Daniel's Vortex

IRAN

Daniel Gorham — Mon, 21 May 2007 22:19:00 GMT

BEWARE A NUCLEAR IRAN!

   How many times have we heard the following arguments? Israel has nuclear weapons, so why single out Iran? Pakistan got nukes and we lived with it. Who is to say to say that the United States or Russia should have the bomb and not other countries? Iran has promised to use its reactors for peaceful purposes, so why Demonize Iran?

   In fact the world has at least five reasons for singling out Iran to halt its nuclear development program – and it’s is past time that we spell them out.
   First, any country that seeks “peaceful” nuclear power at the same time it is completely self-sufficient in energy production is de facto suspect. Iran has enough natural gas to meet its clean electrical generation for two centuries. The only rationale for its multi-dollar program of building nuclear reactors – and for its spending billions more to hide and decentralize them – is to obtain weapons.
   Second, we cannot excuse Iran by acknowledging that the Soviet Union, communist China, North Korea and Pakistan obtained nuclear weapons. In each case, anti-liberal regimes gained stature and advantage by the ability to destroy Western cities. But past moral failures are not corrected by allowing history to repeat itself.
   The logic of this excuse would lead to a nuclearized globe in which wars from Darfur to the Middle East would all assume the potential to go nuclear. In contrast, the fewer the nuclear players, the more likely deterrence can play some role. And if Iran were to go nuclear, Saudi Arabia, Kuwait, Egypt and other Arab autocracies would follow suit in order to preserve the prestige and security of largely Arab Sunni Nations. That would ensure, again, that almost any Middle East dispute involving, Shiite-Sunni tension, from Lebanon to Iraq, might escalate to a nuclear confrontation.
   Third, it is simply a fact that full-fledged democracies are less likely to attack one another. Although they are prone to frequent fighting -- imperial Athens and republican Venice, for instance were in some sort of war about three out every four years during the 5th century B.C. and the 16th century, respectively – consensual governments are not so ready to fight each other. Thus today there is no chance whatsoever that an anti-American France and an increasingly anti-French America would, as nuclear democracies go to war. Likewise Russia, following the falloff communism and its partial evolution to an elected government, poses less of a threat to the United States than before.
   It would be regrettable should Taiwan, Japan, South Korea or Germany go nuclear – but not nearly as catastrophic as when Pakistan did so, which is what allows it today to give sanctuary to bin Laden and the planners of 9/11 with impunity. The former governments operate with a free press, open elections and free speech, and thus their war making is subject to a series of checks and balances. Pakistan is a strongman’s heart beat away from becoming an Islamic theocracy. And while democratic India is often volatile in relations with its Islamic neighbor, the world is not nearly as worried about its nuclear arsenal as it is about autocratic Pakistan’s.
   Fourth, Iran presents a uniquely fourfold danger. It has enough cash to buy influence and exemption from sanctions; it possesses oil reserves to blackmail a petroleum-hungry world; it sponsors terrorists who might soon be enabled to find sanctuary under a nuclear umbrella and to be armed with dirty bombs; and it has
a leader who talks as if he were willing to take his entire country into paradise – or at least back to the 7th century amid the ashes of the Middle East. Just imagine the recent controversy over Danish cartoons in the context of Ahmadinejad with is finger on a half-dozen nuclear missiles pointed at Copenhagen.
   Fifth, the West is right to take on a certain responsibility to discourage nuclear proliferation. The existence of such weapons grew entirely out of Western science and technology. In fact, the story of global nuclear proliferation is exclusively one of espionage, stealthy commerce, or American and European-trained native engineers using their foreign-acquired expertise. Pakistan, North Korea or Iran have no ability themselves to create such weapons any more than Russia, China or India did. And any country that cannot itself create such weapons is probably less likely to ensure the necessary protocols to guard against their misuse or theft.

The Koran could be false

Daniel Gorham — Sun, 06 May 2007 01:37:00 GMT

A FACT

THERE IS NO LEGITIMATE REASON TO ACCEPT THE KORAN AS AUTHENTIC

It is generally accepted that Mohammed is the author of the Koran. (But hotly disputed by many). No one really knows. How can we know if he really wrote the words of Allah or if he created passages himself? Who has the authority to vouch that no errors have crept into the Koran over time? Who tells men to believe in the Koran? To what authority can these men appeal? Islam has no priests, no pope or head Muslim, no official institution to guarantee the authenticity and integrity of the Koran and its teachings, no authority to say that the Koran is inspired. They have their teachers-leaders (imams) and their recorded traditions, but who is to say they are not engineered? Mohammed cannot guarantee to men that he is telling the truth about the Koran. He founded no lasting institution, and he himself did not even name a successor.

How Does Al-Queda see our war effort?

Daniel Gorham — Sat, 10 Mar 2007 16:47:00 GMT

HOW DOES Al-Queda PERCEIVE OUR WAR EFFORT!!!!!!!!!!!

Thanks to modern communications and the modern media, we are quite well informed about how Al-Queda perceives things. Osama bin Laden is very articulate, very lucid in the way he explains things. As he sees it, and as his followers see it, there has been an ongoing struggle which began with the advent of Islam in the 7th century with its drive for world conquest and it has been going on ever since. It is an ongoing struggle of attack and counter attack, conquest and reconquest, ending so it seems in a final victory of the West with the defeat of the Ottoman Empire in 1918 - the last of the great Muslim states - and the partition of most of the Muslim world between the Western powers. As Osama bin Laden puts it: "In this final phase of the ongoing struggle, the world of the infidels was divided between two superpowers - the United States and the Soviet Union. Now we have defeated and destroyed the more difficult and the more dangerous of the two, the Soviet Union. Dealing with the pampered and effeminate Americans will be easy." And then followed what has become the familiar description of the Americans and the usual litany and recitation of American defeats and retreats: Vietnam, Beirut, Somalia, one after another. The general theme was: They can't take it. Hit them and they'll run. All you have to do is hit harder. This seemed to receive final confirmation during the 1990' when one attack after another on embassies, warships, and barracks brought no response beyond angry words and expensive missiles misdirected to remote and uninhabited places, and in some places -- as in Beirut and Somalia -- prompt retreats.
What happened on 9/11 was seen by its perpetrators and sponsors as the culmination of the previous phase and the inauguration of the next phase -- taking the war into the enemy camp to achieve final victory. The response to 9/11 came as a nasty surprise. They were expecting more of the same -- bleating and apologies -- instead of which they got a vigorous reaction, first in Afghanistan and then in Iraq, and as they used to say in Moscow: It is no accident, comrades, that there has been no successful attack in the United States since then. But if one follows the discourse, one can see that the debate in the U.S.A. since then has caused many of the perpetrators and sponsors to return to their previous diagnosis. Because remember, they have no experience, and therefore no understanding, of the free debate of an open society. What we see as free debate, they see as weakness, fear and division. Thus they prepare for the final victory, the final triumph and the final jihad.

This 110th Congress is full of fakes!

Daniel Gorham — Sat, 27 Jan 2007 01:48:00 GMT

The United States 110th Congress, Whose Speaker Is a Newchurcher(Vatican II Catholic)
Of the 535 Members, One out of Three Is a Newchurcher(VaticanII Catholic)
And Six out of Seven Are Christian
Why Is It So Hard to Pass Legislation
In Conformity with Natural Law and Christian Morals?

A survey published by Americans for Religious Liberty finds that Newchurchers(VATICAN II Catholics) hold 155 seats out of 535 in the new 110th Congress of the United States, seated January 11, 2007. That's nearly one out of three. The new Speaker of the House of Representatives is a Newchurcher(Vatican II Catholic). If you add the other Christians, that comes to a total of 448 Christians, or 84% of the entire U.S. Congress.

Why, then, is it so difficult to pass legislation that conforms to Natural Law and Christian morals: against abortion, against "gay marriage," etc.? Why is it so difficult even to get legislation against the greatest moral crimes, such as partial birth abortion, which only extremists in the United States advocate?

The answer is simple. These Newchurchers are not really Christian, nor are many of the non-Catholic "Christian" denominations. Their faith is not associated with the Bible, not to speak of Tradition. It is, rather, associated with non-religious, secular, liberalist politics. Senators John Kerry, failed 2004 U.S. Presidential candidate, and Ted Kennedy, participant in the death of a young woman at Chappaquiddick and proud "divorcee," who consistently vote against Natural Law and Christian moral principles, are good examples of this ilk. They do not hesitate to grab the Novus Ordo cookie( the Newchurch communion) for a photo opportunity, nor does Donald Wuerl, the new Newchurch archbishop of Washington, D.C., hesitate to give the invalid cookie to them.

