H.O.P.E. What You Eat Matters (2018) - Full Documentary (Subs: FR/PT/ES/ZH)

H.O.P.E. The Project

Published on Mar 16, 2018
"H.O.P.E. What You Eat Matters" is a life-changing documentary uncovering and revealing the effects of our typical Western diet on our health, the environment and animals. Featuring Jane Goodall, T. Colin Campbell, Caldwell B. Esselstyn, Vandana Shiva, Melanie Joy and many other experts, the film has a clear message: By changing our eating habits, we can change the world!

For updates, newsletter sign up and more information visit our website: https://www.hope-theproject.com
H.O.P.E. The Project – Healing Of Planet Earth
Our vision is to create mass awareness about the vital importance of a whole-food, plant-based diet, ideally organic:
Living healthy
We opt for a healthier life. Eating a whole-food diet without animal products has the potential to prevent and reverse diseases and obesity, which improves our health and longevity.
Conservation of Nature and the Environment
We support the preservation of nature and the environment. An organic, plant-based diet conserves natural resources, saves biodiversity and helps to reduce our ecological footprint.
Protect animals
We protect the lives of countless animals and promote a more peaceful world in which people understand that all living beings are entitled to compassion, dignity and life.
We are committed to sharing our documentary "H.O.P.E. What You Eat Matters" with as many people as possible. This is why we provide the film free of charge!
Watch and realize: what you eat can change the world. That is our vision!

Threats of Murder Go Unpunished at Providence College

Anthony Esolen

This article is a continuation of the previous, written on behalf of Michael Smalanskas, the brave student at Providence College who posted a sign affirming reality: because the Catholic teaching that only a man and a woman can feasibly marry is but a plain recognition of what is biologically, physically, and anthropologically the case. We do not need special revelation to tell us that the sun rises in the east, that two and two are four, and that the congress of the sexes requires the sexes. But we live in a time of political madness.

So after Michael was threatened with rape, and had for several nights to walk a gauntlet just to go to the bathroom and brush his teeth, and after the president, Father Brian Shanley, refused to meet with him or his father, and he became a marked man on campus, what could possibly be worse?

A murder threat is worse.

Let us recall that, in the fall of 2016, the entire campus was in an uproar over allegations that racist epithets were cast at some women who were trying to enter a private residence where a party was going on, that it was a whites-only party, and that bottles were thrown at them. Eight students forthwith occupied Father Shanley’s office for thirteen hours, presenting him with a list of demands (called, in fact, “The Demands”) regarding courses, student life, hiring, and tenure. But as it turned out, it was not a whites-only party, there were no racist epithets, the leader of the girls was drunk, and the only bottle thrown was a plastic water bottle, half empty, nor could anybody determine who threw it from the balcony or whether it was tossed with any intent. The investigation ruined the whole next semester for the accused. When the associate vice president for student affairs, Kristine Goodwin, who conducted the trial, was asked whether the boys could be forgiven the offense of having a party, she refused. The girls who had disturbed the peace, who in the most charitable interpretation of events had been mistaken or had exaggerated, and who had wanted to take part in that same offense, were not reprimanded.

The professors who leapt to judgment against the boys never apologized. Goodwin did not apologize.

Now to the present, Thursday, May 17,2018.

Michael and his fiancee are at Foxwoods Casino for the senior dance. The event is not cheap. He is seated at table with people he does not know, but who know him, because, after what the college allowed and subtly encouraged, everybody knows him. A young man at the table, Alec Manfre, demands that Michael and his fiancee leave. Others at the table say they want him gone too. Michael, who has paid for his and his fiancee’s dinners, declines the invitation. Manfre begins to grow obnoxious, and invites Michael to step into another room, where they have words, and he calls Michael things I will not repeat. Michael says he is just there to enjoy himself, and the whole controversy need not come up.

Meanwhile, a young man named Harry Verenis approaches them and says, “What’s your address? I want your address, because I want to come get you. I want to come stab you, because that’s what you deserve. You deserve to be stabbed for being so ignorant.” The language was more colorful than that, of course. Manfre then joined in, and Michael finally had to tell them to do something right there and get it over with, after which they backed off.

Michael Smalanskas was threatened with murder—for being normal, and for not wanting to hide under a bushel or a mountain the Church’s understanding that the sun rises in the east, two and two make four, and it takes a man and a woman to make a marriage.

He went immediately to one of the Dominicans in attendance, then to the Connecticut police, and the security at Providence College.

The next morning he sent a message to Goodwin, Father Shanley, Father Sicard (the executive vice-president), and Steve Sears (Dean of Students), informing them of what had happened at the casino. “I told them,” he writes, “they were each personally responsible for this occurring, given that they [had] created an environment where this [was] tolerated and encouraged.” A hostile environment in the proper sense of the word: violent assault. Michael demanded, reasonably, that Manfre and Verenis be forbidden to march at graduation, “seeing as others have been given this sentence for much less.”

Did the campus move into action? It is to laugh. Says Michael, “I received a cold, careless e-mail back from Kristine Goodwin on behalf of the group, saying they had been made aware of the situation. A no-contact order was placed on [Verenis]. She said [the complaint] would go to Community Standards from there, and to let her know if she could be of any assistance.”

Would that be assistance before or after the student made good on his threat?

