U.S. Catholic bishop calls Mandela’s support of abortion ‘shameful’, black leaders concur - by John-Henry Westen

December 9, 2013 (LifeSiteNews.com) - While much of the world, including many religious leaders, are praising the late Nelson Mandela without reserve, at least one U.S. bishop has tempered his praise by calling to mind the former South African leader’s record on abortion.

“There is part of President Mandela’s legacy, however, that is not at all praiseworthy, namely his shameful promotion of abortion in South Africa,” said Providence, RI Bishop Thomas Tobin in a statement published yesterday. 

Tobin observes that “there is much to admire in Mandela’s long life and public service, particularly his personal courage and his stalwart defense of human rights.” However, the Rhode Island bishop notes that, “In 1996 Mandela promoted and signed into law the ‘Choice on Termination of Pregnancy Bill’ that, according to the New York Times, ‘replaced one of the world’s toughest abortion laws with one of the most liberal.’” 

“While we pray for the peaceful repose of President Mandela’s immortal soul and the forgiveness of his sins, we can only regret that his noble defense of human dignity did not include the youngest members of our human family, unborn children,” said Tobin.

Tobin’s remarks come in the wake of statements offering unqualified praise for Mandela in statements from Pope Francis and New York Cardinal Timothy Dolan. 

Following Mandela’s death Thursday, pro-life leaders urged Christian leaders to take caution in issuing blanket praise for the South African President due to his promotion of abortion, same-sex ‘marriage’ and communism.

Dr. Day Gardner, President of the National Black Pro-Life Union concurred with Bishop Tobin’s sentiments.  “It is really very sad,” Gardner told LifeSiteNews.com, “that Nelson Mandela was blind to the suffering of the smallest of his own people.”  She added, “He had such a triumphant life fighting for civil rights, yet he failed to see unborn children as significant.”  

Gardner and other leaders at the National Black Pro-life Union have worked tirelessly to have black civil rights leaders recognize the plight of unborn black children who are targeted by the abortion industry far more than children of other races. 

According to official statistics, nearly a million unborn children have been killed in South Africa since President Mandela signed legislation in 1996 permitting abortion on demand two years after taking office. Same-sex ‘marriage’ was legalized in 2006, with Mandela having supported it long before its passage.

Another African-American pro-life leader Ryan Bomberger told LifeSiteNews.com that he has seen time and again “how people move from being oppressed to becoming the oppressor.”  He asked, “How can you condemn the evil of apartheid and turn around and deem another group to be less than human?”

Bomberger has targeted African American civil rights leaders, and other liberal black leaders with the stark message that they should “Wake up! Your future is dying.” Like Mandela, many of these black leaders “partner with the most racist, eugenicist, killing organizations in the world,” he said.

Nelson Mandela: A Candid Assessment - by Timothy J. Williams

In Crisis 

Calling him one of the “most influential, courageous and profoundly good people to ever have lived,” President Obama ordered all U.S. flags lowered to half-staff in honor of Nelson Mandela, who died on Thursday, December 5. As the worldwide tributes pour in for the former leader of the African National Congress (ANC) and first black president of South Africa, it is good to remember just who Mandela was, and who he wasn’t.

As president of South Africa, Mandela—though a typically bumbling socialist—was not a vengeful character. After having spent much of his adult life in prison, he is widely praised for not seeking to retaliate against the former white rulers, and for having largely urged reconciliation and compromise in undoing the injustices of Apartheid. Though Mandela was a committed Marxist, he was also a pragmatist, disappointing his more impatient comrades by not immediately carrying out the massive nationalizations of industry he had promised, so as not to drive away foreign investment. And he recognized his own limitations, both physical and political, in deciding not to attempt to remain in power after his term in office.

Most white South Africans rejoin that Nelson Mandela had no reason to seek revenge on anyone, nor any basis for extending forgiveness to his previous jailors. After all, as the most famous prisoner of the previous Apartheid government, he had been fairly tried and convicted of complicity in many murders, and he confessed to participation in 156 acts of terror, crimes that would certainly have earned him the death penalty in a great many countries. Moreover, his confinement was more than comfortable by any standards. During his legendary twenty-seven years in prison, Mandela communicated freely with his followers, and somehow managed to accumulate a considerable fortune. He was continually offered release by the white Apartheid government, but on one condition: that he renounce violence in pursuit of political reform. That is something he consistently refused to do.

