Islamic Refugee Crisis: Good Samaritan or Maccabean Response? Or both What would Thomas Aquinas Say? By Dr. Taylor Marshall

My admiration for the wisdom of Dr. Taylor Marshall has never waned. With his Catholic insight on the topic of (Muslim) Refugee Crisis, it is very timely how he clarified what position we Catholics and Christians should take.  And rightfully so, Dr. Marshall hit it right on its head when he said "We are not required by Christ to take victims that oppose our faith and our way of life and make them into our political heirs. We are not required to take them into our homes." And for Leftists, please do not stop here. Read before you fret! -CD2000

Source: Dr. Taylor Marshall

What would Saint Thomas Aquinas say about the Refugee Crisis?

We as Christians are debating among ourselves about whether or not we have a moral duty to receive refugees fleeing Muslim nations.

This article is politically incorrect and says things that might shock you. Please read the entire article until the very last two paragraphs before making a judgment or writing incendiary comments. This might be one of the clearest things you’ve read on the topic, because it draws on virtue ethics of Thomas Aquinas – something generally ignored in our day and age. – Godspeed, Taylor Marshall

Are We Good Samaritans?

As Christians we remember Our Lord’s parable about the Good Samaritan recounting how the outwardly religious clerics (the priest and the levite) passed the injured man in the road, but how the Samaritan proved to “be his neighbor” and care for him. Christ rebukes the outwardly religious hypocrites and commends the good Samaritan.

When it comes to the refugee crises, none of us wants to be the hypocrite who turns his steps to the opposite side of road to avoid caring for an injured victim.

Or Are We Good Maccabeans?

Meanwhile, if you are Catholic, you’ve been listening to the book of Maccabees this week in the daily Mass readings. These biblical lessons approvingly recount how Mattathias along with his Maccabean sons and companions rightfully used physical violence against their political oppressors the Seleucid Greeks who were actively using force to undermine the conscience and convictions of the People of God.

So which are we?

Are we the caring Samaritans or the crusading Maccabeans?

The Catholic political theology of Saint Thomas Aquinas can help us with this question:

Let’s first suspend all emotional appeals, and set down a few logical and calm points of agreement to get us all on the same page:

• In the Summa theologiae, Thomas Aquinas places politics under the civic virtue of patriotism which is itself a sub-virtue of justice. Our discussion is ultimately not about “politics” but the virtuous duties of justice toward God, our families, our nations, and all of humanity (in that order).

• For Thomas Aquinas, all political human laws must be: 1) in accord with reason; 2) published or promulgated; 3) by rightful political authority; and for the common good (See STh q. 90, aa. 1-4). If a political law is lacking in any of these four attributes, it is for Thomas, not a law at all.

• The duty of the political magistrates (the Republic or Kingdom) are by the virtue of justice different than the duty of the civilian person. Citizens are not de facto judges, soldiers, police officers, or legislators (STh q. 90, a. 3).

• Muslims explicitly affirm that Muhammad is the Last Prophet of God.

• Muslims explicitly affirm that Our Lord Jesus Christ is certainly not the Son of God.

• These two Muslim affirmations place all Muslims in implicit or explicit theological contradiction with Christians who profess Jesus Christ as the Son of God and consequently conclude that Muhammad was a false prophet.

• For Sunni Muslims (the majority of global Muslims), the mandate to erect Sharia law in every human government is a doctrine of faith. Muslims must in accord with their conscience pursue this theological belief that Sharia law must be promulgated in every human society (England, France, Poland, USA, Mexico, etc.)

So how does this apply to Refugees from Islamic nations?

When we move through the logical points above, we begin to discover a few logical conclusions:

1. Muslims are bound by conscience to erect Sharia law in your nation. This is a bad thing for baptized Christians. At best it means being taxed at a higher rate (the Muslim jizya tax for Christians). At worse it means death.


2. If you live in a democracy, a 51% political Islamic majority will allow “we the people” to promulgate Sharia law. They are following their conscience and religious beliefs in this matter. They will do this just as they have done in any other community where they captured the majority (Mecca, Palestine, Egypt, Syria, etc.)


