Study: Christian Population Shifts from Europe

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Yes…I guess from my personal faith formation…my personal take was that the Middle East…Mesopotamia…was called just that, unique to itself…

I just didn’t see it under the name of ‘Asia’. My husband was born in SE Asia…and I see, living on West Coast alot of influence of Buddhism and Shintoism, and Confucianism.

I just wouldn’t identify an Arab or Syrian or Iranian or Turk as Asian…more like Mesopotamian…that is where i am coming from…personal experience…
 
KathleenGee said:
Yes…I guess from my personal faith formation…my personal take was that the Middle East…Mesopotamia…was called just that, unique to itself…

I just didn’t see it under the name of ‘Asia’. My husband was born in SE Asia…and I see, living on West Coast alot of influence of Buddhism and Shintoism, and Confucianism.
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I think the word you are looking for is Oriental or Far Eastern.
I just wouldn’t identify an Arab or Syrian or Iranian or Turk as Asian…more like Mesopotamian…that is where i am coming from…personal experience…
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As mentioned “Asia” originally referred to a fairly small area of what is now western Turkey.

“Mesopotamia” means “between the rivers”, i.e. what is now the central part of Iraq, between the Euphrates and Tigris rivers. It has never referred to the whole Middle East.
 
Just never perceived or labelled these people as solely Asian…a reflection of my own proximity to Asian population…very distinctly different than the Semitic people…

My daughter had a wonderful Muslim friend she met at Catholic high school, who would cover to our house or my daughter to hers…one day they went to a restaurant and right away her friend picked up on the busboy…he asked her where she was from and she answered Mesopotamia…and he took off…

Yes… I know where Iraq is…etc etc etc…there are the Palestinians, Gazans, Egyptians from Africa, Syrians…Arabs…Iranians start to go back east…more like Turkey…bridge between East and West…
 
Thanks, Calgar,…

Finished reading it…well, we must both be drawing from the same source if we have the same convictions in some ways…

My girlfriend became Catholic; prior, she was Southern Baptist. She is Afro American and became Catholic attending Xavier College in Louisiana. But she practiced her faith in some ways that I would consider more protestant. I felt she was my true friend in about 3 minutes when I first went to her house for Bible study.

Anyway, a few years later she asked me how I see going to heaven…I drew on my study of S. Catherine of Siena’s study, and then paraphrase them back to her…She exclaimed, ‘That is how Baptists think’. There is the veil of language.

My other Baptist friend was my employer until she retired. She told me she tells her Baptist friends she came the life in the Spirit through a Catholic priest. She takes Scripture literally and believes the bread and wine do indeed become Christ’s body and blood…except she consecrates her bread and wine herself!

I see Baptists’ reservations…again, it is perception and looking from the outside…I see my faith more and more represented in one word: communion.

And back to this thread, I think the European Christians are fools for letting go of their Christian faith and heritage. Faith will transfer to the New World, and as they say here, Asia.
 
KathleenGee said:
And back to this thread, I think the European Christians are fools for letting go of their Christian faith and heritage. Faith will transfer to the New World, and as they say here, Asia.
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It is sad. I do missionary work in eastern europe. I see 13 and 14 year olds engaged in drug use, sexual immorality, and just general anger at anyone and everyone.

However, out of this come some of the strongest Christians I’ve ever met.
 
There is a great spiritual movement happening in Croatia…and I heard yesterday that Muslims and Jews are now going there…

I read recently of a Sufi Muslim…the Muslims venerate our Blessed Mother…and he said that there is only one verifiable source of Mary’s intercession, the Catholic Church. He spoke of an old prophecy that Mary would come and be here a long time…this apparition has not been approved by the Church, but many are converting to prayer and penance and drawing away from sin, and turning more to the Lord. Medgugorje.

I have never been there, and am not drawn to going there…but what made me change to acknowledge something supernatural was the history of the Balkans and how this event is bringing so much peace.
 
KathleenGee said:
There is a great spiritual movement happening in Croatia…and I heard yesterday that Muslims and Jews are now going there…

I read recently of a Sufi Muslim…the Muslims venerate our Blessed Mother…and he said that there is only one verifiable source of Mary’s intercession, the Catholic Church. He spoke of an old prophecy that Mary would come and be here a long time…this apparition has not been approved by the Church, but many are converting to prayer and penance and drawing away from sin, and turning more to the Lord. Medgugorje.

I have never been there, and am not drawn to going there…but what made me change to acknowledge something supernatural was the history of the Balkans and how this event is bringing so much peace.
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In regards to Međjugorje in Southern Bosnia and Herzegovina, has that been made official yet? The last time I checked it was still in debate and I believe that the Bosnian Cardinal Vinko Puljić is trying to speed up the Church’s proceedings in regard to this alleged event. I sure hope it’s true, but I’m not all knowing so it could be fake. It just seems like there’s so much that has happened that it’s hard to believe that it could be false, but you never know. And Sufi Muslims have some interesting views. I haven’t looked into them too much though.

BTW, my profile picture is of Međjugorje 😃
 
Hi Amer…

I was trying to see what that picture was…now I know!

The Church has not made a decision. There are daily visits and then these on going messages…I heard a prelate say one time because of that, no approval may ever come for Medgeguorje…plus the issues with local episcopacy.

But the truth is something supernatural is happening there. My girlfriend is Irish-Croatian, her husband full Croatian. He stopped going to church. When they arrived at Medgegorje approaching the site, her husband broke down and started crying…but he still doesn’t go to church.

(She moved her little Mary statue one time in the house, and all of a sudden…with no apparent interest in it, he asked what happened to it…he is one of those intrepid type that will surprise his wife with his full conversion some day.)

The women in my parish went and our pastor decided to come with them, may be to make sure they don’t get into any off base ideas or spirituality. He came back very moved by it.

So if the Church does not actually approve of the apparitions and all, the Church is already stating it is a spiritual place with good fruits of prayer and penance, and people being blessed with kinder and more open hearts to the Holy Spirit.

And to have restored faith in prayer. God hears all our prayers and answers them in His time.

I heard as well as now the Italians are finally very interested in this area, so may be their renewal can move northward back up into Europe. The Italians, Jews, and Muslims are now coming there; before it was a place where ‘affluent Americans’ would go.
 
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