19 May ST PETER CELESTINE, hermit :)

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Pope: end "unacceptable crime" of persecution of Christians

Pope: end "unacceptable crime" of persecution of Christians

2015-05-20 Vatican Radio

(Vatican Radio) The many Christians who are being persecuted in our times "are martyrs" Pope Francis said on Wednesday, at the end of his General Audience.

The Holy Father praised an initiative of the Italian Bishops’ Conference (CEI) to make a special remembrance, on the Vigil of Pentecost, of the many “brothers and sisters” who have been exiled or killed for no other reason than being Christian. He expressed his hope that the moment of prayer for the new Christian martyrs would increase the recognition that “religious liberty is an inalienable human right.”

Pope Francis also said he hoped Saturday’s time of prayer and remembrance would “increase sensitivity to the plight of Christians persecuted in our day” and help “put an end to this unacceptable crime.”

(from Vatican Radio)

The unlikely life of Afghanistan’s first female taxi driver

The unlikely life of Afghanistan’s first female taxi driver

By Sudarsan Raghavan February 26

Sara Bahayi is Afghanistan’s first female taxi driver in recent memory, and she is believed to be the only one actively working in the country. (Andrew Quilty/For The Washington Post)

MAZAR-E SHARIF, Afghanistan

At first glance, the Toyota Corolla looked like any other taxi bumping along the craggy street. In the back seat, three women wore blue burqas that covered their faces and bodies. In the front passenger seat, a bearded man sat stone-faced. The radio piped out a soulful Afghan song.

But the person behind the steering wheel — with coal-black hair, round face and purple scarf — has made taxi No. 12925 a revolution of sorts.

Sara Bahayi is Afghanistan’s first female taxi driver in recent memory, and she is believed to be the only one actively working in the country. She’s 38. She’s unmarried. She’s outspoken. In this highly patriarchal society, wherewomen are considered second-class citizens and often abused, ­Bahayi is brazenly upending gender roles.

Every day, she plies her trade in a business ruled by conservative men. She endures condescending looks, outright jeers, even threats to her life. Most men will not enter her taxi, believing that women should never drive for a man.

Yet Bahayi earns $10 to $20 a day, she says, enough to provide for her 15 relatives, including her ailing mother. She relies on ferrying women shackled by traditions and fear, who vicariously live their dreams of freedom through her.

Some men condemn Sara Bahayi’s job. Her mother fears she’ll be killed. But she wants to support her family. (Andrew Quilty/For The Washington Post)

In her taxi, Bahayi tests boundaries, real and imagined, as she traverses streets and highways. One day, she took passengers to a Taliban area when every male taxi driver refused to go. Another day, she convinced a man — who believed, like many Afghans, that Islam prohibits women from driving — that his beliefs were wrong.

With every fare, Bahayi says, she is determined to send a message to Afghan women: Get out of the house. Earn money. Don’t rely on men.

“For how long should women depend on men’s income, taking the men’s orders?” she asked. “I want them to be independent, to do something for themselves.”
Role model for women

Improving the lives of women was a key American goal after the Taliban regime collapsed in 2001. Far more girls today are in school. Afghanistan’s constitution guarantees equal rights for men and women.


In practice, however, tribal traditions and religious strictures still subjugate most Afghan women and girls. Discrimination and limited access to opportunities are the norm. Violence against women remains exceptionally high.

United Nations officials and women’s rights activists fear that the fragile gains women have made will be further eroded in light of the recent departure of most U.S. and international forces, a resurgence of the Taliban, and expected reductions in international aid as the U.S.-led mission concludes.

Today, few role models for Afghan women exist. There are female ministers and lawmakers, as well as Rula Ghani, Afghanistan’s modern and sophisticated first lady. But most hail from privileged or liberal families. Many Afghan women do not identify with them.

Bahayi stands guard on the roof of her house with a loaded gun after recent threats of burglary. (Andrew Quilty/For The Washington Post)

Bahayi, though, lives in one of Mazar-e Sharif’s poorest enclaves. She has neither an influential position nor a powerful family.