3. It is a duty of of justice for Christian people to strive to prevent the promulgation of false laws (i.e. those contrary to reason or the common good). Christians are called to be politically active and advocates for the common good and natural law.


4. While we have the Christian duty to care for the refugee, the sick, the victim, and the injured, we have a greater common duty by justice to preserve the state of law and our religious liberty first and foremost.

We see this principle in our Scriptural readings. When it comes to the Samaritan, he rightfully cares for the victim. However, when it comes to the nation and the threat of terrorism (Seleucid Greeks), false laws, and the danger of our children, military, and civic peace, we (like the Maccabees) are politically obliged to resist, protect, and expel…for the common good.

The Analogy of the Familial Home

I am the head of a household. I earn an income to feed my wife and my children. With my surplus, I care for orphans, widows, the church, pro-life causes, single-mothers, and other apostolates that I feel God has called me to support.

Justice and charity demand that I care for the less fortunate and it is a Catholic belief that our salvation depends on how we treat the hungry, the naked, the homeless, and the sick.

MOREOVER….

I am not obliged to take the homeless into my house and have them sleep in my daughter’s bedroom at night. I am not obliged by justice or charity to give the homeless a vote over my financial decisions. He does not have the right to choose what’s for dinner. The homeless man does not (by my charity) receive a right to my continued support. The homeless man cannot share a bed with my wife when I am traveling. Nor may he presume a right over my children’s belongings.

Since we live in a democracy (“we the people”), political refugees de facto gain a measure of political authority over our laws, taxes, finances, military, religious holidays, and legislative bodies.

This principle applies to refugees universally. It applies even more so when the refugee in his conscience believes that he is morally obligated to introduce and vote for the enshrinement of Sharia law.

There is also the further problem that 5%-20% of global Muslims are considered to be “radicalized,” which means that they are consciously willing to use terrorist tactics to advance their Muslim worldview against the West. If you knew that 10% of your child’s Halloween candy was poisoned, would you allow your child to consume any of it?

So what would Thomas Aquinas say?

I’m afraid that Thomas would be much harsher than most of us would feel comfortable with.

Thomas prizes the “common good” so highly under the virtue of political justice that he openly promotes arms and capital punishment against those who are publicly “dangerous and infectious.”

The common good is the peace of society so that life and faith can thrive. Babies can be born and have a happy life. Grandparents can grow old together. Anyone who seeks to destroy the common good should be, according to Thomas, destroyed.

Thomas Aquinas also taught that anyone that fomented “danger to the community” or heretical movements is worthy of the death penalty:

“Therefore if a man be dangerous and infectious to the community, on account of some sin, it is praiseworthy and advantageous that he be killed in order to safeguard the common good.” STh II-II q. 64, a. 2.

It is permissible to kill a criminal if this is necessary for the welfare of the whole community. However, this right belongs only to the one entrusted with the care of the whole community — just as a doctor may cut off an infected limb, since he has been entrusted with the care of the health of the whole body. STh II-II q. 64, a. 3.

Have no doubt that Thomas Aquinas would have stated that Christian nations should receive Christian refugees but refuse Muslim refugees for the sake of national justice and the common good. The Muslim’s official declaration of faith denies natural law (eg, polygamy), religious liberty (eg, Sharia), and implicitly Muhammad’s doctrine and example of political violence.

What’s our Catholic Response? The Samaritan Uses the Hotel

We Christians should be generous with humanitarian aid toward Muslims and all people. We should send money and resources to those who have been dispossessed. We should be loving and generous with Muslims. Kindness brings about conversion and understanding. We should also try to topple the Islamic State and eradicate terrorism in our lands and in the Islamic lands.

Remember the Good Samaritan! He did not take the roadside victim home with him. Rather, the Good Samaritan put the victim up in a hotel and paid for him to get better. The Good Samaritan was good and commended by Christ. The Good Samaritan did the right thing: humanitarian aid.

