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Poland: Living up to its multicultural past

From Russia Today: Muslims prosper in Catholic Poland

Poland’s Muslim community makes up only a tiny fraction of the country’s population. But with immigration from places like Turkey and Pakistan on the rise, the numbers can only grow. And Muslims are intent on gaining understanding and respect, whether they’ve been there for centuries or just a few years.

An estimated 30,000 Muslims live in Poland —“ that’s less than 0.1 per cent of a population that is 96 per cent Catholic. But the Islamic community is a thriving religious minority in Poland.

The first Muslim settlements date back to the 14th century when Tatars settled in the eastern villages of Bohoniki and Kruszyniany.

Their communities once numbered about 17,000 people, and they were able to practice Islam freely in exchange for military service. But now only a few families remain.

A visitors’ book in Kruszyniany’s mosque – the oldest of the three in the country – contains messages from Israel, Bosnia and Afghanistan. But while Muslims from abroad are welcome there, there are some slight differences in the way Tatars and Muslims practice Islam.

Usuf, a Muslim Tatar, says there are —very strong religious connections between the Tatars and other Muslims living in Poland, but as for the ethnical issues – the attitude is quite different, because we have different traditions.—

In relation to gender, Usuf says —Muslim Tatar women do not have to wear the hijab, while Arab Muslim women cannot go outside unless they put a hijab on.—

Also it seems that the Tatars are the most active in terms of presenting Islam to the Polish Christians —“ and a traditional Tatar hotel and restaurant in Kruszyniany is a vivid example. It has been open for five years, offering villagers and tourists a taste of Tatar life.

Hotel owner Dzenneta Bogdanowicz said that when he moved to Poland he thought it was —such a pity that there was nothing to display the Tatar traditions. So I wanted to give people an opportunity to experience Tatar life,— she said.

And it proved successful, with the restaurant gaining national recognition for its service to Polish tourism.

…

Warsaw’s only mosque is a converted family home and attracts up to 300 people for Friday prayers.

The President of the Muslim League in Poland, Samir Ismail, says most of Warsaw’s 5,000 Muslims are academics who came to study in the 1980s and stayed.

And although they are a minority religion in the country, they ensure there is no conflict by working alongside Polish Catholics.

—We’re trying to explain to people that stereotypes about women, Islam and terrorism. We’re trying to do what we can and people need time and more information,— Samir Ismail says.

History teaches that Poland was heterogeneous for most of its history. It was home to Muslim Tartars, Jews, Armenian merchants, Scots, Roman Catholics, Orthodox, and Protestants. It encompassed an enormous land mass and was, in principal, a republic of three or more states. Poland did not become largely homogeneous until its borders were decided following the Second World War.

Poland’s multicultural tradition remains alive and well — and this article points to a manifestation of that tradition. Pluralism is as much a part of Polish tradition as the pierogi.

It has been said that a Pole will forsake his own customs to adopt the customs and usages of other cultures. This “borrowing,” in everything from dress, to food, to the arts, has significantly enriched Poland, and the world is all the better for it.

Christian Witness, Perspective

Consequences implicit when quoting Jesus

Rod Watson pegs it in his Buffalo News commentary: Consequences implicit when quoting Jesus

In the midst of the season devoted to celebrating Jesus’ birth, a group of scholars will descend on the Center for Inquiry in Amherst this weekend to explore whether he actually existed.

If they can prove he didn’t, that would explain a lot, considering the mayhem and meltdowns all around.

But if they can prove he really did exist, that might be even worse.

I don’t claim to be a biblical expert like, say, Rush Limbaugh. But even a cursory reading of what Jesus is supposed to have said is enough to make one shudder at the consequences if the scholars here prove he really did say those things —” and that he expected us to listen up.

Consider:

Whatever you do for the least of these my brothers, you do it for me. (Matthew 25:40)…

Read the rest. A great article.

