and African countries.  It started when I posted #67 ... a look at Egypt through an interview with Cardinal Antonio Naguib. Did you read it? If so what do you think?

To that Leauki posted this comment #68 :

"Tough", well, you may not agree, however I think dying for the Faith from radical Muslim jihadists is being tough. I don't expect that you would be very familiar with the Church the Middle East, but I can assure you that in this sense, the Church and her Catholic leaders and followers have a long history of being tough. 

After all, with the return of Islamic militancy it's long been known that all Christian churches, institutions, businesses, leaders and followers are targets for Muslim fanatics. I can produce story after story where Christians are tortured, imprisoned, beaten and murdered.

There is real persecution going on and the Catholic leaders stay there, they don't run away.

BoobzTwo,

Here you have gone in a totally different direction from the topic of AnthonyR's original article.

It would take my hijacking this forum in order to fully answer your questions and address (rebut) your claims. I don't want to hijack the forum. 

BoobzTwo,

I created my own blog in order to respond to your post #77.

https://forums.joeuser.com/408056

Nice to hear for a change ... but it never stopped you from doing it to me, go figure.

lulapilgrim: Sorry, got carried away a bit there. I would guess you are not prone to listen to politicians solicit favor from the malleable public. I am not sure you want an honest opinion ... From a secular view; there was virtually nothing of substance at all. From a religious view; there were plenty of the expected platitudes and well-wishing but there again, little of substance. From a clarity view; I would be troubled with the use of words like: “lacks clarity, citizens are expecting, we expect, mutually we hope for, the idea is good and can be considered, we must dedicate our attention to urgent and sensible questions”, among others. Not very decisive to say the least is it? Was a good interview otherwise.

I will pay a visit to https://forums.joeuser.com/408056 ... but you need to remember my secular views and I will try to be careful your views.

I have seen the Christians who fled Muslim Arab areas in Iraq. They fled to Kurdistan. They didn't fight. Other Christians didn't fight for them. The Muslim Kurds protect them.

I have spoken to some of them, using the few words of Aramaic I know. They are not a proud people. Hundreds of years of persecution can do that to almost any people.

Kurdistan and Israel are the two places in the middle-east where the (official) Christian population is growing. Muslim Kurds and Jews are fighting for the Christians. Christians are not.

(To be fair, Christians in South-Sudan fought. And they finally won. But only their independence which they should never have lost in the first place.)

In this case, the fight is for religious freedom. In this day and age, Christians as a rule don't fight as in physical violence and war with their enemies who persecute them. Instead it's exactly as Fr. Ganni wrote before he was killed. He considered it a "privilege" that he had always been able to witness to the way in which "Divine providence is revealed through many quite humble people whose only goal is to work for the Kingdom of God by following the example of Jesus".

For the last year in his discussions with various world diplomats Pope Benedict has highlighted the growing assaults on religious freedoms around the world. He condemns the attacks and calls for the governments of these regions to adopt effective measures for the protection of religious minorities.

.........................

This news article from AsiaNews.it goes directly to our discussion.

» 04/26/2011 17:29
LIBYA
The war in Libya, another Vietnam
by Maurizio d'Orlando
The military escalation appears to be going beyond the initial UN mandate. Appeals by the Pope and the bishop of Tripoli to give diplomacy rather than weapons a chance have been ignored. The war between Libyan rebels and Italy (in the early part of the 20th century) lasted about 20 years. The military intervention marks the end of the Peace of Westphalia as well as Western democracy.

Milan (AsiaNews) – The ghost of another Vietnam is haunting the Mediterranean. What a month ago was still called a “humanitarian action” to save Libyans from Gaddafi’s violence has become a war. Despite appeals by Benedict XVI (on Easter Sunday for instance) in favour of diplomacy against the use of weapons, Italy has opted for escalation, agreeing to bomb “targets in Libya”. A few days ago, the United States approved the use of drones against military objectives (the same drones that kill civilians in Pakistan).

......................................................

