Ecclesia et Mundus

Please go to:

Katolik Shinja

I've decided to merge this blog with my previous blog which, as I write, has been banned by the South Korean Government and forced underground because some other foreign blogger posted a link to the Kim Sun-il beheading video.

All the links have been transferred to my other blog and I will continue to post on the same topics, and much, much more.

Psychologically, it has been just to much work to keep up with two blogs. So, for those of you who have bookmarked this page, please update accordingly.

Thank you and God bless.

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Banned in Korea!

My other blog has been banned by the government of the Republic of Korea (South Korea, not North!). To find out why, click Katolik Shinja if you are outside the Korean peninsula or Katolik Shinja if you are within it.

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Good Points on the "Wafer Watch"

THE BISHOPS AND THE POLS

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Norn Iron

Pope 'may visit Northern Ireland': A Catholic bishop has said he is hopeful the Pope will visit Northern Ireland later this year.

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Islam and Beheadings

Re: Reviving a symbol of terror: Historically, beheadings have been used to punish dissenters and display power

The article tries to downplay the link, but the fact that beheadings continue in the Islamic world from Suadi Arabia to the Phillipines cannot be glossed over.

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Kim Sun-il, Requiescat in Pace

Re: Militants in Iraq Kill S. Korean Hostage

Kim Sun-il, may your souild rest in peace, may your family be comforted, and may your murderers soon meet justice, both human and divine.

(NB: For more background and updated information on this tragedy from a Korean perspective, see my other blog, Katolik Shinja.)

While in the post below I express sympathy with the view that the Iraq War was perhaps not justified, the wider War on Terror must be waged and the enemy given no quarter. It is truly a war between civilization and barabarism.

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PJB on Iraq

The Wrong War by Patrick J. Buchanan

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In Buffalo, We Call Them Chicken Wings

Re: The Buffalo Chicken Wing Turns 40

All my Korean students know about "Buffalo Wings." In Malaysia at an outdoor food stall I heard waiters shouting orders for "Ayam Buffalo." It is the one contribution that my beloved hometown has made to global cuisine. I'm just waiting for Beef on Weck to be next.

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Another Western Christian Blogger in Asia

Fides, Cogitatio, Actio

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All-male Priesthood

As pre-Catholics, my wife and I were married by a female Lutheran pastor. Thus, I found this article all the more interesting: Former Lutheran Pastor Debunks Women's Ordination (Part 1): Jennifer Ferrara Was Won Over by the Pope's Theology of the Body.

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Buckley on Stem Cells

THE STEM CELL AHEAD

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¡Ay, España!

Pope Criticizes Spain for Gay Marriages

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Torture Under Saddam

Here are some of the tortures, listed in New video reveals real torture scandal: Saddam's daily horrors make America's Abu Ghraib abuses seem almost trivial (WARNING: Graphic Images):

Medical experimentation

Beatings

Crucifixion

Hammering nails into the fingers and hands

Amputating sex organs or breasts with an electric carving knife

Spraying insecticides into a victim's eyes

Branding with a hot iron

Committing rape while the victim's spouse is forced to watch

Pouring boiling water into the victim's rectum

Nailing the tongue to a wooden board

Extracting teeth with pliers

Using bees and scorpions to sting naked children in front of their parents

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A Reactionary Renegade

I just started reading The Devils by Fyodor Dostoevsky. So far, like all of Dostoevsky's major works, it's been an enthralling read. Before starting, I was intrigued by my edition's back cover, which described the novel like this:

"A political drama, it has been both hailed as a grim prophecy of the Russian Revolution and denounced as the work of a reactionary renegade."

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Some Thoughts on the Spanish Civil War

I just finished reading The Spanish Civil War by High Thomas, a very fair and balanced account. While atrocities were undoubtedly committed by both sides, it seems popular mythology has forgotten those of the Republican side. The Nationalists, largely because of the aid they received from Nazi Germany, have been condemned. The Nazis were fair-weather allies, however, and Hitler detested Franco's Catholicism as much as the Republicans' Soviet allies did.

The Republicans burned churches and celebration of the Mass was proscribed under most of their rule. Anarchists among them dug up the graves of nuns and danced with their corpses. Thirteen bishops and 6000 priests were murdered by the Republicans. Why has this been forgotten?

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God Rest his Little Soul

From Three-Month-Old Baby Ali Dies in Iraq:

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Blessed Mother Teresa Tribute

From TRIBUTE TO MOTHER TERESA by BRUNI:

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Buffalo, No. 4 after New York City, Chicago and Washington, D.C.

Upstate New York City defeats Santa Fe, San Francisco for arts


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Anger in the Kingdom over Beheading

From Shock Turns Quickly Into Anger:

"'We are ashamed that fellow Muslims have done such an inhuman and repulsive act,' said Abdul Rahman Al-Shahari, a journalist."

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A Muslim Cleric (Finally) Speaks

From US hostage deadline in Saudi looms:

"Prominent Saudi cleric Sheikh Saleh bin Abdullah al-Humaid, in a sermon at Muslim Friday prayers in Mecca's Grand Mosque, denounced hostage-taking and murder as grave sins under Islam, the most senior Saudi cleric to do so.

"'Killing a soul without justification is one of the gravest sins under Islam, it is as bad as of polytheism,' the state-appointed cleric said at Islam's holiest shrine.

"'Whoever kills any person under our protection will not go to heaven. The blood of people under our protection is forbidden... they are on par with Muslims,' he added."

Paul Marshal Johnson, requiescat in pace, and may God give comfort to your wife Thanom and your family.

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As Long As You're a Victim, Anything is Okay

"When Palestinians refer to Jews as 'descended from apes and swine' or encourage support for those who 'kill Jews,' they do so with the reasonably justifiable self-image of victim and persecuted, not of victimizer and persecutor."

-Scott Alexander, associate professor of Islam at Catholic Theological Union in Chicago, quoted in Seminary Head Regrets Prof's Seemingly Anti-Semitic Remarks.

Sadly, these statements were made at a Catholic institution. It shows how far the anti-Semitism and moral relativism of the Left has come.

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"How Dare You?"

"To take the years of oppression enforced on the black community and trivialize it because you want to justify your sinful actions, how dare you?"

-Brendan Saunders, a church planter at Freedom Church in Baltimore, decrying the "claim that same-sex 'marriage' is the 21st-century equivalent of African Americans' 19th- and 20th-century struggle for civil rights," quoted in Black Southern Baptists decry homosexual claims.

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"Pro-Abortion. No Communion."

Catholic bishops, demonstrators say Kerry is wrong

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