That evening, Friday, May 18, Michael received an e-mail from Sears and from Public Safety, essentially saying that everything was fine. The complaint would be processed after graduation on May 20. The message was written by the college’s legal counsel. In Michael’s opinion, the campus security were taking the threat seriously, “but the college wanted nothing to do with it.”

We come to Saturday morning, May 19, some 36 hours or more after the threat. It’s the awards ceremony, and Michael is to receive the prize for top student in theology, and another for excellence in philosophy. After the ceremony he is standing outside and Goodwin passes by. He calls her name, but she ignores him. Then he says, “You should be ashamed of yourself. I was threatened with murder and you did nothing about it. You can live with that for the rest of your life.”

That is all. He said this in public. Witnesses can vouch for it.

Later, he is informed that unless he apologizes to Goodwin for “threatening” her, he will not be allowed to march at graduation. So he has to leave the celebration to go to the safety office, where he declines the honor of apologizing for something he did not do. At 10 PM he is informed that he will be permitted to walk, but only because Goodwin had acquired a bodyguard for the day, to sit with her on the stage. There would also be plain-clothes policemen all around, ready to haul him out of there if he so much as flinched. No guards, apparently, on the lookout for Manfre and Verenis.

This restraining order continues in force, and that Michael will be barred from the college for making Goodwin feel “threatened.” It is a classic case of bad conscience and projection. I must pause to untangle the contradictions. Goodwin was pleased to monitor (and encourage) a large and unprecedented protest against a single faculty member (me), and it never occurred to her then that protesters can grow violent even after a protest is over, or that somebody might feel threatened by being so targeted. I didn’t—but my wife did, very much so, on my behalf. Goodwin never wrote to Michael to offer him support when he was threatened with rape. She never moved to discipline the students who congregated in his hall after hours. She did not forbid the assaulter to march at graduation. Of course not. When you give your heart and soul to politics, you lose your sense of decency, proportion, plain dealing, and human kindness. It does not matter what the politics is.

Michael did nothing wrong. His championing of the truth of marriage is only what Father Shanley and Father Sicard themselves should be doing, frankly and simply. That should not be left to a lone student, and when he does their job, he should not be treated as a criminal.

Let’s go over this again. A student is made the object of universal loathing, at a supposedly Catholic college, for a poster that did nothing but affirm that the sun rises in the east, two and two are four, and it takes a man and a woman to make a marriage. These are my words: his poster was entirely affirmative, condemned nobody, and employed not one satirical word or glance. He is harassed in his dormitory and threatened with rape. The president will not meet with him or his father. Then at the senior dance he is harassed and threatened with murder. The college does a big nothing. When, forty hours later, he accuses the dean of student affairs of being indifferent to the threat, she accuses him instead and threatens to bar him from graduation, the same graduation where all of the offending students, including Manfre and Verenis, would be marching without consequence.

There is only one explanation for all of this. The people in charge of Providence College do not actually believe that it takes a man and a woman to make a marriage. So anybody who upholds the truth publicly ought to pay. That is why I am told they are backing, to be the new Dean of Diversity and Inclusion, a woman who boasts that she left her husband, whom she says she loved, to carry on sexual affairs with other women. She is now “married” as a lesbian. Meanwhile marriage is sinking like a ball of lead in the deep blue sea, and they do not care. They are on the right side of history, they suppose. I cannot find that right side in Scripture.

It is as if the whole misery-making Sexual Revolution had passed overhead like a little white cloud, leaving behind nothing but good cheer and solid families and children born within the strong haven of marriage, and the culture roundabout were full of wholesomeness, and—and to hell with it. It was the most calamitous mistake of my lifetime, and I and everyone who grew up in its midst have been harmed by it. To hell with it. And as for Catholic schools that capitulate to it—let God judge. He is just, and is not to be fooled by our slogans.

(Photo credit: Michael Smalanskas)

https://www.crisismagazine.com/2018/threats-murder-go-unpunished-providence-college

Good News: God Didn’t Make This Mess--Homosexuality

Good News: God Didn’t Make This Mess

Fr. Timothy V. Vaverek

Fr. Timothy V. Vaverek writes that God does not make us sin, although He permits us to choose sin. And our sins are the reason for the Incarnation of Christ.

Pope Francis is reported to have told a homosexual, “God made you that way and loves you.” In the last six months, I have responded to the miscarriage of a three-month-old baby, the sudden death of a hospice nurse due to an aneurism, and the terminal diagnosis of a middle-aged husband and father. In these situations, I have continually insisted on God’s love and providence. I have never said God made it happen.

One of the most astonishing features of the Biblical creation account is that the entire cosmos is declared “very good.” This flies in the face of human experience. In fact, the creation myths of many cultures hold that good and evil are inherent elements of human nature and the world order. It is the way things are made.

Genesis corrects this error by revealing that evil is not rooted in creation, but in humanity’s abusive decision to turn away from God, one another, and God’s created order through sin. At the same time, the account of the Fall of Adam and Eve unfolds in the context of God’s continual love and providential care in the face of sin and the evils unleashed by it.

The Scriptures tell the story of God opening a path to salvation that frees us from the effects of personal sin and the evils that befall us so that we might fully share His divine life through nuptial union with Christ. In Jesus, we discover that God foretold this saving union when He created the human race as sexually differentiated persons united in indissoluble marriage. (Mt. 19:56, Gen. 2:24, Is. 62:5, Eph. 5:31-32)

Despite the fallen nature of the human race and the cosmos, therefore, we can still affirm that God created us and loves us. But we cannot simply say, “God made me this way.” If “this way” refers to the image and likeness of the Trinity and the calling to be a member of the body and bride of Christ, then the statement is true. If “this way” refers to the ill-effects of the messed-up world or of our personal sin, then the statement is false.

