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Nokomis70
Guest
History reflects that we sent thousands of good men and even young people to the defend the HolyLand during the crudades.
And that the teachings of the Koran include marriage to pre adolescent children, convert to islam or die, and other teachings tht are not consialtory to any Christians. Treatment of women and Sharia law would be voted in and inforced if they are ever dominant here. Right now they aggresively go after young unemployed males in the once Catholic phillipines and S. America and recruit in our prisons.
Present history: go to www.spiritdaily.com or www.drudgereport.com and see how three young girls were just recently beheaded ONLY because they went to a Christian school.
I pray daily for their conversion and the release of their women and children from bondage.
Arch. Dolan should pray for their conversion and not help them gain a foothold. They would wipe all Christians out in a heartbeat if they could.
And that the teachings of the Koran include marriage to pre adolescent children, convert to islam or die, and other teachings tht are not consialtory to any Christians. Treatment of women and Sharia law would be voted in and inforced if they are ever dominant here. Right now they aggresively go after young unemployed males in the once Catholic phillipines and S. America and recruit in our prisons.
Present history: go to www.spiritdaily.com or www.drudgereport.com and see how three young girls were just recently beheaded ONLY because they went to a Christian school.
I pray daily for their conversion and the release of their women and children from bondage.
Arch. Dolan should pray for their conversion and not help them gain a foothold. They would wipe all Christians out in a heartbeat if they could.
V
Vezelay
Guest
Your knowledge of history seems weak. Muslims conquered and ruled most of Spain for hundreds of years, from the 8th through the 14th centuries. They did not"wipe all christians out" but lived together in a civilized fashion along with Jews as well. It was when the christians reconquered Spain under the “catholic monarchs” that the killing started. Jews were expelled and Muslims who refused to convert were burned at the stake. The inquisition went on and on. Institutional murder blessed by the church.
A “foothold?” and the 100 or so other mosques in New York? do you want to destroy them? there are as many different kinds of Islam as there are of christianity. I am ashamed of the fanatic christians (think David Koresh at Waco) but I don’t assume all christians are like him, nor like Timothy McVeigh. Why do you think all Muslims are like those fanatics that you refer to? Do you not know any Muslims? A great many of US physicians are Muslim since we do not educate enough doctors and must rely on foreigners and a lot of them come from Muslim countries. Do you want to wipe them out?
The Sufis are the most peace loving of all Muslims. That is no doubt why George Bush sent Imam Kauf on ambassadorial missions.
About Archbishop Dolan, he is very poorly informed on the 1993 convent issue at Auschwitz. The pope did have the nuns move out of that building. It was an old Nazi bldg that has been used to store poison gas used in the death camp. Unseemly to say the least. Where did they move to? just across the road to a nice new building and they insist on keeping the 26 ft cross that had been erected just for the mass JPII said. And what about the convent just outside the walls of the death camp at Dachau??? Jews have protested that for years but to no avail. Where is the pope on that issue? Such hypocrisy from our church breaks my heart.
That Islamic Center must be built at Park51. We should defend this in part to make up for the Catholic Church rescinding its sale to Muslims on Staten Island for a mosque. What was the reason for the protests there??? pure hatred. And in Wisconsin? California? Tennessee? Florida? those protesters have no ground zero as an excuse. They just don’t want Muslims to have a place to pray. What kind of Christians are they? Our soldiers have died and are dying to protect Muslims in the middle east. We fought FOR Muslims AGAINST Christians back in the '90s in the Balkans. Perhaps some of our soldiers have been killed by Muslims in anger at what they read of the wish in New York not to allow an Islamic Center to be built. Muslims have been praying daily at that building Park51 for more than a year. Do you want them just to continue praying in an old delapidated building or would it be decent to let them build a more suitable facility??? if you wish them to move, are you willing to compensate them for $4.5million that they paid for the building??? if you would deprive them of their right to use the property as they wish you must be willing to compensate them.
Rethink your rash statements and pray…
A
azerty
Guest
Your knowledge of history seems weak. Muslims conquered and ruled most of Spain for hundreds of years, from the 8th through the 14th centuries. They did not"wipe all christians out" but lived together in a civilized fashion along with Jews as well. It was when the christians reconquered Spain under the “catholic monarchs” that the killing started. Jews were expelled and Muslims who refused to convert were burned at the stake. The inquisition went on and on. Institutional murder blessed by the church.
