RU 44/2008 - FRANCE, IRAQ

- FRANCE: The pilgrimage to Lourdes organized by the Priests Society Saint-Pius X from October 25th to 27th in this year of the 150e anniversary of the apparitions of the Blessed Virgin at Lourdes, gathered between 12,000 and 15,000 faithful (9,000 communions were distributed on Saturday, October 25th). On our Webpage radio-silence.org you can presently see a great photograph made by us of the solemn Mass of Sunday in the underground basilica Saint Pius X granted for this occasion by Mgr Perrier, bishop of Lourdes. Mgr Fellay, Superior general of the FSSPX, called on the occasion of this pilgrimage to a new crusade of a million rosaries for obtaining from the Heaven the lifting of the excommunication of the 4 bishops of the FSSPX which obstructs much the universal apostolate in the Church. The last crusade (2 million rosaries) of the FSSPX for the release of the ancient Holy Mass had brought good fruit and allows all hopes for the new crusade. That excommunication of medieval type, thrown 20 years ago by the pope John-Paul II against Mgr Lefebvre and the 4 new bishops consecrated by him for the maintenance of the liturgical and doctrinal Tradition in the Church, represents today – an evidence to all observers - the vestige of a time which is completely by-passed by the recent initiatives of restoration of the Tradition in the Church by Benedict XVI. Moreover, each day that this excommunication is maintained, is a serious and repeated attack on the Mystical Body of Christ that is the Church, in other words a terrible offence of God. Let us all pray that our pope Benedict XVI take the necessary initiative to put an end to this evangelical scandal. - (ru)

- IRAQ: Terrible news came to us from this ancient Christian earth. The Office of the High Commission of the United Nations for the Refugees (HCR) announced on October 24th that more than 2,200 Christian families, that is to say approximately 13,000 people, fled from the north-Iraq city of Mosul after having received Islamic threats, during these 2 last weeks. Frightened by posters stuck to the doors of their houses: “Leave your house and this area within 24 hours, otherwise you will be punished and killed according to the precepts of the Islamic religion against those which venerate the cross!”, they fled towards the east and the north of the country, and even to Syria where already 1.2 million Iraqis, of which 200,000 are Christians, are packed. Their fears were justified because several of their houses had already been devastated and burned lately, and their occupants maltreated and driven out, if not violated and killed. Even their archbishop Mgr Rahho had been kidnapped and killed in March 2008, like had been the priest of the church of the Holy Spirit of Mosul in 2006, Fr. Paulos Iskander, who was first tortured while cutting-off his 4 members, and finally shot down, like the 3 deacons who accompanied him. When the Christendom of the Occident will stand up from its coward weakness helping to build mosques everywhere and spending their time with `dialog', where the firmness of the Gospel would be needed? - (Ru; cf HCR and FNY Oct. 24)

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