"This isn't wimpy liberalism; it's simple rationality and charity"

Fr. Powell is offering necessary and needed words of wisdom:

At this moment. . .it is vitally important for Americans to remember that the terrorists who kill in the name of Islam do not represent every Muslim.   The loons of Westboro Baptist Church do not represent all Christians. 

The LCWR does not represent all religious women in the U.S. nor do they speak for every Catholic.  Nor do the Occupiers represent 99% of Americans.

Every identifiable group--religious, racial, political, etc.--has its loose screws, its hot-heads, its fringe elements.   These outliers cannot be allowed to control our response to the group as a whole.

This isn't wimpy liberalism; it's simple rationality and charity.

God grant us forebearance and self-control while seeking justice and truth.

And thank you for hopeful signs amongst the chaos and evil... like the one above... and like the one below, taken as the Pope celebrates Mass in Lebanon:

Photo by Clement Tannouri.

Comments

[Locutisprime]

Yep....every society, every religion and every group has it's loose screws. Now please explain to me why is it exactly? That Muslims seem to have loose screws by the tens of thousands and by the millions? \

All across regions? In just about every Muslim country without exception? Copious amounts of lunatics and zealots spread all across the middle east and northern Africa and everywhere else there are pocket populations of Muslims is not indicative of "a few loose screws."

I am quite familiar with the loons of Westboro Baptist church of Kansas. There are about a dozen of them actively acting an ass in total. They don't comprise sects of thousands that cover every state in the union, or with branches of their lunacy in every western country on the planet.

So....sorry, I can't quite get my head wrapped around the analogy that we need to accept that there are "just a few loose screw responsible for all the Muslim terror and mayhem in the world."

That explanation simply ain't working for me.

[Rick]

The good Father is pointing out that just as we shouldn't react negatively to all Catholics because of a bad one, or all Baptists because of a bad one, neither should we do the same against all Muslims because there are bad ones...

In the end, as Christians, we are compelled to treat people with dignity and as individuals.

Not easy I know.

[Mommynator]

I'm inclined to be with Locutisprime on this one.

When Westboro does their thing, hundreds of people not only denounce, but try to block them.

When one bad catholic is brought to light, we can look to see the many good ones running around.

The muslims have yet, as a body, to decry the violence of the thousands who are encouraged by their own primary religious source to do what they're doing. They come here, and they still do what they do to their women, attempt to override the laws of this land and replace them with their cruel and violent laws.

I agree with Locutis - I can't get my head wrapped around this.

[Rick]

Mommynator!

Good to 'see' you back...

Just curious however... did anyone click through on the link in Fr. Powell's post?

[Ilíon]

"This isn't wimpy liberalism; it's simple rationality and charity."

It isn't "simple rationality and charity"; it's intellectualy dishonesty.

Every Moslem, to the extent that he is a "good Moslem" is our mortal enemy, for Islam itself commands the sort of things that you folk do not want to face.

[James A. Donald]

Polling indicates that they do represent most Muslims.

If someone is a sincere Muslim, he should be murdering Americans and raping children. Fortunately most Muslims are not all that sincere, but they tend to support those that are sincere.

Just as there is in all the world not one Christian who called for violence against the creators of Piss Christ, there is in all the world not one Muslim who condemned the fatwa against Molly Norris

In that sense, every single Christian in the entire world is opposed to holy war and seeks peace, and every single Muslim in the entire world supports holy war and seeks conquest.

Every single Christian everywhere at least pretends to aspire to the pacific message of the New Testament and always has, and every single Muslim everywhere at least pretends to aspire to the warlike message of the Koran and always has. There is simply zero overlap, at least in their purported positions. Every Muslim knows that the Koran calls for war, and every Christian knows that the New Testament calls for peace, and at least pretends to adhere to what these books quite plainly say.

Let us imagine the situation was reversed, and some notable Christian preacher was to call for the murder Andres Serrano. Obviously, if this happened, which it never would, every other notable Christian leader would condemn that call.

Compare and contrast with the call for the murder of Molly Norris. Not every Muslim has called for the murder of Molly Norris, but not one Muslim has explicitly and specifically condemned the call either.

[tim aka The Godless Heathen]

I wonder how all the people who have been injured, maimed and killed by “fanatical” Muslims over the centuries feel about them just being the “fringe” element of Islam.

[chuck aka xtnyoda]

We are witnessing and participants in the first genuine "World Wide War." It is a war of ideas and religion more than a war of weapons and technology, though weapons and technology are some of the tools of this war.

If you will, we are in an epic clash of cultures. Culture is defined by the laws written and the religious foundation of those laws. Anyone that does not recognize that the general laws of the 'western' world have been founded on the Christian bible, New Testament specifically, simply doesn't understand the forming of a 'culture.'

There are forces at work in the United States to redefine 'culture' from both the outside and probably more profoundly, from the inside, as well as in Europe.

We are experiencing what historians will define as a 'great awakening' a hundred years from now. The awakening will be when the Church realizes that she will be a slave to no man nor government.

Unfortunately, the social outcome of the working of an 'awakening' is always a war. While one is in the middle of an awakening it seems like the worst of times. Again, it is historians that look back and determine when an awakening happened, in the middle of an awakening it seems like anything other than a spiritual experience.