Faith & the Public Order: October 2012 Archives

A friend of mine, a Melkite priest, in fact, alerted his friends that a cousin of his in Aleppo was abducted by terrorists and days later released. A tense time no doubt. We are grateful to the Lord the young man's return.

Of concern, too, is the assassination of a Greek Orthodox priest near Damascus. Father Fadi Jamil Haddad, 43, pastor of St. Elias Church in Qatana, outside Damascus, found slain on October 26, shot in head, in the Jaramana district  of the capital. Vatican news people report that an  "unidentified armed group" was responsible. $715,000 was demanded. Further details are really unclear. 

Of the Christian minority in Syria, the Greek Orthodox is known as the largest; Christians represent perhaps 10% of the population. Make no mistake, Christians have long been resident in Syria now a majority Muslim.

You can always count on Francis Cardinal George, OMI,  to speak the truth. He is always very clear, always on target when looking at the American cultural situation. On September 30, 2012, he celebrate a votive Mass of the Holy Spirit and delivered a homily for the annual Red Mass, at which he  said, "There are times the law is a a cause of scandal." The following paragraphs give a sense of what the Cardinal said. The rest of the homily may be read here.

What is left now to our common life is whatever a legislative majority or the often-manipulated whims of popular majority opinion will tolerate. That is no longer a classical Constitutional legal order. The law has betrayed its own vocation.