We wonder whether it ever occurred to this ilk, which dares to call itself Christian, that if they actually represented Christian morality, they have control of congress to enact the most far-reaching moral programme ever attempted? But with Benedict-Ratzinger their nominal head, a conciliar pope who advocates Modernist/Liberalist policies himself, there isn't much difference any longer between the U.S. Congress and Newpope(the present pope who has led the newchurchers out of the traditional Catholic Church).

WHAT ME WORRY!

Daniel Gorham — Thu, 18 Jan 2007 20:35:00 GMT

WHAT ME WORRY?

According to the census bureau a new “American” crossed the border to join us once every 27 seconds in 2006. The unpunished intention of our rulers to replace us with foreign coolie labor tells us that as a society we are completely lacking any sense of a past or a future. Nobody who has any conception of the work, wisdom, virtue, sacrifice, and heroism that went into the making of this country could possibly approve of the transformation that is taking place.

That is not too surprising, though. Since 1848 the descendants of the British colonists who created the U.S. have been a dwindling part of the population. How many Americans are there today with such an inheritance? One in twenty? One in fifty? In fact, those of us who fit that description are mostly despised “rednecks,” while late-comers glorify themselves as a “nation of immigrants.” Can there be any other example in history of a core population being replaced by newcomers while retaining its name? A country without cultural continuity can only be held together by abstractions—deceitful slogans without any human content—and by constant fear of enemies. Orwell had it right.

People who are ignorant of and indifferent to their background (and those who misrepresent it for present-time advantage) are barbarians—that is, people without a civilized culture. Our leaders view American society as a commercial enterprise in which profit and consumption are the only values. After all, a customer is a customer and yesterday is just a past opportunity for sales. Who worries about where the customer comes from? As a society we have lost sight of the truth that economic abundance is not a self-perpetuating technical trick but rests ultimately on mental and moral qualities. Mental and moral virtues are declining in power and the evidence is already there of the loss of prosperity that necessarily follows.

But a society without ancestors (bastards?) is not the worst of the American decline. The worst is a lost future. Our forebear’s felled forests, planted trees, built houses, fought wars in the consciousness that the benefits would accrue to their descendants more than to themselves.

A people, who took any thought to the welfare of their grandchildren, much less future generations of their own blood, could not possibly tolerate the ongoing destruction of our human environment by politicians and plutocrats. Burke defined civilization as the awareness of the interconnection of past, present, and future. Conservatism was the preservation of the essence of civilization amidst the inevitable flux and chaos of existence.

But I can’t worry about that right now. I have to watch Oprah and then go to the mall. Only in America.

ISLAM IS A DANGER

Daniel Gorham — Tue, 16 Jan 2007 18:25:00 GMT

WE HAVE TO FACE FACTS…………..

The Muslims ARE a danger!

I explained in my last entry some of the big problems within the present group that controls the Catholic Church and have changed it from what it is suppose to be). Here we have to face what Islam IS!

Christians who belong to different traditions live harmoniously together all over the world. By contrast, Muslims do not live harmoniously with Christians – or with any other non-Muslim group – anywhere in the world, and have never been able to do so, for reasons inherent in their ideology. Violent intolerance against “infidels” is mandated by their holy book, exemplified by their “prophet,” and firmly rooted in 13 centuries of recorded history.

Until a leading Muslim figure comes out and assures non-Muslims that he unreservedly rejects ‘sharia’, ‘jihad’, and discrimination in every shape and form – Sura 9.5 included – and until his position is supported by the majority of the Muslim world, the “stigma” will be every bit as justified as that against Communist dictators or National Socialism (Nazi’s).

This “essentialist view of Islam” is supported by experience. Attempts to reformulate the doctrine of ‘jihad’ in particular are not new, but they have failed because they oppose centuries of ‘orthodoxy’. As the author Clement Huart pointed out in 1907, “Until the newer conceptions, as to what the Koran teaches as to the duty of the believer towards non-believers … have more generally leavened the mass of Moslem belief and opinion, it is the older and orthodox standpoint on this question which must be regarded by non-Moslems as representing Mohammedan teaching and as guiding Mohammedan action.”

A century later, the willingness of a few to become what are objectively bad Muslims may be laudable in human terms, but it will do nothing to change the score. A reformed faith that would question the divine authority on which the institutions of Islam rest, or attempt to rationalistic selections or abatement to effect a change, would be Islam no longer.

Islam, founded by a man who cannot ‘prove’ that god spoke to him and in its eminently orthodox codification, threatens the world, and discriminates against lovers of freedom. We must do everything we can to keep this THREAT away from us.

ALL HELL IS BREAKING LOSE

Daniel Gorham — Thu, 11 Jan 2007 16:33:00 GMT

ALL HELL IS BREAKING LOOSE

All Hell is breaking loose in the Catholic Church (now called the Newchurch) since the Polish people forced Stanislaw Wielgus, Benedict-Ratzinger's appointee as Archbishop of Warsaw, to resign in the face of incontrovertible evidence that he was a spy against the Church from around the time of Vatican II to the fall of the Soviet government in 1989.

In Krakow, where JPII was Archbishop from 1964 to 1978, more Newchurch (name for the present false church administration in Rome) clergy are being fingered as having been spies for the Communist Secret Service. The stream of disclosures now promises to become a torrent. In JPII's Krakow, Fr. Tadeusz Isakowicz-Zaleski is preparing to publish a book that will identify 39 priests whose names he found in Krakow's secret police files, three of whom are now bishops in the Polish Church. Everyone in Krakow and in Rome is wondering: will JPII's name turn up on that list?

Either JPII was a Communist spy, or he was part of a cover-up of presbyters under him collaborating with the Communists against the Church -- an excommunicable offense. The only alternative is that Karol Woytyla was an incompetent Newchurch bishop, guilty of gross negligence. Moreover, Poles are beginning to ask: did Benedict-Ratzinger, JPII's personal gauleiter, also participate in the cover-up as head of the Doctrine of the Faith and JPII's principal advisor?

Most researchers who have delved into the archives of the Sluzba Bezpieczenstwa, or Communist Secret Service, estimate that thousands of the country's presbyters -- as many as 10% -- collaborated with the secret police to some degree. Newchurch's undeserved reputation for moral "purity" has been crucified forever. Cardinal Glemp, a Newchurch bishop in Poland since 1979, told an Italian news agency last year that the overall percentage was 15%, and was likely to have been much higher in major cities. Poles are now enraged at Newchurch and Benedict-Ratzinger for letting the news media disclose these crimes rather than itself researching the archives and coming clean. It appears that the Newchurch principles that brought about the Great Sex & Embezzlement Scandal are still very much alive.

Cardinal Giovanni Battista Re, Prefect of the Congregation for the Clergy, himself involved in the appointment scandal, tried to weasel himself and Newpope out of blame, but that attempt has been derided because in December 2006 Benedict-Ratzinger stated that he "nourishes full trust in Archbishop Stanislaw Wielgus and, in full awareness, has entrusted him with the mission of pastor of the Archdiocese of Warsaw." Simultaneously, Benedict-Ratzinger's Newchurch officials in Poland were already examining the documentary evidence and concluding that Wielgus was guilty as sin. Then, when Newchurch officials publicly denounced Wielgus on the basis of the documentary evidence, Benedict-Ratzinger attempted to ram through the appointment and stood by Wielgus while all the time he knew that Wielgus was lying by denying the allegations that Benedict-Ratzinger knew to be true.

Is Peace possible with Islam?

Daniel Gorham — Thu, 28 Dec 2006 19:56:00 GMT

Faith, Logos, and Antichrist: A Post Scriptum on Regensburg

“God is not pleased by blood—and not acting reasonably is contrary to God’s nature” is the essential statement in Emperor Manuel’s verbal duel with his Persian interlocutor, which Pope Benedict quoted in his now famous Regensburg lecture last September. “Faith is born of the soul, not the body.”

The world outlook based on this simple yet essential adage is light years away from the Verse of the Sword (9:5), the essential message of the Kuran. It is, in fact, so diametrically opposed to it that we may be forgiven for concluding that Muhammad’s “inspiration” was indeed supranatural, but not divine.

The timeless Kuranic dictum to all faithful, to fight the rest of us infidels until we pay the poll tax (Jizya) with the trembling hand of abject submission, has a whiff of sulphur to it. It conclusively denies the possibility of “peace” (short of Islam’s global triumph), or even of peaceful co-existence. “Kill the unbelievers wherever you find them” is an injunction both unambiguous and powerful.

