Pope Benedict XVI denounced "terrorist ideologies" that spur violence in God's name as he opened a meeting Monday of bishops from around the Middle East.Pope Benedict said such ideologies were based on false gods and should be "unmasked." The pontiff made the off-the-cuff remarks at the opening working session of the meeting, or synod, which was called to address problems the minority Catholic Church faces in the largely Muslim region. In his remarks to the synod participants, Pope Benedict lamented the forces at play in the world that "enslave" men and threaten the world, citing drugs as well as "terrorist ideologies. The make violence apparently in the name of God, but it's not God: These are false divinities that must be unmasked. They are not God." Is war ever the right answer? Didn't Jesus Christ come to replace the hate and violence with peace and love? Doing something that we know is wrong and saying it is in the name of God does not make it right. Let's pray for an end to hate, violence and war in this world.
The spiritual climax of the Gospel of John, as Father John Waiss points out, occurs at the foot of the Cross, where Jesus utters his parting words: “Woman, behold, your son!” and “Behold your mother!” (John 19:26-27). While these words were addressed to the Apostle John, the disciple whom Jesus loved, the Church has long understood this moment as a universal adoption. To truly image Christ, we must share in His parentage; if we embrace God as our spiritual Father but reject Mary as our mother, we treat Christ as a half-brother rather than our "firstborn among many brethren" (Rom. 8:29). As Origen noted as early as the third century, the profound depths of the Gospel are only accessible to those who, like John, rest their heads on Jesus’ breast and receive Mary into their own homes. This maternal role is deeply rooted in biblical typology, positioning Mary as the fulfillment of the great mothers of the Old Covenant. She is the New Eve , the mother of all the living according ...
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