Christian Witness, Perspective, PNCC

Feast of Divine Love

From Holy Name Parish in South Deerfield, Massachusetts and Fr. Randy Calvo: Don’t Let It Pass Unobserved

December 8th is one of those sacred days on our church calendar that is unique to the National Catholic Church. That it is unique bothers some people because they associate it with separation, that if no one else has it and we do, then we are different, and different implies separate. I never appreciated the logic of this reasoning. I know when studying the four Gospels, for example, that the unique materials in each one of them are invaluable in our attempts to understand the perspective and purpose of the author. The unique materials do not separate the Gospels from each other; they enhance one another so that we can have a fuller understanding of the Good News. They look at Jesus from different angles, not giving us separate pictures of Him, but rather a more developed one.

The Feast of Divine Love is unique, but that is part of its importance. It could only have arisen in a church such as ours, from a perspective such as ours. It says much about who we are, and also in that process about how God has revealed Himself to us. This feast day replaces the Feast of the Immaculate Conception, which refers to a dogma of the Roman Catholic Church issued by Pope Pius IX in 1854. The same Pope associated this teaching and feast with his resistance to the emerging democracies of the modern world. He issued the Syllabus of Errors intentionally on this date in 1864. This official document ridicules the authority of human reason, intellectual progress and science, freedom of religion and ecumenism. It states that the church should have temporal power, even military power, and that not only should there be no separation of church and state, but that the church should stand above the state.

The feast of the Immaculate Conception was also used by this Pope to sanction his own infallibility. He opened Vatican Council I on this date in 1869. This Council declared in 1870 that the Pope’s authority is universal and infallible. This new proclamation set off a series of events that led to the creation of the Old Catholic Church. Old refers to the old ways of the church before the Pope had himself newly declared infallible. In 1907, Fr. Francis Hodur was consecrated a bishop by the Old Catholic Church in Utrecht, Holland. With his consecration, Bp. Hodur signed the Declaration of Utrecht, which was promulgated in 1889, in direct opposition to the theology of Vatican Council I. With that act, Bp. Hodur, on behalf of our church, formally and specifically rejected the new theology of papal infallibility.

By this same act, he also endorsed the Old Catholic rejection of the new dogma of the Immaculate Conception, and for fundamental theological reasons. Mary is the source of Jesus’ human nature. If her human nature is not our full human nature, that is, if she is born free of —original sin— and we are not, if, in other words, she is born —immaculate— and we are born sinful, then the nature she passes on to Jesus is not ours. If that is the case, then Jesus’ incarnation and thus His act of salvation, is compromised. We, therefore, must reject the theology of the Immaculate Conception.

We have been and are a progressive, democratic Catholic church, and since we have formally rejected the theology of this day and the theological pronouncements associated with it, it is only logical that we would replace the Feast of the Immaculate Conception with a theologically more tenable celebration. That celebration is the Feast of Divine Love. The Feast of Divine Love speaks about creation as a testament of God’s love. The physical universe is a wonder to be marveled at, not one to be ridiculed as inherently sinful. We are stewards of creation when made in the likeness of God, not its masters. This being the case, reason, science and progress are not to be fended-off in fear or anger, but embraced as part of God’s revelation (see Romans 1:20). Likewise, reason and free will are how we are created in God’s image as an act of divine love. For these to flourish we must advocate for democracy in the state and the church. This is our feast day in a practical and profound way. This is our perspective that we alone share with the world about God to better understand God. Don’t let it pass unobserved.

Christian Witness, Current Events, Perspective, ,

Eternal rest grant onto him

On Friday the Patriarch of the Russian Orthodox Church, Alexy II passed on to eternal life. May the perpetual light shine upon him.

Like Russia he was an enigma, and because he lived during these moments in history he was more so.

