Islamic Outreach, Part CXVI

 

 From an earlier post on this blog:

Pope Francis spoke to the diplomatic corps and amongst other things, said, "Hence it is important to intensify dialogue among the various religions, and I am thinking particularly of dialogue with Islam."

MEANWHILE...

 

CNA Staff, Oct 30, 2020 / 03:01 pm MT (CNA).- An unnamed French official told the New York Times on Friday that police have arrested a 47-year-old man in connection with a deadly terrorist attack inside Notre-Dame de Nice.

The attacker on Oct. 29 killed three people in the church, including a 44-year-old mother of three; a 60 year old woman who had come to the church to pray; and the church’s 55 year old sacristan.

The attacker used a knife to carry out the killings and reportedly shouted “Allahu Akbar” as he did so.

French police shot and arrested the perpetrator, who has been identified as Brahim Aouissaoui, 21. Aouissaoui reportedly arrived in Europe in late September, first at the Italian island Lampedusa before traveling to France.

 

The attack in Nice follows the beheading of Samuel Paty, a Paris school teacher, in an Islamist terror attack earlier this month. The attacker in that incident reportedly was angered that Paty had shown cartoons of Muhammad during his classes.

Other attacks took place in France Oct. 29. In Montfavet, near Avignon, a man waving a handgun made threats and was killed by the police two hours after the Nice attack. Radio station Europe 1 said the man was also shouting “Allahu Akbar.”

I See Your Shroud of Turin, and Raise You a Crown of Thorns

Paris, France, Apr 7, 2020 / 07:00 am (CNA).- One year after the world watched the Cathedral of Notre-Dame de Paris burn, the Archbishop of Paris will display the relic of Christ’s crown of thorns for veneration during a Good Friday broadcast.

“When Mary is at the foot of the cross, she knows that from the most absolute evil God can always draw a much greater good," Archbishop Michel Aupetit of Paris said in an online press conference on April 7.

“I do not see any meaning in the cathedral fire or the COVID-19 epidemic. On the other hand, I know that God can bring much greater out of the misfortune that strikes us,” he said.

The Good Friday meditation before the crown of thorns will be broadcast live from inside the Notre-Dame Cathedral from 11:30 a.m. to 12:30 p.m. local time April 9, days before the first anniversary of the fire.

From the Country That Cried Crocodile Tears When Notre Dame Burned

Paris, France, Jun 27, 2019 / 03:17 am (CNA).- France’s soon-to-be mandatory Universal National Service program for teens has drawn serious religious freedom concerns, with critics noting that the program prohibits religious symbols, does not allow conscripts to leave for religious services, and fails to accommodate religious dietary restrictions.
Marc Guidoni, a veteran trainer for the Values of the Republic and Secularism Plan, told the French Catholic newspaper La Vie that the program rules appear to be more extensive than French law requires or allows. He suggested that abstaining from any show of belief is usually required only for civil servants and public servants. Applying this to conscripted teens, he said, is “a strong obstacle to liberty.”

A June 24 article in the French newspaper La Vie suggested that the National Universal Service’s rules mean young believers are “forgotten.” Some program participants will want to exercise their freedom of worship, even in a framework that tends to erase religious difference, it said.
A pilot program of the national civic service began in mid-June with 2,000 teen volunteer participants aged 15 or 16, including high school students, drop-outs and trainees at vocational schools. In mid-June the volunteers left their home regions for service centers at boarding schools, holiday villages and university campuses.
They received training in first aid, emergency response, map reading and other basic skills. They will later volunteer for two weeks of service with a charity or local government.
The national service centers have five houses of 10 young people each, with each center under the management of a “brigade chief.” Each house has an adult supervisor but teens are responsible for tasks and household chores.
They are required to wear French navy uniforms and sing France’s national anthem, the “Marseillaise,” every morning. After training in emergency response, the pilot groups were to respond to simulated disasters such as a major traffic accident or a nuclear accident.

Well, I'll Be....

Have you ever wondered who actually owns Paris’ Notre Dame Cathedral?
While most might believe that the Catholic Church owns the cathedral, Notre Dame is actually owned by the French government. 

Here’s the history, according to a Catholic News Agency report:

“Due to France’s laws regarding secularization, the French government owns all churches built before 1905, including Notre-Dame.
“The government lets the Archdiocese of Paris use the building for free, and will continue to do so in perpetuity. The Archdiocese of Paris is responsible for the upkeep of the church, as well as for paying employees.”
Wow, that is definitely surprising!

Notre Dame and Vatican Council 2

The day after the night before at #NotreDame de Paris. The High Altar stands untouched with its gleaming Cross, and the Blessed Virgin weeping holding her dead Jesus in her arms. The modern Altar installed after Vatican II, lays under rumble from the collapsed roof. Pic: AFP

Is it a message?

At Least It Got Some Catholic Firemen Into Church

 

French Catholics Wonder What That Big Building Was

 

PARIS (ChurchMilitant.com) - According to the latest study of Catholics in France, the "Eldest Daughter of the Church" is almost dead.

 

A new sociological study conducted in France revealed that only 1.8 percent of the entire French population are practicing Catholics. The survey further determined that "French Catholicism has become a festive reality" for those who do practice their faith.

 

Results showed that most French Catholics who do go to Church only do so on certain major feast days and for baptisms, marriages or funerals. Just five percent of Catholics in France attend Holy Mass on a regular basis, according to the poll.

 

 Even though so few Catholics in France practice their faith, nevertheless, the poll found that 53 percent of the French population consider themselves Catholic. Roughly half of these self-professed Catholics classify themselves as "involved" in the life of the Church, "because they live out their lives differently." By that they mean they feel attached to the Church because of their donations, their families lives or their commitments.