God loves sinners, the handicapped, the sick, the mentally ill, the imprisoned, the enslaved, the abused, the starving, the doubting, the grieving, the dying, etc. In some cases, these people contributed to their situation, in others they did not. God loves them all, but He has not made them that way.

It can be said truly that God tolerates these situations since, evidently, He chooses not to enter into history to prevent these particular wrongs from happening. The nature of this toleration, however, warrants our careful attention. It is not indifference, acceptance, or welcoming. It is a “bearing with” (Latin: toleratio) or a “suffering with” (Latin: compassio).

*

The full revelation of God’s compassionate toleration of sin and the effects of evil is found in the passion, death, and glorification of Jesus. Precisely because Jesus loved us with the Father’s love, He carried in his humanity the burden of all the ill that we do and that we bear. In doing so, He made our innocent and culpable sufferings a place of encountering God and his love, that is, a place of conversion, healing, and communion.

God brings about our salvation, our “well-being” (Latin: salus), not by preventing, denying, or eradicating evil at each moment, but by fundamentally altering our relation to it through our union with Christ. He thereby enables us to carry and suffer every form of evil that afflicts us and others without entering into further sin.

This is the Good News we have been sent to live and to proclaim: “God did not make us the way we are and He loves us. That is why He carried the burden of the sins and evils that distort our lives and invites us to carry that burden with him. He wishes to espouse us to himself so that we might share his divine life now and forever. And I love you enough to tell you this.”

Experiencing same-sex attraction, being divorced by a spouse, feeling a compulsion to abuse others, having an addiction, and the myriad of other troubles of body, psyche, and soul that we face as members of the fallen human race are not made better by being declared the handiwork of God. Nor, of course, are they helped by being treated as sins if we have not deliberately willed them or if we have repented of the sin that gave rise to them.

What is helpful, indeed the only thing ultimately able to sustain us, is the truth about our fallen, sometimes sinful, condition and the union that God offers us in Christ. That union requires, as Jesus said, that we take up the Cross daily. We do so by acknowledging our sins, our distorted inclinations, the burden of evil in our lives and the lives of those we love, and by carrying those with Christ who first carried them for us. Because of this union, we can carry these burdens without yielding to sin.

That is the Gospel. It is not something to hide or to evade. We are called to announce it unambiguously to the world. Consequently, when our witness to Jesus is misunderstood we are obliged to take reasonable steps to offer a correction.

Were a priest to be misquoted about the Gospel in the local paper or by a parishioner publicly recounting a private meeting, the priest would need to remedy the error. I have myself faced this situation.

The solution is simple and involves no accusation of deception or violation of confidence. A priest need only say, “The position attributed to me is mistaken. It mischaracterizes (or contradicts) the Gospel of Christ that I profess. I regret any misunderstanding and am happy to clarify the matter.”

To do less would harm those misled by the report. Besides, my brother, a priest, would charitably but firmly insist on it.

*Image: “Go and sin no more.” The Woman Taken in Adultery by Lorenzo Lotto, c. 1528 [Louvre, Paris]

© 2018 The Catholic Thing. All rights reserved. For reprint rights, write to: info@frinstitute.org The Catholic Thing is a forum for intelligent Catholic commentary. Opinions expressed by writers are solely their own.

Globally Banned Ingredients You Can Find on U.S. Grocery Shelves

For reasons that continue to frustrate many, the U.S. government and the U.S. Food and Drug Administration are extremely reluctant in their efforts to ban or remove certain ingredients from the market, even when hundreds of other countries are taking the lead in doing so. Most Americans would be shocked to learn of the potential hazards in so many of the products they regularly consume.

Being informed about your food options can help you make better choices for your health. Consider the following ingredients that are banned from the shelves and plates of those in other countries, but continue to perpetrate America.

Farmed Salmon
As their name details, farm-raised salmon are removed from their natural habitat to be filled with unnatural GMO grains and harmful toxins, contaminants that cause the flesh of the salmon to become a ghostly gray color, the Natural News Blog reported. One of the more serious synthetics found in these fish is astaxanthin.

Wild salmon has the proper dark pink coloring that is indicative of a healthy, natural fish. Sockeye salmon and Alaskan salmon are your best bet if consuming this fish, since these two species are not allowed to be farmed.

Banned in: New Zealand and Australia.

Soft Drink Chemical BVO
There's good reason that soft drinks like orange soda and Mountain Dew look anything but natural. Their bright, nearly neon-coloring should be an immediate red flag yet Americans continue to consume these highly toxic liquids at an alarming rate. According to Statistica, within a seven day period in 2017, 24.89 million people in the U.S. guzzled Mountain Dew.

"Data from one week of 2017 showed that 24.89 million people drank Mountain Dew."

According to Business Insider, the reason that these and similar sodas are able to hold such vibrant coloring is because of an ingredient known as BVO or, brominated vegetable oil. This oil enables the liquid to hold the unique coloring through means of its key ingredient, a flame retardant chemical. This chemical can also be found in carpets, woven in to prevent them from catching fire in the home. In humans, this toxin has been shown to cause damage to the endocrine and nervous system, as well as interfere with reproduction and behavior.