Life is so great under the islamic rule , too bad they didn’t conquer all Europe …
those barbaric catholics :yawn:
you sure read a lot of History , did you know that many spanish jews (and jews also coming from Tripolitania) emigrated to Rome in the 15th , did you know that the spanish inquisition was not controled by church ?
Life is so great under the islamic rule , too bad they didn’t conquer all Europe …
those barbaric catholics :yawn:
you sure read a lot of History , did you know that many spanish jews (and jews also coming from Tripolitania) emigrated to Rome in the 15th , did you know that the spanish inquisition was not controled by church ?
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Digitonomy
Guest
Getting back to the thread topic, I’m really not sure what Abp Dolan expects he can do. The developers don’t seem to have any interest in building anywhere else, and the opponents don’t want it built there. I don’t see much in the way of middle ground.
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Vezelay
Guest
One reason they don’t “seem to have any interest in building anywhere else” is that they have expended $4.5million for this unwanted property. Nobody else was interested in it which is why the price dropped from $18million. The owners were grateful to these Sufis for taking it off their hands.(and the neighborhood was happy at the prospect of an attractive new building in place of the delapidated old coat factory. Now, who is going to compensate them for their $4.5 million? Who will pay them for the property? and where are they going to buy real estate elsewhere in lower Manhattan(how many blocks away?) for that kind of money even if someone is willing to give them their investment? How fair is it for people to disapprove of what other people want to do with a building they spent $4.5million for? The church has no objections to convents near both Auschwitz and Dachau and yet Dolan wants to mediate a compromise??? And how do you feel about the plans of a Christian church to celebrate Sept 11th with “Burn the Koran” day. Oh, that fire is going to be glorious. Probably most of the Muslim world will think that all of us Christians are Koran burners because one church is, the way some Americans think that all Muslims are wicked because some are/were. Think hard about this.
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tr1strev
Guest
You’re ramblings aside, like most “Progressive Catholics” you fail to see the real purpose behind putting a Mosque at ground zero. Instead, you try to make excuses and redirect blame to strange fundamentalist groups seeking attention. The purpose is not for “outreach” or to “build bridges” or any other platitudes that are put forth. It is to stick their collective finger in the eye of America. As for Nolan, what is there to mediate? Either it should be there or it shouldn’t. We are not talking about the right to do so. Everyone concedes that. We are talking about whether it is right.
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InSearchofGrace
Guest
Your whole post as a reply to another reflects startling anti-Catholic and pro-Muslim sentiment, coming from a self-identified Catholic.
As one Catholic to another, I felt the need to respond. You brought up several issues all at once, so please bear with my reply in parts.
You are right in that Muslims did not wipe out all Christians in the centuries of Moorish Spain.
Nevertheless, let me point out with respect that not all historians and writers would agree to your statement that “Muslims, Christians and Jews lived together in a civilized fashion” between 711 and 1236.
I have taken from three source materials relevant discussion, painting a picture with recorded facts that you may have overlooked. Whether you are persuaded or not by said facts, Catholics and non-Catholics who may be following this thread should hear or read the discussion as follows.
With the proposed NYC mosque named, Cordoba House, there is much talk about its connection to the historical place of the same name in Spain.
It is repeated enough that Cordoba in Spain is where Muslim rule reached a glorious peak. However, contrary to the myth of a Golden Age of equality during the Muslim occupation of Spain (and in particular in Cordoba), Spain and Cordoba were places where Christians and Jews suffered as social inferiors under Islamic oppression. Equal civil rights never existed for non-Muslims under Sharia, or Islamic law.
Imam Rauf admits as much when he writes, “Jews and Christians living under Muslim rule simply had to pay a tax to finance their protection by their Muslim overlords.” This is not equality! Americans do not demand a special tax to protect Muslims from ourselves. That would be extortion, not “protection.”