We are not required by Christ to take victims that oppose our faith and our way of life and make them into our political heirs. We are not required to take them into our homes.

But we are obliged to help them. And if terrorists use our charity as a pretense to hurt us, then, as Thomas Aquinas says, they should be swiftly destroyed.

Saint Thomas Aquinas, pray for us.

Godspeed,

Taylor Marshall

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Against Muslim Terrorists called Deash (ISIS): Arab Christians Thank President Vladimir Puttin of Russia and the Syrian Government! Obama is the greatest threat for Arab Christians!

While Christians from the "free world" are arguing whose doctrines are genuine, here in the land where Christianity was born, our Christian brethren are fighting for this faith we just taken for granted. While Protestants argue that the Catholic Church had deviated from the True Faith, here are the Catholics and other Christian orthodox churches coming together as one believer in Christ Jesus. [Photo Source: Chaldean Nation Facebook Page or visit their website Chaldean Nation]

Raising the Christian Cross and the name of Lord Jesus Christ in Maaloula, Syria.

The ancient Syrian Christian town restores our Christian Cross and the Virgin Mary statue on top of the Mountain overlooking the beautiful city of Chaldean, Armenian and Syriac Christians. Maaloula celebrates with the Syrian government officials, banner of President Assad, as monument destroyed by rebels replaced.

Located north of Damascus, Maaloula is one of the world’s oldest Christian settlements, and its inhabitants still speak Aramaic and Chaldean, the language of Lord Jesus Christ.

Thank you Syrian Army and citizens including our Chaldean and Syriac Christian armies that librated the city from the criminals of Muslim terrorists also called Deash (ISIS).

Long Live the Syrian People!

Restoring the Virgin Mary statue, The Lady of Peace in Maaloula, Syria. This is a Christian city and will stay a Christian city forever!

Thank you Syria! Thank you Syrian and Christian armies. Thank you President Assad and Thank you President Vladimir Putin.

The ancient Syrian Christian town restores the Virgin Mary statue, The Lady of Peace on top of the Mountain overlooking the beautiful city of Chaldean, Armenian and Syriac Christians. Maaloula celebrates with the Syrian government officials, banner of President Assad, as monument destroyed by rebels replaced.

Located north of Damascus, Maaloula is one of the world’s oldest Christian settlements, and its inhabitants still speak Aramaic and Chaldean, the language of Lord Jesus Christ.

Thank you Syrian Army and citizens including our Chaldean and Syriac Christian armies that librated the city from the criminals of Muslim terrorists also called Deash (ISIS).

Long Live the Syrian People!

#ChaldeanNation #Chaldean #Syriac #Armenian #Syria #Iraq #Mesopotamia

THE REALITY OF CHRISTIAN PERSECUTION IN IRAQ AND SYRIA (where no member of the Iglesia Ni Cristo® dare to do mission or send it's paid ministers for spreading the "True church" eh!

While persecution of Christians in Iraq and Syria by ISIS Muslims is condemned by Christians around the world, the Iglesia Ni Cristo® founded by Felix Manalo in July 27, 1914, condemn nor support the persecution.  For an INC™ member, persecution of non-INC™ members is considered a punishment for "belonging to Christian churches believing on the Trinity and the Divinity of Christ".  The killing of Catholics and non-Catholics who teach the Doctrine of the Trinity is a favor until Catholics and those Christians who believe in Christ are completely wiped out. IMO INC™ are ISIS sympathizers! The INC™ is one of the many persecutors of the True Church of Jesus Christ!

Just as how Muslims hated Christians for BELIEVING in the DIVINITY OF CHRIST, the IGLESIA NI CRISTO® hated Catholics with the same intensity as Muslim Terrorists around the world! So do not be surprised if the INC™ do not condemn ISIS persecution of Christians in Iraq, Syria, Sudan, Nigeria, Saudi Arabia, and Hindu State India.

English translations are mine...

PASUGO Disyembre 1965, p. 5:

“Kaninong Ministro kung ganyan ang mga Paring Katoliko? Mga Ministro ni Satanas na Diablo." [Whose ministers are the Catholic Priests? Ministers of Satan the Devil.]

