"Jesus said to love our enemies, not flatter or fawn on them"

Koran blessed in Sacramento's Cathedral.

From the blog of Abbott Joseph, the superior of Holy Transfiguration Monastery (aka Mt Tabor Monastery), a Byzantine-rite Ukrainian Catholic monastic community in Redwood Valley, CA.

"It seems that insanity is reaching new levels in certain places. Here is a portion of the story: “Representatives of different religions, including members of the Catholic, Protestant, Jewish, Muslim, Mormon, and Druid [yes, California has everything] communities, took part in an interfaith blessing of the Qu’ran at Sacramento’s Cathedral of the Blessed Sacrament on September 11. During the ceremony, Father Michael Kiernan, rector of the cathedral, read from the Beatitudes… Several dozen people placed roses on the Quran, in front of the main doors to the cathedral. Upon placing their roses, people said before the crowd, ‘Let there be peace on Earth, and let it begin with me....

Jesus said to love our enemies, not flatter or fawn on them. We love them by prayer and sacrifice, begging God to enlighten them to the truth, to convert them from their murderous intentions, to forgive their sins by the power of the Precious Blood of Jesus so that they may be saved and find everlasting life in Him. That is genuine love, not making ineffectual gestures that weaken us by denying, in effect, that Jesus Christ is the Way, the Truth, and the Life, and that no one comes to the Father except through Him.

This is an isolated incident, but the fact that it can happen at all, and then of course be plastered all over the internet, means that some internal housecleaning is indicated. Those Koran-blessers are doing it in the name of peace, but peace is not an absolute value (see Lk. 12:51; Mt. 10:34), and it can’t simply mean 'peace' in the sense of placating those whom we fear will slit our throats if we look at them the wrong way—which seems to be the reason why practically the whole world is allowing Islam to pervade and possess it."

The very week this event took place, Molly Norris, the Seattle cartoonist who came up with the "Everybody Draw Mohammed" idea, was forced to go into hiding on the recommendation of the FBI for exercising her right to free speech. Those who threaten Ms. Norris will take heart that nothing is out of bounds for them--whatever they do, our collapsing culture will accomodate them, simply becasue it is easier than the alternatives. What the Cathedral of the Blessed Sacrament should do is give sanctuary to Ms. Norris.

It is often said that those who seek to impose Islamic law on others by violence or intimidation are not truly representative of Islam. That's nice to believe, but it is not exactly true. Certainly not all Muslims support that, but those who do, as counterterrorism and Islamic expert Brian Fairchild has argued on Reclaiming the Culture, "Salasfism: Understanding a Strain of Radical Islam" are indeed representatives of a quite legitimate strain of Islam.

Posted by Gibbons J. Cooney