Twelve Things that Caught My Eye Today — Largely Coptic (Feb. 17, 2015)

1.

https://twitter.com/KirstenPowers/status/567829362390769664

2.

Italy’s concerns about ISIS.

3.

4. Pope Francis began his homily talking about them, for his prayers for the Coptic Church and later said:

we have to take the Lord’s message “seriously”. “There is nothing strange in this, these are not the words of a Martian”, “man is able to do so much good”, he continued citing the example of Mother Teresa, “a woman of our time”.  All of us, he said, “are capable of doing good, but we are also all capable of destruction; destruction great and small and even within our own family.  [We are capable of destroying] our children”, not allowing them to grow “in freedom, not helping them to mature; cancelling out our children”.  We are capable of this and this means that we need to constantly “meditate, pray, discuss things with each other, so as not to fall into this evil that destroys everything.”

5.

6. From New York, Cardinal Timothy Dolan had Egyptian native His Grace Bishop David of the Coptic Church on his Catholic Channel Sirius XM weekly radio show today. During the show, Dolan said:

You run out of words to say.  You think of horrible and awful and nauseating.  What we have to remember, of course, is that this is but – this only compounds the tragedy – this is but the latest chapter in this terribly chilling episode that has gone on in recent years of outright, overt, organized persecution of Christians. … That doesn’t mean there is not persecutions of others.  We know what is happening to our Jewish neighbors, to the Jewish family throughout the world – hideous acts of harassment and persecution.  We know what is happening, as well, to Islamic moderates.

He said:

  “It almost seems that any religion that is genuine, any religion that is true to what genuine religion is supposed to be – in other words an emphasis on the sanctity of human life, the dignity of the human person, peace, reconciliation, friendship, building up and enhancing everything that is noble, true and good in the human person – any of those religions seems to be in the crosshairs of these fanatics.  And every time you read something you think, ‘How much worse can it get?’  And then yesterday we wake up to find out, guess what, is just got a heck of a lot worse, with 20 young Egyptian Coptic Christians who are beheaded literally, as Pope Francis says, because they believe in Jesus Christ, because they identify themselves as Christians.  This is hideous, this is scary, this is frightening and what adds and deepens the horror, the fear and the abhorrence that we’ve got now is that it just keeps going on and on.  It’s not isolated.  There’s something orchestrated.  There’s something coordinated and choreographed about this diabolical hatred of religion.  And that is frightening, isn’t it?”

Dolan emphasized:

I think civilization is threatened.  I mean, let’s talk turkey here.  In the past civilization has faced a lot of threats.  You think of Nazism, you think of atheistic Communism.  And now we’ve got it again.  And let’s call it that.  There are certain forces in the world that seem to be well-oiled, well-organized, get tons of publicity, who hate Christianity and hate any religion that is pro-the decency of the human person.  And this is an outright questioning of what is most basic in our civilization.  And the world, I’d like to think the world is gradually rising up and saying, ‘Enough of this.’”

7. 5 Things to Know about Egypt’s Coptic Christians. 

8. Mourning, weeping …

9. A social-media response:

https://twitter.com/edstetzer/status/567171587326369795

10. Christian persecution in Myanmar.

11. From the wonderful Dr. Aaron Kheriaty (see interviews here and here)

It is tragically ironic that at a time when we are recognizing an epidemic of campus rape and sexual assault—and carrying on a national conversation about how to address this problem—we are at the same time rushing to embrace a book and film that pair sex and aggression, and that portray male domination as an enticing or exciting option.

12. “The absurdity of finding a humane way of committing an inhumane act”