A couple of weeks ago, leaders of 47 nations met in Washington, USA, for a “Nuclear Security Summit”.

They were greeted by President Obama.

 “If,” he said, “Terrorist networks such as al Qaeda ever succeeded in acquiring the materials for a nuclear weapon, they would surely use it. In short, it is increasingly clear that the danger of nuclear terrorism is one of the greatest threats to global security . . . .”

One wonders why he would say that.

Terrorists are achieving exactly what they want already without nuclear weapons.

Conventional explosives used by persons sufficiently morally bankrupt and fanatical can keep the rest of the world mentally at their mercy.

* * *

Meanwhile the USA and Australia are achieving the opposite of what they wish to achieve by their current policies.

President Obama, talker about justice and peace, has, since becoming president , increased the number of US troops in Afghanistan by 200 percent (from 30,000 to 90,000)

The result of which has been to alter the mentality of every Muslim in the world from hating the US and its allies a lot, to hating them (us) a lot more.

Every extra Western invader on Middle Eastern soil makes every Muslim you meet day by day more likely to kill you.

* * *

Yet the world’s Muslims have something more frightening on their minds than the West’s ineffectual invasion attempts.

It is this: THE MAJORITY OF PEOPLE WHO DIE IN SUICIDE BOMBINGS ARE MUSLIMS.

The hatred and in-fighting within Muslim societies is horrible to contemplate.

The biggest hope for Muslims in today’s world is that more and more Muslims will turn to Christianity.

You hear plenty about Christians turning Muslim. You hear less about those doing the opposite. But there are a lot of them.

For all kinds of reasons they receive little publicity.

You will not find them in the “free” press/radio/TV of Western nations.

You can find plenty on the internet by googling for about 30 seconds.

* * *

The Pope has the potential of doing more for future world peace than does Mr Obama or any other military agent. (more about that tomorrow)

Those seeking to undermine the Pope and the Catholic Church are mankind’s worst enemies

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Australian euthanasia-campaigner, Dr Philip Nitschke, last week warned the media about an impending “grey tsunami”.

His answer is to help old people kill themselves.

He is displeased about the Rudd government’s intention to restrict access to pro-euthanasia propaganda on the internet.

Last week, Dr Nitschke ran a suicide workshop in Toowong which included a “hacking masterclass” — showing oldies how to bypass the proposed filter.

He wants them to visit his euthanasia-encouraging website which tells how to get and use illegally-imported Nembutal from Mexico.

* * *

Dr Nitschke says one of the commonest ways old people kill themselves at present is by hanging.

And, referring to the government, he says, “Those who deprive these people of good information (how to poison yourself) and force them down that horrible path, I think have some explaining to do.”

What is wrong with hanging? They end up dead, which is what Dr N wants. He is just being squeamish.

* * *

Dr Nitschke and friends fail to understand death because they fail to understand life.

They’ve swallowed the atheist/Buddhist/New Age delusion (mental poison) that life’s purpose is to be happy and to not suffer — that suffering is intolerable.

This leads into a circular argument about how if there was a good God he would never permit suffering.

Which doesn’t follow at all.

God is not somebody who exists to please us. If he owed us something, he would not be God. We would be. Which is what pro-euthanasiologists think.

Although they might prefer to word it more obscurely.

* * *

For Catholics, the purpose of life is to please God. Not because God might be nicer to us if we please him.

No, we must please God because he is God. We love him because he merits to be loved.

Sometimes this will involve suffering. Sometimes it will not. But that is a side issue.

Loving God is an end in itself.

Not a means to some other end.

* * *

There is an alternative to killing: Palliative Care.

Visit www.palliativecare.org.au/

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The Palliative Care movement was first started in England by Dr Cicely Saunders (also known as Dame Cicely Saunders), an Anglican doctor who spent years researching pain relief and in 1967 set up, in London, Saint Christopher’s Hospice, the world’s first purpose-built hospice.

Palliative care, by definition, is the medical alleviation of pain and other distressing symptoms so as to improve the quality of life of those with life-threatening illness.

Dr Saunders’ most original innovation was setting up multidisciplinary teams to provide relief of physical pain and to help with the spiritual and mental needs of the patients and their families.

* * *

Euthanasia is NOT part of palliative care.

Dr Saunders believed that suicide-prevention is essential — crucial to fulfilling a hospice’s mission to value the lives and intrinsic dignity of each patient until the moment of natural death.

* * *

It is sometimes said that the general public favours euthanasia and assisted suicide.

The opinion polls on which such claims are based are complicated by the wording of the questionnaires confusing  the issue.

In Britain, where the media have claimed that “up to 82 per cent” of the British general public approve of euthanasia, a 2009 survey by the Royal College of Physicians found that 73 per cent of its members OPPOSE euthanasia.

