August 21, 2014
(2Ti 3:1-3) Know also this, that in the last days shall come dangerous times. Men shall be lovers of themselves, covetous, haughty, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, ungrateful, wicked, Without affection, without peace, slanderers, incontinent, unmerciful, without kindness,...
CHALDEAN ARCHEPARCH OF MOSUL NONA: “Our sufferings are the prelude of those you, Europeans and Western Christians, will also suffer in the near future. I lost my diocese. The physical setting of myapostolate has been occupied by Islamic radicals who want us converted or dead. But my community is still alive.”
ICEJ: ISIS Issues Bloody Challenge as Recruitment Surges
The Islamic State (IS, formally ISIS) terror militia posted a video on Tuesday entitled "A Message To America," apparently showing the beheading of US journalist James Foley, who disappeared while covering the conflict in Syria two years ago. IS gunmen also appeared in the video threatening Steven Sotloff, another missing US journalist they claimed to be holding and declared that he would be executed next unless their demands, including a cessation of US military strikes on their positions in northern Iraq, were met. The authenticity of the video could not be immediately confirmed. Meanwhile, a leading Moslem cleric in Saudi Arabia declared IS to be an “enemy of Islam” on Tuesday, but the group continued to attract thousands of new recruits from all over the world, according to witnesses in Syria and Iraq.
Grand Mufti Sheikh Abdul Aziz Al Sheikh, Saudi Arabia’s most senior Sunni cleric, issued a public statement that IS and Al Qaeda were the worst enemies of Islam, adding that Moslems were always their first victims.
Despite this statement and similar proclamations from Moslem authorities in Egypt and other countries, the ranks of IS continue to swell. Witnesses in Raqqa, the IS stronghold in Syria, told Reuters this week that as many as 6,300 new recruits have joined IS in the last month, with many coming from other Islamist rebel groups which have been battling the regime of President Bashar Assad for the last three years.
Meanwhile, Islamist terrorist groups in other countries, including one in the Philippines, have pledged their allegiance to IS in recent days.
USA TODAY: Parents of beheaded journalist drawing on faith
Account after account describes the Foleys as determined, faithful people. After their son disappeared in 2012, they launched the FreeJamesFoley.org website to serve as a clearinghouse for information that might lead to his release. In October 2013, they joined Today's Matt Lauer to wish their still-in-captive son a happy 40th birthday and to keep his cause alive. Even when interviewers noted that Foley's career took him to many volatile places, his father was quick to defend him.
"He's not reckless," John Foley said. "He's been doing this conflict reporting for almost eight years."
The Foleys said Wednesday that their son was the oldest of their five children and that his attraction to reporting from wartorn areas came from having brothers who served in the military.
They appear to be family held together by faith. In their appearance in front of their home on Wednesday, John and Diane Foley made frequent references to God. Their local paper, Foster's Daily Democrat, reported that their pastor, Rev. Paul Gousse of Our Lady of the Holy Rosary, visited the family after word spread of Foley's death. Journalist Max Fisher of Vox described Foley as a person of quiet but strong faith.
Fisher said "Jim's faith was something we all agreed not to discuss publicly while he was held in Syria, but it was the wellspring of his generosity," Fox reported.
FROM THE MAILBAG
VIA Jim McCrea: What St. Thomas Aquinas said about Islam
"On the other hand, those who founded sects committed to erroneous doctrines proceeded in a way that is opposite to this. The point is clear in the case of Mohammed. He seduced the people by promises of carnal pleasure to which the concupiscence of the flesh goads us. His teaching also contained precepts that were in conformity with his promises, and he gave free rein to carnal pleasure. In all this, as is not unexpected, he was obeyed by carnal men. As for proofs of the truth of his doctrine, he brought forward only such as could be grasped by the natural ability of anyone with a very modest wisdom. Indeed, the truths that he taught he mingled with many fables and with doctrines of the greatest falsity. He did not bring forth any signs produced in a supernatural way, which alone fittingly gives witness to divine inspiration; for a visible action that can be only divine reveals an invisibly inspired teacher of truth. On the contrary, Mohammed said that he was sent in the power of his arms - which are signs not lacking even to robbers and tyrants. What is more, no wise men, men trained in things divine and human, believed in him from the beginning. Those who believed in him were brutal men and desert wanderers, utterly ignorant of all divine teaching, through whose numbers Mohammed forced others to become his followers by the violence of his arms. Nor do divine pronouncements on the part of preceding prophets offer him any witness. On the contrary, he perverts almost all the testimonies of the Old and New Testaments by making them into fabrications of his own, as can be seen by anyone who examines his law. It was, therefore, a shrewd decision on his part to forbid his followers to read the Old and New Testaments, lest these books convict him of falsity. It is clear that anyone who places any faith in his words believe foolishly."
St. Thomas Aquinas - Summa Contra Gentiles - From book 1 Chapter 6
EDITORIAL: WATCH: What Stands Behind the Cruelty of ISIS?
NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC REVIEW: Q&A: Why Sunni Extremists Are Destroying Ancient Religious Sites in Mosul
IRAQ UPDATE: CNEWA Rushes Aid to Displaced Iraqi Families
HEADLINES
A Priest's Eye-Witness Account of Fleeing the Islamic State
Islamic extremists launch attack on last Syrian army position in eastern province
Her Five Sisters Taken By ISIS to Be Sold or Worse
The Desert Fathers: sayings of the Early Christian Monks: Discretion
48. Poemen said, 'If a man sins and denies it, saying, 'I have not sinned," do not correct him, or you will destroy any intention he might have of changing. If you say, "do not be cast down, my brother, but be careful about that in the future," you will move his heart to repent.'
