Al Kresta's Blog, page 333

Pakistan: hundreds of Christian girls forced to convert to Islam

In Pakistan forced conversions to Islam, rapes and forced marriages are on the rise. The victims are mostly Hindu and Christian girls, belonging to religious minorities, complain Fides local sources. This has been a worrying phenomenon for the Church in Pakistan for some time and that the Church is trying to address, looking for the cooperation of institutions but it is an uphill battle. "The Christian girls are the weakest and most vulnerable, because their communities are poor, defenceless and marginalized, therefore easily exposed to harassment and threats. Often they do not even have the courage to denounce the violence," says a sister to Fides. The sister hides and assists the girls who have managed to escape. "But the trend is worrying: There are hundreds of cases a year registered and those that come to light are only a fraction," she says. In a society that tolerates discrimination of religious minorities, especially of women, the dominant religion and related social position are used to impose tyranny.

A report sent to Fides by the Centre for Legal Assistance and Settlement (CLAAS), which takes care of legal assistance for Christians who are discriminated against and persecuted in Pakistan, confirms this issue, reporting some terrible cases that occur mainly in province of Punjab.

Sidra Bibi, 14 year old Christian in the district of Sheikhupura in Punjab, is the daughter of a worker in the cotton industry. A Muslim from the village had his eye on her and began to molest her, and eventually abducted and raped her before threatening her with death. Physically and psychologically abused, the girl became pregnant. She managed to escape from her tormentor and is now back, in a state of exhaustion, with her family. Police have refused to accept her complaint and now the CLAAS lawyers are handling the case.
Tina Barkat, 28 year old Christian, was approached by a Muslim friend who, after being friends with her for several months, asked her to convert to Islam. Her family began to read her verses of the Koran, kidnapped and threatened her, and then gave her in marriage to a Muslim family member. The lawyers have a current action to dissolve the marriage.

The same fate has befallen Samina Ayub, Christian, aged 17, who lives with her family near Lahore. Kidnapped by a Muslim, she was forcibly converted to Islam, and renamed Fatima Bibi and was forced to marry in the Muslim rite. Her family reported the abduction but police have not prosecuted those responsible. The case remains unsolved and the family calls for the mobilisation of civil society to save Samina.

Shazia Bibi, a 19 year old Christian from Gujranwala, in Punjab, worked as a maid in the house of a Muslim woman, the owner of a grocery store. The Muslim boy from the shop was in love with Shazia. In agreement with the owner, they held a conversion and forced her into marriage. The plan was successful but now, thanks to Shazia's family the case has ended up in court.

Also, two other Christian girls, Uzma Bibi, 15 years old, from Gulberg, and Saira Bibi, 20, a nurse from Lahore, were taken by force by Muslim neighbours, converted to Islam and then forced to marry in the Islamic rite. The families of the girls, shocked, have reclaimed their daughters and the cases are currently before the High Court of Lahore, represented by lawyers provided by CLAAS.

Pope turning 84 Saturday - Receives birthday greetings by e-mail

Ourtageous Statement of the Day

MSNBC's Lawrence O'Donnell Breaks Down in Tears Over Thought of Planned Parenthood Defunding

Instead of "relying on Planned Parenthood for (her) birth control" how about you just don't have sex out of wedlock? BTW, Planned Parenthood doesn't provide mammograms. See the videos below.


Visit msnbc.com for breaking news, world news, and news about the economy

Cartoon of the Day - School Bus Billboard

Today on Kresta - April 14, 2011

Talking about the "things that matter most" on April 14

4:00 – TBA

4:20 – The 2011 Budget and the Looming Battle Over the Debt Ceiling
Yesterday President Obama laid out his vision for deficit reduction, albeit very light on specifics. The GOP also has a framework to go on – the Ryan plan, which is heavy on specifics – some quite unpopular. We talk to economist Jerry Mueller , author of Redeeming Economics about the 2011 budget battle, the upcoming battle over the debt ceiling, and what issues will drive the debate.

4:40 – Christian Charity and the Welfare State
There is near universal agreement among Christians of all political stripes that one of our great privileges and duties is to do charitable deeds. Where we disagree is on the question of whether the secular authority of the state should be an agent of Christian charity. To some, such an alliance seems logical; to others, it is a non sequitur to conclude that, because we are expected to perform acts of charity, we should enlist the state to help us. We discuss the issue of Christian charity and the welfare state with Dr. Mark Hendrickson.