Banned in: Japan, the EU and 100 more countries.

Partially Hydrogenated Oils
Another ingredient that should signal danger due to its unnatural coloring is partially hydrogenated oils. Known as PHOs to most, these chemicals are most often found in candies and frostings, but also in things like frozen pizza to help them keep longer, according to Good Housekeeping. But as most informed consumers should know, any food that is pumped with ingredients causing it to last longer than its natural shelf life are best avoided. 

IHS Markit reported that though the U.S. announced that PHOs were considered unsafe and not fit for human consumption in 2015 and Denmark banned the chemical as early as 2004, it still won't be completely phased out in America until June of this year. As a result, PHOs are still in many products filling your grocery store shelves. Your best bet is to check labels for yourself.

Banned in: Denmark.

Arsenic-Laced Chicken
According to Consumer Health Digest, there is a method that not only makes animals grow faster, but also creates a falsehood of how fresh the flesh is. Drugs laced with arsenic are commonly used to promote growth, especially among chickens. This chemical makes the animal meat appear pink and naturally fresh, though quite the opposite is true. It's also used to combat an intestinal parasitic disease in these animals called coccidiosis.

While Hallelujah Diet promotes a primarily raw, plant-based diet, if you do choose to consume meat, ensure that you are very selective of where it is coming from. The aforementioned drug is a known carcinogen, Natural News blog explained.

Banned in: the EU.

Much of the chicken sold today is laced with arsenic. 

Ractopamine-Tainted Meat
Perhaps one of the most shocking drugs still approved for use in feeding and growing pigs in the U.S. is ractopamine – a chemical banned by 160 other countries around the world, Live Science reported. No matter how careful you are to avoid purchasing pork containing this chemical, staying vigilant may be near impossible. That is because it is approximated that between 60 percent to 80 percent of pigs used for food production in the U.S. contain ractopamine.

The safety of this drug, categorized under beta-agonists, has always been met with many concerns. When it was originally approved by the FDA, it had only been tested in one study – a study that included just six men, all of whom were healthy. The FDA did later accuse ractopamine's sponsor company of failing to provide information on the drug's efficacy and safety. Moreover, the FDA has since linked ractopamine to nearly a quarter-million incidences of pigs falling ill or dying, Live Science reported.

Banned in: Nearly everywhere except the U.S.

Olestra
Also known as Olean, this fat-free food additive is found in nearly all of the French fries and chips Americans consume today, Desert News reported. It was first approved by the FDA 22 years ago and was intended to be used in place of butter or cooking oil. It was later discovered however, that this chemical prohibits the body's ability to effectively absorb essential vitamins. It was also found to interfere with the digestive system, causing cramping and bloating, among other side effects.

Banned in: the U.K. and Canada.

By sticking to a primarily raw, plant-based diet, you can avoid nearly all of these banned ingredients in the first place.

http://www.myhdiet.com/healthnews/health-news/globally-banned-ingredients-you-can-find-on-u-s-grocery-shelves/

Being Nice Isn’t Good Enough

Fr. Jerry J. Pokorsky

We often hear that religion is a very private matter. It’s a nice sentiment. It’s inclusive and non-judgmental. And nice non-religious people are really quite pleasant to be around. Catholics can be nice people too. We drive to work to nice offices—I walk to work from a nice rectory—and we return to our households with a nice “live and let live attitude.” And nice people keep religion to themselves, aside from a pious bumper sticker or two.

The other day I found myself pondering a WWII photograph. It’s a famous picture, maybe you’ve seen it. A German soldier is about to execute a Jewish prisoner and the body of the prisoner will soon tumble into a mass grave. About a dozen soldiers are looking on. The facial expression of the executioner is not particularly cruel but it is matter-of-fact. The face of the prisoner, a split second before the soldier would pull the trigger, is angry and defiant. The prisoner doesn’t look like a very nice man.

I zoomed in to view the faces of the bystanders. They are all soldiers, but they could have been people like you and me. I didn’t see expressions of horror. I didn’t see any of them averting their eyes. Nobody is weeping or expressing distress. And if any of them are praying they are keeping their religion to themselves. Individually, they look like they could be very nice people.

A couple of soldiers appear curious and attentive. One is stretching his neck to get a better look. Others seem to be bored. But all eyes are on the scene of the impending execution—a bullet in the back of the head. There’s a time for war, and there’s a time for peace, and there’s even time for entertainment. And this is high entertainment in the execution of Jews in the midst of the prison camp boredom. Taken as a whole, I saw sheep.

After the war many of the soldiers probably lived happily ever after, allowing for the pain of reconstruction.  In time, what they witnessed and what they did likely became distant memories. Perhaps they could take comfort in saying to themselves that at least they did not pull the trigger. Or they pulled the trigger with reluctant necessity. Life in the close quarters of Army barracks can be uncomfortable if there are divisive and polarizing views. Disrupting the process wouldn’t be nice. It’s nicer to have unity in the community, as spectators, allowing the cruelties of war to go without comment.

After pondering the picture for about ten minutes, I averted my eyes. As I said, the image isn’t particularly horrifying. The soldier had yet to pull the trigger, but I had a thought that became difficult to bear. The more I pondered the faces, the more I was able to see my own face among those soldiers. I saw the faces of my parishioners among them as well. Except for the angry face of the prisoner, they looked like nice people and we’re nice people. We are also sheep.

