On the National Catholic Register, Joan Frawley Desmond has a round up on the deepening crisis in Syria. She writes that Pope Benedict XVI, on his recent visit to Lebanon, “urged rival political, ethnic and religious groups to overcome their differences and find common ground for the sake of peace.”
Read more on Report: Catholic Bishops Warn of Refugee Crisis in Syria…
A roundup at Notes on Arab Orthodoxy paints a grim picture for Christians — and clashing Islamic sects — in Syria. It’s a gut-wrenching account of kidnappings, torture and beheadings. One report begins with this line: “Over 40 young men (including a couple of doctors) from the Wadi area, were killed by the bearded men who are eager to give us democracy.”
Patriarch Bechara Rai
As a Lebanese Maronite Catholic student in Rome and a new intern at Istituto Acton, I had the great honor and privilege to attend the audience of the new Patriarch of Antioch of the Maronites, Bechara Rai, with Pope Benedict XVI. The April 14 audience gave me the occasion to think about our new Patriarch’s role in promoting the entrepreneurial vocation in Lebanon. Our new patriarch seems to be a very active, energetic man, in keeping with the majority of his flock, but both his church and his country face many daunting challenges.
Read more on Can Maronites bridge the cultural divides in Lebanon?…
“‘Disproportionate’ in What Moral Universe?” asks Charles Krauthammer in today’s Washington Post.
He continues:
When the United States was attacked at Pearl Harbor, it did not respond with a parallel “proportionate” attack on a Japanese naval base. It launched a four-year campaign that killed millions of Japanese, reduced Tokyo, Hiroshima and Nagasaki to cinders, and turned the Japanese home islands into rubble and ruin.