Of course, Karen Armstrong, John Esposito et al. will reply with the verse “la ikraha fiddeen” (“no compulsion in religion”), but they will do so to deceive and misguide us. Verse 2:256 is not at all a proof that forced conversion is against Islam. Verse 2:256 does not leave non-Muslims free to make their religious choices unmolested and un-coerced, in accordance with their conscience and free will. As contemporary Islamic scholars explain, there is no compulsion in making the choice of whether you want to be a Muslim or not. Once that choice is made, however, your options are bleak—death or submission—if it is the wrong choice: “Faith and rejection, iman and kufr, cannot be forced upon one by others. So Islam does not say that others must be forced into Islam; that if they become Muslims, well and good, and if they do not, they are to be killed, that the choice is theirs.” (In the same spirit, there was no compulsion to accept Communism under the 1936 Soviet constitution, but its insufficiently enthusiastic embrace meant death in the Gulag.)

The difference among Islamic scholars on 2:256 is that of degree, not kind. Some assert that it has been abrogated not only by 9:5 but also by 9:73 (“O Prophet, struggle with the unbelievers and hypocrites, and be thou harsh with them”). Other scholars—more “tolerant” ones, we might say—said 2:256 has not been abrogated, but it had a special application: it was revealed concerning the People of the Book (Jews & Christians), who should not be compelled to embrace Islam if they submit to the rule of Islam and pay the Jizya. It is only the idol worshippers who are compelled to embrace Islam and upon them 9:73 applies. As al-Nahas points out in An-Nasikh wal-Mansukh, “this is the opinion of Ibn ‘Abbas which is the best opinion due to the authenticity of its chain of authority.” In exempting the Jews and the Christians from 2:256, the ulema agree that pagans and atheists can and should be compelled to accept Islam by force.

The foremost Islamic scholar of all time, Ibn Khaldun, summed up the mainstream consensus—the consensus that is valid to this day—when he defined systemic violence as a religious duty based on the universalism of the Muslim mission and the obligation to convert all men to Islam either by persuasion or by force. He readily concedes that “Islam is under obligation to gain power over all nations.”

The orthodox Islamic rationale for compulsion—e.g. that given by Ibn al-‘Arabi—is worthy of dialectical materialism’s somersaults; we find that “no compulsion” actually means compulsion, and that “freedom” is only the freedom to accept revealed truth:

The Prophet said: I have been ordered to fight against the people until they testify that none has the right to be worshipped but Allah. This Hadith is taken from the words of Allah, “Fight them on until there is no more tumult and religion becomes that of Allah” (2:193). If someone asks how can people be compelled in the truth when the mere fact of compelling indicates a violation of the will of the one compelled?—the first answer is that Allah sent Mohammad calling people to Him, showing the way to the truth, enduring much harm . . . until the evidence of Allah’s truth became manifest . . . and His apostle became strong, He ordered him to call people by the sword . . . hence there is no more an excuse after being warned. The second answer is that people first are taken and compelled, but when Islam becomes prevalent . . . their faith strengthens and finally becomes sincere.

Translated into the language of contemporary and equally mainstream Islamic discourse, with “reasonable” people there is no need for compulsion because “after all the clear proofs, the logical reasoning and the manifest miracles there is no need for force at all.” But with those who persist in their obstinate refusal to be reasonable and convert (or submit), coercion is both legitimate and necessary. After all is said and done, the authorities at al-Azhar hold, jihad is “a divine obligation: the Muslim is always mindful that his religion is a Qur’an and a sword . . . the Muslim is forever a warrior.”

It is therefore inevitable that imperialism is immanent to Islam, as Ephraim Karsch argues persuasively. The apologists assert that Muslims are called by the Kuran to strive for peace, but the “peace” is possible only under an all-pervasive Islamic rule. Such “peace” does not only have the negative meaning of the absence of war. It is a positive state of security, attainable once all infidels are killed, converted or subjugated.

Islam may use the rational form, but in substance it is implacable in the view that only Allah creates our acts and enables us to act, and we are but transmission belts with a preordained balance of debit or credit that determines our destiny in the hereafter. A Muslim’s prayer is not “communication,” and it is offered in the hope of placating a capricious and unpredictable Master. The Master, Allah, is so transcendent as to be devoid of personality.

As then-Cardinal Josef Ratzinger wrote back in 1979, “the unrelated, unrelatable, absolutely one, could not be a person. There is no such thing as a person in the categorical singular.” In the end, Allah the unknowable and un-personable, is served out of fear, obedience, and hope of bountiful heavenly reward. Islam explicitly rejects the notion that “he who has my commandments and keeps them, he is it who loves me.” (John, 14:21) The Kuran states the opposite: “Say, If ye love Allah, follow me; Allah will love you and forgive you your sins.” (3:31) This “love” is a means of winning love and forgiveness. It is the “love” of the self, the very opposite of true love; pure sulphur yet again…

 In lieu of the sordid “interfaith dialogue,” the lasting benefit of the Regensburg controversy is that it forced some of us to reconsider the claim that three “great monotheistic religions” share common roots and “believe in the same God.” But do Christians believe in the same God that Muslims say they worship?

Of course we do not.

The formal argument first. It is clear and fairly simple. The Christian God of the Creed is trinitarian: the Father, the Almighty, maker of heaven and earth, of all things seen and unseen; the Son, our Lord and Savior, eternally begotten of the Father; and the Holy Spirit, the giver of life. This is the orthodox faith, “which except a man shall have believed faithfully and firmly he cannot be in a state of salvation.”

The doctrine of the Deity of Christ is essential. Unless the Son is truly God and “one with the Father,” Christians would be idolaters. If He were but a prophet, Christians would be foolishly entrusting themselves to a created creature in the vain hope of salvation. Islam, on the other hand, violently and explicitly rejects and condemns the Christian doctrine of God (Kuran 4:171), the Trinity (5:37), and the deity of Christ (5:72, 5:17), and Allah unambiguously condemns Christians as disbelievers worthy of destruction (9:29-30). Muhammad’s insistence that there is a heavenly proto-Scripture and that previous “books” are merely distorted and tainted copies sent to previous nations or communities means that these scriptures are the “barbarous Kuran” as opposed to the true, Arabic one. (Let’s leave aside for a minute the puzzling question of how any degree of “distortion” of the Kuran could produce either an Old or a New Testament.) The Muslim Tradition also regards the non-canonical Gospel of Barnabas, and not the New Testament, as the one that Jesus taught. To cut the long story short, orthodox Islam teaches that it alone worships one true God that Judaism and Christianity tell lies about—lies for which Christians and Jews will be punished in hell.

“One God” cannot be trinitarian and infinitely transcendent. Christians and Muslims cannot be both right. Their convergent paths do not lead to the same hilltop.

Unlike the Christian faith in God revealing Himself through Christ, the Koran is not a revelation of Allah—a heretical concept in Islam—but the direct revelation of his commandments and the communication of his law. Christian God “comes down” and seeks man because of His fatherly love. The Fall cast a shadow, the Incarnation makes reconciliation possible. Allah, by contrast, is unknowable and so purely transcendent that no “relationship” is possible. He reveals only his will, not himself. Allah is “everywhere,” and therefore nowhere relevant to us. He is uninterested in making our acquaintance, let alone in being near to us because of love. We are still utterly unable to grasp his purposes and all we can do is what we have to do, to obey his command.

Allah’s absolute transcendence means that he cannot be fathomed, only worshipped. It is by virtue of being infinite, not loving, that he is inseparable from his creation. His absolute sovereignty means that his “closeness” to man is not a two-way relationship; man’s experience of Allah is impossible. Any such attempt would imply heretical encroachment on his absolute transcendence. Ultimately, Allah’s absolute transcendence means that he is everything and nothing. He cannot be grasped by the human mind and is greater than we can comprehend. Every thought about him is insufficient and false.

This is emphatically not the “same God” we believe in. Judging by Islam’s fruits through the ages, we’d be fully justified to conclude that “Allah” is His arch-enemy . . .

A murder in Chicago!

Daniel Gorham — Fri, 15 Dec 2006 21:39:00 GMT

A MURDER IN CHICAGO

On Friday December 8, 2006, the City of Chicago experienced a
horrendous triple murder in a high-rise office building that has
affected many thousands of people in the community, the Irish Freedom
Committee included. A friend and lawyer of the IFC was tragically
slain in his offices along with two other men, and their legal
assistant wounded, by a deranged gunman who forced his way past
security to lock himself and his victims inside their offices.

Michael McKenna was a patent and trademark attorney who assisted the
Irish Freedom Committee since 1998 towards securing trademark
protection for the IFC name, and has advised us in protecting the name
from misuse. Michael dedicated many long hours to our organization
and was a respected friend.

Michael devoted his life to many charitable causes, including working
as a tutor at Chicago housing projects and raising money for AIDs
research and children's hospitals on numerous bike marathons. He will
be remembered by all who knew him for his warmth, humor, generosity,
and great love for his family.

