"Apocalyptic beliefs may explain why Francis is a pope in a hurry" by John L. Allen Jr.
As he has before, Pope Francis went out of his way to invoke an apocalyptic 1907 novel by an English convert from Anglicanism called “Lord of the World.” The novel lays out a dystopic vision of a final conflict between secular humanism and Catholicism, with the showdown taking place on the fields of Armageddon.
That ring a bell anywhere?
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The pontiff also said he intends to visit two African nations toward the end of 2015, saying they’ll likely be Uganda and the Central African Republic.
I don't understand Uganda.
That’s an ambitious set of plans, with his intention to go to the Central African Republic standing out as especially audacious.
It's collapsing.
The country is still an active war zone, with the conflict to some extent breaking down along Muslim/Christian lines.
And jwho benefits from that?
Because of the violence, the Central African Republic is currently under a United Nations Security Council ban on travel, which was recently extended through the end of January 2016.
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Shortly before his retirement last November, Cardinal Francis George of Chicago said in a Crux interview that he’d like to ask Francis about his “eschatological vision that the anti-Christ is with us,” and whether that explains the pope’s intense pace.
In a pooper-pumping priest's cloak?
(In Catholic theology, “eschatology” is the study of the end stages of human life and history, featuring what are sometimes referred to tongue-in-cheek as the “final four” – death, judgment, heaven, and hell.)
“Nobody seems interested in that, but I find it fascinating,” George said. “I hope before I die I’ll have the chance to ask [Francis] how you understand your ministry, when you put the end-times before us as a key.”
JP II thought it was Bush (I agree with him, the destroyer and invader of Babylon) and bemoaned that he was too weak to fight him.
In effect, Francis may already have answered George’s question.
Monday’s comment about “Lord of the World” suggest his reply might boil down to: “Yes, Virginia, there’s a devil, an anti-Christ, and an end time … and if we want to avoid the worst of it, we’d better get cracking.”
There have been so many throughout history.
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That's the crux of it anyway.
Maybe I do need a New Medium.
"Pope Francis says state terrorism, extremists both worrisome" by John L. Allen Jr., globe staff November 26, 2014
STRASBOURG, France — Pope Francis said that while the self-declared Islamic State in Iraq and other extremist groups represent a real threat, so, too, does “state terrorism” that he said breeds “anarchy of another level.”
In remarks to reporters on the papal airplane at the end of a daylong trip to Strasbourg, Francis did not single out any specific state as guilty of terrorism. However, his comments clearly marked a note of caution about unilateral military strikes against the Islamic State and other terrorist groups, whether led by the United States or any other nation.
In the same breath, Francis also addressed a burgeoning Catholic sexual abuse scandal in Spain involving at least 10 priests.
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Although Francis did not single out any specific nation as guilty of state terrorism, the charge is one that Palestinians have long directed at Israeli security policies, and others have applied to American military interventions in various parts of the world.
See: War Crimes Court
The pontiff also insisted that although dialogue with the self-proclaimed Islamic State currently menacing much of the Middle East seems “almost impossible,” for his part, “the door is always open.”
On another front, Francis also said that he received recent criminal charges against several Catholic priests in Spain — in Spanish media accounts, Francis has been credited with playing a role in exposing a criminal pedophile network in Granada, Spain.
Those seem to be prolific in elite circles of power all across the planet.
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In the wake of strong rhetoric Tuesday at the European Parliament and the Council of Europe, including strong pleas for immigrants, the unemployed, and the environment, Francis was asked whether he is a “Social Democratic pope.”
In European politics, the Social Democrats tend to be the main center-left formation, often the rough equivalent of American Democrats....
Please, to compare AmeriKan Democrats to $ociali$ts in Europe is.... never mind.
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"Pope treads cautiously in visit to Turkey" by Nicole Winfield, Associated Press November 29, 2014
ANKARA, Turkey — Pope Francis, in Turkey for a delicate visit aimed at improving interfaith ties, urged Muslim leaders on Friday to condemn the ‘‘barbaric violence’’ being committed in Islam’s name against religious minorities in neighboring Iraq and Syria.
Francis sought to offer a balanced message as he met with Turkish political and religious officials at the start of his second trip to the Middle East this year.
He reaffirmed that military force was justified to halt the Islamic State group’s advance and called for greater dialogue among Christians, Muslims, and people of all faiths to end fundamentalism.
‘‘As religious leaders, we are obliged to denounce all violations against human dignity and human rights,’’ Francis told Mehmet Gormez, Turkey’s top cleric and other religious officials gathered at the government-run Religious Affairs Directorate. ‘‘As such, any violence which seeks religious justification warrants the strongest condemnation because the omnipotent is the God of life and peace.’’
Francis condemned the Islamic State’s attacks against Christians, Yazidis, and other religious minorities and the destruction of their places of worship.
The Vatican has voiced particular concern about the expulsion of Christians from communities that have had a Christian presence for 2,000 years and has demanded that they be allowed to return home safely when the conflict settles.
Francis’ three-day visit to the Muslim nation comes at a sensitive moment for Turkey, as it struggles to cope with 1.6 million refugees fleeing the Islamic State advance in Syria and weighs how to respond to US calls to become more engaged with the international coalition fighting the extremists.
Turkey has accused the group of casting a shadow over Islam and has said Muslim nations have a duty to stand up against its radical views.
