Posted on 09/13/2010 1:07:39 PM PDT by marshmallow
Pope Benedict XVI will this week urge the Government to protect religious freedoms to allow Christians to follow their beliefs.
In a speech to political and religious leaders in Westminster Hall, the Pontiff will deliver a thinly veiled attack on the perceived liberal direction of the country.
He will praise Britain's role in establishing religious liberty, but warn that it will suffer if it allows a secular agenda to destroy its Christian heritage.
Senior Roman Catholic sources said his message would be seen as a criticism of the introduction of equality laws that have impinged on the freedom of religious groups, although he will not directly refer to government policy.
A number of Christians have lost their jobs or faced disciplinary action for practising their faith at work by wearing a crucifix or sharing their views on biblical teaching.
The Pope will also use the visit to try to heal the rift with the Church of England following his offer last year to disaffected Anglicans to defect to Rome.
Writing in The Sunday Telegraph, the Most Rev Vincent Nichols, the leader of the Catholic Church in England and Wales, says Pope Benedict XVI will stress that religious belief should not be seen as divisive, but as "a source of energy and inspiration".
Archbishop Nichols added: "When we forget, minimise or even reject this inheritance, then we risk losing our profound identity and creating a vacuum of values at the heart of our society."
He described the visit as "an event of great cultural and historic resonance".
The Pope will travel to Edinburgh to meet the Queen on Thursday before going to London for his speech in Westminster Hall on Friday. It is being viewed as one of the major speeches of his Pontificate and it is understood that Pope Benedict plans......
(Excerpt) Read more at telegraph.co.uk ...
“Pope Benedict XVI will stress that religious belief should not be seen as divisive, but as “a source of energy and inspiration”. “
In contrast...
“Do not think that I have come to bring peace to the earth. I have not come to bring peace, but a sword. For I have come to set a man against his father, and a daughter against her mother, and a daughter-in-law against her mother-in-law. And a person’s enemies will be those of his own household.
Whoever loves father or mother more than me is not worthy of me, and whoever loves son or daughter more than me is not worthy of me. Andwhoever does not take his cross and follow me is not worthy of me. Whoever finds his life will lose it, and whoever loses his life for my sake will find it.”
Maybe Herr Benedict can visit Belgium next and get them to endorse what his guys have been doing to the children there.
The UK (establishment), has a lot to answer for. They bow and scrape regularly to Muslims/Islam, but Catholics get the back of the hand, cruel Irish jokes, and snide attacks on TV. For instance, last night’s Masterpiece Mystery was an Inspector Lewis mystery, and the plot involved a man with a brain tumor (who’d begun believing odd things, like going back to the Catholic Church! One has to be crazy to do that.)
He’s the first victim, so the cops get to be angry that the priest at St. Anne’s won’t reveal what the victim had revealed in confession. Inspector Lewis actually made a horrible face and a sound of nausea when he learned that the man had returned to the church. (Do we have a bigot here, hmm?)But the establishment church is ‘okay’, mostly because nobody believes in God anyway. Considering what the Brits did to Ireland and Northern Ireland, they should take a long look at their attitudes and behavior and consider what they’re teaching another generation.
The Christian message therefore, is not divisive per se. It is wholesome and unifying. It becomes divisive, however, when those who reject it come to see it as a threat and attempt to suppress it and persecute those who espouse it. It is about this which Jesus was prophesying.
It is man who makes divisions. God's desire is for unity.
OK, let's not try and defend religious freedom in Britain. Let's encourage the British government to take secularism to the next level. Would that be more acceptable?
Quite remarkable that such an apparently non-controversial headline should generate such animosity.
That’s an extremely mushy answer... marshmellow.
The Christian message is essentially divisive.
It is thoroughly divisive.
It is unavoidable divisive.
There are two ways, an those two ways don’t run parallel.
However, its fundamental message is not divisive in the sense that it's a message of salvation and love. God wants all men to be saved and He holds out his hand to all men. Furthermore, it's acceptance can bring enormous good to the world.
I think that's what the Archbishop was trying to say.
Another Kiss the Koran moment? Shared values and all that.
THE RULES
RULE ONE: "Rome" is the locus of all evil in the Universe.
RULE TWO: In case of doubt, see RULE ONE.
Corollary: "Rome" must be destroyed. All else is irrelevant
Some folks have made it plain, by their commentary and behaviour, that there is no meaningful or perceptible distinction between their actual motivation, and motivation according "Rule One" etc. above.
Such folk are to be regarded as having nothing useful to say on any topic.
"Some folks have made it plain, by their commentary and behaviour, that there is no meaningful or perceptible distinction between their actual motivation, and motivation according "Rule One" etc. above.
Emphasis added.
“Quite remarkable that such an apparently non-controversial headline should generate such animosity.”
Well, it involves the Pope, so in this case recommending that folks don’t bow down to a secular humanist state is a bad thing.
Freegards
I hope that in your professional life, your reasoning skills exceed the reasoning skills which you seem to display on this forum.
I do not need to know their "actual motivation". Quite the contrary. I need to identify their demonstrated behaviour, and to identify hypothetical behaviour based on "Rule One". I observe whether there is any distinction between their exhibited behaviour and the hypothetical or test behaviour. I report on the observations.
I noticed you didn't address the second part of my statement.
Learn to live with it.
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