The Irish Freedom Committee extends our deepest condolences to the
friends, co-workers and family of Michael McKenna. Michael is
survived by his wife Suzanne and their two-year old son, and three
adult children from his previous wife who passed away five years ago.

Please send condolence cards to the McKenna Family:

McKenna Family
C/O Irish Freedom Committee
P.O. Box 11417
Chicago IL 60611

Saint Thomas on the Muslums

Daniel Gorham — Thu, 07 Dec 2006 18:41:00 GMT

It should be pointed out at the start that St. Thomas had no unreasoned hatred of the Mohammedans. Rather, he prized their scholarship (although he disputed its conclusions), as the Mohammedan scholars in Moorish Spain, such as Averroes (whom St. Thomas called "The Commentator" [on Aristotle], as he called Aristotle "The Philosopher") had translated many Greek works into Latin. It is said that St. Thomas did not have an acquaintance with Greek in the thirteenth century, as such knowledge had been substantially lost in the West during the so-called Dark Ages, until the Fall of Constantinople in 1453, when the Greek scholars fled Constantinople for the West and were instrumental in starting the period known as the Renaissance, which prized its reacquaintance with the classical Greek authors.

St. Thomas's statement on Mohammed and his followers, found in his Summa Contra Gentiles, a more approachable treatise for many, who are challenged by the scholarly depth of his Summa Theologica. As a matter of fact, the Summa contra Gentiles was written to counter the philosophy of the Mohammedans, who had taken possession of large parts of Spain, who were not expelled until some 200 years latter, in 1492, by King Ferdinand and Queen Isabel. St. Thomas calls a spade and space and conforms to what we hear in the present day of things such as the seventy virgins awaiting Mohammedan murderers:

He [Mohammed] seduced the people by promises of carnal pleasure to which the concupiscence of the flesh urges us. His teaching also contained precepts that were in conformity with his promises, and he gave free rein to carnal pleasure. In all this, as is not unexpected, he was obeyed by carnal men. As for proofs of the truth of his doctrine, he brought forward only such as could be grasped by the natural ability of anyone with a very modest wisdom. Indeed, the truths that he taught he mingled with many fables and with doctrines of the greatest falsity.

He did not bring forth any signs produced in a supernatural way, which alone fittingly gives witness to Divine Inspiration, for a visible action that can be only Divine reveals an invisibly inspired teacher of Truth. On the contrary, Mohammed said that he was sent in the power of his arms -- which are signs not lacking even to robbers and tyrants. What is more, no wise men, men trained in things divine and human, believed in him from the beginning. Those who believed in him were brutal men and desert wanderers, utterly ignorant of all divine teaching, through whose numbers Mohammed forced others to become his followers by the violence of his arms.

Nor do divine pronouncements on the part of preceding prophets offer him any witness. On the contrary, he perverts almost all the testimony of the Old and the New Testaments by making them into a fabrication of his own, as can be seen by anyone who examines his law. It was, therefore, a shrewd decision on his part to forbid his followers to read the Old and New Testaments, lest these books convict him of falsity. It is thus clear that those who place faith in his words believe foolishly. (Lib. I, Chapter 16, Art. 4

When everything is permitted!

Daniel Gorham — Tue, 28 Nov 2006 14:34:00 GMT

IF GOD IS NOT,

EVERYTHING IS PERMITTED!

Fyodor Dostoyevsky

ONE RELIGION HAS DECLARED WAR ON THE WORLD!

Daniel Gorham — Wed, 22 Nov 2006 20:36:00 GMT

Entry for November 22, 2006

THE WAR OF ONE RELIGION AGAINST THE WORLD!

You better try to understand what is going on. We have a war raging around us, they call Jihad. Holy War! A war that seeks to conquer our souls. That seeks the disappearance of our freedom and our civilization. That seeks to annihilate our way of living and dying, our way of praying or not praying, our way of eating and drinking and dressing and entertaining and informing ourselves. You don't understand or don't want to understand that if we don't oppose them, if we don't defend ourselves, if we don't fight the Jihad will win. And it will destroy the world we've managed to build, to render a little more intelligent, that is to say less bigoted - or not bigoted at all. And with that it will destroy our culture, our art, our science. Our morals, our values, our pleasures

SOMETHING TO REALLY THINK ABOUT!

Daniel Gorham — Tue, 21 Nov 2006 22:27:00 GMT

While it may be true that not all Muslims are terrorist, presentl all terrorist ARE MUSLIM!

A DEEP FRY TURKEY

Daniel Gorham — Sun, 19 Nov 2006 21:39:00 GMT

Here's what you need to cook the best Turkey you've ever tasted:

1. A good deep fryer. If you go buy one, get the big one. Should be about 12" in diameter. You want to get one with a strainer basket that goes in the pot. It makes it a lot easier to get the bird out when it's done. The smaller cookers have a bottom plate with a vertical post that the bird fits down over and when you cook them correctly; the meat will fall apart when you take it out of the cooker. The strainer basket works much better and is also great for cooking catfish and other small items.

The other reason you want the bigger pot is so you can cook bigger birds. The smaller pots will only accommodate 14 - 16 lb birds- almost not worth the trouble.

2. A good thermometer. Cooking temperature is the single most important thing about cooking your Turkey. If you buy a good fryer, it should come with a good thermometer. Don't consider fryers which come with thermometers that have just a "red" and "green" zone on them that supposedly tells you good and bad temperatures for cooking. You need one that shows, at minimum, 10 degree increments.

3. A few paint strainers. You can get them at Home Depot, Lowes, or any paint store. When you're through cooking your bird, (and after the oil has cooled down) you'll use the paint strainers to strain the oil to take out the little pieces of skin, meat and fat that will be mixed in with the leftover oil. Clean up the oil, store it in a cool place, and you can use it again for another Turkey at Christmas, or at the very least, you can use it in your FryDaddy in the kitchen for French fries and chicken strips.

4. Cooking oil. Lots of debate over which oil to use. Personally, I prefer vegetable oil because I like the taste it produces better than other oils. We can argue trans-fats and hydrogenated oils all day, but bottom line is that if you're worried about your cholesterol, you probably shouldn't be cooking a huge Thanksgiving dinner anyway. Many people recommend and prefer peanut oil for deep frying. Others go with corn oil. Still others with canola. Aside from the debate over health issues, a primary concern when choosing the oil you cook in is the smoke point, or burn temperature, of the oil. This is the temperature the oil begins to break down at. The instructions that come with many cookers recommend peanut oil because it has a higher smoke point. Most cooker instructions will tell you to cook your bird at 350 degrees and for that you need oil with a higher smoke point. This is not a concern for us since we never approach 350 degrees. Some examples of smoke points: Canola Oil: 400 F, Corn Oil: 450 F, Peanut Oil: 450 F, Vegetable Oil: 320 F.

A few safety precautions:

This part of the instructions that comes with your cooker is a part you need to read and follow- it's the cooking instructions you need to throw away. Each year, there are an amazing number of dimwits who set their deck, garage, or house on fire deep frying Turkeys. Doesn't take a rocket scientist to figure out that oil and a propane burner don't mix.

1. Choose a firm, level surface to cook on. Do not cook on your wooden deck or inside the garage. Driveways or patios are great, but you may want to put down a piece of cardboard or other absorbent material under the cooker. You will get some oil drippings on whatever you cook on and it will stain the concrete. Since it's basically clear, it won't stain like oil from your car, but no sense in messing up the patio or driveway.

2. Keep a fire extinguisher handy. Just like in the kitchen, if you get an oil or grease fire going, don't put water on it- just makes it worse by splattering the burning oil everywhere.

3. Don't leave the cooker unattended.

4. Follow any other safety instructions that come with your cooker. A little common sense goes a long way.

5. Do a test run with your bird using water before you start cooking. Many accidents occur when the Turkey is lowered into the hot oil and you find that you have too much oil in the pot and it overflows when you put the Turkey in. To make sure this doesn't happen, put the bird in the pot; fill it up with water to a level that covers the bird by about 1 inch. Remove the bird and note the level of the water. This is the level you want to hit when you put the oil in prior to cooking. Since this level is going to vary every time because the size of the Turkey can vary every time you cook one, it's a good idea to check the levels this way each time you cook. This is a very important step since you don't want to have to add more oil after the bird is put in as this will lower the temperature of the oil and you have no way to remove hot oil from the cooker if you have too much to begin with.

6. I recommend that you have something set up to hang the bird from when you are finished cooking it. This lets you drain the bird over the pot when you're done. I use a swing set frame with an "S" hook hooked into a small chain and I position the frame and chain over the center of the pot before I start. When the bird is finished, I hang the strainer basket on the "S" hook and let the bird drain for a few minutes. You can also just set the strainer basket in a big disposable aluminum Turkey pan you can get from the grocery store. Lots of ways to do it- the frame above the cooker is just my personal preference.