The true history of Cordoba, not to mention the whole of Andalusia, is far less inspiring than what Western academics portray: the Christian city was conquered by Muslims around 711, its inhabitants slaughtered or enslaved. The original mosque of Cordoba was built atop, and partly from the materials of, a Christian church. Modern day Muslims are well aware of all this. Such is the true—and ominous—legacy of Cordoba.
The so-called “tolerant” era of Cordoba supposedly occurred during the caliphate of 'Abd al-Rahman III (912-961)—well over a thousand years ago. “Eight hundred years ago,” i.e., around 1200, the fanatical Almohids—ideological predecessors of al-Qaeda—were ravaging Cordoba, where “Christians and Jews were given the choice of conversion, exile, or death.”
As for the Jews, note that in 1148, the renowned Jewish philosopher and physician Maimonides fled Almohad persecution in Cordoba with his whole family disguised as Muslims, until finding asylum in Fatimid Egypt. Arabs and Muslims had “persecuted us severely, and passed baneful and discriminatory legislation against us,” he later wrote. “Never did a nation molest, degrade, debase, and hate us as much as they.”
More from source articles, here, here and here
[con’t]
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InSearchofGrace
Guest
Re: Your quote, Vezelay, " It was when the christians reconquered Spain under the ‘catholic monarchs’ that the killing started. Jews were expelled and Muslims who refused to convert were burned at the stake. The inquisition went on and on. Institutional murder blessed by the church."
The sources in the foregoing post do not support your statement that the “killing started under the catholic monarchs” when Christians reconquered Spain. The Muslims committed slaughters and enslavement of the population while Spain was under their rule. But they did not kill the whole population, obviously.
As for “the inquisition that went on and on” and “institutional murder was blessed by the Church”, please consider, in all respect, the point of view of Pope John Paul II and how our Church sees what really happened, without denying its role on the matter.
We must distinguish between the facts of the Inquisition and the fiction. As recent scholarship has shown, both Protestants and secularists, from the 16th century to the present, have wildly exaggerated the evils of the Inquisition in order to further their own ends, creating straw demons of inquisitors and popes alike. Sadly, these errors have been repeated so often that they have become “facts.”
Although such exaggerations have made “facts” from fiction, there is some truth about abuses that Catholics must admit. Unrepentant men found guilty of heresy were handed over to the State for punishment, even though Church authorities did not always agree with the State’s punishments. We must realize that in handing over the condemned heretic to the secular power, the Church knowingly was handing over the condemned for punishments ranging from imprisonment to burning at the stake. Furthermore, even with all the procedural precautions, there were inquisitors who did not follow the laws of the Church and all too readily handed over a significant number of “heretics” to be burned alive. However, anti-Catholic pamphleteers and historians have grossly exaggerated the numbers, asserting that millions died at the stake. Though the actual numbers are far less (3,000-5,000), these fiery deaths were quite real and regrettable.
It is also true, sadly enough, that the Church, following the judicial customs of the day, allowed for torture as a part of the judicial procedure. The approval of torture went all the way to the top, as Pope Innocent IV’s bull Ad exstirpanda (1252) attests. However, the use of torture during judicial inquiry was not, contrary to her many detractors, the invention of the Church.
Just prior to the time of the Inquisition, Roman law had begun to displace the local judicial customs of western Europe. Roman law had allowed judicial torture in some circumstances. Under the medieval understanding of law, the accused in a capital crime could only be convicted if there were full proof of his guilt. This entailed either the testimony of two witnesses, being caught in the act, or personal confession. If the first two were lacking, and everything else pointed to the guilt of the accused, torture was used to extract his confession. To be considered a valid confession, the accused had to confess freely the next day.
In regard to the use of torture as well as capital punishment, the Church did not invent the practice, but regulated and codified these existing civil, judicial practices. In addition, it is important that the overwhelming effect and goal of the Church was to soften the punitive harshness of the secular powers, and correct the abuses of individual inquisitors who were arbitrary and cruel.
Source
The rest of my reaction to your post to follow. Thank you.
The sources in the foregoing post do not support your statement that the “killing started under the catholic monarchs” when Christians reconquered Spain. The Muslims committed slaughters and enslavement of the population while Spain was under their rule. But they did not kill the whole population, obviously.