5:00 – God Wants You Happy: From Self-Help to God's Help
In God Wants You Happy, Father Jonathan Morris replaces the unsatisfying, fleeting solutions we receive from the New Age self-help industry with the simplicity and depth of authentic Christian spirituality. In his work traveling the world for FOX News and in his parish work in New York City, Father Jonathan could not understand why people were choosing the vague and sometimes harmful advice of the self-help gurus and ignoring the tested and true help the Christian faith offers. He discovered that part of the problem was packaging: people thought the church dealt only in sin and guilt and not help and healing. But what if we reframed God's good news in the same terms as the self-help world? He attempts to do just that.

5:40 – John Paul II - Benedict XVI and Jewish Relations Entering Holy Week
It was 15 years ago yesterday that Pope John Paul II visits a Jewish synagogue in Rome, marking the first such visit by a pope in recorded history. We use that anniversary as a jumping off point to discuss John Paul II, Benedict XVI and the Church's relationship with the Jewish tradition. David Moss , President of the Association of Hebrew Catholics is our guest.

Imam Kicks Out Citizen Journalist From Public "Islam Awareness Event"

On April 4 at Portland State University, a citizen journalist was kicked out of an event during "Islam Awareness Week" for having a flip cam and recording against the wishes of Imam Mikal Shabazz, the man leading the event. Shabazz took offense with the man for recording his lecture despite it being a publicized, open event and ordered the man to be expelled. The event was being held by the Muslim Student Association.

The Vatican will review and promote YOUCAT, the catechism for youth

Today on Kresta - April 13, 2011

Talking about the "things that matter most" on April 13

4:00 – Yesterday: 150th Anniversary of Start of Civil War / The Civil War As A Theological Crisis
Yesterday we commemorated the 150th Anniversary of the start of the Civil War. Today Mark Noll argues that the War was a major turning point in American religious thought. Although Christian believers agreed with one another that the Bible was authoritative and that it should be interpreted through commonsense principles, there was rampant disagreement about what Scripture taught about slavery. Furthermore, most Americans continued to believe that God ruled over the affairs of people and nations, but they were radically divided in their interpretations of what God was doing in and through the war. Catholics in Europe and Canada saw clearly that no matter how much the voluntary reliance on scriptural authority had contributed to the construction of national civilization, if there were no higher religious authority than personal interpretation regarding an issue as contentious as slavery, the resulting public deadlock would amount to a full-blown theological crisis. Mark is here to talk about the Civil War as a theological crisis.

4:40 – Abuse allegations: true, false and truthy
It was one of the more searing allegations in the recent Philadelphia grand jury report on clergy sex abuse: A Bristol Township man killed himself after the Archdiocese of Philadelphia refused to believe that a priest had molested him when he was an altar boy. Reeling from criminal and civil allegations of sexual misconduct by priests and church officials, the Archdiocese said a month ago that it would reopen 37 cases of possible child sexual abuse cited by a local grand jury. But Dr. Rick Fitzgibbons says a number of important questions need to be addressed in regard to the allegations of inappropriate sexual behaviors against minors by 21 priests from the Archdiocese of Philadelphia who were placed on administrative leave on Ash Wednesday. This would include the process of further evaluation of priests previously evaluated and found to be innocent. Fitzgibbons is here to make his case.

5:00 – Lost in Translation: Publisher Yanks Book Implying Vatican OKs Condoms / Vatican Announces Feast Day for Blessed John Paul II
The feast day of Blessed John Paul II will be marked Oct. 22 each year in Rome and the dioceses of Poland. When the Vatican made the announcement this week, it also said Catholics throughout the world will have a year to celebrate a Mass in thanksgiving for his beatification. Meanwhile, an Italian publisher has yanked copies of a book on Catholic Church teaching after a translation error implied the Vatican approved of contraception. Vatican correspondent Joan Lewis joins us to explain.

5:20 – The 25th Anniversary of the Chernobyl Disaster and it's relevance to the current crisis in Japan
As we prepare to commemorate the Chernobyl disaster later this week, Japan has raised the severity rating of its nuclear crisis to the highest, matching the 1986 Chernobyl disaster, after increasing radiation prompted the government to widen the evacuation zone and aftershocks rocked the country. Japan's Nuclear and Industrial Safety Agency raised the rating to 7. The accident at the Fukushima plant previously was rated a 5 on the global scale, the same as the 1979 partial meltdown at Three Mile Island in Pennsylvania. Dr. Alex Sich, the only U.S. scientist allowed access to the Chernobyl blast zone, joins us to remember Chernobyl and apply it to the current crisis in Japan.

5:40 – The Patron Saints Handbook
Who was St. Genesius, and why is he the patron saint of actors? Why is St. Therese of Lisieux, who was a cloistered nun, the patron saint of missionaries? Is there a patron saint for automobile mechanics? How about for the athletes? Best-selling Catholic writer Mitch Finley answers these questions and more in a delightful book of one hundred saints and the occupations, groups, or causes they are associated with. In each short section, Finley describes the life of the saint and why he or she has been selected as a patron. Mitch is here to talk about these patron saints.

