President Obama has called on the new transitional government of Libya to “build an inclusive and tolerant and democratic Libya”.

He knows already that that is not going to happen.

Libya, like Egypt and Tunisia, is emerging from the “Arab Spring” more than ever dominated by “Islamism”.

The current leader, Mustafa Abdul-Jalil, has announced that Sharia Law will be “the basic source” of Libya’s  laws.

That he meant this in the literal and most stark sense, he made clear by asserting that polygamy will be re-legalised.

* * *

Islam and Christian religion are incompatible in many ways.

The understanding of marriage is one of them.

Mohammed, himself, had multiple wives.

If the western nations want to help those who live in Islamic countries, trying to talk them into holding elections etc. is not very relevant.

What they need is to be convinced to quit Islam.

That can’t happen while the west rejects its own Christian cultural origins.

Worst of all if the Church itself had no zeal for converting non-Christians.

* * *

The late Pope John Paul II made himself notorious when he kissed the Koran as a gesture of “goodwill”.

Obviously it was an act of bad will – but the Church has never refuted it.

On October 27, a gathering of leaders of world religions — including, bizarrely, prominent atheists — will take place in Assisi.

A thoroughly un-Catholic move.

As Pope Pius XI said in the 1920’s, “The Catholic Church has never permitted its subjects to take part in congresses of non-Catholics.”

On October 15, a group calling themselves Occupy Melbourne moved into the City Square, set up 40-odd tents and announced that they were staying indefinitely.

Each day, they marched through the streets, obstructing intersections and holding protest meetings outside buildings of which they disapproved (the Serco office, the Melbourne Club, the Stock Exchange).

They were warned by the Council and Police to vacate the Square by 9am October 21.

Instead, they texted and twittered friends and acquaintances to come and swell their numbers.

It took 400 police officers to move them up Swanston Street and into Carlton.

It took 5 Council trucks to remove the rubbish they left behind.

* * *

There is, of course, a place for disobeying the law of the land — if a black -and-white moral issue is at stake.

But these occupiers could point to no such clear-cut justification.

They claim to represent the “99 percent” on modest incomes and condemn the “1 percent” who get excessive incomes (e.g. corporate CEO’s on millions per year).

OK. But this is not sufficient issue to justify defiance, disobedience and attempts to obstruct the police.

If those of us who believe in justice will live by our faith — putting first God and the needs of the disadvantaged among his children — we can create a better world.

If laws exist which would prevent us living by our faith, then disobey by all means.

Otherwise don’t.

October 17 is United Nations’ Anti-Poverty Day.

October 16 to 22 is designated by some as Anti-Poverty Week.

A Brisbane group calling itself Micah Projects – government-funded, but with churchly connections — has unearthed some relevant statistics:

e.g. in the Brisbane area:
* 14.8% of households have a weekly income under $500;
* over 10,000 jobless households with children aged under 15 years;
* 3,741 Domestic Violence Protection Order applications made in 2010.

* * *

Poverty Week participating groups will include ACOSS, ACTU, Anglicare, Australian Red Cross, Australian Services Union, Catholic Social Services of Australia, Jobs Australia, Mission Australia, Salvation Army, St Vincent de Paul, The Benevolent Society and UnitingCare.

Most of these groups are have Christian backgrounds.

Secretary of Micah Projects is Brisbane priest, Father Terry Fitzpatrick — not only a Catholic priest, but a Catholic priest defiant against his bishop, and attached to a group no longer using the approved liturgies and Sacramental rites of the Catholic religion.

* * *

Is poverty always bad?

Saint Mary of the Cross (Mother Mary MacKillop) said that when young, “I longed for a religious life, one in which I could serve God and his poor neglected ones in poverty and disregard of the world and its fleeting opinions . . . I looked for poverty more like that practised in the early religious orders of the Church . . . .”

Jesus told his disciples that, “Foxes have dens and the birds of the air have nests, but the Son of Man has nowhere to lay his head.”

