When Turkey Destroyed Its Christians
From 1894 to 1924, a staggered campaign of genocide targeted not just the region’s Armenians but its Greek and Assyrian communities as well
By Benny Morris and Dror Ze’eviMay 17, 2019Between 1894 and 1924, the number of Christians in Asia Minor fell from some 3-4 million to just tens of thousands—from 20% of the area’s population to under 2%. Turkey has long attributed this decline to wars and the general chaos of the period, which claimed many Muslim lives as well. But the descendants of Turkey’s Christians, many of them dispersed around the world since the 1920s, maintain that the Turks murdered about half of their forebears and expelled the rest.The Christians are correct. Our research verifies their claims: Turkey’s Armenian, Greek and Assyrian (or Syriac) communities disappeared as a result of a staggered campaign of genocide beginning in 1894, perpetrated against them by their Muslim neighbors. By 1924, the Christian communities of Turkey and its adjacent territories had been destroyed.
| Photo by Maciej Zurawski |
Last weekend the Holy Sacrifice of the Mass returned to one of Scotland's most impressive ruined cathedrals for the first time in over four centuries. The Mass, celebrated in the Extraordinary Form of the Roman Rite by Fr Ross Crichton on Saturday 18 May, was sung in the cathedral's Huntly Aisle and heard by around thirty people, many of whom were participating in the Confraternity of St Ninian's weekend retreat to nearby Pluscarden Abbey. It is locally understood that no previous celebration of Mass had taken place within the ruin since it was abandoned by the Church during the Reformation c.1560. The cathedral, which was founded in 1224, was one of the most prominent centres of the mediaeval Church in Scotland and its impressive structure was widely famed as the "Lantern of the North".
| Photo by Maciej Zurawski |
| Roger Mahony in 2011 while still archbishop of Los Angeles |
Regarding the Open Letter to the Bishops of the Catholic ChurchMAY 17, 2019On Tuesday, April 30, 2019, twenty or so Catholic theologians and university professors published an Open Letter to the Bishops of the Catholic Church, inviting them to intervene with Pope Francis, to ask him to renounce the heresies of which he is accused. In case he persists, the canonical crime of heresy would be established, and the pope would then be “subject to the canonical consequences.” The summary published by the authors explains this last point: if Francis obstinately refuses to renounce his heresies, the bishop will then be asked to declare “that he is freely divested of the papacy.”
The Church is not only Denzinger, that is, the collection of dogmatic passages, of historical things. This is true, but the Church develops on her journey in fidelity to Revelation. We cannot change Revelation. It’s true the Revelation develops. The word is “development” — it develops with time. And we with time understand the faith better and better. The way to understand the faith today, after Vatican II, is different than the way of understanding the faith before Vatican II. Why? Because there is a development of knowledge. You are right. And this isn’t something new, because the very nature — the very nature — of Revelation is in continual movement to clarify itself.
Also the very nature of the moral conscience. For example, today I said clearly that the death penalty is not acceptable — it’s immoral. But, fifty years ago, no. Did the Church change? No. Moral conscience has developed. A development. And the Fathers [of the Church] understood this. In the 800s [actually 400s] there was a French Father, Vincent of Lerins, who coined a nice expression. He says that the knowledge of faith — I’ll say it in Latin, and then I’ll translate it — ut annis consolidetur, dilaetur tempore, sublimeture aetate. That is, it grows with the years. It is continually growing. It doesn’t change, it grows. It expands with time. It is better understood. And with the years it is sublimated.
| Paulus Potter, A farmer with his herd (1648) - Museumslandschaft Hessen Kassel |
We cannot take rest as long as there is in the world one soul in danger, who does not yet know the Immaculata. Our human frailty, limited resources or any other worldly difficulty must not restrain us; let us confide in the Immaculata, let us place ourselves truly in Her hands and She will continue to win the battles of God, as at Lepanto, as at Vienna. We must place our Lady in every soul so that from every soul sin be expelled and Jesus introduced. Whoever finds the Immaculata, finds Jesus.
