Bin Laden urges Muslims to launch a holy war (jihad) to stop the Israeli offensive on the Gaza Strip and Taunts the US

A Call for Jihad to Stop the Aggression against Gaza", was posted on websites on Wednesday.
Al-Qaida chief Osama bin Laden in a message- perfectly timed to coincide with the Obama inauguration and the Israeli offensive in Gaza- urged Muslims to launch a jihad against Israel and condemned Arab governments as allies of the Jewish state. The use of the term Crusader-Zionist alliance will further ignite tensions between Christians and Muslims and is geared to inflame Muslim passions to even greater heights. The following are some of the key points of the message purporting to come from bin Laden.

"Our brothers in Palestine, you have suffered a lot.... the Muslims sympathise with you in what they see and hear. We, the mujahideen, sympathise with you also..We are with you and we will not let you down. Our fate is tied to yours in fighting the Crusader-Zionist coalition, in fighting until victory or martyrdom.
There is only one strong way to bring the return of Al-Aqsa and Palestine, and that is jihad in the path of God (a reference to the revered Al-Aqsa Mosque in Jerusalem). The duty is to urge people to jihad and to enlist the youth into jihad brigades....Muslim nation, you are capable of defeating the Zionist entity with your popular capabilities and your great hidden strength — without the support of (Arab) leaders and despite the fact that most of (the leaders) stand in the barracks of the Crusader-Zionist alliance.

God has bestowed us with the patience to continue the path of jihad for another seven years, and seven and seven years..The question is, can America continue its war with us for several more decades to come? Reports and evidence would suggest otherwise.."

President Bush, the message said, was leaving his successor with a "heavy inheritance." Referring to Barack Obama the speaker said: "If he withdraws from the war, it is a military defeat. If he continues, he drowns in economic crisis." Here bin Laden is taunting the US.

America The National Catholic Weekly - article proposes Kmiec for Vatican Ambassador

The National Catholic Weekly carries an article -by Michael Sean Winters- which suggests strongly that Professor Douglas Kmiec -who served as head of the Office of Legal Counsel in the Justice Departments of both Ronald Reagan and George H.W. Bush- would make an excellent choice as US ambassador to the Vatican.

Despite his Republican credentials, Kmiec endorsed Barack Obama this year and penned a thoughtful book, "Can a Catholic Support Him?" The question is ridiculous to most ears and, in the event, most Catholics did support him But for some extremists on the right, there was a firm conviction that no Catholic could vote for Obama......In truth, Kmiec’s pro-life credentials, despite some carping from the far right political fringe, are impeccable....

Some of the language used in this article is surprising to the least. Those who oppose abortion are not extremists. They are upholding the law of God. How could any Catholic in good conscience support Obama- a man who has pledged to sign into law FOCA? There is no half way house on abortion. It is not ridiculous to pose the following question: Can any Catholic in good conscience support Obama? The answer is a resounding NO.

Alive -Illusion choking life out of Catholic Church in US

This is the text of a powerful article in Alive an Irish Catholic Monthly. This newspaper is free to 350,000 homes nationwide.

If US Catholics don’t confront the fact that “we are in desperate trouble” it could lead to the collapse of the Catholic Church in America, a leading commentator has warned. Russell Shaw, a former spokesman for the US bishops, rejected the view that “we’re doing okay”, describing it as the “happy-talk version of American Catholicism” and as “a central element of the liberal Catholic line".


Against this view he gave a list of statistics which suggested how great the crisis is. Only 30% now attend Sunday Mass, and Catholic marriages are down from 426,000 in 1970 to 200,000 last year. “Hundreds of thousands of American Catholics who marry each year don’t bother having their marriages blessed by the Church,” he wrote. “It is safe to suppose that most no longer practise the faith. I hardly need tell you what that means for the religious upbringing of their kids.” A survey in 2005 found that 75% of US Catholics said good Catholics need not observe the Church’s teaching on contraception; two-thirds said the same about the teaching on divorce and remarriage while nearly one in four held that a Catholic need not believe that Jesus rose bodily from the dead. In a 2003 survey of Catholics 86% agreed with the statement “If you believe in God, it doesn’t really matter which religion you belong to,” while “74% said yes to ‘The major world religions are equally good ways of finding ultimate truth’.” Writing in Catholic World Report, Mr Shaw, author of 20 books, called for honesty and candour in facing the crisis. “To begin with, our bishops need to face the fact that very many Catholics have lost confidence in them as a group,” he wrote.


“People just aren’t paying attention any more. If Catholic university presidents and pro-abortion Catholic politicians can get away with ignoring the representatives of the magisterium, why not ordinary folks?” Lay men and women must find their proper roles in the apostolate of the Church, as set out by Pope John Paul II in Christifideles Laici, and that does not mean becoming part of a neo-clericalism. “There is a desperate need for moral straight talk, too,” wrote Shaw. “Telling people who rarely or never go to Mass and take for granted their right to dissent that they’re good Catholics does a vast amount of harm.” A priest “who was brave enough to preach against contraception” reported afterwards, “the women got upset and the men got mad.” But the effort to communicate the Church’s teaching has to be made, he said. The commentator believed that “the healthiest development in American Catholicism in a long time was the action of a courageous bishop in Worcester, Massachusetts.”


He told Holy Cross College “it couldn’t go on claiming to be Catholic” if it persisted in acting contrary to Church teaching. Hoping Pope Benedict will address the issues during his brief visit to the US this month, Mr Shaw remarked, “today illusion—the illusion that we aren’t doing so bad—is choking the life out of the Catholic Church in the United States.”

President, First Lady and Jenna Bush greet Pope Benedict XVI