Les dirigeants de ces trente dernières années se sont comportés de façon absolument lamentable envers notre pays.Tous ont trahi et tous seront jugés et, je l’espère, définitivement condamnés par l’Histoire.

La grande misère de l’armée française…

Entretien avec Magnus Martel, réalisé par Fabrice Dutilleul

Compte tenu de son rôle sur la scène internationale et des menaces potentielles incessantes, la France ne saurait se passer d’une armée

Pourquoi si peu de militaires osent-ils dénoncer la situation actuelle de l’armée ? À cause de leur devoir de réserve ?

Cela reste un mystère. Y compris pour votre serviteur. Pourtant, je peux vous assurer que chaque jour que Dieu fait, ça râle dans les popotes. Le problème essentiel tient au fait que si les militaires sont courageux physiquement, ils ont oublié qu’ils exerçaient un sacerdoce au service d’une terre et d’un peuple et non d’un gouvernement. Cela étant, ce devoir de réserve est plus que jamais imposé par des politiciens qui redoutent les forces armées et l’on constate tristement que la parole est beaucoup moins libre aujourd’hui qu’elle l’était dans les années 1930. La « grande muette » conserve plus que jamais son appellation.

Les opérations extérieures auxquelles notre armée participe ne prouvent-elles pas qu’elle est encore opérationnelle ?

Opérationnelle pour quoi ? Par rapport à quoi ? Cela dépend avant tout de la nature de l’adversaire. À quelle armée digne de ce nom l’armée française a-t-elle été confrontée depuis la chute de l’URSS ? Quant à l’engagement en Afghanistan, l’opération est loin de constituer un succès. Lors de l’embuscade de la vallée d’Uzbin à l’été 2008, c’était la première fois depuis très longtemps que notre armée perdait autant de soldats en si peu de temps ! Alors, bien sûr, il arrive que notre armée, à force de système D, de volonté et de ténacité fasse de véritables miracles. Comme au cours de l’opération Serval au Mali. Mais sérieusement, quel ennemi avions-nous face à nous ? Un adversaire certes déterminé, mais très loin de disposer de capacités militaires équivalentes aux nôtres, dans un pays permettant difficilement de se mettre à l’abri. Au final, il est même permis de penser que cette victoire éclair aura nui à notre armée en donnant à penser à l’opinion comme au politique que nos forces étaient suffisamment opérationnelles et qu’il était encore possible de gratter dans les effectifs.

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Lire la suite: www.bvoltaire.fr

Washington's appetite for hard power capabilities is not shrinking. "Do ever more with less" is, unfortunately, the only expectation the Joint Chiefs should harbor as they seek to manage a smaller force for the future

5 lessons for the Pentagon from 2013

by Mackenzie Eaglen

Chairman of the Joint Chiefs of Staff General Martin Dempsey asked Congress this year: "What do you want your military to do?"

The takeaway for defense leaders is that policymakers want to fund a defense budget that does less but a military that is just as engaged around the world, ready to act when needed and fully capable when ordered to fight and win.

1. Sequestration's slow burn will continue, even with the recent budget deal

2. Hagel offers only a glimpse of the grim choices ahead for the Pentagon

3. Policymakers will continue to punt on serious bureaucratic reform at the Defense Department

4. Loss of traditional defense coalition on Capitol Hill will continue to hurt

5. Mission relief is not coming for the U.S. military as budgets fall

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Read more: www.usnews.com

Israel to fund all abortions for women 20-33 starting next year. The coverage of benign enlargement of the prostate and cancer to be expanded as well

Free abortion for all women 20-33, 

panel recommends

BY LAZAR BERMAN

Health Ministry committee submits findings for expanded coverage at a cost of NIS 300 millon. 

Israeli women aged 20-33 will be able to receive state-funded abortions for non-medical reasons if the recommendations of a Health Ministry commission, published Monday, are passed into law.

The committee, chaired by Prof. Yonatan Halevi, examined 650 medicines and technologies worth more than NIS 2 billion over 3 months, in order to determine what would be added to the expanded list of state-subsidized treatments. The body was bound by a NIS 300 million ($86 million) limit on the health care expansion.

In the end, 83 new medicines and treatments were added to the list, which were estimated to cover cover 115,000 patients.

According to the recommendations, women seeking an abortion will still need to receive the approval of a government panel. The committee wanted to fund the procedure for all women, according to Ynet, but budgetary constraints forced them to limit it by age.

The estimated cost per patient was estimated at NIS 2,484 ($714), which covers not only the process, but also the cost of appearing before the government panel. Without government approval, abortion is illegal, but the panel approves 98% of the cases brought before it.

The panel is made up of two physicians and one licensed social worker, and at least one of the three must be a woman.

With 6,300 women in the covered age range expected to terminate their pregnancies in 2014, the cost to the state is anticipated at NIS 15.6 million ($4.5 million).

Currently, only abortions for medical reasons and for girls under the age of 18 are paid for by the state.

Halevy said that one of his considerations was that women were avoiding abortions in hospitals because of financial difficulty, or because of a desire to hide the pregnancy.

Private abortions cost NIS 5,000-6,000 ($1,500 to $1,750.)

Other committee members voiced concern that the expanded coverage would lead to more abortions.

Unlike in the United States, abortion has never figured in the country’s political campaigns. In fact, Israel does not even have an active anti-abortion movement.

The Israeli penal code states that termination of pregnancy is a crime that carries a prison sentence of up to five years. But the code also broadly addresses numerous circumstances in which an abortion may be legally performed, including benefit to emotional and financial well-being.