Alright! You're set up. Let's cook!

From here, it's pretty simple, but preparation is important. Get your bird, and pick out a big one! I usually look for a Tom around 22 lbs. Of course, I feed a pretty big crowd on Thanksgiving. Get your bird a couple of days early and put it in the refrigerator side to let it thaw out. Doesn't hurt to leave it out for a few hours right after you get it- it will be frozen solid. I actually prefer to buy a bird that isn't frozen- it's just a hassle to thaw them.

When your bird is thawed out, remove the neck and other goodies that usually come packaged inside the bird and clean it thoroughly. I use a teaspoon of Clorox bleach in a gallon of water to wash mine. Helps kill those nasty bugs sometimes associated with poultry. After the cleaning, rinse thoroughly with water and drain. Set the bird on a rolled out piece of Saran Wrap (use the 18" wide because we're going to totally wrap the bird after we season it).

Now, rub the bird down with a combination of Lawry's Seasoned Salt. . Use a lot of the seasoning and rub it into the bird. It's hard to use too much! Cover every part of the Turkey. Once the bird is seasoned, completely wrap it in the Saran Wrap with two or three layers and let it sit in the refrigerator overnight before you cook it.

Set up your cooker, put in the oil and bring the oil up to 275 degrees F. Most people will tell you to cook the bird at 350 degrees for about 2 1/2 to 3 minutes per pound. This is too hot and results in a Turkey that is tough on the outside and undercooked on the inside and not nearly as tender as what we're looking for. When the oil temp is 275, SLOWLY immerse the bird in the oil. TAKE OFF THE SARAN WRAP BEFORE YOU START COOKING! Sounds silly to have to point that out, but... Expect some boiling and bubbling as whatever water that was left in and on the bird from cleaning and rinsing tries to sink in the oil and is immediately turned into steam from the high temperature of the oil. Cover the pot with the lid and cook the bird at 275 degrees for 30 minutes.

After 30 minutes at 275 degrees, turn the heat down and bring the oil temperature down to 225 degrees. It takes a little time for the temperature to drop, so I turn the fire down after about 20 minutes at 275. Once the oil temp is down to 225 degrees, adjust the burner to maintain that temperature and cook the bird for 1 1/2 hours at 225. This is really the secret to your success. Imagine slow cooking ribs. We're doing the same thing with the Turkey. The cooking time will vary according to the size of the bird, but not by a lot. 1 1/2 hours at 225 should be about right for a 20-22 lb bird.

After the 1 1/2 hours at 225, turn the heat back up and bring the oil temp back up to 275 to finish it off. Shouldn't take more than 20 minutes or so. We're looking for two things: a nice medium brown color and we know the bird is done when you see the meat around the leg bones begin to pull away from the bone.

Pull the strainer basket out of the oil, hang and let drain for a few minutes. After the excess oil has drained off, completely wrap the bird in aluminum foil. Once again, I use the 18" width and wrap it in a couple of layers. If you have a couple of hours before dinner is served, or if you're taking the bird to someone else's house for dinner, I recommend putting the wrapped up bird in an office file folder box (available at Office Depot). It will stay really hot for several hours.

After dinner, when the oil has cooled down, use the paint strainers to filter the oil as you put it back in its container so you can use it again. You're done! The only thing left to do is to send me an email telling me how good it was and how everybody at dinner raved about your Turkey!!!

That's the way I do it. I hope your Thanksgiving is a wonderful one and from our family to yours, we wish you the best of holidays!

WHERE CAN YOU FIND SATISFACTION?

Daniel Gorham — Tue, 14 Nov 2006 20:14:00 GMT

pleasure and possessions!

People continue to believe, despite the constant stream of evidence to the contrary, that the more they seek after pleasure and accumulate possessions, the more they will be filled with happiness, peace, and contentment. Yet boredom and disgust plagues these poor souls despite continual external stimuli. If wealth and fame brought happiness then why is it that celebrities and millionaires are often the very ones that are in the deepest pit of unrest, depression and despair, and so often commit suicide? If sex and drugs brought lasting happiness then prostitutes and drug addicts should be swimming in an ocean of happiness and peace, but they are not. Anyone who has lived a few years of adulthood, and who reflects back on life, must admit that nothing of this world ever truly and perfectly satisfies. No matter how intense an experience may have been for the moment, it quickly passes away, leaving behind an interior void, a vacuous disillusionment. Even after the most thrilling and intense experiences and pleasures one very soon begins to feel that inner gnawing emptiness return. We become most hungry where we thought we would be most satisfied. Everything leaves the soul incomplete and desiring more. Desires beget desires. All earthly pleasures and joys only whet the appetite as crumbs do a starving man. As the poet Blake put it: “‘More! More!’ is the cry of a mistaken soul: less than all cannot satisfy Man.” Why is this? Why are we disappointed? It is because we have a soul – a spirit – and it has an infinite capacity. And if our soul yearns for happiness, then it must be made for happiness, but if all earthly things fail to bring perfect peace and happiness then we must be seeking for these in all the wrong places. One must look for peace somewhere else. One must plunge into the deep things of the spirit. Our passions can sometimes be satisfied, but we cannot, for our soul yearns for something beyond the material, beyond anything this world can give. We are disappointed and unsatisfied with things because there is a tremendous disproportion between the desires and ideals of our soul and their realization. We can imagine a diamond as big as the moon, and intensely desire it, but we will never see one, nor ever possess one. Yet even if we did, it would not bring one ounce of lasting happiness and interior rest, for our heart would then desire a diamond the size of the sun. An infinite hunger can only be filled, and thereby brought to rest, by something infinite. Nothing material can be infinite and nothing material can enter into our spirit and satisfy it.

A CALL FOR THE END OF THE KILLING OF CHRISTIANS BY MUSLIM (ISLAM)

Daniel Gorham — Mon, 06 Nov 2006 19:50:00 GMT

Catholic Church Calls for Action over Gruesome Violence toward Christians in Iraq

Soaring violence against Christians in Iraq -- including the alleged crucifixion of a teenage boy in Basra - has prompted the Catholic Church to call for a safe haven to protect minority groups as the country slides toward civil war.

The American Catholic bishops have also asked US Secretary of State Condoleezza Rice to grant asylum to hundreds of thousands of Iraqi Christians who have fled their homes to escape persecution.

They told her that they were deeply alarmed by the "rapidly deteriorating situation of Christians and other religious minorities in Iraq".

The report of the crucifixion was carried by the Catholic Assyrian International News Agency (AINA) and another agency covering religious affairs, Asia News, although neither had confirmed details.

The reports said a 14-year-old boy was crucified early last month in Basra. AINA also gave a graphic account of the execution of a priest, Father Paul Alexander which, it said, was in retaliation for Pope Benedict XVI recently quoting a 14th century Byzantine ruler who regarded Islam as 'evil and inhuman'.

Father Alexander was snatched from Mosul's Syriac Orthodox Catholic Church on October 9 by extremists who demanded that the Vatican should pay a £200,000 ransom and nail a written apology from the Pope to the priest's church door.

Father Alexander's body was found three days later. He had been disemboweled. His arms and legs were severed, and then he was beheaded.

It is the most gruesome in a series of beheadings and other atrocities committed on Christians, including the brutal treatment of a group of nuns journeying from Baghdad to Jordan.

In a letter to Miss Rice which was made public, Thomas Wenski, the Bishop of Orlando and the chairman of the bishop's committee on international policy, said: "We deplore the sectarian violence engulfing the Shia and Sunni communities in Iraq. We are especially and acutely aware of the deliberate violence perpetrated against Christians and other vulnerable minorities."

"The recent beheading of a Syriac Orthodox priest in Mosul, the crucifixion of a Christian teenager in Basra, the frequent kidnappings for ransom of Christians including four priests ... the rape of Christian women and teenage girls, and the bombings of churches are all indicators that the situation has reached a crisis point."

The bishops have asked Miss Rice to consider the creation of a new 'administrative region' in the northern Nineveh Plain area that would be governed by Baghdad but controlled by the Kurds, who they described as the 'key to stability' in the country.

"This could provide Christians and other minorities with greater safety and offer more opportunity to control their own affairs," Bishop Wenski wrote.

The concern of the bishops has been heightened by figures from the United Nations High Commission for Refugees which revealed that about 44 per cent of Iraqi refugees are Christian, even though they represent only about four per cent of the total population of Iraq.

Although Iraq is a predominantly Muslim country, Christians have lived in the region since the first century. The majority are Chaldean Roman Catholics who speak Aramaic, the language of Jesus Christ.

They were tolerated under the secular regime of Saddam Hussein, who even made one of them, Tariq Aziz, his deputy.