All she has is a hunting rifle she keeps loaded in case of intruders. Every day, she is among the rank and file, empowering local women with each fare.

“She sends the message that men and women have equal rights,” said Arifa Saffar, head of the Afghan Women’s Network, a nonprofit group helping women in Bahayi’s Balkh province. “If a man can drive a taxi, why not a woman? She has shown the reality that a woman can drive just as well as a man.”


‘They feel safe’



Two years ago, Bahayi took a class to acquire her license to drive a taxi. There were 30 other students, all men. To escape the jokes and stares, she sat in the back. One day, she recalled, another student told her it was disgraceful for a woman to take a class with men.

“If you don’t feel shame, I feel shame for you,” he said.

Two weeks later, she passed the road test and received her license. Only nine of the men passed. The man who chastised her failed.

It was not the first hurdle Bahayi had overcome. In the late 1990s, the Taliban killed her brother-in-law, and she was forced to care for her sister and her seven children. Bahayi worked for various aid agencies, eking out a living. A husband would never have allowed her to work, she said.


“That’s why I am single,” Bahayi said, with a faint smile.

The Taliban didn’t allow women to work or leave their houses without male escorts or burqas. So a nephew always walked with her. Not even her next-door neighbors knew she was employed, she said.

When the Taliban government was ousted, Bahayi became a high school teacher. But she couldn’t support her family on the income. So she decided to get her driver’s license.

Bahayi has driven for five years, the past two of which she has spent in Mazar-e Sharif. (Andrew Quilty/For The Washington Post)

A sympathetic male neighbor taught her how to drive — in 15 days. And by selling a piece of land she inherited from her father, she bought a black Toyota sedan. She began transporting neighborhood women who felt more at ease with her than a male driver. They encouraged her to become a taxi driver. Bahayi sensed an economic opportunity.

The day after she received her taxi license, her first client, a woman, was so stunned to see Bahayi behind the wheel that she asked for a tour around Mazar-e Sharif. Along the way, children, and even some men, clapped and cheered. “It was really an interesting day for me,” Bahayi said.

But most men refused to step into her cab. At the taxi stand, her male competitors tried to block her car or stop her potential passengers. Eventually, they got accustomed to seeing her around. But their disapproval persists.

“I will never allow my wife to drive,” said taxi driver Jan Mir, 40. “Women are forbidden to drive. It is not socially acceptable. If we did so, everyone will say bad things about our family within our tribe.”

But some men in Bahayi’s neighborhood see a layer of security for their family’s women.

“Being a female taxi driver is like being a female doctor,” said Mohammad Akram, 50, a bearded man with three of his female relatives inside Bahayi’s taxi on a recent day. “Our women feel comfortable with a woman driver. They feel safe.”
Breaking barriers

Bahayi drops her neighbors at a health clinic in Mazar-e Sharif. (Andrew Quilty/For The Washington Post)

Safe. It’s a feeling that is vanishing for Bahayi.

As she has become well known in this province because of local media coverage, threats against her have grown. But so has her resistance.

“You want to start prostituting in your taxi, taking clients from one place to another,” one person, using a female name, wrote on Bahayi’s Facebook page. “You are defaming the Afghan name.”


Bahayi responded: “Coward. It is very shameful that you are hiding behind your sister’s name and you call me a prostitute. If you are brave, introduce yourself. Who are you?”

But she is not taking her security lightly. This month, intruders tried to enter her house, she said. Perhaps they were after her beehives, which produce honey she sells to supplement her income. Perhaps they despised her career.

The next day, she bought the rifle. Now she and her brothers take turns sitting on their roof at night, guarding their house.

“My mom doesn’t want me to be a taxi driver,” Bahayi said. “One day, she asked me: ‘Why are you still driving? One day they will kill you.’ ”

A girl looks out the back window of Bahayi's taxi. (Andrew Quilty/For The Washington Post)

Two months ago, some women came to the taxi stand, seeking to be driven to a funeral in a Taliban-infested area. All the male taxi drivers refused. So Bahayi donned a man’s coat and sunglasses and drove the women. She knew she faced a beating, or worse, if the Islamist insurgents learned a female was behind the wheel.