Catholics make up only 25 percent of the U.S. population. And most of us live as if religion is a very private thing. It’s nice to have unity in the community. So it’s tempting to suggest that we good Catholics had nothing to do with the moral collapse of our culture. It must have been somebody else, those people. We didn’t pull the trigger. We’re not executioners. We’re nice people. And we belong to the flock of Jesus.

But if Jesus the Good Shepherd defines his flock, one would think that 25 percent of our culture would be recognizably Catholic. So what went wrong? Maybe too many of us are huddling in the barracks of our workplaces, our families. Pretending that if we have our families in order—a continuing holy imperative—we need not busy ourselves with the plight of our neighbors. Families, like religion, we may insist, are very private things.

Or maybe we’ve reduced our faith to a spectator sport. So we look on with fascination as others pull the trigger. Because expressing disapproval wouldn’t be nice. And we might be accused of hate for identifying and opposing sinful behavior. A few of us—Catholics in very high places—are actually pulling the triggers, executing the enemies of progress. Regardless, the gunshots coming from the camps or the smoke belching from the ovens somehow happen without us. Religion is a very private thing. And it’s not nice to be divisive.

In truth, we are all visible members of a flock of sheep. The defining flock is either the polite company of our social or political circles or the flock of Jesus. What we believe is observable, verifiable, and points to our shepherd, whoever he or she is. So our religion and our morality really are not private. And our professed Catholic faith indicts us when we really belong to another flock.

Except for Confession, the Catholic faith is not at all private. And the Catholic faith is not a spectator sport. The Good Shepherd directs and defines us because we are the valuable sheep of his flock. We are his witnesses. Our job is to be nice and faithful sheep, but when there is a conflict, to cluster around the Shepherd, to be truly faithful in the face of adversity.

At the moment we still have the freedom in this country to punch back—even beyond a pious bumper sticker or two—and to reclaim our membership in Christ’s flock. A few modest suggestions:

• Risk alienating friends and family by using words like fornication, adultery, sodomy, immorality, and perversion when the subjects invariably come up at social gatherings.
• Write your pastor or bishop and asking him to replace his use of “transgendered” with “surgically mutilated”—and while you’re at it ask him never to use the word “gay” except in quotation marks.
• Write monthly letters to the editor (wherever) pushing back on the Sexual Revolution.
• Cancel cable TV and let people know why (other than saving a few bucks).
• Take on your Congressman for his pro-abortion and pro-“gay” voting record and don’t let up when you fail.

With Jesus as the Good Shepherd, “Do not be afraid of those who kill the body but cannot kill the soul.” (Mt 10:28)

https://www.crisismagazine.com/2018/nice-good-enough

Editor’s note: Pictured above is a 1941 photo taken by an Einsatzgruppen (SS) soldier titled “Last Jew of Vinnitsa” (Ukraine).

The Church and Islam: Nostalgia for the Sixties

William Kilpatrick

I recently received an email from a reader who took issue with my skeptical view of Islam. Between 1963 and 1965, he worked for the Peace Corps in a Muslim area of Nigeria. He came away from the experience convinced that “all people are basically the same” and “all want the same basic things.” Cultural differences, he maintained, were merely surface phenomena.

His view is common among people who came of age in the Sixties and Seventies. And, since many of our society’s controlling narratives were developed in that period, that optimistic view is still widespread. But times change, even if narratives don’t.

For example, the reality in Nigeria today is quite different from what my correspondent experienced in the mid-1960s. It no longer seems that all want the “same basic things.” In fact, many Muslims want to deny Christians some of those basics – such as the right to worship in peace, and even the right to life.

Bishop Joseph Bagobiri of Kafanchan (in northwestern Nigeria) reports that in his diocese alone: “53 villages burned down, 808 people murdered and 57 wounded, 1422 houses and 16 Churches destroyed.” Moreover, last year a report by the International Society for Civil Liberties and the Rule of Law revealed that 16,000 Christians had been murdered in Nigeria since June 2015.

What’s happening in Nigeria has been happening all over the Muslim world. Open Doors USA reports that globally some 215-million Christians face severe persecution, mostly at the hands of Muslims. The question is, which is the real Islam: the peaceable Islam experienced by my correspondent in the mid-Sixties or the aggressive Islam of today?

In the context of Islam’s 1,400 years of aggression, the relatively peaceful interval that began with the dissolution of the Ottoman Empire in the early 20^th century seems to be the aberration. At the time my correspondent worked for the Peace Corps in Nigeria, the Muslim world was far more moderate than it is today or was in the past. The Islam he experienced was a marked departure from traditional Islam.

Some of the flavor of that period is captured in an article in the Chronicle of Higher Education by Ali A. Allawi, a former Iraqi cabinet minister:

I was born into a mildly observant Muslim family in Iraq. At that time, the 1950s, secularism was ascendant among the political, cultural, and intellectual elites of the Middle East. It appeared to be only a matter of time before Islam would lose whatever hold it still had on the Muslim world. Even that term – “Muslim world” – was unusual, as Muslims were more likely to identify themselves by their national, ethnic, or ideological affinities than by their religion.

The face of Islam in Nigeria

In short, Muslim societies were more moderate in those days because they were moving away from Islam. As Allawi notes: “To an impressionable child, it was clear that society was decoupling from Islam. Though religion was a mandatory course in school, nobody taught us the rules of prayer or expected us to fast during Ramadan. We memorized the shorter verses of the Koran, but the holy book itself was kept on the shelf or in drawers, mostly unread.”