Here is the link for the rest of the article and although it's rather lengthy,  it is well worth the read.

http://www.asianews.it/news-en/The-war-in-Libya,-another-Vietnam-21393.html

Check out the last 4 paragraphs.

Libya thus appears to herald another guerrilla war, the way Vietnam was for the United States. Sending instructors brings back ominous memories, suggesting that Europe might have found its own Vietnam. At the start, the war in the Southeast Asian nation was low key but then things began escalating. President Kennedy’s initial deployment of 900 military instructors in 1961 jumped to 11,000 by 1962. At its peak, US troop deployment in 1969 was 543,000.

The prospect that Islamist and extremist (Salafis and al-Qaeda) leaders could replace Nasserite nationalist Arab leaders (Hosni Mubarak, Gaddafi and Ben Ali) in the Mediterranean and the Arab world is a source of real concern. If that should pass, a world wide clash clash between secularist and Islamist fronts would be a real possibility.

What is also of great concern is the fact that the military involvement in Libya is not only a neo-colonial war, but also the death warrant for the era that began with the Treaty of Westphalia of 1648. Thus, United Nations Resolutions 1970 and 1973 mark the end of the principle of national sovereignty and non-interference in the internal affairs (based on the principle ‘Cuius regio, eius religio’) of an internationally recognised sovereign and independent nation. A world directory or government and a world central bank thus appear to be real possibilities. If this were the case, the war in Libya would mean the end of Western democracy and the system that developed in the past 300-400 years.

lulapilgrim, I agree it was a good and enlightening article and expressed many of the fears I have myself. What the powers that be are foisting on most of the third world countries and their peoples is fear, hatred and terror and all that goes with it. We have got to stop hiding behind words like ‘humanitarian’ which involves very little; “U.N. peace keeping troops’ who can do whatever besides keep the peace and ‘spreading democracy to peoples who don’t understand or want it” which really means the pilfering of as much of the countries natural resources as possible . If humanitarianism and peace were at all the objective, Darfur would be a no brainer … but the sad truth is that there is absolutely nothing there to be exploited … no $$$’s … no help. How is the Church fairing there, not much better I expect.

Darfur is not being helped because Darfur is black.

Europeans and Americans (but Europeans especially) have this idea in their minds that black Africans go with living in straw hats in the desert without water. Libyans and Palestinians on the other hand must not live like that, they must live like Europeans and Americans do.

Nobody cares about sub-Saharan Africa.

Except a few Christian groups...

What a strange thing to say ... it never occurred to me ... and I very much hope you are wrong, because I care!

I don't think that people hate blacks like they used to. I think it's the other kind of racism, the "they are equal but from another world" racism. People think "Africa" and "straw huts in the desert". Think about it. It seems appropriate to us that Africans live in straw huts in the desert miles away from fresh water. (Why do they live miles away from fresh water? Because somebody forces them away from the water. Nobody thinks about that.) Can you imagine what would happen in the media, the UN, the "international community" and on the streets if Israel made people in Gaza live like most Africans live? Pandemonium.

But for Africans that's OK. We accept it. I wrote this blog entry about Gaza and Darfur. It shows what the world thinks is appropriate for Darfurians and what the world considers not good enough for (non-African) Gazans. Everybody agrees that Israel owes the Palestinians a living standard similar to Europe. And likewise everybody agrees that there is no need to worry about Darfur.

And Darfur is not alone. There are thousands of places like Darfur (except some of them don't suffer a genocide).

If eight Turks die, the world wakes up. If Arabs die, the world screams. But if Kurds or Jews or blacks die, the world doesn't say anything.

there but for fortune, folks.

if not for our own culture's collectively serendipitous escape from 1500 years of roman catholic theocracy--a process that began only a mere 4 to 5 centuries back--we'd be in a different boat but the same dire straits.

caliphates and dominions are as much the same in effect as apartheid and jim crow.

if only islam had one living human figurehead claiming to speak for allah, it might be much easier for them to free themselves from the trap.