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Read more: www.timesofisrael.com

Padre Lombardi è costretto a smentire l’editoriale di domenica del fondatore di Repubblica: «Scalfari non si trova sempre a suo agio in campo biblico-teologico»

Anche il Vaticano smentisce Scalfari 

e le sue «evidenti inesattezze»: 

«Papa Francesco non ha abolito il peccato»

Non ce n’era certo bisogno, ma è arrivata anche la smentita da parte della Sala stampa vaticana: «Certamente non è pertinente l’affermazione di Scalfari in un lungo editoriale sul fatto che il Papa abbia abolito il peccato – afferma padre Lombardi – Anzi, chi segue veramente il Papa giorno per giorno sa quante volte egli parli del peccato, della nostra condizione di peccatori e, anzi, proprio il messaggio della misericordia» si capisce solo se si fa riferimento al peccato.

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Leggi tutto: www.tempi.it

28 janvier : conférence sur le genre à Versailles

Cinco historias emblemáticas que cuentan cómo el cristianismo está aún bajo ataque, tal como sucedía en los primeros siglos

Cinco grandes testigos de la fe perseguidos, en algún caso hasta el martirio, a lo largo de 2013

por Leone Grotti

Rimsha Masih, Sarkis el Zakhm, monseñor Ma Daqin, Franck Talleu, Asia Bibi. Desde el Pakistán extremista a la China comunista, desde la Siria devastada por la guerra y los terroristas a la laicísima Francia: cinco hombres y mujeres de nuestros días, sacerdotes y laicos, perseguidos por su fe hasta el martirio; cinco historias emblemáticas que cuentan cómo el cristianismo está aún bajo ataque, tal como sucedía en los primeros siglos.

Pero también cinco testimonios, contados este año por Tempi.it, de fe luminosa, resumible en las últimas palabras pronunciadas en vida por el sirio Sarkis antes de ser asesinado por quien quería que se convirtiera al islam: «Soy cristiano y si queréis matarme por eso, hacedlo».

Rimsha Masih

... unos cuantos vecinos la acusaron de blasfemia por haber quemado 10 páginas de un libro islámico, el Noorani Qaida, usado para aprender las bases del árabe y el Corán. Era el 16 de agosto de 2012 y la cristiana tenía 14 años. Analfabeta y minusválida mental, no podía imaginar que el día después una multitud de extremistas islámicos atacaría a su familia y al barrio cristiano obligando a huir a 300 familias.

Sarkis el Zakhm

...«Soy cristiano y si queréis matarme por eso, hacedlo». Son las últimas palabras pronunciadas por Sarkis el Zakhmn antes de ser asesinado por terroristas vinculados a Al Qaeda de Jabhat al Nusra.

Tadeo Ma Daqin

... Estas son las palabras que le han costado a monseñor Ma el inicio de un calvario que aún dura: «Con esta ordenación, yo consagro mi corazón y mi alma al ministerio episcopal y a la evangelización. Quiero dedicarme a asistir al obispo [Jin Luxian, que en ese momento tenía 96 años, ya fallecido, NdR] y por este motivo hay algunas posiciones que mantengo y que resultarían inconvenientes, por lo que a partir de ahora ya no seré miembro nunca más de la Asociación Patriótica».

Franck Talleu

...  Franck ha sido el primero, pero muchos han sido encarcelados, incluso durante más de 15 horas, por haber sostenido que la familia está formada por un hombre y una mujer.

Asia Bibi

....  Esta madre de 49 años es culpable de haber bebido en junio de 2009 en la misma taza de una musulmana y de haber rechazado la conversión al islam,

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Leer más aquí: www.religionenlibertad.com

"Time" and "The Advovcate" may well actually have chosen the right person, but almost certainly not for the right reasons.

Why “Person of the Year”?

by Kenneth D. Whitehead

........

Pope Francis is not the first pontiff to be granted the year’s designation by Time, Blessed John XXIII having been so honored in 1962, and Blessed John Paul II in 1994. It may even be a little surprising that Pope Francis should have been chosen after less than a year in Peter’s chair; indeed it becomes somewhat questionable how much of an honor the award really is when we consider what the pope’s competition was. His runner-up was none other than Edward Snowden, the National Security Agency contractor who exposed America’s vast anti-terrorist surveillance system by leaking documents that he had illegally obtained. Regardless of what we might think about this surveillance system itself, the fact is that it was authorized by Congress and has functioned under at least a degree of judicial scrutiny. Edward Snowden is thus a law-breaker and a fugitive from justice regardless of his “impact” on our lives and on the news.

Another one of the pope’s competitors for the Person of the Year award was the proud lesbian, Edith Windsor, who successfully sued the U.S. government to avoid paying the inheritance tax on a bequest from her late “spouse,” another woman. Her lawsuit prompted one of the worst Supreme Court decisions in American history, a decision in which a majority of the justices on the high court officially recognized same-sex relationships to be “marriages” if a jurisdiction somewhere has legally declared them to be such. But again, we cannot deny the “impact” of this decision on our lives and on the news.

..............

Yet the question still persists of how the special version of “hope and change” conjured up by some on the basis of words and actions of Pope Francis, and even present to some extent inTime’s account, is ultimately going to pan out. What is all too likely is a degree of widespread disillusionment when this particular version of “hope and change” turns out to be illusory. And the same result is especially likely for expectations aroused by yet another publication besides Time. For in mid-December, an LGBT publication with the title of The Advocate, also, amazingly, named Pope Francis as its Person of the Year. This choice appeared to be based on the Argentine pope’s famous remarks tossed off in the interview on his flight back to Rome from his World Youth Day appearances in Brazil. On that occasion the pope said that “if someone is gay and seeks the Lord with good will, who am I to judge?”