But Turkey is negotiating with the United States on aiding the coalition, pressing for a safe haven and a no-fly zone along the Syrian border with Turkey and demanding the coalition go after the regime of Syria’s president, Bashar Assad.
Turkey has been accused of ignoring Islamic State fighters entering Syria from its territory in the hope that it would hasten Assad’s downfall — charges Turkish officials deny.
Let's cut out the bullshit: everyone knows Turkey is a main conduit for fighters and arms.
‘‘Those who veer away from the message of Islam — which is a call for peace — and spread violence and savagery are in a state of rebellion against Allah no matter what they call themselves,’’ Gormez told the pope in stressing Turkey’s opposition to the fundamentalists.
That's one reason among many that these "terror" groups and ghosts always track back to western intelligence agencies.
He and President Recep Tayyip Erdogan both complained about rising Islamophobia in the West, with Erdogan saying prejudice against Muslims was helping fuel radical Islamic groups such as Islamic State in the Middle East.
Funny how it never fuels radical Jewish groups, what with all the anti-semitism spreading around the world (or so we are told by the Jewi$h pre$$).
Erdogan said he hoped Francis’ visit would strengthen ties between Christians and Muslims. But the pope’s visit was met largely with indifference among Turkey’s people, 99 percent of whom are Muslim.
‘‘I don’t know what a Catholic leader is doing in a Muslim country,’’ said Akay Incebacak, an Istanbul resident Friday.
The Vatican’s spokesman, the Rev. Federico Lombardi, said it was clear Francis ‘‘was not exactly in his milieu’’ in carrying out all the protocol required of him by his Turkish hosts.
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Related: Adopting Turkish demands could play to pope’s strengths
Also see: Over 6 million attend Manila papal Mass
Francis shattered the record for turnout, making it the largest crowd in history to witness a single papal event.
Then I suppose it deserves the coverage.
Francis defies pigeonholing during trip to Asia
Francis may be many things, but Asia proved he's never a bore
"30 Filipino officers killed in clash" Associated Press January 26, 2015
MANILA — More than 30 police commandos were killed in a clash with Muslim insurgents Sunday in the southern Philippines in the biggest single-day combat loss for Filipino forces in many years, officials said.
This is so smelly stinky considering current events in the Philippines.
Dozens of commandos had entered the far-flung village of Tukanalipao at dawn looking for a top terror suspect but had a “misencounter” with members of the Moro Islamic Liberation Front, Mayor Tahirudin Benzar Ampatuan of Mamasapano town said by telephone.
Other insurgents in the area joined in fighting the outnumbered police forces, the mayor said.
The 11,000-strong Moro group signed a peace deal with the government last year and forged a cease-fire, which has been safeguarded by a Malaysia-led team of truce monitors and has halted conflicts between the two sides for years.
Ampatuan, the Moro group, and military officials said the police commandos did not coordinate their plan to enter the Muslim rebel village before sunrise, apparently resulting in the fierce fighting.
The fighting subsided when members of a cease-fire committee and truce monitors intervened, Ampatuan said.
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"Rebel killings of 44 commandos test Philippine peace deal" Associated Press January 28, 2015
MANILA — Philippine officials asked lawmakers Tuesday not to withdraw their support for a new government peace deal with the country’s largest Muslim rebel group after some insurgents were involved in a clash that killed 44 antiterror police commandos.
The government’s biggest single-day combat loss in recent memory prompted at least two senators to stop supporting a bill that would create a Muslim autonomous region in the restive south under a peace deal signed last March. Many more lawmakers and influential Roman Catholic bishops defended the deal.
This has the stench of the U.S. all over it.
The Catholic Bishops Conference of the Philippines condemned the violence but said it ‘‘cannot side with those who call for the discontinuance of peace talks,’’ said Archbishop Socrates Villegas.
President Benigno Aquino III’s spokesman, Herminio Coloma, warned that abandoning peace efforts could usher in the return of an ‘‘old order characterized by warlordism, lawlessness, misuse of public funds, and the near-total breakdown of governance.’’
Aquino’s peace talks with the 11,000-strong Moro Islamic Liberation Front, along with a cease-fire, have virtually ended major fighting in the south in the last four years. The decades-old Muslim separatist insurrection has left about 150,000 dead. The respite was shattered Sunday when police barged into a remote marshland area in Maguindanao province to hunt down Malaysian Zulkifli bin Hir, or Marwan, one of Southeast Asia’s most-wanted terror suspects, and a top Filipino terror suspect, Abdul Basit Usman.
Interior Secretary Mar Roxas said Marwan may have been killed in the raid but Usman escaped. As the commandos withdrew, they came under fire from hard-line Muslim militants called the Bangsamoro Islamic Freedom Fighters. Some of the police maneuvered away in the dark and became entangled in a ‘‘misencounter’’ with rebels belonging to the Moro Islamic Liberation Front, according to Roxas.
When the fighting ended, 44 commandos were dead and 12 others wounded, national police Deputy Director General Leonardo Espina said. Some rebels said as many as 56 of the elite police died in the daylong clashes, which left about a dozen insurgents dead.
Moro rebel leader Mohagher Iqbal accused police of violating the cease-fire, which requires government forces to coordinate antiterror assaults and other law enforcement operations with Moro insurgents to prevent accidental clashes.
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Also see: Meet Frankie and Benny, the Everly Brothers of popes
Where did they sing the sermon?