The more moderate Muslim world of the last century was not the result of deeper piety, but rather of increased secularization. There are still remnants of that moderation in Muslim lands, but it should be clear to anyone who is paying attention to current events that traditional, by-the-book Islam is once again ascendant. Mini-skirts are no longer worn in Tehran and Kabul as they were in the Seventies, and the hijab has made a comeback almost everywhere in the Muslim world. In other words, the process of secularization has been reversed.

The amazing thing is that much of the Western world hasn’t caught up with the changes. Why? Perhaps because the return of 7^thcentury Islam undercuts the multicultural belief that all cultures share the same values. Hence, many prefer to think that the Muslim world is still much the same as it was in the days of King Farouk and the Shah of Iran – that relatively brief moment when “secularism was ascendant.”

Unfortunately, one of the important organizations that still lives in the past in regard to Islam is the Catholic Church. Many in the Church seem to think and act as though it’s still 1965, and that Nostra Aetate (which was promulgated in 1965) is still the last word on Islam.

The section on the “Moslems” in Nostra Aetate reflects the multicultural notion that cultural differences are unimportant, and that all people have the same basic desires. Thus, the writers of the document took pains to emphasize the similarities between Christianity and Islam, even going so far as to suggest that the two faiths share the same moral values.

Of course, it’s nearly impossible to ignore the radicalization that so many Muslims have undergone since 1965. But in their anxiety to preserve the Nostra Aetate “narrative” about Islam, Church leaders have found a way to get around this inconvenient fact.  Muslims who persecute and terrorize non-Muslims are said to have “distorted” or “perverted” their religion because, in the words of Pope Francis,“authentic Islam and a proper understanding of the Koran are opposed to every form of violence.”

Indeed, as recently as March 16, Pope Francis told the head of the Organization of Islamic Cooperation that there is no link between Islam and terrorism. On other occasions, the pope had even said that the remedy for radicalization is for Muslims to go deeper into their faith, and find guidance in the Koran. That, of course, is the very opposite of Allawi’s first-hand observation that moderation is the result not of deepened faith, but of “decoupling from Islam.”

Church leaders are still clinging to a view of Islam that should have gone out with the Seventies. Unless and until they acquire a longer view of Islam, they will continue to be part of the problem rather than part of the solution.

https://www.thecatholicthing.org/2018/04/19/the-church-and-islam-nostalgia-for-the-sixties/

© 2018 The Catholic Thing. All rights reserved. For reprint rights, write to: info@frinstitute.org The Catholic Thing is a forum for intelligent Catholic commentary. Opinions expressed by writers are solely their own.

An Exorcist Describes Death, Judgement, and Our Everlasting Life Fr. Gabriele Amorth

An Exorcist Describes Death, Judgement, and Our Everlasting Life

Fr. Gabriele Amorth

Heaven, the Kingdom of Love

I wish to include some basic notions of Christian eschatology, which, because of the Resurrection of Christ give a reason for great hope to everyone — in particular, to those who suffer from evil spells. Our life, our earthly pilgrimage, and our suffering are not the fruit of a blind randomness; rather, they are ordered for our greater good and definitive friendship with God.

Let us begin, then, precisely from paradise, the final goal and the reason for which we have been created. “Those who die in God’s grace and friendship and are perfectly purified live for ever with Christ. They are like God for ever, for they ‘see him as he is,’ face to face,” (CCC 1023).

Our Faith guarantees that in paradise we shall enjoy the vision of God; that is, we shall become participants in that same happiness that the divine Persons enjoy among themselves:

“The life of the blessed consists in the full and perfect possession of the fruits of the redemption accomplished by Christ. He makes partners in his heavenly glorification those who have believed in him and remained faithful to his will. Heaven is the blessed community of all who are perfectly incorporated into Christ” (CCC, no. 1026).

A question arises spontaneously: What need did the Trinity have for creatures, for men and angels, when It was already perfect and absolutely sufficient in Itself? The Trinity did it solely out of love, gratuitous and unconditional love for us. The advantage is solely ours: love, joy, and happiness, for all, in paradise.

There are degrees of participation in the joy and love of God. This degree of rank is given according to the level of sanctity each person has reached during his lifetime: the joy of St. Francis of Assisi, for example, will be different from that of the good thief. There is a difference between men on earth, and there will be a difference in paradise.

It is similar to what happens with the stars in heaven: there are those that shine brighter and those that shine a little less. So also it will be with men in the glorious resurrection: all of us shall be resplendent, but each one with a different proportion. Each one will have that maximum of splendor and happiness that he is personally capable of, based on how he has lived his life. Some will have a greater capacity and others less, but without envy or jealousy toward each other.

Indeed, each one will know complete joy. A verse from Dante’s Divine Comedy comes to mind: “In his will is our peace.” In paradise there is no jealousy; each one is in the will of God, and in His will there is peace. Eternal peace is definitive, where each tear, each sorrow, and all envy will be wiped away.

The Souls in Purgatory

Purgatory is the place, or, better, the state to which come the souls that have need of a purification and therefore have not been immediately admitted to contemplate the face of God. This purification is necessary in order to arrive at sanctity, the condition that heaven requires. The Catechism speaks of the souls in purgatory: “All who die in God’s grace and friendship, but still imperfectly purified, are indeed assured of their eternal salvation; but after death they undergo purification, so as to achieve the holiness necessary to enter the joy of heaven” (no. 1030).