PASUGO Oktubre 1959, p. 5:

“Mga magdaraya at anti-Cristo, ang mga nagtuturong si Cristo ay Dios." [Those who teach Jesus is God are deceivers and anti-Christ.]

PASUGO Agosto 1962, p. 9:

“Kaya ang tunay na anti-Cristo, ang mga Papa ng Iglesia Katolika Apostolika Romana. At ang tunay na ampon ng anti-Cristo ay ang mga Katoliko.”  [So the true anti-Christ are the Popes of the Roman  Catholic Apostolic Church.  And the true adopted (sons) of the anti-Christ are Catholics.] 

PASUGO Oktubre 1956, p. 1:

“Ang Iglesia ni Cristo ay nagdaos ng pamamahayag sa Lunsod ng Davao. Nagsalita roon si Kapatid na Felix Manalo at ang kasama niyang mga Ministro. Ipinahayag doon ng mga nagsalita na ang Iglesia Katolika Romana ay hindi itinatag ni Cristo kundi itinatag ng Diablo." [The Iglesia ni Cristo held an evangelization in Davao City.  Brother Felix Manalo had a speech there with his Ministers.  It was proclaimed there by the speakers that the Roman Catholic Church was not established by Christ but by the Devil.]

NOTE: Pasugo is the official magazine of the Iglesia Ni Cristo® published in the Philippines.

Watch the Video at c-span.org

Sister Diana Momeka, OP, gives testimony to the Foreign Affairs Committee of the US House of Representatives, on the plight of Christians and other religious minorities in Iraq. Her testimony starts at about 11:30 of the recording. Originally posted from c-span.org which was posted at Vatican Radio - English (Facebook Page)

Sr. Donna Momeka, OP

Remarks. And sister diana, she'll push that button, that red button there for you. >> thank you. Thank you, chairman royce and distinguished members of the committee for inviting me today to share my views on ancient communities under attack. >> 

sister, i'm going to suggest yomove the microphone right in front there. Just project a little bit. Thank you. >> 

okay. Thank you. November 2009, a bomb was detonated at our convent in mosul. Five sisters were in the building at the time and they were lucky to have escaped unharmed. Our sister asked for protection from local civilization authorities, but the pleas went unanswered. As such, she had no choice but to move us. 

On june 10th, 2014, the so-called islamic state in iraq or syria, or isis, invaded the nineveh plain. Starting with the city of mosul, isis overran one city and town after another, giving the christians of the region three choices, convert to islam, pay tribute to isis, leave their cities, cities like mosul, with nothing more than the clothes on their back.  

As this horror suppressed through all of the nineveh plain, by all 6th, 2014, nineveh was empty of christians and sadly for the first time since the seventh century a.d., no church bells rang for mass in the nineveh plain. 

From june 2014 forward, more than 120,000 people found themselves displaced and homeless in the kurdistan region of iraq, leaving behind their heritage and all they had worked for over the centuries. This uprooting of everything that christians owned, body and soul, stripping away their humanity and dignity. 

To add insult to injury, the initiative is that iraqi and kurdish governments were at best modest and slow. Apart from allowing christians to enter the region, the kurdish government did not offer any aid either financial or material. I understand the great strain that these events have placed on baghdad and erbil. 

However, it has been almost a year and christian iraqi citizens are still in dire need for help. Many people spend days and weeks in the street before they found shelter in tents, schools, and homes. Thankfully the churches stepped forward and cared for displaced christians. 

Doing her very best to handle this disaster. Buildings were open to accommodate the people. Food and non-food items were provided to meet the immediate needs of the people and medical health services were also provided. Moreover, the church put out a call and many humanitarian organizations answered with aid for thousands of people in need. 

Presently, we are grateful for what has been done. With most people now sheltered in small containers or some homes, though better than living on the streets or abandoned buildings. These small units are few in number and are crowded with three families. Each with multiple people, often accommodated in one unit. 

