Israellycool

Ok, so Pope Benedict ordered changes to a Latin prayer for Jews at Good Friday services by traditionalist Catholics, deleting a reference to their “blindness” over JC, removing a phrase that asked God to “remove the veil from their hearts,” but still hoping Jews will recognize JC.

“Let us also pray for the Jews. So that God our Lord enlightens their hearts so that they recognize Jesus Christ savior of all men.”

It also asks God that “all Israel be saved.”

This got the ADL all hot and bothered, who said the prayer is still “deeply troubling” because of its call to convert Jews.

I personally couldn’t care less about this prayer’s call for Jews to recognize JC. It doesn’t offend me because I know this is what Christians believe. And I don’t believe it presents a danger to Jews, since the Vatican is merely expressing its beliefs, nor calling for physical violence against us.

Of course, feeling so secure in my own faith helps, and I truly believe that the Jewish faith is the true faith. I trust that my Christian readers won’t be offended by that, just as I am not offended by their beliefs.

So ADL: pick your battles!

And still on topic, I have become a very big fan of Tovia Singer in recent weeks. Besides having an entertaining and informative talk show on Israel National Radio, he is also well known as the Founder and Director of Outreach Judaism, an international organization dedicated to countering the efforts of fundamentalist groups and cults that specifically target Jews for conversion.

If you are not familiar with his work, here he is on the Christian radio show Way of the Master (one of Kirk Cameron’s new gigs), responding to the host who is “trying to convert” him to Christianity.

Needless to say, said host bites off more than he can chew.

(cross-posted on Elder of Ziyon)

BETHLEHEM, West Bank (AP) — Greek Orthodox and Armenian priests attacked each other with brooms and stones inside the Church of the Nativity as long-standing rivalries erupted in violence during holiday cleaning on Thursday.

The basilica, built over the grotto in Bethlehem where Christians believe Jesus was born, is administered jointly by Roman Catholic, Greek Orthodox and Armenian Apostolic authorities.

Any perceived encroachment on one group’s turf can touch off vicious feuds.

On Thursday, dozens of priests and cleaners were scrubbing the church ahead of the Armenian and Orthodox Christmas, celebrated in early January. Thousands of tourists visited the church this week for Christmas celebrations.

But the clean-up turned ugly after some of the Orthodox faithful stepped inside the Armenian church’s section, touching off a scuffle between about 50 Greek Orthodox and 30 Armenians.

Palestinian police, armed with batons and shields, quickly formed a human cordon to separate the two sides so the cleaning could continue, then ordered an Associated Press photographer out of the church.

Four people, some with blood running from their faces, were slightly wounded.

So the Palestinian Arab Christians, who are more moderate than their Muslim counterparts, in the moderate West Bank, cannot stop themselves from beating each other up in their own holiest places.

But we can be sure that Palestinians would happily allow free access for Jews to worship in their own holy spots in a future Palestinian Arab state, right?

Wishing all of my Christian readers a..

Merry Christmas!

Thanks for supporting this blog and, more importantly, supporting Israel in our fight against those who would very much like to prevent your celebration of this holiday.

May G-d bless you and your families.

Just days after a Vatican official came out with an incredibly offensive endorsement of the bogus “palestinian right of return,” we now have to be subjected to more offensiveness from Pope Benedict XVI (aka Joseph Alois Ratzinger, not to be confused with that guy from Cheers).

Pope Benedict XVI strongly criticized atheism in a major document released Friday, saying it had led to some of the “greatest forms of cruelty and violations of justice” ever known.

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In the 76-page document, Benedict elaborated on how the Christian understanding of hope had changed in the modern age, when man sought to relieve the suffering and injustice in the world. Benedict points to two historical upheavals: the French Revolution and the proletarian revolution instigated by Karl Marx.

Benedict sharply criticizes Marx and the 19th and 20th century atheism spawned by his revolution, although he acknowledges that both were responding to the deep injustices of the time.

“A world marked by so much injustice, innocent suffering and cynicism of power cannot be the work of a good God,” he wrote. But he said the idea that mankind can do what God cannot by creating a new salvation on Earth was “both presumptuous and intrinsically false.”

“It is no accident that this idea has led to the greatest forms of cruelty and violations of justice,” he wrote. “A world which has to create its own justice is a world without hope.

He specifically cited Vladimir Lenin, the founder of the Soviet Union, and the “intermediate phase” of dictatorship that Marx saw as necessary in the revolution.

“This ‘intermediate phase’ we know all too well, and we also know how it then developed, not ushering in a perfect world, but leaving behind a trail of appalling destruction,” Benedict wrote.

“The pope’s concern is that you have secularizing forces that are trying to eliminate religion from public and private life,” said Monsignor Robert Wister, professor of church history at Seton Hall University in the United States.

“In most countries, political Marxism is dead (but) philosophical Marxism is very much alive and it fuels the secularizing philosophy often seen in Europe and North America,” Wister said.

Now don’t get me wrong. I believe wholeheartedly in one G-d. And I agree that supplanting the belief in a just G-d with a man-made ideology can have devastating consequences. However, it does not automatically follow - there are plenty of decent atheists in the world. Furthermore, I find it highly offensive that the Pope would single out atheism as leading to some of the “greatest forms of cruelty and violations of justice,” without acknowledging that the dogma of some monotheistic religions - his included - has also led to such cruelty and violations of justice, including anti-Semitism, the Crusades, and the Inquisition.