The pope’s disclaimer here of not being able to render a moral judgment has rocketed around the world; it is vastly more widely quoted and acclaimed than his accompanying condition that the homosexual person who is thus not going to be judged needs to be “seeking the Lord”—in other words, needs to berepenting of any immoral actions that may have arisen out of same-sex attractions and relationships. This condition typically goes unmentioned, but it is nevertheless an integral and necessary part of the pope’s position when he declines to be a “judge.”

It is hardly likely, however, that this is the stance of The Advocate. Rather, the stance of this publication would seem to be that of the gay rights movement generally, namely, that homosexual acts and behavior need to be accepted, normalized, and legitimized—need to be seen simply as “different strokes for different folks” with no moral dimension that necessarily applies to them.

That Pope Francis or the Catholic Church might ever agree with such a notion as this is quite beyond anything imaginable. In choosing Pope Francis as its Person of the Year, The Advocate plainly moves far beyond Time in the realm of creating false expectations inevitably bound to lead to disillusionment. The publication admits that “Pope Francis did not articulate a change in the church’s teaching today, but he spoke compassionately, and in doing so he has encouraged an already lively conversation that may one day make it possible for the church to fully embrace gay and lesbian Catholics.”

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Read more: www.crisismagazine.com

If we want to revitalize religious life, we need to rethink our methodology. Instead of asking people whether they desire religious life, we should ask them whether they desire salvation—whether they desire to become saints

Sacrificing Religious Life on the Altar of Egalitarianism

by Br. Justin Hannegan

Young Catholics are spurning religious life. According to the Official Catholic Directory, there were only 1,853 seminarians studying for American religious orders in 2011. 

That’s less than half the number of religious seminarians that were studying in 1980 (4,674), and less than one tenth the number that were studying in 1965 (22,230), according to Kenneth Jones’ Index of Leading Catholic Indicators. 

Even the most successful religious orders are suffering. 

The U.S. Dominicans boast of increased vocations, but today they have only about 100 student brothers (compared to 343 in 1965). Dominican vocations may have increased in the past few years—likely as a result of perceived orthodoxy, strong community life, and aggressive promotional efforts—but they are still anemic. Orders like the Dominicans look successful only because everyone else has hit rock bottom.

According to Jones’ figures, 

• the Passionists went from having 574 seminarians in 1965, to 5 in 2000. 
• The Vincentians went from 700 to 18. 
• The Oblates of Mary Immaculate went from 914 to 13. 
• The Redemptorists went from 1,128 to 24. 
• The same story holds for the Jesuits, OFM, Christian Brothers, Benedictines, Maryknoll Fathers, Holy Cross Fathers, Augustinians, and Carmelites. 

American religious vocations have been decimated, and they remain decimated today. 

Religious life in America, therefore, continues its precipitous decline: according to the USCCB, compared to the 214,932 American religious in 1965, there were only 102,326 religious in 2000; 84,918 in 2006; 80,137 in 2008; and now 69,405 in 2013. 

Of the 69,405 religious who remain today the average age is close to seventy years old.

What happened to religious vocations? 

• Some commentators blame heterodoxy within American orders. 
• Others blame our glitzy, debauched culture. 
• Still others blame a prevailing spiritual malaise amongst Catholics. 

But there is another cause for the vocations crisis that commentators fail to recognize: vocations directors, counselors, and authors, despite their best intentions, systematically undermine religious vocations.

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Read more: www.crisismagazine.com

“El judaísmo y el cristianismo se encuentran en el mismo concepto de persona como fundamento de todo el orden social, creada a imagen y semejanza de Dios..."

El Vaticano e Israel: veinte años de lazos

por Roberto Bosca

El 30 de diciembre de 1993 y 16 de Tevet de 5754 fue firmado el Acuerdo Fundamental entre Israel y la Santa Sede, puesto que ésta, prudente en la materia, había sido renuente a un reconocimiento del nuevo Estado.

El acto tenía un efecto declarativo, pero implicaba un valor altamente moral y político. Además de la carga de prejuicios y desencuentros,Roma entendía que reconocer un Estado judío era tomar partido en contra de los palestinos y el mundo árabe, vulnerando su neutralidad, donde además vivían una multitud de fieles cristianos.

Otro nudo gordiano era el status de la ciudad de Jerusalén,reclamada como lugar sagrado por cristianos, musulmanes y judíos, un delicadísimo issue aún pendiente.

Debido a su categoría política, la existencia del Estado de Israel fue un tema apartado en el trámite de la declaración Nostra Aetate, mediante la cual el Concilio Vaticano II dio un giro de ciento ochenta grados en sus complicadas relaciones con los judíos. Pero gradualmente se produjo una maduración de facto que abrió el camino para un reconocimiento de jure. En su carta apostólica Redemptionis Anno de 1985, sobre Jerusalén, Juan Pablo II miró al judaísmo como una unidad de pueblo, tierra y Estado constituida de un patrimonio de historia y de fe.




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Leer más aquí: www.clarin.com

America’s founders espoused "theistic rationalism"...

The Founders and Faith: 

None of the Above

by Gary Scott Smith

The Religious Beliefs of America’s Founders: 

Reason, Revelation, Revolution, 

by Gregg L. Frazer

The religious views of America’s founders have been fiercely contested in the public arena for many years. The principal battle is between those who claim that most founders were devout Christians and those who assert that they were deists. This debate has important ramifications for arguments that the United States was founded as a distinctively Christian nation, or as an essentially secular one, and for how to interpret the First Amendment.