In places such as in the Netherlands, where euthanasia has been widely practised for many years, Palliative Care services are virtually non-existent.

* * *

A sinister movement exists which seeks to make euthanasia respectable, devoting itself to recruiting sick or depressed people into killing themselves or letting themselves be killed.

It calls itself the “Voluntary Euthanasia” movement.

Many elderly Australians have allowed themselves to be caught up in this, and have been taught macabre ways of killing themselves. Many of them were never aware that excellent palliative care is available.

* * *

The newly-launched website: www.family.org.au/care operated by the Australian Family Association is worth visiting for more information about Palliative Care.

Edmund Burke, 18th century Scottish philosopher and politician, famously said: “All that is necessary for the triumph of evil is that good men do nothing.”

Those words have recently been quoted again in the context of a young American girl, so taunted and bullied by fellow students, that she was driven to suicide. (www.dailyherald.com/story/?id=371163&src=)

Sometimes it is so easy to turn a blind eye to evil until it is too late. Our motives are often too mixed.

Our desire should be always to see all things, persons and events in the light of Almighty God . . . to see them as God himself sees them.

* * *

Read Saint Mark’s gospel, chapter 14: Jesus is praying in the garden the night before his crucifixion.

Picture it in your mind as you read.

Never again will you doubt that those words were written by an eyewitness, actually present when it happened.

But none of us can appreciate fully what Our Lord went through that night.

He was pure goodness — for us, evil lives at the very starting-place of our every thought and action.

If you or I were the only person ever to have lived, Christ’s suffering would have been necessary to redeem us from our sin.

No other man ever understood the world’s evil as Jesus, God-incarnate, did.

* * *

That is what salvation means — seeing the world as Christ sees it — seeing, as he did, the horribleness of evil and sin.

Once we see that, we’ll be able to take that first and most vital step in fighting against the evil in the world – getting rid of the sin in our own lives.

God will give the necessary strength.

Is Holy Saturday merely a breathing-space between intensely emotional Good Friday highlighting the murderous degeneracy of our human nature — and the Resurrection joy of Easter Sunday?

No. Holy Saturday has a unique message of its own.

* * *

Holy Saturday is a day to spend, if possible, in recollection and silence in the presence of Our Lord’s lifeless body in the tomb.

A day to remember that Christ’s willingness to die, and the way he died, was a victory in itself — even before he rose victoriously from the grave.

A spiritual victory:

 *  remember how, amidst the worst that the devil and his greedy, power-crazed human servants could do — he had forgiven.

 *  Our Lord forgave his executioners — also his cowardly denier, Saint Peter.  

 *  he would willingly have forgiven his betrayer — but Judas was already dead.

 *  although surrounded by so much evil, Jesus had still thought of others — especially his mother.

* * *

From the gospels:

When they came to the place called the Skull, they crucified him . . . and Jesus said, “Father, forgive them, they do not know what they are doing.”

When Jesus saw his mother, and the disciple standing by, whom he loved, he said to his mother, “Woman, behold thy son.”  Then he said to the disciple, “Behold thy mother.”

* * *

 O good and gentle Jesus, you gave yourself to us as a ransom for our redemption . . . .

 Grant that we, unworthy though we be, may come to resemble you in your grace, your forgiveness and your love.

The Greens Party has a lot of influence in Australian politics these days.

Last weekend’s Tasmanian state election has increased it.

The Tasmanian Greens look like getting 5 members elected, alongside 10 Labor and 10 Liberal.

That will give them the casting vote on everything — no matter which major party nominally governs.

* * *

It would be a worry living in a state where the Greens received 5 votes — let alone 5 seats.

The Greens Party favour:

 *  legal recognition of same-sex “marriages”

 *  easier access to abortion

 *  destruction of human embryos by scientists to get stem cells to experiment on

 *  killing the elderly (“voluntary euthanasia”)

 *  lifting bans on R-18 violent graphic video games

 *  legal prostitution

 *  in vitro fertilisation for unmarried persons including homosexual couples

 *  and the classic – THEY WANT HEROIN LEGALISED – or do they?

* * *

Well, in parliament in May 2009, Greens MP, Cassie O’Connor, said in debate:

“Do you think that every heroin user in Tasmania comes to the attention of police and/or the authorities? Seriously, you really ought to get out more.  Harm minimisation is the key.  We know prohibition is not the solution.  It does not work.”

The people of Tasmania know that she said that.

Nevertheless, according to the intenet at the moment of typing this post, Cassie O’Connor is coming in as eighth-highest vote-getter in this election.

It’s a bit of a worry — unless you want to see Australia become ever more undisciplined, with youth unaware of any concept of right and wrong . . . .

If that’s what you want, then you have just had a good weekend.