This article is from a chapter in An Exorcist Explains the Demonic.

We can understand that there are gradations or diverse states in purgatory; each one accommodates the situation of the soul that arrives there. There are the lower strata, more terrible because they are closer to hell, and the more elevated that are less terrible because they are much closer to the happiness of paradise. The level of purification is linked to this state.

The souls in purgatory are in a state of great suffering. We know, in fact, that they can pray for us and that they can obtain many graces for us, but they can no longer merit anything for themselves. The time for meriting graces finishes with death.

Purged souls can, however, receive our help in order to abbreviate their period of purification. This occurs in a powerful way through our prayers, with the offering of our sufferings, paying attention at Mass, specifically at funerals or at Gregorian Masses, celebrated for thirty consecutive days.

This last practice was introduced by St. Gregory the Great in the sixth century, inspired by a vision he had of a confrere who died without confessing himself and, having gone to purgatory, appeared to him, asking him to celebrate some Masses in his favor. The pope celebrated them for thirty days. At that point, the deceased appeared to him again, happy for having been admitted to paradise. One must take care: this does not mean that it will always work this way: that would be a magical attitude, unacceptable and erroneous toward a sacrament. In fact, it is solely God who decides these matters when He wills it through His divine mercy.

On the subject of Masses, it is necessary to say that they can be applied to a particular deceased, but, at the last moment, it is God who destines them to those who have a real need. For example, I often celebrate Masses for my parents, whom I believe in my conscience are already in paradise. Only God in His mercy will destine the benefits of my Masses to those who have more need, each one according to the criteria of justice and goodness reached during his life.

Regarding all that I have said, I wish warmly to advise that it is better to expiate suffering in this life and become a saint than, in a minimalist way, to aspire to purgatory, where the pains are long-lasting and heavy.

The Pains of Hell

The book of Revelation says that “the great dragon was thrown down, that ancient serpent, who is called the Devil and Satan, the deceiver of the whole world — he was thrown down to the earth, and his angels were thrown down with him” (Rev. 12:9).

Why were they hurled down to the earth? Because the punishment they were given is that of persecuting men, trying to lead them to eternal hell, rendering them their unfortunate companions for an eternity of suffering and torment.

How can this drama, which involves everyone, enter into the plans of God? As we have said, the next reason is the liberty granted by God to His creatures. Certainly we know that the mission of Satan and his acolytes is to ruin man, to seduce him, to lead him toward sin, and to distance him from the full participation in divine life, to which we have all been called, which is paradise.

Then there is hell, the state in which the demons and the condemned are distanced from the Creator, the angels, and the saints in a permanent and eternal condition of damnation. Hell, after all, is self-exclusion from communion with God. As the Catechism states: “We cannot be united with God unless we freely choose to love him. But we cannot love God if we sin gravely against him, against our neighbor or against ourselves” (no. 1033). The one who dies in mortal sin without repenting goes to hell; in an impenitent way, he has not loved. It is not God who predestines a soul to hell; the soul chooses it with the way [the person] has lived his life.

We have some stories about hell that, because they are taken from private revelations or experiences, do not bind the faithful, but, nevertheless, have a notable value. I have spoken on more occasions in my books and in my interviews of the experience of St. Faustina Kowalska, who in her diary writes of her spiritual journey to hell.

It is shocking.

Stories and visions like these have to make us reflect. For this reason Our Lady of Fatima said to the seers: “Pray and offer sacrifices; too many souls go to hell because there is no one to pray and offer sacrifices for them.”

Being in the kingdom of hate, damned souls are subjected to the torment of the demons and to the sufferings they reciprocally inflict on one another. In the course of my exorcisms I have understood that there is a hierarchy of demons, just as there is with angels. More than once I have found myself involved with demons who were possessing a person and who demonstrated a terror toward their leaders.

One day, after having done many exorcisms on a poor woman, I asked the minor demon who was possessing her: “Why don’t you go away?” And he replied: “Because if I go away from here, my leader, Satan, will punish me.” There exists in hell a subjugation dictated by terror and hatred. This is the abysmal contrast with paradise, the place where everyone loves one another and where, if a soul sees someone holier, that soul is immensely happy because of the benefit it receives from the happiness of another.

Some say that hell is empty. The response to this affirmation is found in chapter 25 of Matthew’s Gospel, where it speaks of the Last Judgment: the upright will go to eternal life and the others, the cursed, will go to the eternal fire. We can certainly hope that hell is empty, because God does not wish the death of a sinner but that he convert and live (see Ezek. 33:11). For this He offers His mercy and saving grace to each one. In the Gospel of John Jesus says: “If you forgive the sins of any, they are forgiven; if you retain the sins of any, they are retained” (John 20:23); thus He insists on our continuous conversion supported by the grace of the sacraments, in particular the sacrament of Penance.

Returning to the question of hell, whether it is empty or not: unfortunately, I fear that many souls go there, all those who per­severe in their choice of distancing themselves from God to the end. Let us meditate often on this. Pascal said it well: “Meditation on hell has filled paradise with saints.”

The Judgment on Life

The Catechism speaks of the particular judgment: “The New Testament speaks of judgment primarily in its aspect of the final encounter with Christ in his second coming, but also repeatedly affirms that each will be rewarded immediately after death in accordance with his works and faith” (no. 1021).