I think we, as Americans, fail to perceive the complexities of life in other countries, and especially in countries we perceive as threats. We tend to view things as black and white especially when the media and government feed us “acceptable perspectives.” Think back to communism in the Soviet Union and that imposed by Russia upon the states that were sold off by their British and American allies (yes, our leaders sold people into slavery and death). We think of intellectual oppression, gulags, and a lack of toilet paper and shoes. Of course things on the ground, day-to-day life, relationships between families and friends were far more complex.

A funny story. When I was in Poland for the first time I marveled at the fact that people knew and appreciated all sorts of American and British music from the 1950’s, 60’s, and 70’s — Paul Anka, the Beatles. I was indoctrinated to think that people sat in apartment blocks, poorly built buildings, shivering in small apartments filled with at least 10 bodies, weeping over their misfortune, longing for democracy. I thought that the music they were referencing was verboten. In retrospect it was silly, but I needed that encounter. I needed to hear their stories before I could truly understand the reality, the positives and negatives of the system.

Right now some of Poland’s former leaders are on trial. Here’s a reference to: Poland’s former leader on trial from the BBC.

Poland’s last communist leader, General Wojciech Jaruzelski, has gone on trial accused of committing a crime by imposing martial law in 1981.

I sincerely doubt that these were great or brave men in the majority of their actions. Rather, they were weak and selfish in many rights, using the system to their benefit, accommodating base principals. The real tragedy is that happens in every system, including the good old U. S. of A. It is one of the reasons I sincerely dislike the process of lustration. Men and women will take advantage regardless of the system. These folks will not be the protesters, the ones who stand behind barricades fighting to change the system. Those actions are for the poor and disenfranchised. These folks — the ex-communist businessmen, the oligarchs — just morph into the proper role for the times. The system has changed, but in name only; only in its methods of exploitation.

So this was the environment for Alexy, for the clergy subject under these systems. Did they make unfortunate choices, did they make errors, were they less than absolutely perfect? Certainly. Will they do so under the current system? For sure, just look to the sins of religious leaders in the United States. Before we judge, or throw stones, or expect absolute perfection, let’s take a moment to understand, to talk, and to encounter. We will find that nothing is black and white, nothing is perfect, nothing is as we have been led to believe.

What does matter is that all of us, like Alexy II, are on that road to God. Climbing the ladder to that ultimate union includes the discovery that perfection exists in God alone. Our love for Him, our desire for life in Him, are the impulses that grow as we grow closer to Him. If we focus ourselves on our climb and the rooting out of our imperfections, then we will have made real progress.

Christian Witness, Perspective, PNCC,

And the bishop cried

I simply liked this post from OrthoCuban (the Rev. Ernesto M. Obregón of the Antiochian Orthodox Church): And the bishop cried.

…And, so, I am glad to say, —and the bishop cried.— Yes, he does dress up like a Byzantine emperor and he does sit in the middle of the church. But, in his case, he sits in the middle of the church like the heart sits in the middle of the body. May God grant him many years.

The post so reminds me of our bishops in the PNCC. They are men with the gift of discernment and most especially men who are fathers to their flock. May God bless them with many years. Sto Lat!

Christian Witness, Perspective,

Remembering Odetta Holmes

A tribute to Odetta by John Guzlowski at Living in Partial Light:

…She was just there sitting on the lawn playing her guitar. They had asked her down for a concert or something, and she was just playing a guitar and singing on the lawn.

Her voice was so natural. She saw me standing listening to her, and she asked me to sit down and sing with her, and I was embarrassed. I apologized and said I didn’t have much of a voice. She said that’s fine, “If you can talk you can sing.” Then she started humming. It was a song called “Nobody knows you when you’re down and out.”

She played it and then she started singing it, but it was more like talking than singing, and I knew the song so I talked it as she talked it.

It was pleasant, like a conversation. She wanted me to feel comfortable.

What I like about the post is that it recalls a person who lived her humanity. All talent aside, one person’s humanity is worth more than 10,000 forgotten concerts or millions of dollars. Odetta Holmes stood up, lending her voice to the struggle for civil rights. Standing up is more than words. If it is only word those are the words of false prophets, gangsters, and hucksters. When words meet actions we stand in moments imprinted by Christ Jesus, moments that call us to our potential. May the angels guide her home.

