The Australian flag at the entrance to Ballina District Hospital (NSW) has flapped itself to pieces.

One and a half stars of the Southern Cross are gone.

The local branch of the RSL (Returned and Services League) has complained and wants something done about it.

Not a big deal?

It might be, if you had fought in a war to defend the flag and what it stands for.

* * *

A bigger deal, media-wise, was Australian athletes at the Winter Olympics draping a huge “boxing kangaroo” flag across a multi-storey Vancouver building.

The International Olympic Committee (IOC) told them to remove it.

They didn’t.

Australia’s Deputy Prime Minister, Julia Gillard, mocked the IOC, saying, “We want to see a lot of the Boxing Kangaroo, particularly now that we’ve had this ridiculous ruling.”

* * *

Is this flag affair just a matter of taste, or is there a serious issue involved?

What does a boxing kangaroo represent?

It signifies that we will do anything — except the obviously right thing — to defy everybody and draw attention to ourselves, threatening a punch-up or similar if not given our own way.

If we must be defiant, why not do something better than the conventional thing, rather than something stupider?

* * *

In Russia, in 2002, the government ordered regions to design their own local flags.

The city of Penza (600km east of Moscow, population 500,000) defied convention by designing a flag carrying an image of Jesus.

Yury Leptev, speaking for Penza’s Social Politics Committee, explained that there is a legend that in the 1500s Ivan the Terrible presented an icon of Christ to the people of Penza.

Leptev said they had held an unofficial referendum about the flag, and support for the chosen image was “strong”.

Some non-Christian leaders criticised it, saying it “blurred the lines separating Church and State”.  (St Petersburg Times)

To which one might reply, “No need for lines separating Church and State –  as long as it’s the right Church.”

In 2001, Islamic terrorists declared war on Western nations by destroying New York’s World Trade Centre.

In 2002, the UN Commissioner for Human Rights (a Catholic) said Islam is “entirely consonant with the principal of fundamental human rights and . . . bestowed rights upon women and children long before other civilisations.”

In 2008, the President of France called Islam “one of the most beautiful civilisations the world has known.”

In 2009, the President of the USA spoke of his “deep appreciation for the Islamic faith, which has done so much over the centuries to shape the world – including my own country.”

* * *

It is intrinsic to the aims of Islam that ultimately all nations bend to Sharia law.

Non-Muslims are to be given the traditional three choices: (1) convert to Islam, or (2) die, or (3) become second-class citizens in one’s own nation, subservient and tribute-paying (they call it “dhimmitude”).

The Commissioner and the two Presidents quoted above seem to have volunteered themselves into dhimmitude without a struggle.

Everyone seems to be doing it — the rate of Westerners converting to Islam having supposedly doubled since 11/9/2001.

* * *

The only other alternative — that Muslims start converting to Catholicism — seems a long way off.

But we had better start making it happen soon, or it is going to be a very sad world indeed.

Where can the much-needed historical U-turn begin?

A good place would be in Catholic schools.

Let’s teach Catholic students that non-Christian religions are NOT good.

Let’s teach them why.

Let’s teach them how to understand their Faith — how to argue the case for Catholic belief – how to be living role models of the good that God can achieve in lives devoted to his obedience.

* * *

Let’s be willing to die, by all means.

But let us NOT be ready to sell ourselves to those who despise our weakness.

Saint Valentine was a Catholic priest, first clubbed almost to death — and then beheaded — by Roman Emperor Claudius, apparently on February 14, in about the year 270AD.

Claudius had ordered all Romans to worship the Roman pagan gods.

The alternative was execution.

Valentine had been famous for his real love for mankind, giving from his heart and assisting the poor, the needy and widows – and encouraging the well-to-do of his time to be generous to the less privileged in their communities.

* * *

In Saudi Arabia, celebrating Saint Valentine’s Day is prohibited.

The nation’s Commission for Promotion of Virtue and Prevention of Vice is supposed to enforce bans against “pagan holidays”.

Virtue Commission spokesman, Sheik Ali Qarni, defends this ban, saying that Muslims know the true meaning of love — the love of God — and behave accordingly throughout the year.

Of course, wherever there is a ban there is a black market. Some Saudi florists are supplying bootleg bunches of red roses (at over three times the regular price) to those who will pay.

* * *

Meanwhile, polls are reporting that 40 percent of Muslims in the United Kingdom want Sharia Law introduced in Britain – more so young British Muslims than their elders.

Muslims now number 1,591,000 in the UK — 2.7 percent of the population — a proportion said to be rising 10 times faster than rest of society.

What about Australia?

At the 2006 Census there were 340,000 Muslims in Australia. In early 2010, WikiAnswers estimates it is now 446,500 (about 2 percent of the population).

How many Australian Muslims want Sharia Law? Nobody seems to know. Perhaps we don’t want to know.

* * *

This year, Melbourne’s Latrobe University is offering an 18-month course in Master of Islamic Banking and Finance – described as a “cutting-edge program built around a defined body of knowledge of proven relevance to the Islamic finance industry”.