What makes this all the more galling is the fact that the Pope did see the need to be self-critical, yet only came up with this:

At the same time, Benedict also looks critically at the way modern Christianity had responded to the times, saying such a “self-critique” was also necessary.

“We must acknowledge that modern Christianity, faced with the successes of science in progressively structuring the world, has to a large extent restricted its attention to the individual and his salvation,” he wrote. “In doing so, it has limited the horizon of its hope and has failed to recognize sufficiently the greatness of its task.”

The Christian concept of hope and salvation, he says, was not always so individual-centric.

There’s a huge elephant in the room, but the Pope seems to have his hunting rifle handy.

Either that, or he’s just being forgetful again.

This headline in today’s Jerusalem Post drew my attention:

Vatican official backs right of return

My initial reaction? Finally, the Vatican is going to return all of the Jewish artifacts they stole from us!

Unfortunately, this is not the right of return to which the Vatican official is referring.

A Vatican official said Wednesday that Palestinian refugees have the right to return to their homeland, and said he hoped Israeli-Palestinian peace talks would address the issue.

Cardinal Renato Martino, who heads the Vatican’s office for migrants, said an agreement to restart peace talks, reached Tuesday in Annapolis, Maryland, was encouraging and that he hoped by this time next year concrete measures would be under way.

“It is my hope that all the parts of the problem are taken into consideration such as that of the Palestinian refugees, who like all other refugees, have the right to return to their homeland,” Martino said.

What I want to know is, given that the Vatican support a palestinian state as a homeland for the so-called palestinian people, why don’t they support these “refugees” returning to that state if it is established in the future?

Also, why aren’t the Vatican talking of the right of return of Jewish refugees from Arab lands?

But the real question is who the hell do the Vatican think they are?

Oh, I know. G-d’s representatives on Earth. Which makes their conduct towards the Jews and Israel even more perplexing .. and abhorrent.

One year ago, Pope Benedict XVI inflamed the Muslim world by quoting a Byzantine emperor from 1391 as saying: “Show me just what Muhammad brought that was new and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached.”

The Muslim reaction was, predictably, violence, with at least two killed and many more cases or arson and threats.

Now, the Saudi king has visited the Pope discussing “peace, justice and moral values.” And the King didn’t come empty-handed - he gave the Pope “a traditional Middle Eastern gift — a golden sword studded with jewels.”

The King, representing Islam as the “Custodian of the Two Holy Mosques, ” certainly showed his esteem for the Pope and for his calls for peace - by giving him a weapon.

crossposted to Elder of Ziyon

Wishing all of my Christian readers a..

Here’s hoping your Xmas celebrations have a whole lot more meaning than UNIFIL.

What to say about a human being who possibly misled more other humans than any of his contemporaries? A taghut who promoted the worst sin, declared what is lawful as unlawful and what is unlawful as lawful, while people followed him? Should one weep for him? Indeed.

 

Muslims ought to recognize the enormity of the crime of disbelief and attributing a son to Allah the Most High.

 

The Qur’an says, “And they say, “The Most Merciful has taken a son.’ You have done an atrocious thing. The heavens almost rupture therefrom and the earth splits open and the mountains collapse in devastation. That they attribute to the Most Merciful a son. And it is not appropriate for the Most Merciful that He should take a son. There is no one in the heavens and earth but that he comes to the Most Merciful as a servant.” [Maryam: 88-93]

 

Their deeds are futile, while they were thinking otherwise: “Say: ‘Shall we not inform regarding the greatest losers concerning their deeds? They are those whose efforts are wasted in the worldly life, whilst thinking that they were performing the best of actions.” [al-Kahf: 103-4]

 

“Those who disbelieved - their deeds are like a mirage on a plain, in which a thirsty person thinks there is water; when he approaches it he finds nothing but he finds Allah before him and He repays him his account in full, as Allah is swift in taking account.” [al-Noor: 39]

 

The worthlesness of their hard labor is also explained in the following passage from Tafsir Ibn Kathir (of Soorah al-Ghashiyah):

 

(Some faces that Day will be Khashi’ah) meaning, humiliated. This was said by Qatadah. Ibn ‘Abbas said, “They will be humble but this action will be of no benefit to them.” Then Allah says,

 

(Laboring, weary) meaning, they did many deeds and became weary in their performance, yet they will be cast into a blazing Fire on the Day of Judgement. Al-Hafiz Abu Bakr Al-Burqani narrated from Abu ‘Imran Al-Jawni that he said, ” ‘Umar bin Al-Khattab passed by the monastery of a monk and he said: ‘O monk!’ Then the monk came out, and ‘Umar looked at him and began to weep. Then it was said to him: ‘O Commander of the faithful! Why are you weeping’ He replied: ‘I remembered the statement of Allah, the Mighty and Majestic, in His Book,

 

(Laboring, weary. They will enter into Fire, Hamiyah.) So that is what has made me cry. ”’ Al-Bukhari recorded that Ibn ‘Abbas said,

 

(Laboring, weary) “The Christians.” It is narrated that ‘Ikrimah and As-Suddi both said, “Laboring in the worldly life with disobedience, and weariness in the Fire from torment and perdition.” Ibn ‘Abbas, Al-Hasan, and Qatadah all said,

 

(They will enter into Fire, Hamiyah) meaning, hot with intense heat. [Tafsir In Kathir, © Darussalam]