A Case For Window Control

Today in History...the St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre, 1572:


King Charles IX of France, under the sway of his mother, Catherine de Medici, orders the assassination of Huguenot Protestant leaders in Paris, setting off an orgy of killing that results in the massacre of tens of thousands of Huguenots all across France.
Two days earlier, Catherine had ordered the murder of Admiral Gaspard de Coligny, a Huguenot leader whom she felt was leading her son into war with Spain. However, Coligny was only wounded, and Charles promised to investigate the assassination in order to placate the angry Huguenots. Catherine then convinced the young king that the Huguenots were on the brink of rebellion, and he authorized the murder of their leaders by the Catholic authorities. Most of these Huguenots were in Paris at the time, celebrating the marriage of their leader, Henry of Navarre, to the king’s sister, Margaret.
A list of those to be killed was drawn up, headed by Coligny, who was brutally beaten and thrown out of his bedroom window just before dawn on August 24. Once the killing started, mobs of Catholic Parisians, apparently overcome with bloodlust, began a general massacre of Huguenots. Charles issued a royal order on August 25 to halt the killing, but his pleas went unheeded as the massacres spread. Mass slaughters continued into October, reaching the provinces of Rouen, Lyon, Bourges, Bourdeaux, and Orleans. An estimated 3,000 French Protestants were killed in Paris, and as many as 70,000 in all of France. The massacre of Saint Bartholomew’s Day marked the resumption of religious civil war in France.

Maybe the Bishops Can Put the Priests' Photos on the Carton de Laits

When Fr Joseph Longo arrived in France from the Democratic Republic of the Congo (DRC) in 2003, he planned to stay just a few months to complete a philosophy doctorate. Today, having run large parish clusters in different dioceses, he has become one of many resident African priests helping to sustain the French Church.

Bishop Ignace Bessi Dogbo of Katiola (Getty)

It was hardly surprising that Fr Longo was prevailed upon to stay. Over the last half century the number of priests in France has been reduced by three quarters. Within six months of studying at Toulouse University’s Catholic faculty, Fr Longo had been asked to take over the medieval St Barthelemy’s Church at nearby Lauzerte, which also involved looking after 18 other parishes.
He is one of 1,800 foreign priests officially ministering in France, mostly from former colonies in Africa. The figure is nearly a fifth of the total number of diocesan clergy – 11,500. An unknown number of priests are also here without authorisation. And recently there have been signs of discontent at what some African bishops see as a new “ecclesiastical migration”.
In May, the Ivory Coast’s bishops’ conference complained that more and more priests were going missing in Europe and ignoring instructions to return after completing study and pastoral assignments. (It’s not just France: in Italy, for instance, up to 40 per cent of parishes are run by foreign-born clergy.)

Only Problem....Someone HAS to Win

The Catholic News Agency has handicapped the world Cup, kinda.

Croatia:

Croatia’s patron saint is St. Joseph. You can’t do much better than that. Unless your patron saint is the Blessed Virgin Mary. France’s patron saint is the Blessed Virgin Mary, in addition to several other saints.

St. Jerome was born in the region of Dalmatia. So was St. Marko Krizin, a priest of the Counter-reformation, and St Leopold Mandic, a pious Capuchin missionary. St. Nicholas Tavelic was a Croatian Franciscan, who was martyred in 1391 in Jerusalem after refusing to convert to Islam, along with 3 Franciscan companions.

In 2003, Pope St. John Paul II dedicated a church to the Croatian martyrs, soldiers who were slaughtered by invading Ottoman forces in the 15th century. Hundreds of thousands of other Croats have faced martyrdom and persecution, and died holy deaths in discipleship of Jesus Christ.

France:

St. Joan of Arc. St. John Vianney. St. Therese of Lisieux. St. Remy. St. Denis. St. Peter Faber. St. Isaac Jogues. St. Louis IX of France. St. Vincent de Paul. I’m really just getting warmed up. This category is going to France.

The point:

In its long history, Croatia has presumably given the Church many holy men and women, but many of them remain unknown. Over the centuries, the holy people of central European countries have not gained as much attention as those from western Europe. This is unfortunate. But France has a lot of saints. A lot. France gets the point.

An Ordination (of sorts) in France

In a way I am glad I could not imbed this. It hurts my eyes.

https://youtu.be/vnLKDII8LcU

Catholics + Zombies = Zombie Catholics

Paris, France, May 10, 2017 / 04:44 pm (CNA).- Newly-elected President Emmanuel Macron, according to one of his biographers, embodies a new phenomenon in France known as “zombie Catholicism.”

Once among the most Catholic countries in the world, sometimes called the “eldest daughter of the Church,” France has seen serious decline in churchgoing numbers in modern times. While more than 50 percent of people still identify as Catholic, only 5 percent regularly attend Mass.

President Macron

“Zombie Catholics” of France share certain characteristics, the sociologists noted. They typically come from regions of the country where resistance to the French Revolution was the strongest.

“Highly educated and meritocratic, they also privilege a traditional ordering of professional and domestic duties between husbands and wives; strong attachment to social, community, and family activities; and a general wariness over the role of the state in private and community affairs, including ‘free schools’ (Catholic private schools),” they wrote.

According to Marc Endeweld, a biographer of Emmanuel Macron, the new president embodies this “zombie Catholic” phenomenon. Although born into a secular family, Macron asked to be baptized at age 12. While not a regular churchgoer, Macron symbolizes “those territories of Christian tradition that benefit from social structures and economic systems capable of counterbalancing globalization, in contrast to the more Jacobin territories that have lost the protection of the state.”