Into the fray has stepped Gregg L. Frazer, a professor of history and political studies at The Master’s College in Santa Clarita, California. InThe Religious Beliefs of America’s Founders: Reason, Revelation, Revolution, he argues that the nation’s most prominent founders—George Washington, John Adams, Thomas Jefferson, and Benjamin Franklin—and key framers (of the Declaration and the Constitution)—Gouverneur Morris, James Wilson, James Madison, and Alexander Hamilton—were neither Christians nor deists.

Frazer aims to correct the “severely flawed” arguments of popularizers (primarily pastors, lawyers, and armchair historians) such as David Barton (The Jefferson Lies: Exposing the Myths You’ve Always Believed About Thomas Jefferson) who portray most of the founders as committed Christians, if not evangelical Protestants, and others, including Americans United for the Separation of Church and State spokesperson Barry Lynn and journalist Brooke Allen (Moral Minority: Our Skeptical Founding Fathers), who depict the founders as “rank secularists.”

The former group contends that most of the founders sought to create a thoroughly Christian nation, while the latter group portrays the founders as seeking to erect an absolute “wall of separation” between church and state (or even between religion and government by excluding all religious ideologies and principles from the public square).

Although a substantial group of founders were orthodox Christians—including Samuel Adams, John Witherspoon, John Jay, Elias Boudinot, John Hancock, Patrick Henry, Benjamin Rush, Roger Sherman, and Oliver Ellsworth—Frazer convincingly argues that the most renowned founders were not traditional Christians, strident secularists, or devoted deists.

Frazer shows that neither the Christian-America camp nor the strict separationists (which include many influential historians and political scientists, the American Civil Liberties Union, and People for the American Way) correctly understand the religious views of America’s leading founders. The partisan agendas of both groups discourage careful, dispassionate analysis of the evidence.

Frazer builds on the foundation laid by numerous historians and political scientists who show that the founders were deeply influenced by both Christianity and the Enlightenment. Convinced that labeling these key founders as Christian, deist, or secular is inaccurate, Frazer invents a new term—theistic rationalism—to describe their convictions. Theistic rationalism is a hybrid system that mixes “elements of natural religion, Christianity, and rationalism” and makes rationalism the dominant component. While these three elements usually complemented each other, reason played the decisive role when they conflicted on particular issues. Instead of employing reason to show that divine revelation was true, theistic rationalists “made reason the ultimate standard.”

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Read more: www.theimaginativeconservative.org

C’est lorsque tout s’effondre inexorablement que l’on comprend enfin le problème.

La pédophilie bientôt légale en Italie ?

par Gabrielle Cluzel

La dernière forteresse, la plus imprenable, s’appelle l’inceste. 

On préfère regarder ailleurs, fermer les yeux tant que ça tient encore.

Une décision de la Cour de cassation de Calabre fait actuellement grand bruit en Italie : Pietro Lamberti, un pédophile sexagénaire surpris en flagrant délit avec une fillette de onze ans et condamné en instance et en appel à cinq ans de prison, vient d’être libéré. 

Les juges ont en effet estimé qu’il y avait, entre ce travailleur social et cette petite fille de famille défavorisée confiée à ses soins, une « relation amoureuse » qui légitimait l’acte sexuel. 

L’indignation qui parcourt les réseaux sociaux a passé la frontière italienne car, évidemment, cette décision sonne comme une dépénalisation de la pédophilie. Une digue que l’on croyait indestructible qui lâche d’un coup, un des derniers tabous occidentaux qui s’effondre. 

On s’inquiète, évidemment, de la jurisprudence ouverte comme un boulevard pour tous les amateurs de tendrons prépubères. Il ne sera bientôt même plus la peine de se cacher derrière un grand imperméable ou un pseudonyme improbable sur la Toile, il suffira de se faire aimer. Et avec un peu de persuasion et quelques fraises Tagada, n’est-ce pas…

Et ces « indignés » prétendent que les bras leur en tombent. Vrai, ils ne comprennent pas comment ce tsunami éthique a pu arriver. Ils se paient notre tête, sans doute ?

Comme si cette décision n’était pas elle-même le fruit d’une autre jurisprudence, d’un autre précédent qui agite l’Europe ! 

Comme si le dogme inviolable « l’amour justifie tout », placé au centre de l’argumentaire en faveur du mariage gay et pénétrant peu à peu les consciences européennes (même dans les pays, comme l’Italie, qui n’ont pas encore officiellement sauté le pas), allait s’arrêter mentalement à la frontière des relations entre adultes de même sexe… avec autant d’obligeance que le nuage de Tchernobyl s’est arrêté géographiquement à la frontière française !

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Lire la suite: www.bvoltaire.fr

No, the worst economic idea of the year wasn’t Obamacare. The worst economic idea of the year:is that America’s “defining challenge” -both morally and economically- is income inequality.

2014's real economic challenge

by James Pethokoukis

Creating good jobs and training Americans to get them 

— not snatching income from the 1 percent

No, the worst economic idea of the year wasn’t Obamacare. 

- First of all, that was the worst idea of 2010 (though it’s still around, so perhaps the Worst Economic Idea of the Year Award should just be renamed the Obamacare Award and given to the second-worst idea of each year). 

- Second, the Affordable Care Act is just one policy manifestation of what really is the worst economic idea of the year: that America’s “defining challenge” — both morally and economically — is income inequality. 