Christian Witness, Current Events, Perspective

Advent or death

A PNCC Pastor asks: “Is this what getting ready for Christmas has come to mean?” in light of death of a Wal-Mart employee in a mad rush on so called “black Friday.” The NY Times article: Wal-Mart Employee Trampled to Death describes the carnage that occurred at a Wal-Mart store in Valley Stream, N.Y. Some excerpts from the article:

Fists banged and shoulders pressed on the sliding-glass double doors, which bowed in with the weight of the assault.

Suddenly, witnesses and the police said, the doors shattered, and the shrieking mob surged through in a blind rush for holiday bargains. One worker, Jdimytai Damour, 34, was thrown back onto the black linoleum tiles and trampled in the stampede that streamed over and around him.

Some workers who saw what was happening fought their way through the surge to get to Mr. Damour, but he had been fatally injured, the police said.

Four other people, including a 28-year-old woman who was described as eight months pregnant, were treated at the hospital for minor injuries.

Detective Lt. Michael Fleming… called the scene —utter chaos— and said the —crowd was out of control.— … —I’ve heard other people call this an accident, but it is not,— he said. —Certainly it was a foreseeable act.—

Some shoppers who had seen the stampede said they were shocked. One of them, Kimberly Cribbs of Queens, said the crowd had acted like —savages.— Shoppers behaved badly even as the store was being cleared, she recalled.

—When they were saying they had to leave, that an employee got killed, people were yelling, ‘I’ve been on line since yesterday morning,’ — Ms. Cribbs told The Associated Press. —They kept shopping.—

I agree with the Lieutenant, “Certainly it was a foreseeable act.” But isn’t that statement utterly hopeless? Isn’t it is an admission of our failure as people who should be placing compassion and love ahead of material desire? Sadly, we, who call ourselves Christian, are unable to keep to the spirit of Advent preparation. It is an admission of our sinfulness — a sinfulness on steroids. While the Church cannot predict particular results from our sinfulness, it does tell us that sin has consequences, and as scripture tells us, the consequence of sin is death (Romans 6:16).

The Church teaches that we, as Christians, should be involved in continual preparation for Christ’s coming. A one day shopping orgy is not a part of that preparation or the anticipation we should be holding to. A day spent in piling on debt, in serving other masters, is not a valid exercise in preparation for the celebration of incarnation of Christ.

I’m not one for the either/or neither/nor point of view on Advent. Can we shop? Certainly. Can we prepare for the coming celebration with eager anticipation and joy? Yes, but each in proper proportion to our focus on Advent preparation and expectation. Our preparation involves the state of our souls. Our expectation is focused on our joy at the incarnation in light of the fulness of the Kingdom to come. Our earthly preparation and our heavenly preparation are united and in balance if they reflect a life centered on Christ, a life of Christian preparation and anticipation, of Christian repentance, renewal, and joy. Of Advent.

It really is about Christ, about our Advent preparation of fasting and penance. If Advent is focused on proper preparation and joyful anticipation of that time to come, then Advent opposes death. If our Advent is a time of renewal then our joy will be a fuller joy, our giving and sharing will be more joyous, and we will be properly focused.

The folks at Wal-Mart and other retail outlets, most especially the executives who perpetuate false consumerism, the politicians who encourage us to spend, pile on debt, and live beyond our means, and those alleged Christians standing on-line at so many stores bear a share of responsibility for this death and for the death that goes beyond bodily death. It really is Advent or death and the choice is ours. Advent or death – I’ll take AdventXref. Eddie Izzard’s “Cake or Death” comedy routine.