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Note: In 1980, the population of Latin America was of approximately 364,000,000,including approximately 92,000,000 in Central America and Mexico
[I]f it becomes children not to omit the imitation of any of the virtues of this most Blessed Mother, we yet wish that the faithful apply themselves by preference to the principal virtues which are, as it were, the nerves and joints of the Christian life - we mean faith, hope, and charity towards God and our neighbor. Of these virtues the life of Mary bears in all its phases the brilliant character; but they attained their highest degree of splendor at the time when she stood by her dying Son. Jesus is nailed to the cross, and the malediction is hurled against Him that "He made Himself the Son of God" (John xix., 7). But she unceasingly recognized and adored the divinity in Him. She bore His dead body to the tomb, but never for a moment doubted that He would rise again. Then the love of God with which she burned made her a partaker in the sufferings of Christ and the associate in His passion; with him moreover, as if forgetful of her own sorrow, she prayed for the pardon of the executioners although they in their hate cried out: "His blood be upon us and upon our children" (Matth. xxvii., 25).
"But the hireling, and he that is not the shepherd, whose own the sheep are not, seeth the wolf coming, and leaveth the sheep, and flieth: and the wolf catcheth, and scattereth the sheep: And the hireling flieth, because he is a hireling: and he hath no care for the sheep. I am the good shepherd; and I know mine, and mine know me. As the Father knoweth me, and I know the Father: and I lay down my life for my sheep. And other sheep I have, that are not of this fold: them also I must bring, and they shall hear my voice, and there shall be one fold and one shepherd." (St. John, 10:12-16)
-First reason, because he buys the sheep dearly;-Second, because he keeps them carefully;-Third, because he feeds them abundantly; and-Fourth, because he guards them safely.
[C]an anyone fail to see that there is no surer or more direct road than by Mary for uniting all mankind in Christ and obtaining through Him the perfect adoption of sons, that we may be holy and immaculate in the sight of God? For if to Mary it was truly said: "Blessed art thou who hast believed because in thee shall be fulfilled the things that have been told thee by the Lord" (Luke i., 45); or in other words, that she would conceive and bring forth the Son of God and if she did receive in her breast Him who is by nature Truth itself in order that "He, generated in a new order and with a new nativity, though invisible in Himself, might become visible in our flesh" (St. Leo the Great, Ser. 2, De Nativ. Dom.): the Son of God made man, being the "author and consummator of our faith"; it surely follows that His Mother most holy should be recognized as participating in the divine mysteries and as being in a manner the guardian of them, and that upon her as upon a foundation, the noblest after Christ, rises the edifice of the faith of all centuries.
"Regarding the sovereignty of the church and as it relates and compares with the sovereignty of our nation, the church has been a light for the world for 2,000 years — a place of refuge, a place where a child of God could seek spiritual prosperity," said [Congressman Clay] Higgins, ranking member of the House Homeland Security Subcommittee on Border Security, Facilitation, and Operations.
"But the sovereignty of the church has been protected by the security of the church. One of the most famous walls in history is the wall around the Vatican. I would ask you, bishop, in the area that you serve, do your churches lock their doors after hours?" he asked.
"Many of them do," replied Bishop Mark Seitz, the U.S. Conference of Catholic Bishops representative for the Catholic Diocese in El Paso, Texas. "I would point out that that wall you refer to at the Vatican also has arms embracing and opening to the world, if you've been to the ... "
Chalice - Lily. The chalice is the lily, stylized and adapted to our use, and which, born from water, is proper for us to take to our lips.The lily, and especially the water-lily, also called lotus or nenuphar, has always had a peculiar place in the symbolism of all religions. It projects its roots to substantial and deep regions, separated from our sight by these fluid, contemplative, mirror-like layers which are the domain of that which is contingent, unstable, of illusion and of this "time", of this reflection which relates to several circumstances.