So President Obama has declared, and it’s an opinion that seems almost universally shared by the American Left, including New York City’s incoming mayor.

It’s interesting to note all the economic problems that Obama apparently views as less important challenges than income inequality. 

- Take, for instance, chronically weak economic growth.

 On average, the U.S. economy has grown by just 1 percent a year, adjusted for inflation, since 2000. Over those 14 years, the American economy has notched just six quarters of real GDP growth of 4 percent or higher, versus 18 quarters of such rapid growth in each of the two preceding decades (the 1980s and 1990s). And the president’s own economic team has declared, “in the 21st century, real GDP growth in the United States is likely to be permanently slower” than in the past.

- Or how about the long emergency that is the U.S. labor market? 

If the share of adults with any sort of employment were back to pre–Great Recession levels, there would be 12 million more Americans with jobs. Just as bad, that employment rate hasn’t budged much from recession lows. And the jobs that have been created aren’t as good as the ones lost during the downturn, continuing a 20-year trend of recessions’ generating weak job recoveries. More than half of the jobs that vanished during the downturn were middle-income positions, and less than a quarter of the new ones are. Analysis by Goldman Sachs found that the “hollowing out in the middle is real” and “not unique to the post-crisis period.”

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Read more: www.aei.org

The impact of a good college ministry

Newman Memories

by Bill Zalot

Recently, a phone call from a priest friend of mine I hadn’t heard from in years triggered a flood of spiritual memories. His thoughts brought me back to a special time in my life. The conversation we had took me back some 30 years.

It was late May of 1982. I had just graduated from West Chester State College (now West Chester University). My faith had come alive at the college’s Newman Center, in large part due to my attending daily Mass, frequenting confession and receiving Christ in the Eucharist. Prior to my years at West Chester, I was little more than an "obligated Catholic."

The Newman Center kept me grounded. Attending Mass and receiving Jesus in the Blessed Sacrament daily transformed me into a person who lived his faith daily. I no longer went to Mass out of fear — I truly wanted to be there.

At the Newman Center, I went to the community socials and dinners, participated in various ministries and often lectored at daily Mass. The community’s acceptance of me helped me realize I belonged.

The three years I spent at West Chester sparked a flame in my faith walk that will never die. In short, this sacred place became a second home for me and countless other students during our college years.

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Read more: www.ncregister.com

Despite daunting challenges in predominantly Muslim societies, many followers of Jesus continue to bear brave witness to their faith.

Middle-East Christians: 

Faith Under Fire 

by BRIAN O’NEEL

Many know of the mythical Phoenix, the bird legend said to have the power to regenerate itself from the ashes of its predecessor in a Middle-Eastern desert. Given the incredible persecution faced by contemporary Christians in the same region, an analogy between the faithful in the Middle East and the mythological fowl might seem unlikely.

However, Christian leaders insist the Church in some Arab-speaking lands is indeed resurrecting out of the cinders of its burned houses of worship, the beheaded bodies of its faithful and the long-standing discrimination it has faced since Islam violently wrested this part of the world from Christendom, beginning in the seventh century.

In a concrete symbol of this heroic Christian witness, this October, a huge, monumental bronze statue of Our Lord — modeled on a similar one overlooking Rio de Janeiro — was erected near the Syrian Christian town of Sednaya, on an ancient pilgrimage route that once took the faithful from Constantinople to the Holy Land.

While such a construction would be remarkable anywhere, it is even more so, given that it happened amidst the violent conflict rending the Middle East asunder in recent years. Ever since the advent of the so-called Arab Spring in December 2010, the region has seen an extraordinary amount of violence.

And while the carnage has touched everyone, it has hit the Christian population particularly hard, leading some to say the Arab Spring has birthed a Christian Autumn.

For example, on Sept. 7, al Qaeda-backed jihadists took the ancient town of Maaloula, an ancient Christian village and one of the last places in the world that has Aramaic, the language of Jesus, as its mother tongue. The Islamists forced the conversion of a handful of people and beheaded three others, whom Melkite Catholic Patriarch Gregorios III calls “the martyrs of Maaloula.”

• Signs of Hope and Renewal ....

• Strength Through Suffering ....

• The Situation in Iraq .....

• Turning the Other Cheek  .....

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Read more: www.ncregister.com

La Manif Pour Tous appelle tous les citoyens à manifester À PARIS DIMANCHE 2 FÉVRIER 2014.

La Manif Pour Tous donne RDV à tous

dimanche 2 février 2014 pour une

mobilisation nationale et européenne

contre les projets pro-LGBT et anti-familles

Projet de loi « familles » diluant les liens père/mère/enfant, fabrication d'enfants sans père ou mère (PMA pour les couples de femmes et mères porteuses pour les couples d'hommes), diffusion de l'idéologie du genre à l'école, dans la culture française et dans les textes européens, réduction du congé parental, utilisation de la fiscalité contre les familles (individualisation de l'impôt pénalisant notamment les mères s'occupant de leur enfant, baisse du quotient familial, suppressions de part ou ½ part fiscale, etc) :

Agissons très vite pour STOPPER TOUS CES PROJETS PRO-LGBT ET ANTI-FAMILLE que le gouvernement prépare en douce dans la foulée de la loi Taubira de mariage et d'adoption au profit des couples de même sexe. 

C'est pourquoi La Manif Pour Tous appelle tous les citoyens à manifester À PARIS DIMANCHE 2 FÉVRIER 2014. 

Cette journée de mobilisation ne sera pas seulement nationale parce que tous ces projets pro-LGBT et anti-famille se préparent également au niveau européen : en effet, le 4 février prochain, la « feuille de route LGBTI » (Lesbiennes, Gays, Bisexuels, Transexuels et Indifférents) sera soumise au vote de l'Assemblée plénière européenne !