New York Times article on new missal translation

The New York Times has published an article on the forthcoming revised translation of the Roman Missal. NYT religion reporter Laurie Goodstein states that "thousands of priests" find the more accurate translation to be "awkward, archaic and inaccessible." Her piece is below.


For New Mass, Closer to Latin, Critics Voice a Plain Objection

By LAURIE GOODSTEIN
Published: April 11, 2011

Throughout much of the English-speaking world, the Roman Catholic Church is preparing its priests and parishes for the most significant changes to the Mass in the more than 40 years since the church permitted English in place of the Latin.

The changes are included in a new English-language translation of the Roman Missal, a translation produced after almost 30 years of labor, intrigue and infighting. The new missal, the book of texts and prayers used in the Mass, is intended to be closer to the liturgical Latin that was used for centuries than the current version. The church officials promoting it say it will bring an elevated reverence and authenticity to the Mass. Many Catholics who prefer a more traditional liturgy are eagerly anticipating the change.

But after getting a glimpse of the texts in recent months, thousands of priests in the United States, Ireland and Australia have publicly objected that the translation is awkward, archaic and inaccessible. Although most are resigned to adopting the new missal, some have mounted campaigns to prevent it from being introduced.

"What we are asking of the bishops is to scrap this text," said the Rev. Sean McDonagh, a leader of an Irish group, the Association of Catholic Priests, which represents 450 priests — about 1 out of 10 — in that country. "I know people are not going to use it. I wouldn't use it, because everything I know in terms of theology and anthropology and linguistics, it breaches every one of those."

American Catholics will first encounter the new missal on Nov. 27, the first Sunday of Advent, the start of the liturgical year and the season leading up to Christmas. Even bishops and church officials in charge of preparing the way for the new language in the Mass acknowledge that it will take some adjustment — especially for priests, who will have to master complicated new speaking parts.

"The first time I saw some of the texts, I was shocked," said the Rev. Richard Hilgartner, who as executive director of the American bishops' Secretariat of Divine Worship is overseeing the introduction of the new missal in the United States.

"But the more time I've spent with it, the more comfortable I became with it," he said. "The new translation tries to be more faithful to the Scriptures, and a little more poetic and evocative in terms of imagery and metaphor."

One of the most noticeable changes is in the Nicene Creed, the statement of faith that Catholics learn to recite as children. Currently, Catholics say that Jesus is "one in being with the Father," but in the future they will say that Jesus is "consubstantial with the Father." This is one of several changes that include unfamiliar vocabulary.

Father Hilgartner said, "We know that people aren't going to understand it initially, and we'll have to talk about it. I've said to priests, we will welcome and crave opportunities for people to come up and ask us about God. It's a catechetical opportunity."

In the current Mass, when the priest says, "The Lord be with you," the congregation responds, "And also with you." Come November, the congregation will respond, "And with your spirit."

Church leaders say that this new choice of words is not only less casual, as befits a greeting to a priest, but is also consistent with the language used in the Catholic Mass in French, Spanish, Italian and German. A universal church, they say, should have the closest thing possible to a universal missal.

The new missal is the product of a long tug-of-war over liturgy, which began with the decision of the Second Vatican Council to make the Mass more accessible to Catholics by allowing churches to replace the Latin with the local vernacular. Bishops in the English-speaking world set up the International Commission on English in the Liturgy to share the monumental task of translation. By 1973, they had produced a new missal, but many experts in liturgy agreed that it was hastily done and required revision.

The commission continued its work, and produced texts that did not always adhere tightly to the Latin, but instead aspired to what it called a "dynamic equivalent." The commission also strived to use language that it considered more gender neutral.

Those efforts were upended in 2001, when the Vatican issued "Liturgiam authenticam" (Authentic Liturgy), an instruction requiring that translations of the Mass adhere literally to the Latin vocabulary, syntax, punctuation and even capitalization. And the Vatican appointed a committee it called "Vox Clara" (Clear Voice) to advise the translation efforts, but it gradually took on a more supervisory role.

After 10 more years of often-contentious back and forth, the final text was issued by the Vatican in December, Father Hilgartner said. But even before it was finalized, the early reviews were often startlingly negative.

The Rev. Michael Ryan, pastor of St. James Cathedral in Seattle, started a petition asking to delay the introduction of the new missal. The petition, called "What if We Just Said Wait," has been supported by more than 22,000 priests, nuns and laypeople around the world, some of them prominent liturgists, theologians and musicians. Only about 10 percent asked to be anonymous; the rest signed their names.