(2Ti 3:1-3) Know also this, that in the last days shall come dangerous times. Men shall be lovers of themselves, covetous, haughty, proud, blasphemers, disobedient to parents, ungrateful, wicked, Without affection, without peace, slanderers, incontinent, unmerciful, without kindness,...
CHALDEAN ARCHEPARCH OF MOSUL NONA: “Our sufferings are the prelude of those you, Europeans and Western Christians, will also suffer in the near future. I lost my diocese. The physical setting of myapostolate has been occupied by Islamic radicals who want us converted or dead. But my community is still alive.”
ICEJ: ISIS Issues Bloody Challenge as Recruitment Surges
The Islamic State (IS, formally ISIS) terror militia posted a video on Tuesday entitled "A Message To America," apparently showing the beheading of US journalist James Foley, who disappeared while covering the conflict in Syria two years ago. IS gunmen also appeared in the video threatening Steven Sotloff, another missing US journalist they claimed to be holding and declared that he would be executed next unless their demands, including a cessation of US military strikes on their positions in northern Iraq, were met. The authenticity of the video could not be immediately confirmed. Meanwhile, a leading Moslem cleric in Saudi Arabia declared IS to be an “enemy of Islam” on Tuesday, but the group continued to attract thousands of new recruits from all over the world, according to witnesses in Syria and Iraq.
Grand Mufti Sheikh Abdul Aziz Al Sheikh, Saudi Arabia’s most senior Sunni cleric, issued a public statement that IS and Al Qaeda were the worst enemies of Islam, adding that Moslems were always their first victims.
Despite this statement and similar proclamations from Moslem authorities in Egypt and other countries, the ranks of IS continue to swell. Witnesses in Raqqa, the IS stronghold in Syria, told Reuters this week that as many as 6,300 new recruits have joined IS in the last month, with many coming from other Islamist rebel groups which have been battling the regime of President Bashar Assad for the last three years.
Meanwhile, Islamist terrorist groups in other countries, including one in the Philippines, have pledged their allegiance to IS in recent days.
USA TODAY: Parents of beheaded journalist drawing on faith
Account after account describes the Foleys as determined, faithful people. After their son disappeared in 2012, they launched the FreeJamesFoley.org website to serve as a clearinghouse for information that might lead to his release. In October 2013, they joined Today's Matt Lauer to wish their still-in-captive son a happy 40th birthday and to keep his cause alive. Even when interviewers noted that Foley's career took him to many volatile places, his father was quick to defend him.
"He's not reckless," John Foley said. "He's been doing this conflict reporting for almost eight years."
The Foleys said Wednesday that their son was the oldest of their five children and that his attraction to reporting from wartorn areas came from having brothers who served in the military.
They appear to be family held together by faith. In their appearance in front of their home on Wednesday, John and Diane Foley made frequent references to God. Their local paper, Foster's Daily Democrat, reported that their pastor, Rev. Paul Gousse of Our Lady of the Holy Rosary, visited the family after word spread of Foley's death. Journalist Max Fisher of Vox described Foley as a person of quiet but strong faith.
Fisher said "Jim's faith was something we all agreed not to discuss publicly while he was held in Syria, but it was the wellspring of his generosity," Fox reported.
FROM THE MAILBAG
VIA Jim McCrea: What St. Thomas Aquinas said about Islam
"On the other hand, those who founded sects committed to erroneous doctrines proceeded in a way that is opposite to this. The point is clear in the case of Mohammed. He seduced the people by promises of carnal pleasure to which the concupiscence of the flesh goads us. His teaching also contained precepts that were in conformity with his promises, and he gave free rein to carnal pleasure. In all this, as is not unexpected, he was obeyed by carnal men. As for proofs of the truth of his doctrine, he brought forward only such as could be grasped by the natural ability of anyone with a very modest wisdom. Indeed, the truths that he taught he mingled with many fables and with doctrines of the greatest falsity. He did not bring forth any signs produced in a supernatural way, which alone fittingly gives witness to divine inspiration; for a visible action that can be only divine reveals an invisibly inspired teacher of truth. On the contrary, Mohammed said that he was sent in the power of his arms - which are signs not lacking even to robbers and tyrants. What is more, no wise men, men trained in things divine and human, believed in him from the beginning. Those who believed in him were brutal men and desert wanderers, utterly ignorant of all divine teaching, through whose numbers Mohammed forced others to become his followers by the violence of his arms. Nor do divine pronouncements on the part of preceding prophets offer him any witness. On the contrary, he perverts almost all the testimonies of the Old and New Testaments by making them into fabrications of his own, as can be seen by anyone who examines his law. It was, therefore, a shrewd decision on his part to forbid his followers to read the Old and New Testaments, lest these books convict him of falsity. It is clear that anyone who places any faith in his words believe foolishly."
St. Thomas Aquinas - Summa Contra Gentiles - From book 1 Chapter 6
EDITORIAL: WATCH: What Stands Behind the Cruelty of ISIS?
NATIONAL GEOGRAPHIC REVIEW: Q&A: Why Sunni Extremists Are Destroying Ancient Religious Sites in Mosul
IRAQ UPDATE: CNEWA Rushes Aid to Displaced Iraqi Families
HEADLINES
A Priest's Eye-Witness Account of Fleeing the Islamic State
Islamic extremists launch attack on last Syrian army position in eastern province
Her Five Sisters Taken By ISIS to Be Sold or Worse
The Desert Fathers: sayings of the Early Christian Monks: Discretion
48. Poemen said, 'If a man sins and denies it, saying, 'I have not sinned," do not correct him, or you will destroy any intention he might have of changing. If you say, "do not be cast down, my brother, but be careful about that in the future," you will move his heart to repent.'
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