Des manifestations auront donc lieu aussi bien à Paris qu'à Bucarest, Madrid, Rome, etc. 

 Trop c'est trop ! ça suffit !

On ne peut pas laisser avancer ces projets

contraires à l'intérêt supérieur de l'enfant, à la filiation père/mère/enfant,

au respect de l'altérité sexuelle homme/femme, à la famille,

c'est-à-dire contraire à la civilisation !

Pas une voix ne doit manquer à l'appel de la mobilisation !

Et comme le montre la victoire sur la résolution Estrela,

nous nous ferons entendre et rappellerons les élus au bon sens :

l'identité de genre n'existe pas :

l'être humain est homme ou femme !

Des cars et des trains spéciaux sont organisés depuis tous les départements

Infos sur www.lamanifpourtous.fr

A diffuser absolument à tout votre carnet d'adresses : chacun de nous porte la responsabilité de la mobilisation du 2 Février !

At the root of the entire Salesian legacy is St. Francis de Sales’ trusting faith in God.

Trusting in God with St. Francis de Sales

by Christopher J. Lane

In all your affairs, rely wholly on God’s providence, through which alone you must look for success. Nevertheless, strive quietly on your part to cooperate with its designs…. Imitate little children who with one hand hold fast to their father while with the other they gather strawberries or blackberries from the hedges. — St. Francis de Sales, Introduction to the Devout Life, III.10

François (Francis) de Sales (d. 28 December 1622) was not always so ready to grasp the Father’s hand. This “doctor of charity,” whose name has become almost synonymous withdouceur (“gentleness” or “sweetness”), knew what it meant to feel abandoned by God. Born in 1567 to an aristocratic family of the Duchy of Savoy, Francis was sent to top-notch schools in Annecy, Paris, and Padua. During studies in Paris in the 1580s, he encountered theological discussions of predestination that sent him into a spiritual tailspin. The Council of Trent’s “Decree on Justification” had merely mentioned “the mystery of predestination” in passing, leaving room for diverse schools of thought on its role in the Christian life. Because many early Protestants—especially followers of John Calvin—made predestination a key part of their theology, late sixteenth-century Catholic theologians hotly debated the proper way to include predestination in the Catholic view of grace and salvation. As the young Francis de Sales delved into these matters, he convinced himself that he was unavoidably predestined to hell. This spiritual crucible lasted for about two months, at the end of which he was moved to place himself completely in God’s hands. Nearly lost in despair, he turned and accepted God’s love. Having overcome this crisis of faith, the saint became a faithful student of trust in God. Moreover, he became a prophet of the gentle God, a sure guide to countless souls who would learn from him how to trust.

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Read more: www.crisismagazine.com

Man is complex, and law and social order must be equally so.

Subsidiarity: 

Why is It Praised More than It is Practiced?

by James Kalb

Subsidiarity is a basic principle of Catholic social teaching. Like other such principles, it is praised more than practiced, because it is at cross purposes with the outlook that now governs our public life.

It springs from concern for man in all his dimensions. Each of us participates in the human nature that is common to all. Each of us also has his own will and destiny, and knows who he is through a social identity that includes local and particular connections. So we are at once universal, individual, and socially situated, and become what we are through active participation in a complex of networks and institutions.

Concern with that aspect of human life puts Catholic social teaching at odds with the understandings of social life now dominant, which take equality and efficiency as their concern, and consequently want to reduce society to a sort of machine run from the top down for simple purposes. Such understandings make man less than he is, and end up treating him at bottom as an employee, voter, and consumer: someone who holds a position in a system of production and distribution designed and run by other people, periodically registers his assent to that system and how it is governed, and otherwise is free to amuse himself however he wants, as long as he doesn’t interfere with other people or the smooth operation of the system.

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Read more: www.crisismagazine.com

Building a base of values voters

Rand Paul & the Christian Right

By W. JAMES ANTLE III

From foreign policy to prison reform, the Kentucky senator

 is building a base of values voters.

In theory, if the younger Paul held onto his father’s base and added some Santorum, Perry, Gingrich, and Bachmann votes, he would be quite a formidable contender for the Republican presidential nomination. If he can get social conservatives to add the plight of prisoners and a more prudent approach to American power to their grave concerns about the sanctity of innocent human life, he can do something even more important.

Either way, a partnership between the Christian right and liberty movement could change the Republican Party. And, God willing, the country.

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Read more: www.theamericanconservative.com

Omofobia... si addensano nubi oscure sul nostro futuro...

Multiculturalismo, un problema que quizá afecte a toda Europa

«La identidad nacional de Francia está amenazada por el multiculturalismo»

Entrevista a Alain Finkielkraut por Juan Peddro Quiñonero

Alain Finkielkraut, ensayista y politólogo francés, aborda con crudeza en «La identidad desgraciada» la crisis de un país que está cambiando su rostro cultural, étnico y religioso

Francia se encuentra hoy en una encrucijada, víctima de la amenaza de un relativismo y multiculturalismo que están erosionando de manera inquietante los antiguos cimientos de su identidad nacional. Esta es la preocupación que muchos ignoran en Francia, pero que Alain Finkielkraut aborda con valentía. Una crisis para la que faltan soluciones tanto desde la izquierda como desde la derecha, y que necesita un debate urgente si no se desea que los extremismos capitalicen un problema que no deja de crecer con el tiempo. Ensayista emérito, su ensayo «L’identité malheuruse» (La identidad desgraciada) culmina provisionalmente una obra que ocupa un puesto singular en la escena europea, convirtiéndose en un «bestseller» que aborda con crudeza la crisis de una Francia que está cambiando su rostro cultural, étnico y religioso.