The thin edge of the wedge, perhaps?

Certainly, it’s a long way from amputation for thieves, stoning for adultery etc. . . . .

And a long way from being clubbed and beheaded for being a Christian . . . .

But you have to start somewhere if you want “change”, as President Obama might say.

On January 17 2010, Pope Benedict visited the Jewish Synagogue in Rome.

Some Italian rabbis stayed away in protest because:

(1) Pope Pius XII did not, they say, condemn the Nazis sufficiently in the 1940s for their persecution of Jews.

(2) The present pope reinstated a “Holocaust-denying” bishop, Bishop Richard Williamson, in January 2009.

* * *

The facts are:

(1) Catholics all over Europe hid Jews from the Nazis with the encouragement of Pius XII. This was remembered and praised by Jewish leaders at the time of Pius XII’s death.

(2) Pope Benedict has distanced himself from Bishop Williamson’s views, saying that he must “take his distance, in an absolutely unequivocal and public fashion, from his position on the Shoah, which the Holy Father was not aware of when the excommunication was lifted . . . .”

* * *

Anyway, in his recent Synagogue speech, the pope talked about the “spiritual closeness and brotherhood” between Christians and Jews.

He said, “Christians and Jews share to a great extent a common spiritual patrimony. They pray to the same Lord . . . .”

In this, was he not implying that Jews have, within their religion, a valid means of finding salvation?

Contrast the first pope, the Apostle Peter, in a speech to the Jews in the year 33AD, within days of the Ascension of Christ, saying, “Let all the house of Israel know most certainly, that God hath made both Lord and Christ, this same Jesus, whom you have crucified.”

How did Saint Peter’s hearers react? The Bible records that, “When they had heard these things, they had compunction in their heart, and said to Peter, and to the rest of the apostles: ‘What shall we do, men and brethren?’

 “Peter said to them: ‘Do penance, and be baptised every one of you in the name of Jesus Christ.’”

That was the Catholic answer.

That is exactly what Pope Benedict XVI is not saying.

* * *

Pope Benedict needs our prayers. At present he seems to be getting it wrong.

Arsonists in Malaysia struck at a Catholic convent school and a fifth church yesterday.

A petrol bomb was thrown at a building at the convent school.

This is part of a stand-off following a court ruling on 31 December, permitting a Catholic newspaper (The Herald) to use the name “Allah” for the Christian God in its Malay-language editions.

Malaysia’s top police officer now says he hasn’t the manpower to  protect Christian properties, and that churches must arrange security themselves.

* * *

So is all this a misunderstanding that can be sorted out?

Or is Islam so fundamentally violent that all sortings-out are a mere pipe-dream.

The Qu’ran says:  “Slay the idolators wherever you find them . . .  lie in ambush everywhere for them.  If they repent and take to prayer and pay the alms-tax, let them go.  Allah is forgiving and merciful.”  (Sura 9:5)

History, including recognised Islamic sources, reveals that the Prophet did a lot of such slaying.

* * *

Most nations with Christian-based culture, e.g. Australia, permit mosques and Muslim schools.  Yet what happens to people in Muslim countries like Saudi Arabia who engage in public Christian activities?

Catholics love and respect Muslim individuals — as Christ commands love and respect for all men. 

But the religion of Islam, they can neither love nor respect.

* * *

Should not the Australian Catholic Church’s policy be for Australia to close its mosques and Islamic schools?

Perhaps to phase them out gradually, to avoid disrupting the students’ education too suddenly – but aim to have them gone in a finite time – let’s say 2 years.

Pope Benedict XVI will visit the main Jewish synagogue in Rome soon — on January 17, which is now being called the Church’s annual “Day of Dialogue with Judaism”.

Rome’s chief Rabbi, Riccardo di Segni, praises the forthcoming visit as a “milestone”, saying he has “great expectations”.

* * *

One expectation of the Jews seems to be that the Pope will let them dictate who will and who won’t be made saints.

They complained again recently, when the Pope brought the sainthood of Pius XII a step closer.

And last year they were telling the Pope what prayers are OK for Catholics to pray and what aren’t.

On Good Fridays, Catholics pray for the conversion of Jews to Christ — a prayer asking that “God our Lord enlighten their hearts that they may know Jesus Christ, Saviour of men”.

In the face of Jewish complaints, the Pope, would you believe, obediently changed the wording of this prayer. But apparently not obediently enough, because the Italian Rabbis still boycotted last year’s “Day of Dialogue” in protest against the Pope’s inadequate subservience.

* * *

This is all nonsense.

Jesus himself spent his whole life trying to convert Jews.

His last words to his disciples included, “Go and teach all nations, baptising them in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Ghost, teaching them to observe all things that I have commanded.”

The idea that Jews don’t need to convert to Christ is not part of the Christian religion — but its opposite.

If those calling themselves Christians love the Jewish people, then they MUST want them to receive all the benefits that God offers to mankind.

To interpret such a desire as hatred for Jews just doesn’t add up.