Fathers, Perspective

A shot at the Fathers

Someone named Ceecee left a rather nasty comment on my November 27th Fathers post, taken from the works of St. John Chrysostom. I won’t allow the comment because of its tone, and because of the fact that she disparages the saint by calling him anti-Semitic. Of course I can see where she is coming from. She believes that the Jewish people are (present tense) “chosen.” She goes on to note that “[Chrysostom] spread a curse to the church, because anyone who curses the Jews is cursed by God themselves.” She notes that “Jesus is not pleased with John Chrysostom.” and that she gets her “Christian teaching from some truly Christian sources.”

The problem with these statements is that they mimic the typical Fundamentalist/Evangelical line; that somehow Jerusalem, the Jewish people, the state of Israel, etc. are necessary in the present dayNothing against the city, country, or people, but their relationship, in the present day, to our salvation, is non-existent. We look forward to the new and heavenly Jerusalem which will come down from heaven (ref. Revelation 21:1-6). I wish them well, but depend on Christ and His Holy Church for my salvation.. They spend their time and money focused on Israel, somehow hoping that they can move God along, demanding that He bring about the end. This is typical Dispensationalist/Millennialist thinking, biblical literalism, and includes a suspect “voodoo” understanding of blessings and curses. Typical of Protestant thinking Ceecee seems to know, by herself and apart from the infallible Church, what our Lord and Savior likes and dislikes. She can decide this for herself, based on whatever she happens to think at the moment, one of the inherent problems in ProtestantismThus the many Protestant Churches that have departed from the faith, inventing new, modern, and convenient doctrines based on what they feel now, ignoring or misinterpreting scripture and the patristic witness.. I would recommend that Ceecee take the time to study Church history and all of the truly Christian sources, i.e., scripture and the fathers.

For more on the subject of the Fathers and alleged anti-Semitism take a look at the following from the Orthodox Christian Information Center: Was St. John Chrysostom Anti-Semitic?

Calling any Church Father anti-Semitic on the basis of ostensibly denigrating references to Jews, therefore, is to fall to intellectual and historiographical simple-mindedness. Applying modern sensitivities and terms regarding race to ancient times, as though there were a direct parallel between modern and ancient circumstances, is inane. This abuse of history is usually advocated by unthinking observers who simply cannot function outside the cognitive dimensions of modernity…

There is an excellent study by Robert L. Welken, John Chrysostom and the Jews: Rhetoric and Reality in the Late Fourth Century. It is an essential work. It very convincingly demonstrates not only that St. John Chrysostomos was not an anti-Semite, but that his supposed writings against the Jews are actually against the “Judaizers,” a terrible mistranslation which convicts him unfairly of racism, when in fact his words are addressed to a theological element in the Christian Church. This work was published in 1983 and is a “must” for anyone wishing to understand the issue at hand.

I would also direct you to a study, History, Religion, and Antisemitism (I could be wrong about the title, but it is close to this), by Stanford Professor Gavin Langmuir, a prominent historian of anti-Semitism, which was published in Berkeley, in 1990, by the University of California Press. This work approaches the history of anti-Semitism with a sophistication, based on good historical research, that puts an end to that unenlightened and artless theory, first put forth in the last century by eccentric (though admittedly trained) scholars and passed about today by coffee shop “scholars” …; namely, that there is a chain of thought connecting St. John Chrysostomos, Luther, and Hitler, and that its links are cemented together by anti-Semitism. In so doing, he offers peripheral support (amidst some ideas about Christian thought that I would question) for many of the points that I have made about our contemporary ignorance of the historical image of Jews in the ancient world, their anti-Christian sentiments and their violence against Christians, and the many ways that the Fathers of the Church used the word “Jew” in their writings and the diverse images that this usage entailed…

If you are confronting someone who has accused St. John Chrysostomos of anti-Semitism, enlightening such a person may be a difficult thing. You will face endless citations from his writings that most simply refuse to put in context. Moreover, there are people who simply refuse to relinquish the idea that anti-Semitism links Christianity, the Reformation, and The Third Reich. This comfortable view of history helps them to avoid that complexity that characterizes the true course of human experience. It also allows them to attribute to the Fathers of the Church a meanness of spirit by which they can separate themselves from the Patristic witness and thus the compelling force of Orthodox Christianity. …[B]lasphemy which is supported by ignorance, and which gains social acceptance, is one of the most destructive forces in society…

Also see: Was Saint John Chrysostom Anti-Semitic? from the St. John Chrysostom website.