As for “the inquisition that went on and on” and “institutional murder was blessed by the Church”, please consider, in all respect, the point of view of Pope John Paul II and how our Church sees what really happened, without denying its role on the matter.
We must distinguish between the facts of the Inquisition and the fiction. As recent scholarship has shown, both Protestants and secularists, from the 16th century to the present, have wildly exaggerated the evils of the Inquisition in order to further their own ends, creating straw demons of inquisitors and popes alike. Sadly, these errors have been repeated so often that they have become “facts.”
Although such exaggerations have made “facts” from fiction, there is some truth about abuses that Catholics must admit. Unrepentant men found guilty of heresy were handed over to the State for punishment, even though Church authorities did not always agree with the State’s punishments. We must realize that in handing over the condemned heretic to the secular power, the Church knowingly was handing over the condemned for punishments ranging from imprisonment to burning at the stake. Furthermore, even with all the procedural precautions, there were inquisitors who did not follow the laws of the Church and all too readily handed over a significant number of “heretics” to be burned alive. However, anti-Catholic pamphleteers and historians have grossly exaggerated the numbers, asserting that millions died at the stake. Though the actual numbers are far less (3,000-5,000), these fiery deaths were quite real and regrettable.
It is also true, sadly enough, that the Church, following the judicial customs of the day, allowed for torture as a part of the judicial procedure. The approval of torture went all the way to the top, as Pope Innocent IV’s bull Ad exstirpanda (1252) attests. However, the use of torture during judicial inquiry was not, contrary to her many detractors, the invention of the Church.
Just prior to the time of the Inquisition, Roman law had begun to displace the local judicial customs of western Europe. Roman law had allowed judicial torture in some circumstances. Under the medieval understanding of law, the accused in a capital crime could only be convicted if there were full proof of his guilt. This entailed either the testimony of two witnesses, being caught in the act, or personal confession. If the first two were lacking, and everything else pointed to the guilt of the accused, torture was used to extract his confession. To be considered a valid confession, the accused had to confess freely the next day.
In regard to the use of torture as well as capital punishment, the Church did not invent the practice, but regulated and codified these existing civil, judicial practices. In addition, it is important that the overwhelming effect and goal of the Church was to soften the punitive harshness of the secular powers, and correct the abuses of individual inquisitors who were arbitrary and cruel.
Source
The rest of my reaction to your post to follow. Thank you.
D
Dee_Dee_King
Guest
just like i always suspected, it’s all about money. bloomberg is opening offices in dubai, it would be bad for business to stand up to these insensitive mohammedans.
i’d be happy if all muslims left for a muslim country like saudi arabia so they can have their sharia law. i’m proud that St. James the Moor Slayer helped us kick the moors out of spain. islam is our enemy and always will be.
P
pnewton
Guest
It was a good offer. I appreciate the way the AB kept his opinions low key.
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InSearchofGrace
Guest
Archbishop Dolan defends Muslims’ religious freedom while encouraging developers from midtown Manhattan to accommodate people that are seen as an affront to the memory of the victims of 9/11.
The Park51 controversy needs a voice of reason to calm dissent and help bring the opposing camps to a position of compromise. Mayor Bloomberg is not able to do that, with his interest clearly all on one side, the side of the builders only.
There is nothing wrong with the archbishop offering to mediate along with the NY governor. Both are from the area and have appropriate positions and background.
The Park51 controversy needs a voice of reason to calm dissent and help bring the opposing camps to a position of compromise. Mayor Bloomberg is not able to do that, with his interest clearly all on one side, the side of the builders only.
There is nothing wrong with the archbishop offering to mediate along with the NY governor. Both are from the area and have appropriate positions and background.
R
rlg94086
Guest
I agree. I hope his offer of mediation is accepted.
I
InSearchofGrace
Guest
You are correct to say there is no GZ issue in places like WI, CA, TN, or FL. So, there is no reason to jump to the conclusion that Muslims would not be able to build mosques to serve their faithful in these places. That is paranoia. They can build as long as they follow laws, meet zoning requirements, etc.