But as the war has radicalized Islamic sensibilities, Christians have seen their total numbers slump from 1.2 million before the US-led invasion of March 2003 to about 600,000 today.

An exodus to the neighboring countries of Syria, Jordan and Turkey has left behind closed parishes, seminaries and convents.

John Pontifex of the British branch of Aid to the Church in Need, a charity set up to help persecuted Christians, said he was aware of reports of the crucifixion of a Christian boy in Basra in October, but had not details.

He said he also agreed with the US bishops' assessment of the situation in Iraq. "What we are now witnessing in Iraq is a vicious attempt to wipe Christianity from the face of a country," he said yesterday.

"Beheadings, killings, arrests and torture, it is the stuff of nightmares, an era every bit as cruel as the persecution of Christians in Roman times."

Who Cares if Christians are killed

Daniel Gorham — Sat, 04 Nov 2006 22:40:00 GMT

The West Turns a Blind Eye to Ethnic Cleansing of Iraq's Christians

During the month of Ramadan the terror attacks in Iraq have escalated explosively. The attacks have been more numerous and more brutal. There is a regular civil war going on between different groups. Everything is about gaining power in order to take possession of the country's resources and to strengthen the position of one's own group. The contending parties in the war are Shia-Muslims, Sunni-Muslims and Kurds.

In the middle of the chaos, during the month of Ramadan which is holy for Muslims, there is another war, or to be correct a hunt, going on. The ones that are being hunted are the defenseless Christians.

The latest news reports from Iraq are about abductions, torture and murders on the Christian population. An ethnic cleaning of Christians is perpetrated as we speak. The Christians, who have no protection at all, are being victimized because of their religion, ethnicity or as a reaction against the actions of the Western worlds. In other words the fanatics have many reasons to take the lives of the Christians and to exterminate all Christians from Iraq.

In the light of the above mentioned I want to draw the attention to some events that have claimed many victims among the Christians lately. These events are just the tip of the iceberg of terror attacks. I will begin with the publishing of the Mohammed images and its consequences.

The first fatalities of the Mohammed images

The Danish news paper Jyllandsposten’s publishing of the Mohammed images created anger among Muslims. This anger was very surprising for us here in the West. The anger and the reactions against the publishing and the way the Danish government handled the issue were shown in many places in the world. But the first victims due to these images were not Danes or other Westerners. Instead it was the Assyrians when their churches were bombed in Iraq. Although the media was informed by journalist Nuri Kino about what the media had caused, it was still indifferent and chose to ignore the consequences.

Well-planned and well-aimed bomb attack

On October 4th, 2006 a car bomb detonated in a Christian area and killed nine people. A few days earlier a smaller bomb was detonated in the same area to draw people to the scene. When a lot of people had gathered to help the wounded a larger and more fatal bomb was detonated. This terror attack resulted in many deaths and injured.

A murder with a message, priest beheaded

Father Paulos Eskandar, of Mor Afrem Syriac Orthodox Church was kidnapped on the 9th of October 2006 by fanatic Muslims. Two days later the Muslims had decapitated the priest. They did this although the Christians fulfilled their demands by posting a text on the church doors that condemned the pope's statement about Islam. After the murder the abductors called the priest's wife and told her: Your husband deserved to die because he refused to convert to Islam. We threw his body in bags so his blood would not soil "the land of Islam". On October 11th the body of the priest and his head were found in different places. These Muslims had cut of his head and his limbs.

Two 14 year old boys are killed; a murder with a high symbolic significance a fourteen year old boy was also murdered in a barbaric manner in Albasra. The boy faced a much crueler death. He was crucified and after that the barbarians stabbed the boy in the stomach, just as it was done to Jesus. The second murder was perpetrated on October 21st in Baquba, when a group of veiled Muslims attacked a workplace where a 14 year old boy named Ayad Tariq worked. The men asked the boy for his identity card. Another employee who had managed to hide witnessed the course of events. After seeing in his identity card that he was Christian the men asked Ayad whether he was a "dirty Christian sinner". Ayad answered: "Yes, I am Christian, but I am not a sinner." The rebels jelled that he was a dirty Christian sinner and continued to grab him and to scream "Allahu, Akbar! Allahu, akbar!" After this Muslim ritual they decapitated him in the most brutal and disgusting way. He was only 14 years!

This is a clear message from Muslims that Christians will be cleaned out from Iraq with violence. Similar signals are given both from Kurds and Arabs.

Hush up the already fragile media coverage

The Kurdish militia has at several occasions terrorized Assyrians and their media. Murder, terror, threats and assault have become a part of the staff's normal weekday. Recently a group of the Kurdish militia KDP, Kurdistan Democratic Party, attacked the Assyrian Democratic Movement's (ADM) TV-station, Ashur TV. This is done to try to stop the coverage of the cruel reality that Assyrians live in today in northern Iraq.

Conclusion

When other groups are in warfare for the power, Christians are terrorized, raped, beheaded and crucified for completely different reasons. The Christians, who do not have any strive for power, are struggling for their existence and survival.

To protect the Kurdish population in Iraq the Western world has arranged a free zone in the northern part of the country. Why doesn't the same apply when Christians are in the same situation?

In the reactions against the clumsy actions of the West, it has always been the Christian Assyrians/Chaldeans /Syriacs that have paid the price with their lives. Like recently, when the Pope commented Islam and earlier, when Jyllandsposten published the Mohammed images.

The events mentioned above and many more before them aren't just a part of the chaotic situation in Iraq. The symbolic significant and systematic murders, such as the beheading of the priest, the crucifying of the boy and the spreading of DVDs that contains authentic beheading scenes, are directly aimed against the Christian population. These actions aim unambiguously at an ethnic and religious cleaning of the Christians of Iraq. Many refugee reports, among them an unpublished UNHCR report, state clearly that the Christians constitute more than 44% of those who flee Iraq. This also shows clearly that Christians suffer more than Muslims.

There is no doubt that Iraq is being drained of its Christians. The Western countries, which put Assyrians/Chaldeans /Syriacs in this difficult situation because of their own actions have to stop being spectators and instead do something about it. That is why my opinion is that a free zone with the protection of the UN is the obligation of the West towards the Christians in Iraq. Anything else is hypocrisy.

WE ALL WILL FACE A MARTYRS DEATH IN TIME

Daniel Gorham — Wed, 01 Nov 2006 02:46:00 GMT

New Martyrs of the East and Coming Trials in the West

Persecution and martyrdom of Christians under 20th century totalitarianism—mainly of Russian Orthodox Christians under Bolshevism—is by far the greatest crime in all of recorded history. It is several times greater than the Holocaust in terms of innocent lives brutally destroyed. It has killed more Christians in a few decades than all other causes put together in all ages, with Islam a distant second as the cause of their death and suffering. And yet it still remains a largely unknown, often minimized, or scandalously glossed over crime.

According to the respected and reliable OUP World Christian Encyclopedia (2001), there have been many more Christian martyrs in the 20th century—over 45 million—than in all of the preceding 19 centuries of Christianity. Of that number, some 32 million were killed by “atheists” and over 9 million by Muslims. The “atheists” denote, overwhelmingly, Soviets and their Communist cohorts and satellites, but also include Nazis and their allies. The Spanish Republic was an especially efficient Christian-killing machine. In terms of the size of the targeted population and the time span of only two and a half years, the Compañeros did almost as well as the Tovarishchi.

It may be argued that among the Bolsheviks’ victims many were slaughtered not because they were Christians-as-such, but because they were “objectively” real or potential enemies of the state, i.e., Tsarist army officers and aristocrats, peasant farmers (“kulaks”), artists, academics, or middle class professionals. But while it would be admittedly erroneous to count every Christian, however nominal, who died under Communist persecution as a “New Martyr,” there is no doubt:

(1) That Christians were targeted with particular ferocity for the very reason of their faith;

(2) That the Russian Orthodox Church and other Christian confessions—notably Eastern Rite Catholics—were subjected to systematic destruction on a titanic scale; and

(3) That the majority of victims targeted for supposedly “secular” reasons of class, profession, or political beliefs, were also Christian believers whose faith was inseparable from other traits of their personality.

We’ll never know how many of those countless victims were “in a situation of witness for the Faith” at the moment of death, which is the convential definition of martyrdom. Of the mental state of the killers, however, and specifically of their intention to eradicate Christianity by whatever means, there is no doubt at all. In 20 years (1918-1938) the number of churches that remained open in Russia was reduced from 54,000 to under 500—to less than one percent, that is, of the pre-Bolshevik total. In all some 600 bishops, 40,000 priests, 120,000 monks and nuns, and millions of laypeople were martyred for the Orthodox Faith in Russia in the five decades after 1918. The survivors were also confessors: they survived, but theirs was a living martyrdom.