This is, of course, increasing tension and conflict, even within the same family. There are many who say, why don't the christians just leave iraq and move to another country and be done with it? To this question, we would respond, why should we leave our country, what have we done? The christians of iraq are the first people of the land. 

You read about us in the old testament of the bible. Christianity came to iraq from the very earliest days, through the preaching of st. Thomas and others of the apostles and church elders. While our ancestors experienced all kinds of persecution, they built a culture that has served humanity for ages. 

We as christians do not want or deserve to leave or be forced out of our country any more than you would want to leave or be forced out of yours. But the current persecution that our community is facing is the most brutal in our history. 

Not only have we been robbed of our homes, property, and land, but our heritage is being destroyed as well. Isis has continued to demolish and bomb our churches, cultural artifacts and sacred places, like a fourth century monastery in mosul. Uprooted and forcefully displaced, we have realized that isis plans to evacuate the land of christians and wipe the earth clean of any evidence that we ever existed. 

This is human genocide. The only christians that remain in the nineveh plains are those who are held as hostages. To restore and build the christian community in iraq, the following needs our urgent. Helping us return. Coordinated efforts to rebuild what was destroyed through slaughter, and electrical supplies and buildings including our churches and monasteries. 

Incouraging enterprises that contribute to the building of iraq and interreligious dialogue.encouraging enterprises that contribute to the building of iraq and interreligious dialogue. This could be through school and academic projects. I am but one small person. A victim myself of isis, and all of its brutality. 

Coming here has been difficult for me. As a religious sister, i'm not comfortable with the media and so much attention. But i am here, and i am here to ask you, to implore you for the sake of our common humanity, to help us, stand with us, as we, as christians, have stood with all the people of the world and help us. 

We want nothing more than to go back to our lives. We want nothing more than to go home. Thank you and god bless

Persecuted Christians does not include the Iglesia Ni Cristo of Manalo (1914)! Remember them this Holy Week!

Please remember them this Holy Week!

PERSECUTED CHRISTIANS IN IRAQ CELEBRATE PALM SUNDAY! NOW, THAT IS THE GENUINE CHRISTIAN FAITH!

Here's how Christians in the terrorized region of Iraq celebrate Palm Sunday. Thanks to my dear brother Aamer for providing me these faith-filled photos!

And please take time reading their plea and pray for the persecuted Christians in Iraq and Syria!

"CHRISTIANITY MUST SURVIVE AND THRIVE IN IRAQ AND THE MIDDLE EAST, WHERE IT WAS BORN!"

This is what our cities and villages will look like when we are fully armed and are able to protect them with the appropriate weaponry to combat extreme terrorism. Some people ask me why should we need our own military units? It is evident, the minorities in Iraq and Syria have been persecuted to a point of near complete annihilation under other failed strategies. Therefore, arming them and giving them the ability and opportunity to survive against radicalism is the least we can do besides the internationally protected safe haven that we should immediately implement.

This is my grandmother's village of ***** [withheld for protection], Iraq on Palm Sunday. Now do you understand why it's so important to support our military units such as the NPU. We are unsure of when the sectarian violence will ever end, our population has dropped to such a dangerous amount that we can not risk it any further. We must be able to speak our Aramaic language, pray in our Aramaic prayers, attend church regularly, attend schools freely and walk on our own native lands we have inhabited for almost 7,000 years with absolutely no oppression by occupations and extremism especially as indigenous . Nineveh is the ancient capital of Assyria, we are not asking for a province that does not belong to us, we are the indigenous people of Iraq and that is not negotiable.

Humanity is saved by paying close attention to the original care takers of Iraq and Syria, the true homeowners who built the foundation of Iraq. The Assyrian Christians including our Chaldean and Syriac churches are the cradlers of civilization and we demand an internationally protected safe haven of the Nineveh Province with highly advanced weaponry to combat highly funded and large terrorist militias.

WARNING: Very Graphic. Syria Christian man forced to convert to Islam then beheaded

PURELY EVIL! Thank GOD, we are CHRISTIAN!