There are lessons to be learned from the controversy with the Park51 project. Everyone hopes and prays it is handled appropriately, and that settlement of the disputed issue whether it should be built at that location is reached, with a compromise acceptable to both sides. That may not happen, of course, and only the builders and supporters get their way, having the upper hand with simply using their legal right to do so, abandoning wisdom.
Btw, I just came across the news on tv (it should hit print and the internet soon) that the TN mosque leaders have invited the FBI to their prayer meeting to investigate the recent arson / destruction of construction equipment or materials. Guess what, many of the Muslims there are against the FBI presence, because they feel the agents would be more interested in investigating suspected terrorists than going after the vandals.
How do you win with this mindsent? For example, if you are not carrying weapons before boarding a plane, or contraband items or drugs while you are going through customs and immigration into the country, why would you be afraid of security and routine inspection procedures?
I
InSearchofGrace
Guest
Goodness, you might have an episode of bile emesis there, at the rate you are going!
Do you honestly think the average person is inclined to destroy existing mosques in New York, or kill Muslim doctors and peaceful Muslims here in the U.S.? We have laws in place to punish people who commit hate crimes and destroy the property of another.
My primary care physician is Muslim, as is my mother-in-law’s cardiac surgeon. Our family members neither wish our treating doctors harm, nor would any of these doctors’ grateful patients!
Surely, you do not find symmetry or equivalence in the infrequent violent acts of “Christian” fanatics like David Koresh and Timothy McVeigh (who is an atheist, by the way), on one hand, and the sustained intention and violent acts of Islamists to terrorize the U.S. and the world, on the other hand, do you? How do you feel about the systematic persecution of the native Christian minorities in countries like Egypt, Iraq, Turkey, and Lebanon, etc.?
Unless you are selective about your readings on injustice, you must know too that our priests and religious are being slaughtered in Muslim dominated lands in the Middle East, which were Christian lands before the spread of Islam there. Do you decry the slaughter of our priests as a great injustice, Vezelay? And yet, can you say that Christians re-act with vengeance as Islamists do? Do the Christian majority condone the bad acts of a very few? Or, remain silent about it? Nay, my friend.
O
OrdinaryMelkite
Guest
You mean “Anti-American Muslims,” don’t ya, Dee Dee???
Most Muslims are law abiding citizens who would gladly die for and defend this country from all enemies, foreign and domestic.
I have no problem with kicking out certain known Muslim terroist sympathizers who have made it known they think America “got what it deserved,” like the head of the “Cordoba Institute” who organized this obscenity in the place.
In regards to their religion—
I agree that Islam is not a religion of peace. In fact, it is a religion which condones lying about the Faith itself to get ahead in an argument. Dissembling is an art for them.
Does not mean that the fact that most Muslims worship what I consider a “dishonest, false” religion mean that all of them are anti-american or even in collusion with terrorists.
Although I must say, I like your “tell it like it is” tone. Go on, Dee Dee, tell us what you REALLY think!!! Don’t be shy!!!
V
Vezelay
Guest
Oh, I feel ever so much better about the hundreds of years of torture by the church because the church did not INVENT torture, it was just the normal means of punishment at hand. And it is so good that priests did not actually have to start the fire when burning heretics at the stake. The church just handed over the infidels to the authorities and had no responsiblity for how the secular gov’t went about the burning. What a relief to know that the history of our church is so very good in this area of punishment. Whew. and I was afraid we had something to be ashamed of. Yours is the message of good news I guess.
O
OrdinaryMelkite
Guest
And things change over time, Vezelay.
Thechurch acted like any other instutution of the day—they were not as “enlightened” as we are now.
People even in that time DID condemn it, but those were few and far between.
Protenstants did this too. No excuse, of course, but it wasn’t just the Catholic Church that did this.
Calvin even had Helvetius burned at the stake in Geneva when the poor guy went there to seek asylum from the INQUISITION.
So what is your point, pray tell?
That Holy Mother Church is not to be taken seriously because of past abuses?
D
Dee_Dee_King
Guest
i never said i want to kick them out, only that i wouldn’t miss them if they left. i don’t trust islam. i think by in large they are silently trying to impose sharia across the world. maybe i’d think differently if i see more muslims turning on the islamicists, but the problem is likely they are mostly islamicists, just not necessarily violent ones.
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