ISIS making people one with the Church
At the Register Edward Pentin reports on the Pope’s response to the brutal new Mass execution of Christians on another Beach in Ethiopia. To the Orthodox Patriarch Pope Francis offers his ‘heartfelt spiritual closeness.’
Pope Francis this evening sent a message of solidarity to Patriarch Matthias of the Ethiopian Tewahedo Orthodox Church following the release of a video showing the killing of 28 Ethiopian Christians by Islamic State (ISIS) terrorists in Libya.
“With great distress and sadness I learn of the further shocking violence perpetrated against innocent Christians in Libya,” the Pope wrote, adding that he was reaching out to Patriarch Matthias and his flock “in heartfelt spiritual solidarity to assure you of my closeness in prayer at the continuing martyrdom being so cruelly inflicted on Christians in Africa, the Middle East and some parts of Asia.”
I got railroaded into a sort of therapeutic session recently where the counselor-type kept asking me to speak from the heart. I finally told him that I try and say everything from the heart. If it didn’t sound like it to him, he’d just have to get used to it.
It’s like when people say, “Honestly, I must tell you…..” It makes me wonder if the other things they say are dishonest. And if you must tell me then don’t. I only want to hear the things you choose to say.
So why the Pope must assure the Patriarch that he feels things in his heart, or that he is close in spirit (whatever that means), is anyone’s guess.
Finally, I hope no-one ever sends me a note assuring me of solidarity. It’s an awful word that the Pope seems to think means Christian charity, but most people think means free stuff, and sensible people know means Socialism.
“It makes no difference whether the victims are Catholic, Copt, Orthodox or Protestant,” the Pope went on. “Their blood is one and the same in their confession of Christ! The blood of our Christian brothers and sisters is a testimony which cries out to be heard by everyone who can still distinguish between good and evil. All the more this cry must be heard by those who have the destiny of peoples in their hands.”
Pope Francis has often referred to an “ecumenism of blood”, saying that persecution is uniting Christians. “They are witnesses to Jesus Christ,” he said in January.”They are persecuted and killed because they are Christians. Those who persecute them make no distinction between the religious communities to which they belong. They are Christians and for that they are persecuted. This, brothers and sisters, is the ecumenism of blood.”
This Francis-ism, the ‘ecumenism of blood,’ is nasty. It’s bad enough to send a useless sentimental letter to a bishop who’s flock is being slaughtered by Muslims, but to use the event to push the lie that all murdered Christians are united in Heaven despite vast deficiencies in faith is truly dark. I would imagine most Orthodox bishops in these serious regions might find it a tad opportunistic.
And hey, if the Muslims make no distinctions in killing Christians then the dead MUST all be Catholics, Yes? Or does that even matter?
The vast majority of Christians who are not in full communion with the Church are historical victims of what moral theologians call “simple ignorance”. They are not heretics in the formal sense, even though they have been swooped up into various material heresies. The distinction is important when it comes to estimating the state of their souls.
I think the writer is unduly harsh in his criticism of Pope Francis’s comment.
I assure you that I am not unaware of the importance of being Catholic and I do affirm the doctrine that the Catholic Church alone is the one true Church of Jesus Christ.
But when it comes to the martyrdom of our Orthodox and Protestant brothers and sisters by Muslim terrorists, I am willing to grant the martyrs my unqualified respect and admiration.
If there can be such a thing as “baptism by blood”, then surely there can be a “receiving into full communion by blood”.
Yes, what you said.
Yes, Reverand, what you said. AND, solidarity is not an awful word…, I think of Poland, not, as the author states “free stuff”. Solidarity and socialism are pretty distinctive in inI .
Yes, what the Reverand said. Also, solidarity is not an awful word. I don’t think “free stuff” when I hear the word solidarity used in its proper sense – I think of Poland!. Solidarity and socialism are pretty distinct in their differences as most sensible people would know.
Fr. Connolly is exactly correct.
Feeneyism has its roots in a neurotic desire that as many people as possible be damned.
When people believe in Jesus Christ–that he is God incarnate, that he died and rose so that we might be saved–and shed their blood rather than deny their faith, then they are martyrs and are in heaven, regardless of any material heresies they may believed because of their birth into a non-Catholic Christian body.
Is the author seriously suggesting that the deaths of these Christians matter less because they were not Catholic? Is he inferring that the only true martyrs God cares about are the Catholic ones?
How repugnant.