Why the IGLESIA NI CRISTO does not support persecuted Christians in Iraq and Syria by Muslim Terrorists?

It's because they're CATHOLICS! The INC cannot accept that Catholics are banded as Christians by Muslims and media. And INC and Muslims have shared doctrine of denying the Divinity of Christ!

Elderly Iraqi Christians defy [Muslim] terrorist, flee camp

An elderly Iraqi woman fleeing violence gestures at the Al Waleed refugee camp in Iraq Aug. 19. One group of sick, elderly Iraqi Christians said they defied terrorist demands to convert to Islam or be killed.(CNS photo/Morris Bernard, UNHCR handout via EPA)

MANCHESTER, England (CNS/The Pilot) -- A group of 11 sick, disabled and elderly Iraqi Christians --including an 80-year-old woman with breast cancer -- defied terrorists who ordered them to convert to Islam or be beheaded, saying they preferred death to giving up their faith.

The united resistance prompted the Islamic State extremists to drop their demands and order the Christians to immediately leave their village of Karamless after first robbing them of their possessions, according to one of the survivors.

Sahar Mansour, a refugee from Mosul, told Catholic News Service in an Aug. 18 email that the group turned up at Ankawa refugee camp, where she is living, after they were released by the Islamist fighters. They had remained behind in Karamless because they were too weak to flee when the town was overrun by Islamic State militants the night of Aug. 6-7.

Mansour said she met the 80-year-old woman with cancer, who gave her name as Ghazala, in Ankawa Aug. 18 and heard her account of their escape.

"When the people of Karamless fled from the village they (the elderly) were alone," Mansour said. "She (Ghazala) told me when they woke up in (the) morning they were surprised when they saw nobody in the village."

Instead they were "afraid and terrified," she continued, when they met masked fighters from the Islamic State, who ordered them to go home and remain indoors.

Mansour said Ghazala told her that on Aug. 16, the terrorists assembled the group "and told them either to convert or to be killed by sword."

"Ghazala told me that all the people told the terrorists that 'we prefer to be killed rather than convert,"' Mansour said. She said Ghazala added that members of the group scolded the terrorists for ignoring Islamic sacred texts that forbade forced conversions of non-Muslims.

Mansour said the elderly told the militants that the Islamic State had nothing to gain from the conversion of a group of sick, disabled and elderly people.

"When ISIS heard that they told the people to leave Karamless immediately, without taking anything, to leave with only with the clothes they were wearing," she said.

"ISIS took all their money from all of them and their gold," Mansour said, adding that one person had the courage to ask the terrorists to return some of their money so they could buy food for their journey to the Kurdistan region of northern Iraq.

The group of five men and six women later arrived at the Kalak checkpoint, the gateway to Kurdish-controlled territory, in two cars.

There, they were allowed to contact relatives already in refugee camps, who were taken to meet them, Mansour said.

Ghazala was reunited with her brother, and she is receiving medical treatment for her cancer.

AINA: Aleppo's Christians Arm Against Islamists

Gate of the Greek Catholic Church in Aleppo

By Hugh Macleod and Annasofie Flamand

ALEPPO, Syria and BEIRUT, Lebanon (AINA) -- As evidence mounts that foreign Islamists are fighting alongside Syria's increasingly radicalized rebels, Christians in Aleppo and elsewhere are taking up arms, often supplied by the regime.

"We saw what happened to the Christians in Iraq," Abu George, a Christian resident of Aleppo's Aziza district told GlobalPost. "What is going on in Aleppo is not a popular revolution for democracy and freedom. The fighters of the so-called Free Syrian Army are radical Sunnis who want to establish an Islamic state."

While the 30-year-old shopkeeper said he had not received any direct threats from Syria's Sunni Muslim rebels, he fears a repeat of Iraq's sectarian bloodletting.

Since the 2003 US-led invasion of Iraq, the UN Human Rights Council estimates around half of Iraq's 1.4 million Christians have fled the country, driven out by nearly a decade of church bombings, kidnappings and sectarian murder.