—¿Porqué es el multiculturalismo una amenaza para Francia?

—El problema quizá afecte a toda Europa. Oficialmente, Francia «cerró» sus fronteras a la inmigración ilegal en 1974. Sin embargo, la población de origen inmigrante no ha dejado de crecer con gobiernos de izquierda y derecha. A través del derecho a la reagrupación familiar, la legalización de ilegales y otros mecanismos, la población inmigrante no ha dejado de crecer, y Francia se encuentra hoy en una encrucijada, con dos alternativas posibles. Bien Francia se convierte en una nación asimilada, corriendo el riesgo de perder su identidad propia. O bien se transforma en una sociedad multicultural con una identidad todavía desconocida. Francia oscila entre esas dos alternativas, sin saber muy bien qué camino tomar, convirtiendo esa alternativa en un factor de tensión y angustia social.

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Leer más aquí: www.abc.es

New York - The new mayor seems more likely to attack the legitimate accomplishments of the “old regime” than face up to the structural challenges holding back poor and middle-class New Yorkers

The Old Regime and the New

by Aaron M. Renn

Will Bill de Blasio tackle New Yorkers’ real problems

 or undo the achievements of his predecessors?

Alexis de Tocqueville’s 1856 The Old Regime and the Revolution has recently become a surprise bestseller in China, setting off a minor flurry of news stories in the West. 

This lesser-known Tocqueville work suggests that improvements in society can be a prelude to revolution: “Evils which are patiently endured when they seem inevitable become intolerable when once the idea of escape from them is suggested. The very redress of grievances throws new light on those which are left untouched, and adds fresh poignancy to their smart: if the pain be less, the patient’s sensibility is greater.” 

Whether reform will lead to revolution in China remains to be seen, but closer to home, the rise of leftist New York City mayor Bill de Blasio might offer a test of the hypothesis.

New Yorkers, including the middle class and even the poor, have seen their overall welfare improve so much under the mayoral tenures of Rudy Giuliani and Michael Bloomberg that the city’s remaining problems, which are formidable, now may seem less tolerable. 

Thus de Blasio was able to gain critical traction in the mayoral campaign with his “two cities” theme, holding the Bloomberg administration responsible for the city’s high levels of inequality—even as Bloomberg has governed in many ways as a “progressive.” 

He raised taxes and went on a massive spending spree—total spending rose by more than 70 percent on his watch—on everything from schools to parks to streets. Per pupil spending on schools grew 73 percent under Bloomberg, and teacher salaries grew 40 percent, even as test scores were mostly stagnant and polls found parents saying the schools got worse under his administration.

Bloomberg also toed the progressive line on gay marriage and gun control and pledged to make New York the “world’s greatest, greenest city.” 

His attempt to ban the Big Gulp was perhaps the best example of his progressive vision of better living through more regulation. 

But ideology aside, Bloomberg delivered results.

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Read more: www.city-journal.org

Une nouvelle affaire d’avortement sur une adolescente violée agite les médias argentins...

Une cour argentine renverse une décision protégeant un enfant conçu à la suite d’un viol

BY JEANNE SMITS

Susana Graciela Kauffman, l’un des juges qui ont

renversé la mesure tutélaire de protection de la vie

de l’enfant à naître. C’est elle qui a signé le commentaire

le plus vindicatif en faveur du “droit des femmes”. (1)

Une nouvelle affaire d’avortement sur une adolescente violée agite les médias argentins qui ont pris fait et cause pour la mort de l’enfant porté par une jeune fille de 14 ans, qu’une décision de justice a pourtant tenté de sauver. Vendredi, la justice argentine a mis fin à tout espoir de sauver le tout petit en ordonnant que l’avortement soit pratiqué. On n’attend plus que le passage à l’acte.

Tout éclate le 9 novembre lorsque la mère de la jeune fille, vivant dans la ville « conservatrice » (comme le disent les médias) de Salta, rentre inopunément chez elle pour trouver son concubin en train de violer sa fille. Elle le retient ; l’homme se met à frapper la mère et la fille, cette dernière si durement qu’on l’embarque à l’hôpital. Là, on apprendra que ce n’est pas le premier viol dont elle est victime de la part du concubin de sa mère : elle est enceinte de 3 semaines (de gestation) ; elle n’a rien osé dire parce que son « beau-père », 34 ans, a menacé de tuer la mère et ses trois jeunes frères âgés de 3 à 10 ans.

Depuis un arrêt de la Cour suprême argentine déclarant l’avortement non poursuivable en cas de viol, il n’est plus nécessaire d’obtenir une décision de justice autorisant l’opération. Le viol fut donc dénoncé et la jeune fille et sa mère demandèrent que l’on mette fin à cette vie innocente qui n’était pour rien dans les abominables crimes subis par la jeune fille. Victime avant tout, il faut bien le dire, de la situation familiale où elle se trouvait – combien d’affaires de ce style impliquent des viols perpétrés par des « beaux-pères » venus compenser l’absence de mari ou remplacer un mari congédié !

Devant cette demande d’avortement une assistante chargée des mineurs a interposé une action en justice afin de « défendre la vie du fœtus », chose qui lui a été accordée le 17 décembre dernier par le juge des affaires familiales Victor Soria.