The term “martyr,” in its broader Greek meaning of “witness,” is indeed applicable to most if not all of the victims. Therefore we shall not use the term “New Martyrs” in its narrower meaning of a witness who shed his blood, and who has official Church approval in the form of canonization. The broader definition provides the right way to treat the slain innocents. As Pope John Paul II said at the Commemoration of 20th Century Witnesses of the Faith at the Coliseum in May 2000,

The names of many are unknown; the names of some have been denigrated by their persecutors, who tried to add disgrace to martyrdom; the names of others have been concealed by their executioners. But Christians preserve the memory of a great number of them.

The blood of Christ’s martyred witnesses, the Pope went on, is “the precious heritage that these courageous witnesses have passed down to us is a patrimony shared by all the Churches and ecclesial communities.” As an example he singled out Metropolitan Benjamin of Saint Petersburg, martyred in 1922, whose final word at his farcical trial was, “no matter what you decide, life or death, I will lift up my eyes reverently to God, cross myself and affirm: Glory to Thee, my Lord, glory to Thee for everything.”

Persecution and martyrdom are inseparable from Orthodox experience — first under the Muslim conquerors, starting in the middle ages and continuing in many parts of the world to this day, and then, in the twentieth century, under Communism. Persecution and martyrdom connect the Eastern Church of our time with the early Church. “My strength is made perfect in weakness,” said Christ to St. Paul (2 Cor 12:9); and, as Bishop Kallistos Ware points out, we see His words fulfilled again and again in Orthodox history since the fall of Byzantium.

When we talk of “New Martyrs” today, we think mainly of the victims of Bolshevism. Before 1981, however, the “New Martyrs” of Orthodoxy denoted those who suffered for the faith under the Muslim, and most notably Turkish yoke. Our knowledge of most of them is scant, but they offer a splendid example of the diversity and generosity of the Holy Spirit acting in the lives of believers in those long centuries of oppression and persecution.

St. Tsar Lazar of Serbia, who fell fighting Turks at Kosovo in 1389, is the precursor of them all. On St. Vitus’ day, June 15 (old style), facing the mighty Ottoman horde, he declared, “Let us die with Christ so that we can live for ever,” for the earthly kingdom is transient, while the Kingdom of Heaven is eternal. In his martyrdom St. Lazar combined the suffering for Christ of the Holy New-Martyr Nicholas II Romanov, and the death in battle of the last Byzantine Emperor, Constantine XI Paleologos. But in his calm self-sacrifice for the Faith, his choice of freedom that transcends the world and opens the gates of Eternity, he is indeed a universal Christian hero.

Once the last Byzantine Emperor and his badly outnumbered soldiers were slain on the walls of Constantinople 64 years later, bands of Turks went on a rampage. Pillaging and killing went on for three days. Thousands of civilians were slain, the rest were enslaved; soldiers literally fought over boys and young women. The blood ran in streams down the steep streets from the heights of Petra toward the Golden Horn. All the treasures of the Imperial Palace were carried off. Books and icons were burnt once the jeweled covers and frames had been wrenched off. In the monastery of the Holy Savior, the invaders first destroyed the icon of the Mother of God, the Hodigitria, the holiest icon in all Byzantium. When the Turks burst into the Hagia Sophia, the worshippers were trapped. The old and infirm were killed on the spot; the rest were tied together. Many of the richer-clad nobles were almost torn to death as their captors quarreled over them. The priests went on chanting at the altar till they, too, were taken or slain the inhabitants were carried off along with their possessions. Frail stragglers were slaughtered, as well as infants who were held to be of no value. The city, as Sir Steven Runciman wrote, “Was now half in ruins, emptied and deserted and blackened as though by fire, and strangely silent. Wherever the soldiers had been there was desolation. Churches had been desecrated and stripped; houses were no longer habitable and shops and stores battered and bare.”

Most of the churches of Constantinople were converted to mosques, just as in Russia five centuries later they would become warehouses, latrines, or abortion clinics. The city’s name was changed to Istanbul, just as many years later St. Petersburg would become “Leningrad.” In the ensuing centuries, being a Greek, Bulgur, or Serb in the Ottoman Empire meant living in daily fear of murder, rape, torture, robbery, kidnap of one’s children, slavery, and every other form of barbarity imaginable.

St. Zlata Meglenska, a pious virgin-martyr who was ordered to convert to Islam on the pain of death, was implored by her family to go through the motions: “O sweetest daughter, have pity on yourself and on us your parents and your sisters. . . . Deny Christ just for the sake of appearances.” “You who incite me to deny Christ, the true God, are no longer my parents and sisters,” she replied, “but in your place I have my Lord Jesus Christ as a father, my Lady the Theotokos as a mother, and the saints as my brothers and sisters.” She suffered a particularly horrible form of martyrdom. The chronicler of her life tells us that her agony was so terrible “that even the most stout-hearted of men would be humbled.”

As Turkey declined after the second siege of Vienna, its provincial governors and warlords—often, though not always, local converts to Islam with a suppressed guilty grudge against their former co-religionists—grew stronger, and increasingly asserted rebellious independence. Notably in the Balkans, it was demonstrated in far harsher treatment of their Christian subjects than was either mandated or normally practiced from the Bosphorus. Two Serbian new martyrs, St. Abbot Paisius and St. Deacon Avakum, were impaled at the gates of Belgrade in 1814. When his mother begged Avakum with tears to save his life by accepting Islam, this wonderful solder of Christ replied to her, thanking her for her motherhood but not for her advice. Looking to the end of his own martyrdom in the immortal Kingdom of Christ, Avakum went to his horrible end singing, “There’s no more beautiful faith than Christianity, so let’s rejoice at death!” His song is also the song of all true Christians of all times.

In 1821 Patriarch Gregorios was hanged in Constantinople. In 1822 the island of Chios—to use contemporary parlance—was subjected to genocide and ethnic cleansing. The following year, the number of victims of the slaughter at Missolongi is known precisely: 8,750. The butchery of 14,700 Bulgarians in 1876 was almost routine by Turkish standards. At the town of Batal, 5,000 out of 7,000 inhabitants were murdered, a fact that was unsuccessfully suppressed by Disraeli’s pro-Turkish government. In many cases, the massacres of Christians resulted from local Muslim revolts against any decree granting their Christian subjects greater rights.

At the same time, the great Western powers, and Great Britain in particular, actually supported the continuing Turkish subjugation of Christian Europeans on the grounds that the Mohammedan empire was a “stabilizing force” and a counterweight against Austria and Russia. Their scandalous alliance with Turkey against Russia in the Crimean War reflected a pernicious frame of mind that has manifested itself more recently in the overt or de facto support of the United States for the Muslim side in Bosnia-Herzegovina, Kosovo, Macedonia, Chechnya, Cyprus, East Timor, and Kashmir.

From the dozens of anti-Christian pogroms in the nineteenth century, the “Bulgarian Atrocities” are remembered somewhat more vividly than others because they provoked a cry of indignation from Gladstone, who asserted of the Ottomans, “No government ever has so sinned, none has proved itself so incorrigible in sin, or which is the same, so impotent in reformation.” But Gladstone’s opponents, the advocates of Turkophile policy at Westminster, went beyond Realpolitik in arguing for the lifeline to the Sick Man of the Bosphorus: they devised the theory that the Ottomans were in reality agreeable and tolerant, and only needed a friendly, supportive nudge to become quite, or almost, like other civilized people. Disraeli prompted unprecedented depiction of Turkey as tolerant and humane, even in the face of the Bulgarian atrocities, but Britain’s Christian conscience, prodded by Gladstone’s passion, brought down his government in 1880. There are no such checks, alas, to the morbid Islamophilia of our ruling elites today.

The carnage peaked as the Ottoman Empire became “Turkey.” The burning of Smyrna and the massacre and scattering of its 300,000 Christian inhabitants is one of the great crimes of all times. The exodus of up to two million Christians in 1922 marked the end of the Greek civilization in Asia Minor, which had also given the world the immortal cities of Philadelphia and Ephesus.

By the time the Levantine Christianity was in its death throes, the biggest Christian-killing machine in history—set up by Vladimir Ilyich Lenin and his cohorts—had been in operation for over four years. In 1922 alone, 28 Russian Orthodox bishops and over 1,200 priests were executed, and many more others were imprisoned or exiled. True to their modernist creed, they adopted the mechanisms and resources of a modern industrial state, including intricate camp networks and police apparata. Muslim terror was primitive and traditional by comparison. As Fr. Marco Gnavi, secretary of the Jubilee New Martyrs Commission, pointed out in 2000,

these new martyrs are men and women who did not suffer at the hands of individuals, but under whole inhuman systems . . . The term ‘New Martyrs’ indicates a new dimension of martyrdom: Christians have suffered for the faith—not so much individually, instead whole generations underwent persecution. Entire Churches, communities, and families suffered for their loyalty to Christ, the Gospel, and the Church, in situations where, before killing the body, the persecutors sought to kill the soul. In the 20th century, there were those who tried to wipe out the capacity to resist evil, and the desire for reconciliation and peace.