She has inspired at least seven other women to learn how to drive, said Saffar of the Afghan Women’s Network. All run private car services for female clients. Bahayi hopes they will become taxi drivers someday.

Now, Bahayi wants to break another barrier. She’s negotiating with some men to become partners in a car dealership. She will acquire the dealership license, and they will lease the place. Eventually, she said, she plans to kick her partners out — and replace them with women. It will become, she hopes, Afghanistan’s first female-owned car dealership.

CHRISTOPHER WEST: Excess Is God's Trademark (3:03)

Pope Francis to Pope Tawadros: ecumenism of blood unites us

2015-05-10 Vatican Radio

(Vatican Radio) Pope Francis sent a Message to Pope Tawadros II of Alexandria on Sunday, to mark two years since the Coptic Patriarch's visit to the Holy See. In the Message, the Holy Father speaks of the present suffering of Christians in many parts of the world, and especially of the persecution of the Coptic Christians, whom Pope Tawadros leads.

"Today more than ever we are united by the ecumenism of blood, which further encourages us on the path towards peace and reconciliation," writes Pope Francis. "I assure you and the Christian community in Egypt and throughout the Middle East of my unceasing prayer," continues Pope Francis, promising to remember in particular the Coptic faithful recently martyred for their Christian faith.

Below, please find the official text, in English, of the Message from Pope Francis to Pope Tawadros 

******************************************* 

To His Holiness Tawadros II

Pope of Alexandria and Patriarch of the See of Saint Mark

As the second anniversary of our fraternal meeting in Rome is at hand, I wish to express to Your Holiness my prayerful best wishes for your well-being, as well as my appreciation for the spiritual bonds which unite the See of Peter and the See of Mark.

Today more than ever we are united by the ecumenism of blood, which further encourages us on the path towards peace and reconciliation.  I assure you and the Christian community in Egypt and throughout the Middle East of my unceasing prayer, and I remember in particular the Coptic faithful recently martyred for their Christian faith.  May the Lord welcome them into his Kingdom. 

With thanksgiving to the Lord, I recall our advances along the path of friendship, united as we are by one baptism.  Though our communion is yet imperfect, what we have in common is greater than what divides us.  May we persevere on our journey to full communion, and grow in love and understanding.

It is particularly encouraging that the Joint International Commission for Theological Dialogue between the Catholic Church and the Oriental Orthodox Churches has recently finalized the document The Exercise of Communion in the Life of the Early Church and its Implications for our Search for Communion Today. I am certain that Your Holiness shares my hope that this vital dialogue will carry on and bear abundant fruit. I am especially grateful for the willingness of the Patriarchate of the See of Saint Mark to hold the next meeting of the Commission in Cairo.

Christians throughout the world are facing similar challenges, which require us to work together in confronting these issues. I appreciate your appointment last year of a delegate to participate in the Extraordinary Synod of Bishops dedicated to the family. It is my hope that our cooperation in this area may continue, especially in addressing matters related to mixed marriages.

With these sentiments, and recalling what has rightly become known as the day of friendship between the Coptic Orthodox Church and the Catholic Church, I exchange with Your Holiness a fraternal embrace in Christ the Lord.

From the Vatican, 10 May 2015

(from Vatican Radio)

Pope meets with Evangelical pastors

The Pope meets with a group of evangelical pastors

Vatican City, 8 May 2015 (VIS) – Yesterday afternoon the Holy Father received in private a group of around one hundred Pentecostal evangelical pastors from various parts of the world, who had expressed their wish to meet him. The group was led by Pastor Giovanni Traettino, whose community the Pope visited in Caserta last year. The meeting took place in the room adjacent to the Paul VI Hall and was characterised by lively cordiality and a spirit of prayer for unity. The Holy Father was accompanied by Cardinal Kurt Koch, president of the Pontifical Council for Christian Unity.

UK Prime Minister EASTER MESSAGE !