Christian Witness, Perspective, PNCC,

They will know we are Christians…

a.) by our politics
b.) by our economics
c.) by our left-wing right-wing dichotomy
d.) by our love

I found a link to Frank Schaeffer’s Huffington Post article: Changing the Failed Strategy of the Religious Right Into a Winning Formula That Helps Heal Our Country at Huw’s site in Heal Our Country.

The Republican/evangelical right’s world view has been replaced by a battered, it’s-the-economy-stupid!, state of mind. Economic collapse and perhaps worse awaits us. We are losing one war, and the other war was clearly a mistake. And the fools who got us into this mess need not apply for any post higher than dog catcher for years to come. Most American know all this.

This knowledge signals not just a loss for the Religious right but a resounding and permanent defeat. It also signals (to anyone sane) that even if you except the Religious right’s view that, for instance, all abortion is murder, gay marriage an affront to God’s natural law and so forth, a change of tactics is in order. Obviously no one is getting convinced, but rather the culture is moving in the other direction. In fact the Religious Right has made its case so badly that with friends like them the right’s causes need no enemies.

What might a change of tactics be? How to effect change at the same time as practicing love for one’s neighbor without which love — by Christ’s standard anyway — everything else becomes mere sound and fury signifying nothing?

Here’s the answer. (Yes, I said the answer.)..

One of the reasons I love the PNCC. There is a distinct dearth of polemics in our Church. You do not see the ultra-conservative ultra-liberal dichotomy that exists in other Churches. We know that we can achieve nothing by conflict and everything through unity.

Perhaps it comes from Bishop Hodur’s focus on our regeneration in Christ. We are made new by our choice. We know that once we adopt regeneration we must learn to adapt to it — to become fully human as part of a community. Focusing on regeneration requires that we hold a high opinion of man’s value as a child of God. We see mankind as endowed with the intellectual capacity and moral capability to see, to learn, and to decide for God. That message counters those who seek division, who key on differences.

In valuing all we realize that we cannot and must not cast obstacles before those who come seeking. We know that they seek love — a love that differs — the love of God. Our evangelism requires that we show our members, and all who seek, that every aspect of the Church, from the liturgy which is an intimate encounter and an actualized unity with Christ, to our democratic form of governance, is an opportunity to work and struggle for ourselves, for our brothers and sisters, for mankind, and ultimately for union with and in Christ. In achieving that we achieve truth and the ultimate victory. In that we hold-up God’s model of love.

Perspective, PNCC

Who is shadow casting whom

From Catholic Culture: ‘Declaration of Scranton’ casts shadow over dialogue with Polish National Catholics

The ‘Declaration of Scranton,’ issued by the bishops of Polish National Catholic Church (PNCC) in April, cast a shadow over the PNCC-Roman Catholic Dialogue that met in Baltimore earlier this month…

Of course that statement is easily turned. ‘Role of pope casts shadow over every dialog that ever existed…’

What never ceases to amaze me in the endless ecumenical propaganda war (like we all need to score points) is that people are so surprised when a Church represents itself as actually believing in the things it believes in. Of course Rome has that right, but not only. The Declaration of Scranton is a restatement of the Declaration of Utrecht which was normative for the PNCC — and was for nearly one hundred years. We didn’t just pull this stuff out of a hat (or miter)…

So to the question: Who cast a shadow over whom? We all have perspectives, but in the end, we must be what we claim to be. We can only be who we claim to be if we truly believe that we proclaim the truth. Anything less and we’re just pikers.

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