And further on it adds: “Each man receives his eternal retribution in his immortal soul at the very moment of his death, in a particular judgment that refers his life to Christ: either entrance into the blessedness of heaven — through a purification or immediately — or immediate and everlasting damnation” (no. 1022). Then it adds the criterion with which this judgment will occur, taken from the writings of St. John of the Cross: “At the evening of life, we shall be judged on our love.”

The first thing that I would emphasize is precisely this last: the final criterion of our judgment will be the love that we have had toward God and toward our brothers and sisters. How, then, will this particular judgment occur?

At times, I run into persons who are convinced that immediately after death they will meet Jesus in person and that He will give them a piece of His mind for some of their dolorous affairs. Frankly, I do not think that it will happen like this. Rather, I believe that, immediately after death, each of us will appear before Jesus, but it will not be the Lord who will review our lives and examine the good and the bad each of us has done. We ourselves shall do it, in truth and honesty.

Each one will have before himself the complete vision of his life, and he will immediately see the real spiritual state of his soul and will go where his situation will bring him. It will be a solemn moment of self-truth, a tremendous and definitive moment, as definitive as the place where we shall be sent. Let us consider the case of the person who goes to purgatory.

It will involve the sorrow of not immediately going to paradise that will make him understand that his purification on earth was not complete, and he will feel the immediate need of purifying himself. His desire of acceding to the vision of God will be strong, and the desire for liberation from the weight of the pains accumulated during his earthly life will be compelling.

The Last Judgment: It Will Be Love That Will Judge Us

Let us end with the universal judgment:

The Last Judgment will come when Christ returns in glory. Only the Father knows the day and the hour; only he de­termines the moment of its coming. Then through his Son Jesus Christ he will pronounce the final word on all history. We shall know the ultimate meaning of the whole work of creation and of the entire economy of salvation and understand the marvelous ways by which his Providence led everything towards its final end. (CCC, no. 1040)

This is one of the most difficult realities to understand. The Last Judgment coincides with the return of Christ; however we do not know the precise time it will occur. We know that it will be preceded immediately by the resurrection of the dead. In that precise moment, the history of the world will definitively and globally end. The Catechism again specifies: “In the presence of Christ, who is Truth itself, the truth of each man’s relationship with God will be laid bare [cf. John 12:49]” (no. 1039).

The essential question is: What is the concrete rapport that each man has with God? As I have mentioned, the solemn response is found in the Gospel of Mathew. The saved and the damned will be chosen on the basis of their recognition or rejection of Christ in the infirm, in the hungry, and in the poor (Matt. 25:31–46). Two essential elements emerge from this. The first is a division, a schism, between those going to paradise and those going to hell, between the saved and the condemned. The second regards the manner in which this judgment will be accomplished — with love. God’s Commandments and every other precept are summarized solely in one commandment: “[L]ove one another as I have loved you” (John 15:12).

We can easily understand that this command is addressed to each human conscience in every age, including those who lived before Christ and those, who today, as in centuries past, never heard anyone speak of the Son of Man. Therefore, the finale of this stupendous passage is the beautiful passage from Mathew: “Truly, I say to you, as you did it to one of the least of these my brethren, you did it to me” (Matt. 25:40).

If each man — apart from his religion, his culture, his epoch, and any other circumstance — has loved his neighbor, he has also loved the Lord Jesus in person. Any rapport with our brothers and sisters in any locality, any age, or any situation is, all in all, a rapport with Jesus Christ in person. Each human creature who achieves fulfillment in his human relationships is, at the same time, relating to God. For this reason, the love of neighbor is the fundamental precept of life. John the Evangelist helps us to understand that we cannot say that we love God, whom we cannot see, if we do not love our brother, whom we can see (cf. 1 John 4:20).

The love that will judge us will be the same love that we have (or have not) practiced toward others, the same love that Jesus lived in His earthly experience and taught us in the Gospels, the same love to which we are entitled through the sacraments, through prayer, and through a life of faith. The ability to love comes from grace, and it is much reduced in those who do not know Christ; and even more so in those who know Him but do not follow Him, a choice that assumes a serious sin. Indeed, Jesus said: “He who believes and is baptized will be saved; but he who does not believe will be condemned” (Mark 16:16).

On the other hand, in announcing the extraordinary Jubilee of Mercy, Pope Francis reminds us that the other fundamental aspect of the question is that the love with which we shall be judged will be the Love of mercy. “Mercy is the ultimate and supreme act by which God comes to meet us.” This mercy, he says, “is the bridge that connects God and man and opens our hearts to the hope of being loved forever despite our sinfulness.”

God’s compassionate glance and His desire to live in total communion with us opens our hearts to the hope that each sin and each failure inflicted on man by his great enemy, Satan, will be looked upon with the eyes of a loving and accepting Father. Therefore, let us live full of hope, because we know that, even in the difficulties of our life’s journey, God will wipe away all the tears from our eyes. On that day “death shall be no more, neither shall there be mourning nor crying nor pain any more, for the former things have passed away” (Rev. 21:4).

Editor’s note: This article is adapted from a chapter in Fr. Amorth’s An Exorcist Explains the Demonic: The Antics of Satan and His Army of Fallen Angels, which is available from Sophia Institute Press.

Find more of Fr. Amorth’s work on Catholic Exchange by clicking here.

https://catholicexchange.com/exorcist-describes-death-judgement-everlasting-life