More recently, the association of priests in Ireland and a much smaller group of priests in Australia also called on their bishops to hold off on introducing the missal. And the Rev. Anthony Ruff, a Benedictine monk and a professor of liturgy at St. John's University in Minnesota, wrote an open letter to the American bishops saying he was canceling his engagements to speak in eight dioceses at sessions designed to familiarize priests with the new missal, because he could not in good conscience support it.

Father Ruff served as head of the music committee of the international commission working on the translation, but said he was removed in November for posting negative comments about the new missal on his blog.

"The problem is not vocabulary, though critics will point out words like 'consubstantial,' " Father Ruff said in an interview. "The problem is syntax and word order. The sentences are too complicated, the pronouns are so far away from their antecedent you can't even tell what the pronoun refers to."

Father Ruff said, "I fully support a retranslation. We need better texts that are more beautiful and more accurate, but we have to do it well."

The missal has already had a test run in South Africa, where the bishops said they mistook the instructions and introduced it a year too early. The Rev. Larry Kaufmann, provincial superior of the Congregation of the Holy Redeemer, was an early opponent of the missal in South Africa.

"No one is saying that it's improved the liturgy," he said in telephone interview, "or that it's more prayerful or solemn. It would be great if it were. I'd be the first to listen.

"But no one is putting up a fight any more," he said.

As the orientation sessions in the American dioceses have continued, more priests who initially objected are accepting the change. In the Archdiocese of New York, two vicariates (or regional groupings) of priests withdrew resolutions expressing concern about the missal after attending an orientation session.

Msgr. Chris Maloney, a pastor in Yonkers who had backed one of the resolutions, said, "When you think about it, the change from the Latin to English was a much more difficult transition, and the church survived."

Father Pfleger willing to leave Church rather than resign pastorate

The embattled pastor of St. Sabina Roman Catholic Church told radio show hosts Tavis Smiley and Cornel West this weekend that he would look outside the Catholic Church if offered no other choice but to work at a Catholic high school.

The Rev. Michael Pfleger also said on the "Smiley & West" public radio program that he had been banned from speaking at events in the archdiocese and blamed pressure from conservative Catholics and the National Rifle Association for his most recent clash with Chicago's Cardinal Francis George.

"I want to try to stay in the Catholic Church," Pfleger said. "If they say 'You either take this principalship of [Leo High School] or pastorship there or leave,' then I'll have to look outside the church. I believe my calling is to be a pastor. I believe my calling is to be a voice for justice. I believe my calling is to preach the Gospel. In or out of the church, I'm going to continue to do that."

In an interview with the Tribune, Pfleger clarified that he feels called to preach and push for social justice in a Catholic context. He said he loves the Catholic Church and prefers to stay there. But going to Leo full-time would not happen, Pfleger said.

"I've always said I could not do something that I don't feel called or equipped to do," he told the Tribune. "A full-time position at Leo is not something I'm equipped to do. I think Leo has made it clear they don't see any need for me to come there. For both sides, it would be a lose-lose."

Pfleger told the Tribune that he feels called to minister the way he did at St. Sabina on Sunday after a number of shootings across the city.

Instead of preaching a sermon, Pfleger led 150 men to confront gang members at the corner of 79th Street and Ashland Avenue.

"That's what I know I'm called to do," he said. "I know I'm called to create a church full of leaders and to build a community where children feel safe … Whatever I have to do has to be done in the context of church. I'm not interested in being a community organizer or being an activist. I come out of Dr. King's philosophy. Real transformation of individuals and the world has to be rooted in the context of faith."

On the radio, Pfleger said conservative Catholics want to return St. Sabina to the way it was before he got there and silence what they believe to be progressive messages coming from the pulpit.

"Here it is an African-American church and community that has a voice in Chicago and that is recognized in Chicago as a voice for justice. I think that's part of the problem," he said.

For the past couple years, he said he has been the target of petitions and letter-writing campaigns by the National Rifle Association. Letters are often copied to the cardinal, Pfleger said.

"The NRA … says I've been much too vocal about assault weapons and much too vocal about guns being registered and being accountable to gun owners," Pfleger said on the radio. "So all that combined and I guess the cardinal didn't have anything to do one morning and decided he wanted to get rid of me again."

Through a spokeswoman, George said he has never received a letter from the NRA or spoken to anyone from the organization about Pfleger. However, he does hear all kinds of opinions from parishioners, spokeswoman Colleen Dolan said.

When West questioned the NRA's influence on the church, Pfleger said: "Well, they have that kind of impact in the White House. I guess they have that kind of impact in the church house."