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Lire la suite: www.riposte-catholique.fr

(1) SALTA LOS JUECES DEJARON SIN EFECTO LA CAUTELAR Y PIDIERON QUE SE INVESTIGUE SU DESEMPEÑO
La Corte revocó el freno al aborto no punible - 28.12.13 La Corte dice que el juez Soria se apartó de la jurisprudencia, por lo que revocó su sentencia y lo manda a investigar. Leer más aquí: www.eltribuno.info

La critique thaïlandaise du système prétendument démocratique relève précisément de la dénonciation de cette « tyrannie invisible » qui manipule des foules crédules en les enfonçant dans un matérialisme niveleur.

Cette Thaïlande qui défie l’ordre mondial

par Eric Miné

Le ressort de cette crise procède d’une ligne de fracture qui est mondiale. 

La fuite en avant d’un système global libre-échangiste.

Il est un sujet d’étonnement embarrassé pour nos médias formatés qui pourrait bien faire demain les unes indignées de nos habituels bobardiers, tout chagrins de ne plus se rendre qu’en catimini sur leurs plages préférées.

S’il était de bon ton jusqu’ici de se gausser des « propositions fantaisistes » de Suthep Thaugsuban, ce tribun thaïlandais qui entend substituer un « Conseil du peuple » non élu au gouvernement de Yingluck Shinawatra dûment issu des urnes, l’inquiétude de nos directeurs de conscience est dorénavant palpable au vu d’une rébellion croissante que la proposition d’un scrutin anticipé n’apaise en rien. La puissante armée thaïe vient ainsi d’annoncer que « la porte [n’était] ni ouverte ni fermée » à l’option d’un coup d’État militaire. 

Les jours du pouvoir « légal » thaïlandais apparaissent donc comptés et, avec eux, ceux des élections si chères à nos « démocrates », qui voient ainsi s’accumuler de fâcheux nuages bruns sur leurs vacances ensoleillées.

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Lire la suite: www.bvoltaire.fr

"Le plus grand drame que vit la France aujourd'hui, c'est le fait qu'il y a 200.000 petits français qui meurent" (Cardinal Barbarin, le 25/12/13 sur Europe 1)

L’avortement, 

le plus grand drame de la France

BY MAXIMILIEN BERNARD

Voilà des propos politiquement incorrects du cardinal Barbarin, interrogé par Europe 1 à l’occasion de Noël, à propos du projet de loi espagnol imposant des restrictions à l’avortement :

Lire la suite: www.riposte-catholique.fr

What radicals like Saul Alinsky create is not salvation but chaos. And presidential disciples of Alinsky, what will they create?

Barack Obama’s Rules for Revolution 

The Alinsky Model

“We are five days away from fundamentally transforming

the United States of America.”  

- Barack Obama, election eve, 2008

Barack Obama is an enigma. 

He won the 2008 presidential election claiming to be a moderate and wanting to bring Americans together and govern from the center. 

But since he took office, his actions have been far from moderate. 

He has apologized to foreign dictators abroad for sins he alleges his own country committed and appointed a self-described communist (Van Jones) and an admirer of Mao Zedong to top White House posts.

He has used the economic crisis to take over whole industries and has attempted to nationalize the health care system. 

In his first nine months in office, these actions had already made his presidency one of the most polarizing in history

Many Americans have gone from hopefulness, through unease, to a state of alarm as the President shows a radical side that was only partially visible during his campaign. 

To understand Obama’s presidency, Americans need to know more about the man and the nature of his political ideas. 

In particular, they need to become familiar with a Chicago organizer named Saul Alinsky and the strategy of deception he devised to promote social change.

Of no other occupant of the White House can it be said that he owed his understanding of the political process to a man and a philosophy so outside the American mainstream, or so explicitly dedicated to opposing it. 

The pages that follow provide an analysis of the political manual that Saul Alinsky wrote, which outlines his method for advancing radical agendas. The manual was originally titled “Rules for Revolution” which is an accurate description of its content. 

Later, Alinsky changed the title to Rules for Radicals. 

After familiarizing themselves with its ideas, readers may want to reconsider what Obama may have meant on election eve 2008 when he told his followers: 

“We are five days away from fundamentally transforming 

the United States of America.”

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Download .pdf here: www.discoverthenetworks.org

Le paradis communiste chinois-admiré par nos élites- n'a pas aboli les camps de concentration: l'abolition des "laodong" ne signifie pas celle du "laogai"

Pourquoi la Chine n'en a pas fini avec le goulag

PAR PHILIPPE GRANGEREAU

CETTE ABOLITION SIGNIFIE-T-ELLE QU’IL N’Y A PLUS DE GOULAG EN CHINE?

L'abolition des camps de rééducation par le travail ne concerne qu'une partie du système carcéral chinois.

Les camps de rééducation fonctionnaient parallèlement à un système carcéral judiciaire qui, lui, demeure intact. Il emprisonne environ un million de détenus dans plusieurs centaines de camps, et sont eux aussi soumis en grande partie au travail forcé. 

Appelé «laogai» («réforme par le travail»), ce goulag chinois a été simplement rebaptisé «prison» dans les années 90, sans pour autant changer de nature. 

A la même époque, le «crime contre-révolutionnaire» servant à condamner les prisonniers d’opinion a été rebaptisé «crime de subversion du pouvoir de l’Etat». 

Le Prix Nobel de la Paix Liu Xiaobo a été condamné à 11 ans de prison sous ce chef d’accusation. 

«Le nombre de prisonniers d’opinion en Chine se chiffre en dizaines de milliers», note Bequelin.


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Lire la suite: www.liberation.fr