Attempts at “killing the soul” started only months after the Revolution of 1917. Irina Skariatina remembered the desecration of her church while Metropolitan Benjamin was serving an all-night vigil in Petrograd in 1918 when the church was surrounded by hundreds of soldiers who subsequently broke in, talking, laughing, swearing, smoking, spitting loudly:

They came up the aisle to the altar where the Metropolitan and twelve assisting bishops and archimandrites were officiating and, pushing them aside, prodded the golden coverings of the altar with their bayonets (“to see if any firearms were concealed,” they explained), then threw cigarette ashes into the Chalice and finally spat into it, throwing it on the ground as they left the altar on their way out. The congregation, paralyzed with horror, did not move at first. Then suddenly it broke loose, a multitude of people maddened by the outrage, all acting under the same impulse of boundless indignation. In a second the soldiers were stopped, surrounded, and would probably have been torn to pieces alive (despite the fact that they were armed and the congregation was not), had not the Metropolitan come forward and called out in a loud voice the words of Christ: “Forgive them, for they know not what they do,” adding, “Let them go in peace and do not leave your places for we shall proceed with the service.” He was obeyed, of course . . .

Such fortitude did not save him from the firing squad in 1922. Patriarch Tikhon, amidst the rising ocean of blood, called on his flock to share the cup of martyrdom: “If it becomes necessary to suffer for the sake of Christ, we call upon you, beloved sons and daughters of the Church; we call upon you to suffer to-gether with us. If a redeeming sacrifice is required, the death of the innocent sheep of Christ’s flock, I bless the faithful servants of the Lord Jesus Christ to pain and death for His sake.”

By that time the mind-boggling scale of the Soviet killing machine made obvious a fundamental difference between anti-Christian pogroms carried out by Muslims in the previous 13 centuries and those perpetrated by 20th century totalitarians. Bolsheviks relied on centralized decision-making structures, hierarchies, plans, orders, reports, lists of victims, statistics, trains and timetables. Muslim orders, by contrast, were mostly oral and their terror was often applied in an arbitrary manner and with a random selection of targets and methods of killing.

Bolshevik terror was for the most part depersonalized and bureaucratic, it was cold, abstract, objective—just like Lenin’s hatred of humankind. The Muslims, on the other hand, specialized in gruesome methods of execution, such as impalement and decapitation, but such methods were too slow for the massive scale of Lenin’s endeavor. Bolshevik terror, with its somberness, discipline, bureaucratic pedantry etc. was “puritanical,” while the Muslims indulged literally in orgies of violence. Finally, Bolshevik terror was “modern” in its ideology of dialectical materialism, while the Muslims invoked centuries-old concepts of jihad, sharia and dhimmitude to justify their actions and motivate the ranks.

Bolshevism is dead, but jihad is alive and well. Anronio Socci, the author of The New Persecuted: Inquiries into Anti-Christian Intolerance in the New Century of Martyrs, provides evidence that some 160,000 Christians have been killed every year since 1990, the vast majority by Muslims. Chronicling attacks, pogroms and wars in East Timor, Indonesia, Sudan, Egypt, Pakistan, India, and the Balkans, Socci identifies Islamic aggression as the main danger. And yet, says he, “This global persecution of Christianity is still in progress but in most cases is ignored by the mass media and Christians in the west.”

This is regrettable but inevitable. The present technological, military, and financial might of the Western world is a mere façade that conceals an underlying moral and spiritual weakness that may yet undermine the entire edifice. The symptoms of that malaise start with the loss of faith, manifest in the fact that, in today’s Britain, France, Belgium, and Germany, more people pray in mosques on Fridays than in churches on Sundays. The ruling elites’ visceral antipathy to Christianity makes them averse to acknowledging any “New Martyrs” anywhere.

But they are with us, and will be always. In his apostolic letter, Tertium Millennium Adveniente in preparation for the Great Jubilee of 2000, the late Pope John Paul II said, “In our own (20th) century the martyrs have returned, many of them nameless, ‘unknown soldiers,’ as it were, of God’s great cause.” Their witness should not be lost, the Pope added, and indeed it is not lost. For the survivors it spells out a message of love and the Gospel. From St. Prince Lazar to today’s New Martyrs of Kosovo, such as monks Fr. Chariton and Fr. Stefan who were brutally murdered by the Albanians in 1999, the suffering is always a choice for life, not death, and “a pressing call to have the courage of our Christian convictions, not to be afraid to exercise Christian virtues; it is a call to unity in faith in Christ.”

The New Martyrs’ example and their legacy are precious, because in this, 21st century, it will be the turn of Western Christians to experience martyrdom. In Western Europe they will be persecuted by the unholy alliance between the postmodern, Christophobic velvet totalitarianism of the therapeutic hyper-state, and a resurgent Islam which already accounts for a quarter of all newborns in France. In the United States they will be persecuted for refusing to accept the destruction of the moral foundation of the society, currently epitomized by abortion, by “gay marriage,” and by the ever-expanding speech and thought codes. Instead of being thrown to the lions or sent to Siberia, the resisters will be subjected—by some monstrous mechanism devised by an ever more activist judiciary—to the mandatory “sexual diversity orientation sessions,” or feminist-led pro-abortionist “right-to-choose education workshops,” or “immigrant rights sensitivity training,” after which the continuing refusal to recant will lead to compulsory “therapy” and forced medication. This scenario is not farfetched on either side of the Atlantic. Western Christians should be prepared for martyrdom.

The witness of the New Martyrs makes it necessary to define what is permissible and what is impermissible in the relationship between the Church and state, especially a state that is pursuing policies that are evil. For starters, it is necessary to reject any absolutization of government authority. Earthly and temporal powers of the state should be recognized as imperative only to the degree that they are used to support good and limit evil.

This problem was recognized over 70 years ago by the Russian Orthodox Church Outside of Russia, in the “Encyclical Epistle of the Council of Bishops Abroad” of 1933: “The attempt to delineate spheres of influence between the Church and the State—the soul of man belongs to the former, his body to the latter—will in principle never achieve its objective, because it is only possible to divide man into two separate parts in an abstract sense; in reality, they comprise a single, indivisible whole, and only death dissolves the tie that binds them together.” The Jubilee Council of Bishops of the Russian Orthodox Church of 2000 also addressed this problem in its “Basic Social Concept of the Russian Orthodox Church.” “In everything that concerns the exclusively earthly order of things,” the Bishops declared, “the Orthodox Christian is obliged to obey the law, regardless of how far it is imperfect and unfortunate.” However, when compliance with legal requirements threatens his eternal salvation and involves an apostasy or commitment of another doubtless sin before God and his neighbor,

The Christian is called to perform the feat of confession for the sake of God’s truth and the salvation of his soul for eternal life. He must speak out lawfully against an indisputable violation committed by society or state against the statutes and commandments of God. If this lawful action is impossible or ineffective, he must take up the position of civil disobedience. The Church is loyal to the state, but God’s commandment to fulfill the task of salvation in any situation and under any circumstances is above this loyalty . . . If the authority forces Orthodox believers to apostatize from Christ and His Church and to commit sinful and spiritually harmful actions, the Church should refuse to obey the state . . . [it] must resist evil, immorality and harmful social phenomena and always firmly confess the Truth, and when persecutions commence, to continue to openly witness the faith and be prepared to follow the path of confessors and martyrs for Christ.

Amen; but is a political theory of Christian resistance possible? Perhaps the key is to draw the distinction between “liberal democracy” that promises freedom “from” things, and Christian liberty that upholds freedom “for” things.

This model should be broad enough to provide the consensual platform for different Christian traditions. To regain the war-ravaged remnants of “Christendom,” its embattled majority of manipulated citizens needs help to become conscious of the power that it still possesses, but to that end it should be admitted by every Christian that others—people outside his particular tradition—may share Christian virtues and lead good lives. They need to hang together, in these trying times, or else they will most assuredly hang separately. At all times they need to be prepared to bear witness to the Truth of Christ to the death, as Christ Himself, the “Faithful Witness” (Rev., I, 5), “to this end was born, and for this cause came into the world, to bear witness unto the truth” (John XVIII, 37), and to give up His life through suffering on the Cross for the redemption of many. To bear Christian witness is to give glory to God in living and in dying, just as Metropolitan Benjamin and millions of other New Martyrs have done: “If we live, we live to the Lord, and if we die, we die to the Lord” (Romans XIV, 8).