Living in Apocalyptic Times: Be Vigilant, Take Courage, Have Hope, Be Merciful

Living in Apocalyptic Times: Be Vigilant, Take Courage, Have Hope, Be Mercifulby Fr. Gabriel (Hieromonk) –
Christians are coming to the conclusion that the times are not merely troubling, but apocalyptic.

There is no question that we live in troubling times. The 20th century witnessed an unparalleled persecution of Christianity across the entire world – primarily through revolutionary violence in the East, but primarily through worldly seduction in the West (if you doubt that the two are comparable, I will simply point to the witness of Alexander Solzhenitsyn who had ample occasion to experience both for himself).

Such persecution was prophesied to us by our Lord: “Then shall they deliver you up to be afflicted, and shall kill you: and ye shall be hated of all nations for My name’s sake” (Matthew 24:9). And before this He had warned of the rise of false prophets, of wars and rumors of wars, of plagues and famines and troubles of many kinds – [Read more…]

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The Pope, the Rabbi, and the Moral Economy

Acton Institute | Samuel Gregg | July 15, 2009

The pope and the rabbi had a similar message, which amounts to the following. Some of our contemporary economic problems reflect a deeper moral crisis within Western civilization. Until we acknowledge this, shifts in economic policy and business practice will only provide limited solutions.

To be sure, it’s not a message everyone will appreciate. But that doesn’t diminish its accuracy.[Read more…]

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Socialism and Secularism Suck Vitality Out of Society

TownHall | Dennis Prager | May 12, 2009

Religion in the West raised all the great questions of life: Why are we here? Is there purpose to existence? Were we deliberately made? Is there something after death? Are morals objective or only a matter of personal preference? Do rights come from the state or from the Creator?

And religion gave positive responses: We are here because a benevolent God made us. There is, therefore, ultimate purpose to life. Good and evil are real. Death is not the end. Human rights are inherent since they come from God. And so on.

Secularism drains all this out of life. No one made us. Death is the end. We are no more significant than any other creatures. We are all the results of mere coincidence. Make up your own meaning (existentialism) because life has none. Good and evil are merely euphemisms for “I like” and “I dislike.” [Read more…]

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The Secularization of the Church

AlbertMohler.com | Albert Mohler Jr. | Dec. 10, 2008

Secularization is the process by which a society becomes more and more distant from its Christian roots. Though the formal sociological theory is more complicated than that, the essence of secularization is the fact that the culture no longer depends upon Christian symbols, morals, principles, or practices. While most of the world is resolutely unsecular, much of Europe is pervasively secular — and this includes Great Britain.

Nevertheless, the secularization of society is one thing, but the secularization of the church is another. Yet, at least one major leader of the Church of England now assumes what can only be described as a secular vision of the church. [Read more…]

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Be Happy: The American Refusal to Deal with Suffering

American Thinker | Jude Acosta | May. 3, 2008

God bless America. I mean that with all sincerity. We are a nation of hopefuls and always have been. We march on Washington. We cure diseases that have wracked humanity for eons. We break records and run faster-than-four-minute miles. We split atoms and conquer space. We manifest our destinies and defy the presence of gorges, rivers, and mountains that threaten to block our collective will. [Read more…]

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Debate on Euthanasia, Dialogue between Christianity and Secular Humanism

OrthodoxyToday.org | Bishop Hilarion Alfeyev | Mar. 14, 2008

The recent debate on euthanasia is impossible to examine apart from the main problems in the dialogue between the religious world-view and Western secular humanism over the values which should lie at the foundation of the ‘new world order.’ In our opinion, these arguments demonstrate the anti-human essence of atheistic humanism, which lays claims to being a universal ideology and openly opposes itself to the traditional notions of life and death. [Read more…]

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Christian couple forced to quit fostering after refusing to tell kids its ‘good to be gay’

Daily Mail | James Mills | October 23, 2007

As devoted foster parents, Vincent and Pauline Matherick have provided a stable family home for almost 30 vulnerable children.

But the couple’s latest foster son is being taken away from them by social workers because they have refused to promote homosexuality.

[Read more…]

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In the Heart of Freedom, in Chains

Front Page Magazine | Myron Magnet in City Journal | July 30, 2007

Two April days threw a clarifying light on the state of race in America. On the 11th, North Carolina’s attorney general exonerated three white Duke students of the rape charges that a black stripper had lodged with much press fanfare a year earlier. The next day, CBS fired shock jock Don Imus for calling black Rutgers women’s basketball players “nappy-headed hos.” Between them, these events suggest an explanation for America’s most vexed social question: in a country whose chief domestic imperative for 50 years has been ending racism and righting long-standing wrongs against blacks—with such success that we now have an expanding black middle class, a black secretary of state, black CEOs of three top corporations, a black Supreme Court justice, and a serious black presidential candidate—how can there still exist a large black urban underclass imprisoned in poverty, welfare dependency, school failure, nonwork, and crime? How even today can more black young men be entangled in the criminal-justice system than graduate from college? How can close to 70 percent of black children be born into single-mother families, which (almost all experts agree) prepare kids for success less well than two-parent families?

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French police the target in urban guerrilla war

Reuters Jon Boyle, Nov. 27, 2006

PARIS (Reuters) – Stoned, beaten and insulted, their vehicles torched by crowds of hostile youths, French police say they face an urban guerrilla war when they enter the run-down neighborhoods that ring the major cities.

“Our role is to guarantee the safety of people and property but the great difficulty today is that police are having problems ensuring their own safety,” said Jerome Hanarte of the Alliance-Police Nationale union.

Bedside television interviews with officers hospitalized after beatings in “les banlieues,” or suburbs, support statistics showing a 6.7 percent jump in violent crime in the 12 months to August.

Fourteen officers are hurt every day in the line of duty, unions estimate, and law and order is sure to feature prominently in next year’s presidential election.

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The Seven Sacraments of Secularism

New Advent Bishop Thomas Doran August 17, 2006

I want to touch on this matter before we get too close to the November madness. As human beings, as citizens of a “first world country,” as Americans, and as Catholics, most importantly, we have to take count of the circumstances in which we live. We know that the only creatures of God that outlast time are those created having intellect and will. All other things, with the passage of time, break up or break down.

Many of the issues that confront us are serious, and we know by now that the political parties in our country are at loggerheads as to how to solve them. We know, for instance, that adherents of one political party would place us squarely on the road to suicide as a people.

The seven “sacraments” of their secular culture are abortion, buggery, contraception, divorce, euthanasia, feminism of the radical type, and genetic experimentation and mutilation. These things they unabashedly espouse, profess and promote. Their continuance in public office is a clear and present danger to our survival as a nation.
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