RU 07/2009 - CANADA, RUSSIA

- CANADA: A school girl presently astonishes Canada, and even the United States. She is 12 years old and her name is Lia. She won last week a speech competition with her school in Toronto, causing a monstrous controversy. Because the topic she had chosen was abortion. Her speech has already been viewed 394,000 times, on www.youtube.com/watch?v=wOR1wUqvJS4&feature=channel_page. She began her 5 minutes speech as follows: “What if I told you that right now, someone was choosing if you were gonna live or die? What if I told you that this choice wasn’t based on what you could or couldn’t do, what you’d done in the past, or what you would do in the future? And what if I told you, you could do nothing about it? Fellow students and teachers, thousands of children are right now in that very situation. Someone is choosing without even knowing them whether they are going to live or die. That someone is their mother. And that choice is abortion.” Her mother declared that Lia had chosen this topic by herself, against the opinion of her mom who feared difficulties at the school with such a controversial subject. The first obstacle was her classroom teacher, a `pro-choice' feminist, but finally this one gave up in front of the pure and firm conviction of her pupil, and Lia won the first price in her class. Then came the school level. A panel of judges did not want to accept the topic which Lia had chosen, until one of the judges - who had left the room by protest before even Lia opened her mouth - resigned, which opened the way to accept the speech of Lia. It was only late in the evening that the panel, face to the enthusiasm as well of the pupils as of the professors, accepted after tough discussions the first price to Lia, who qualified to take part in the regional contest at the end of February. “Lia really got me thinking”, recalls her classroom teacher. – Go to the Youtube file to see how this young girl delivers her little speech. Here one can understand what Jesus meant when he announced: “Happy those who are hungry and thirsty for Justice” and “Happy the pure hearts!” And this other word in the Old Testament: “If you do not announce the truth, I shall make speak the stones!” The association S.O.S MOTHERS, Paris, announced many times that they never found any rejection of the Life between the hundreds of pregnant young girls whom they could help to escape from abortion. The abortion was each time proposed to them, and even intimated, granted and imposed, by the adults, practically against their true wish. As soon as S.O.S MOTHERS helped a little bit these young girls, the love of the baby in them jumped out immediately like a pure water jet, which recalls this other Word of Our Lord: “If you do not become like those little children, you will not enter into the Kingdom of God!” The abortion is only an ugly idea of disillusioned, used, pessimistic, adults, ruminants of death. May the young people live, live the babies, live the Children of the Kingdom of Heaven! - (ru; cf. Catholic Online Feb.17, 2009).

- RUSSIA: This country, after the death of the patriarch Alexij II, gave itself a new patriarch in the person of Kirill, metropolitan of Smolensk and oecumenical spokesperson of the Patriarchate of Moscow near the Vatican during the last years. Kirill is known for his liberal sights, in contrast with a rather conservative Russian Orthodoxy. He decided, from the day of his election as patriarch, to work in favour of the elimination of any obstacle to the unity between Orthodoxy and the Catholic Church, and first of all to facilitate a meeting between the Patriarch of Russia and the pope “after having solved certain conflicts”. Already in 2003, Kirill had declared that these conflicts relate to, on the one hand, the existence of catholic communities called `uniates' in the east, and on the other hand the current role of the catholic missionaries in countries which are mainly orthodox. Kirill said that the work of catholic missionaries in Russia “violates the spirit of the decree of 1964 of the Vatican II Council” which had recognized Orthodoxy as a true Church. “If salvation can be obtained through the Orthodoxy”, he declared in 2003, “then why one needs Catholic churches in orthodox countries?” Let us point out that in Russia, a country of 144 million people, there are only abt. 600,000 Catholics, i.e. 0.4%. The Vatican established in 1991, after the dissolution of the Soviet Union, four Apostolic Administrations covering the vast Russian territory, to frame the 316 catholic parishes of today. They were transformed by the pope into 4 dioceses in 2002, without informing the Orthodox Church in advance. For the orthodox Patriarchate, it was a fatal blow for the unity, which was wished so intensely by the oecumenical contacts practiced since the festivities of the millenium of the baptism of Russia in 1988. The Russian Patriarchate sees Russia as its `canonical territory'. The Vatican defends itself by saying that these dioceses are used only for the foreign Catholics residing in Russia and that they do not practice any `proselytism' near orthodox Russians. Thus Rev. Fr. Bernard Leannec, priest of Saint-Louis-of-France in Moscow, declares: “To belong to the Catholic Church or the Orthodox Church, it’s to be Christian. Let us leave with the human being the freedom of choice, the freedom of conscience!” As for the uniatism, the oecumenical agreements of Balamand in Lebanon, of June 23rd, 1993, co-signed by several cardinals of Rome and many orthodox delegates, wanted even to finish with the ‘uniate’ Catholics’ by recommending them to either join the Orthodox Church, or to join the “Latin rite”. - But Alexij II dit not get mislead: hadn't the pope Pius IX sent Assomptionists at the beginning of the 20th century “to convert Russia”? Wouldn't the Virgin Mary of Fatima have required the “conversion of Russia”, insinuating the conversion of Orthodoxy to Catholicism? Does not exist the only one Church: ‘una, sancta, catholica and apostolica’? - The problem is, for the patriarchate, a certain duplicity of the language of Rome which is strongly felt in the east and which obstructs any bringing together. It would be necessary to have the courage to say what one believes, to deeply wish the fastening of Moscow to Rome, to arrive to a dialog IN THE TRUTH and then to the full unity of the MYSTICAL BODY OF CHRIST, instead of tergiversating on a hypothetical multitude of Churches. It would be necessary to manage to discuss true problems with our orthodox brothers: which is the form of this unity? Which is the true message of the Holy Virgin of Fatima? Which is the minimum gesture so that the separate Orthodox Church is attached to the Church-mother of Rome, based on Peter? Only this true language will release the dialog, will open to the pope the way to `Holy Russia' and will lead to the so much needed unity, face to an increasingly pagan Europe and an Islam which is more and more conqueror. But in Rome one seems to think straightforwardly in the opposite direction. Thus Mgr Jean-Louis Tauran declared on June 4th, 2001 on the Philippines: ”The two elements, the harmony between the people and justice within the society, are the principles which guide our relationship with all the religions… It would be erroneous to regard the faithful of other religions as someone to be converted. He’s rather a person who should be understood, by leaving with God the role to clarify his conscience. The religions should not enter into competition the ones with the others, but must be rather like brothers and sisters who walk hand in hand to build the channels of fraternity, by building a beautiful world in which it is possible to live and to work.” A perfect FM global world speech of the New Age type! Already cardinal Cassidy had vociferated in 1999 at Augsburg, at the time of the Joint Declaration with the Protestants, that Rome does not aim any more at the return of the other Christians towards the Catholic Church. Nobody thus should any more be converted? We start to drink up to the end the religious liberty invented by Vatican II Council. We wonder: Would St Paul, patron of the missionaries, thus have understood nothing? Would Saint-Louis have been mistaken? Would Saint François Xavier have gone to Asia for nothing? Would Saint Theresa of Lisieux have sacrificed herself for the missions in vain? And so many of other missionaries, brethren and sisters who left to conquer the hearts for Christ? We do not dare to imagine that in Rome one forgets what Christ clearly ordered: “Go to the whole world and teach all the people, and baptize them in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Ghost!” Only this language of truth will lead us to the so much desired unity. - (ru; cf FT Feb.15 , RU 23/2001 and RU 47/2003)