Yes, we must try to alleviate materialistic poverty where it is extreme.

We must, with at least as much enthusiasm, seek to eradicate spiritual poverty.

If we do that whole-heartedly, we’ll probably get no government funding.

In February and March 2011, the violence in Bahrain was bad.

The military used live weapons to clear protesting crowds.

The soldiers were Sunnis.

The victims were Shi’ites.

The injured were treated by doctors at the local Salmaniya hospital.

Subsequently many doctors were arrested — on the pretext of  having, by their actions, “plotted to overthrow the monarchy”.

* * *

Their only crime was doing what all doctors vow to do — to treat the sick and injured regardless of class, creed or colour.

Some doctors were kicked, beaten and threatened with rape.

Thus “confessions” were obtained and the “guilty” doctors sentenced to up to 15 years prison.

To avoid arrest, those doctors would have had to consider persons of the “wrong” religion as non-humans — not entitled to be treated like real humans.

* * *

What about Victoria in Australia?

Here the law says that any doctor unwilling to do an abortion, and who declines to refer the patient to a “doctor” who does such things, can be arrested.

We are expected to pretend that unborn humans are not humans — but fair game for extermination.

Looking at it from God’s point of view, this must be very displeasing.

God has created all his children in love, and expects us to give them all love and justice accordingly.

In principle, Victoria is not even a little bit better than Bahrain in this regard.

An Australian citizen, Brian Schmidt, is one of the winners of the 2011 Nobel Prize for Physics.

His work is said to show that the universe is expanding faster and faster – not slower and slower, as we were being told to believe until recently.

Why so fast? Because of “dark energy” mate.

Dark energy is something that possibly does not exist. But if it does exist, it comprises 70-odd percent of the universe.

The Nobel Academy spokespersons described his discovery as “astounding”.

It isn’t easy to be astounded by something you can’t really imagine . . . .

And something which we will, almost certainly, be told is wrong after all, within a few months or years.

,* * *

Science is something beyond most of us.

The one thing we know for sure is that science is always wrong.

Isn’t that  what “progress” means?

That what we know today proves that what they believed yesterday was wrong . . . . .

And, presumably, what we believe today will be proved wrong tomorrow.

* * *

Fortunately science doesn’t matter very much.

What matters more is how we use the things scientists make it possible to invent.

Things as diverse as life-saving antibiotics . . . and life-terminating bombs . . . .

Plus chemicals to increase crop yields . . . and chemicals to defoliate the crops of those we hope to starve to death.

Science has nothing to do with right and wrong.

Yet are not right and wrong, ultimately, all that matters?

Science can help a little bit, insofar as it reveals a universe (multiverse or whatever) that has Order.

Which confirms, to the un-blinkered, that God exists.

Pope Benedict, visiting his home country, Germany, has paid tribute to those who kept the faith during Nazi and Communist persecutions.

After meeting a group of victims of past sexual abuse by church workers, he humbly commented that he could “understand that, in the face of such reports, people, especially those close to victims, would say, ‘This isn’t my church anymore’.”

He vowed that the Church will “deal with all crimes of abuse” and is “committed to promotion of measures for the protection of children and young people”.

* * *

In a world where hatred seems to reign, to learn the message of God’s love is urgent and critical.

The people you meet every day need to discover that they are infinitely lovable, no matter how badly they feel about themselves.

And to experience the life-altering potency of God’s love.

It is the task of the Church to be God’s agent in passing on that message and that transforming experience of love.

Now is not the time for Christians to abandon the Church, but to redouble our efforts, at the personal level, to spread God’s life-changing love.

* * *

Today, try to let everyone you meet be aware of his/her lovability.

All are infinitely loveable, because God loves all infinitely.

We must first let God’s love change us — then endeavour to become change-agents in creating and spreading love.

It is not easy to act consistently with this kind of love.

None of us is as good at it as we ought to be.

If we humbly ask God for his grace, he will change us – and use the change in us as a step towards changing the world.