Here’s an Article That You Will Not See in the MSM

 

Did you miss the news?  It is likely that this kind of news was not widely published since it does not support the “progressive” view of the family.

For the first time, more than 100 legal and family scholars have signed a collective document declaring that family law should do a better job protecting marriage for the benefit of society and children and noting that the “family-diversity model” has failed.

The signatories said they come together “to affirm seven great truths about marriage and the law.”

The first truth, they say, is that “marriage and family law is fundamentally oriented towards creating and protecting the next generation.”

The second truth is that marriage protects children. “The primary way that marriage protects children is by increasing the likelihood that a child will know and be known by, love and be loved by, his or her mother and father in a single family union,” they say.

Thirdly, “marriage is first and foremost a social institution, created and sustained by civil society.” While the law sometimes creates institutions, sometimes the law recognizes an institution that pre-exists law and which it cannot meaningfully create. No laws, and no set of lawyers, legislators, or judges, can summon a social institution like marriage into being merely by legal fiat,” the signatories write. “Marriage and family therefore can never be reduced to a legal construct, a mere creature of the state.””

Fourth, the law’s understanding of marriage is powerful.

Fifth, marriage is irreplaceable social good, which impacts on the well-being of society and children.

Sixth, a high divorce rate, unmarried childbearing, as well as violent or high-conflict marriages, hurt children.

And finally, a good society cares about the suffering of children.

The truth is simple and self evident.

More Shame on the NYT

 

That bastion of morality, the New York Times, has something to say regarding the Holy Father’s recent words concerning the nature of Islam.

There is more than enough religious anger in the world. So it is particularly disturbing that Pope Benedict XVI has insulted Muslims, quoting a 14th-century description of Islam as “evil and inhuman.”

And of course no editorial about the Catholic Church would be complete without that required mention of that “rigid” Catholic teaching.

A doctrinal conservative his greatest fear appears to be the loss of a uniform Catholic identity[note to ed: check out the creed of the Church, the part about "one, holy. catholic and apostolic], not exactly the best jumping-off point for tolerance or interfaith dialogue.

The world listens carefully to the words of any pope. And it is tragic and dangerous when one sows pain, either deliberately or carelessly. He needs to offer a deep and persuasive apology, demonstrating that words can also heal.

Sure the world listens.  But liberals like those at the NYT only pay attention to those words that they can try to twist in an attempt to tarnish the Church.  Do they listen to the pope concerning teaching of morality?  How about these words of the pope:

How many winds of doctrine have we known in recent decades, how many ideological currents, how many ways of thinking. The small boat of the thought of many Christians has often been tossed about by these waves – flung from one extreme to another: from Marxism to liberalism, even to libertinism; from collectivism to radical individualism; from atheism to a vague religious mysticism; from agnosticism to syncretism and so forth. Every day new sects spring up, and what St Paul says about human deception and the trickery that strives to entice people into error (cf. Eph 4: 14) comes true.

Today, having a clear faith based on the Creed of the Church is often labeled as fundamentalism. Whereas relativism, that is, letting oneself be “tossed here and there, carried about by every wind of doctrine”, seems the only attitude that can cope with modern times. We are building a dictatorship of relativism that does not recognize anything as definitive and whose ultimate goal consists solely of one’s own ego and desires.

The pope’s words were deliberate, but not careless.

Mr. Pope, Be Within Your Limits

 

 

I saw this photo in the paper and thought that it was one of those wierd posters that people not familiar with the English language sometimes create.  But Jihad Watch has some other ideas:

Look at that sign. “Mr. Pope be with in your limits.” What limits? Classic Islamic law stipulates that Christians may live in peace in Islamic societies as long as they accept second-class status as dhimmis, which involves living within certain limits: not holding authority over Muslims, paying the jizya tax, not building new churches or repairing old ones, and…not insulting Allah or Muhammad. If they believe that a Christian has insulted them in some way, even inadvertently, his contract of protection — dhimma — is voided.

So are these protestors warning the Pope to behave like a dhimmi, or else? I expect so. After all, so many Christians and post-Christians in the West in recent years have been willing, even eager, to accept such limits — witness the chastened reaction to the Cartoon Rage riots, in which Church officials, government leaders, and others solemnly pontificated against “insults to religious figures.” But it wasn’t really a question of blasphemy then, and it isn’t a question of insult now. It is a question of whether non-Muslims will submit to Muslim standards and restrictions on their speech, thought, and behavior.

And I hope that the Pope, for one, is not willing to do so.

Benedict “From the Middle Ages”

 

That is the sentiment of one commentator regarding the Holy Father’s recent speech in Regensburg where he quoted a 14th century Christian emperor.

“He has a dark mentality that comes from the darkness of the Middle Ages. He is a poor thing that has not benefited from the spirit of reform in the Christian world,” Salih Kapusuz [deputy leader of Turkish Prime Minister Recep Tayyip Erdogan's Islamic-rooted party] told state media. “It looks like an effort to revive the mentality of the Crusades.”

What exactly is this “mental darkness” which has befallen Benedict?  Could he perhaps be cured with the enlightenment of secularism and illumination of so called modern thinking?  What is the “spirit of reform” exactly.  Could it be the same spirit which has so enlightened today’s main line Protestant churches?  Oh say, notions of abortion on demand, gay ministers and marriage and things like that?  And is it not just sick to think that defenders of Islam see that religion and culture as “enlightened” and “tolerant?” (Remember that “diversity” and “tolerance” are two cardinal virtues of modern pagans and liberals.)  Are these not just the societies that live in the stone age and murder homosexuals and those that convert from Islam.  Are these not just the societies today the render women as mere objects, property of their husbands?  It that the kind of illumination that should light the world?

And what exactly is the “mentality of the crusades?”  Who are those today that seek to convert at the tip of a sword (remember the Fox newsmen forced to convert to Islam which received virtually no mention in the MSM?)  Has the Holy Father sent the Swiss Guards to convert Muslims forcibly?  G.K. Chesterton had it right almost a hundred years ago:

When people talk as if the Crusades were nothing more than an aggressive raid against Islam, they seem to forget in the strangest way that Islam itself was only an aggressive raid against the old and ordered civilization in these parts. I do not say it in mere hostility to the religion of Mahomet; I am fully conscious of many values and virtues in it; but certainly it was Islam that was the invasion and Christendom that was the thing invaded.