My guest-posting stint will be starting today, a little early. Matt will be on vaca for the next week. Here's hoping the Temple Police hit up a Brewer game or two!
I have been after Matt forever to watch "Of Gods and Men," recently released on DVD (or maybe he just didn't like it and doesn't have the heart to tell me...) I don't have the technical know-how to imbed the trailer for the movie in this post, but you can watch it on YouTube here.
Movie Synopsis:
Eight French Christian monks live in harmony with their Muslim brothers in a monastery perched in the mountains of North Africa in the 1990s. When a crew of foreign workers is massacred by an Islamic fundamentalist group, fear sweeps though the region. The army offers them protection, but the monks refuse. Should they leave? Despite the growing menace in their midst, they slowly realize that they have no choice but to stay... come what may. This film is loosely based on the life of the Cistercian monks of Tibhirine in Algeria, from 1993 until their kidnapping in 1996.
I came across this article from Catholic News Service today and it reminded me of that movie:
Franciscans in Tripoli holed up in home as battle ragesChurch sources who could be contacted said some Catholic leaders remained holed up in Tripoli as the battle for control of the capital raged around them.Late Aug. 22, three Franciscan friars were barricaded in their home in a Tripoli neighborhood, where there was heavy fighting, the source told Fides, news agency of the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples."No one dares to walk in the street because people are shot on sight, even if it is not clear who shoots whom. Of course, it is dangerous for civilians to leave the house," said the church source, who requested anonymity."Currently, the phone lines are cut and we cannot contact the friars," the source said, but the last thing the friars said was that they could not leave the house because of the shooting nearby.
In February, a Franciscan priest who has worked in Libya for seven years told Catholic News Service that Christians were afraid Islamic fundamentalists would take over the country if Gadhafi fell. He said that, under Gadhafi, Christians had been protected.
If you have an opportunity to rent "Of Gods and Men," do so. It will make you think about your faith, what you would do in the face of uncertain danger, and thank God for those who serve the Church in trying times such as these.
I recently had a fascinating conversation with a person who was in China in the mid-1990s for his job. Strongly Catholic, he would attend Mass at one of the "underground" Catholic Churches (as opposed to China's state-sponsored "catholicism"). He left China under duress after the Chinese police found out he was attending Mass at one of the underground churches. The police confiscated all his belongings and were waiting to arrest him at his apartment. Thanks be to God, his landlord warned him not to come back to his apartment. He took a night train from mainland China into Hong Kong, which was a British territory at that point (so it was considered a "safe" zone for U.S. citizens.) When the train pulled into the station, the Chinese police boarded the train to do a search and seizure, and he started running for the Hong Kong border. The British guard saw him running, saw the Chinese police running after him, pointed his gun at the Chinese and yelled, "Run, Yank!" He made it across the border in the nick of time. And judging from the Vatican's recent criticism (and excommunication) of Chinese bishops, not much has changed.
I recently had a fascinating conversation with a person who was in China in the mid-1990s for his job. Strongly Catholic, he would attend Mass at one of the "underground" Catholic Churches (as opposed to China's state-sponsored "catholicism"). He left China under duress after the Chinese police found out he was attending Mass at one of the underground churches. The police confiscated all his belongings and were waiting to arrest him at his apartment. Thanks be to God, his landlord warned him not to come back to his apartment. He took a night train from mainland China into Hong Kong, which was a British territory at that point (so it was considered a "safe" zone for U.S. citizens.) When the train pulled into the station, the Chinese police boarded the train to do a search and seizure, and he started running for the Hong Kong border. The British guard saw him running, saw the Chinese police running after him, pointed his gun at the Chinese and yelled, "Run, Yank!" He made it across the border in the nick of time. And judging from the Vatican's recent criticism (and excommunication) of Chinese bishops, not much has changed.