VIDEO: https://www.youtube.com/watch?v=G1qo1gd4klc

ARTICLE: http://www.telegraph.co.uk/news/general-election-2015/11516804/David-Cameron-declares-Britain-is-still-a-Christian-country.html

Pope Francis: Do not be "silent"about persecuted Christians

Pope Francis: Do not be "silent"about persecuted Christians
2015-04-06 Vatican Radio

(Vatican Radio) Pope Francis on Monday expressed his hope that the international community does not look on, "silent and inactive", in the face of the "unacceptable crime" of the persecution of Christians around the world.

The Holy Father was speaking to the Shalom Community at the end of his Easter Monday Regina Coeli Address. The Community had sponsored a relay which ended in St. Peter's Square to show solidarity with and raise awareness of persecuted Christians.

"Your itinerary on the streets is over, but what must continue on the part of all is the spiritual journey of prayer, intense prayer; the concrete participation and  tangible help in the defense and protection of our brothers and sisters, who are persecuted, exiled, killed, beheaded,  for the only reason of being a Christian," said Pope Francis.

"They are our martyrs today and they are many; we are able to say that they are more numerous than in the first centuries," Pope Francis said.

"I sincerely hope that the international community does not look the other way," he added.

(from Vatican Radio)

Sayings Of Anthony of Egypt

Anthony the Great

- XX -

A brother renounced the world and gave his goods to the poor, but he kept back a little for his personal expenses. He went to see Abba Anthony. When he told him this, the old man said to him, "If you want to be a monk, go into the village, buy some meat, cover your naked body with it and come here like that." The brother did so, and the dogs and birds tore at his flesh. When he came back the old man asked him whether he had followed his advice. He showed him his wounded body, and Abba Anthony said, "Those who renounce the world but want to keep something for themselves are torn in this way by the demons who make war on them." 

- From 'The Sayings of the Desert Fathers', Benedicta Ward, SLG (trans).  Cistercian Publications, 1984.

IRAQ Patriarch to the UN: "Arab Spring" impacted Christians negatively

ASIA/IRAQ - Chaldean Patriarch to the UN: the "Arab Spring" impacted negatively on Christians

New York - The so-called "Arab Spring" impacted negatively on the condition of the Christian communities in the Middle East, causing a mass exodus similar to those caused 100 years ago by the massacres of Christians, which began in 1915 in the Ottoman territory. This is one of the strongest and painful considerations in the speech that the Patriarch of Babylon of the Chaldeans Louis Raphael I delivered yesterday in New York, during the session devoted to the plight of Christians in the Middle East that was held yesterday at the UN Security Council. " Frankly", said the Primate of the Chaldean Church, "the so-called Arab Spring impacted negatively on us ". While if we had the opportunity of working in harmony with the mosaic of religions and ethnic groups in our region, there would have been a driving force in the region towards peace, stability and progress".

With regards to his country, Patriarch Louis Raphael calls for "supporting the Central Government and the Regional Government of Kurdistan towards the liberation of all Iraqi cities and for us Christians, Yezidis and Shabaks especially the city of Mosul as well as the towns in the Nineveh plain and villages". According to the Primate of the Chaldean Church "it is necessary to provide an International Protection for his inhabitants, who were forced to be displaced from their homes" and "promulgate a Real Estate and Property Law that ensures their rights in their lands, and enable them to return home and resume their lives in a normal way". Regarding the jihadist phenomenon, the Patriarch repeated firmly that "these terroristic acts are not to be generalized to all Muslims", because the majority of Muslims "reject such politicization of the religion; they are accepting to live a common life with others within the civil state and according to the law". Moreover, according to His Beatitude Raphael Louis I; "Peace and stability cannot be achieved solely by military actions; as they are unable to dismantle this clustered way of thinking that destroys human beings". Among the concrete measures to be taken to stem the conflicts affecting the Middle East, the Patriarch also called for the adoption of international laws that criminalize "all states and individuals who support terrorist groups financially or intellectually or with arms, and consider their acts as a crime against social peace".