As was made clear by testimony before the Truth and Reconciliation Commission, Mandela was personally involved in the targeting and timing of terrorist bombings that took place during his imprisonment, such as the infamous “Church Street Massacre,” designed to maximize casualties among Afrikaner women and children. Even a group as left-leaning as Amnesty International refused to grant Mandela political prisoner status because of the obviously violent character of his ideology and his actions. His African National Congress party ran a horrific camp for political prisoners in Angola, with daily torture and murder, often by the “necklacing” technique, whereby a gasoline-filled tire is placed around the neck of a victim and set ablaze. Virtually all the victims of this particular horror were blacks.

Within South Africa, on direct orders from Winnie and Nelson Mandela, the ANC targeted not only whites, but also all black civil servants, teachers, lawyers, and businessmen—essentially anyone who imagined a post-Apartheid South Africa that differed from the one mandated by the Marxist ANC. Even simple black peasants who refused to carry out terror attacks were treated as enemies, and they were killed in large numbers. Thus, just as the terroristic FLN killed far more Algerians than did the French during the Algerian war for independence, the ANC was the leading cause of death, by far, for black South Africans throughout the period of Apartheid.

The only reality that makes it even remotely possible to view Mandela as a “statesman” is that he lived on a continent where the definition of “statecraft” is not exactly rigorous or exemplary. Since the wave of decolonization following World War II, the number of African states ruled by ruthless dictators has always been in the majority, and sometimes approached unanimity. The precise number of tyrants involved is actually difficult to ascertain. One simply loses count, and the shadows of the worst of them conceal the merely “semi-heinous” crimes of the lesser despots, so that their names are eclipsed and you find yourself asking: “Does so-and-so really fit the African definition of a tyrant?”

Numbered among the rogue gallery of miscreants who have wielded power on that tragic continent, we find some of the world’s biggest drug traffickers, diamond smugglers, and slave traders. It seems that the poorer an African nation is, the greater the wealth accumulated by its “President for Life.” Almost every country in black-ruled Africa has a system of gulags. All elections are rigged, free press is non-existent, and all dissent comes from exiles. In the past fifty years, there have been more wars in Africa than in all the other continents combined. And everything is considered a weapon of war: ethnic cleansing, child soldiering and child rape, even cannibalism. Just refraining from committing genocide in Africa practically sets one up for comparison with Mother Theresa.

So in this regard, Mandela (post-Apartheid, at least) does indeed look pretty good. Though personally implicated in a great many murders, there is at least no record of him ever eating a political foe or advocating child rape or promoting genocide. And he left office voluntarily in 1999, even if this was due more to advancing years, frail health, and the realization that he had no talent for governing, rather than to a real commitment to democracy. Still, by African standards, this is the stuff of a Nobel Peace Prize.

Mandela did, however, leave behind another socialist nightmare in the making. With their motto of “liberation before education,” the ANC has proved itself completely incapable of governing, and South Africa is sliding into chaos at an alarming rate. Since 2004, South Africa has experienced almost constant political protests, many of them violent. Activists like to refer to the nation as the most “protest-rich in the world,” which, along with prison camps, is the only type of “riches” a socialist nation can produce. The nation is staggered by unemployment, corruption throughout all levels of the police, military, and civil service, and ubiquitous, inescapable crime. Life in South Africa is far more dangerous, especially for blacks and women, than it was under Apartheid. With about fifty murders a day, the nation is now among the undisputed murder capitals of the world, most of these crimes going uninvestigated. The astounding estimates of other violent crimes, including rape, are almost impossible to believe. But only the truth of such figures could account for the fact that the private security business in South Africa is the largest in the world, with over a quarter-million private security guards in a nation of under 53 million.

Taking their lead from the disaster in neighboring Zimbabwe, the government of South Africa is now looking the other way as white farmers are driven off their land by arson and murder. It is said that job advertisements, even those posted by the government, routinely include the phrase “Whites need not apply.” Would it be an exaggeration to say that a “reverse Apartheid” is taking place in South Africa? The nearly one million white South Africans who have fled the growing chaos don’t think so.

Of course, life in South Africa is now most dangerous for the most defenseless, for those waiting to be born. As president, Mandela—ever the pragmatist—signed the most liberal abortion law in all of Africa, with no reason at all needed for a woman to procure abortion in the first 20 weeks of pregnancy, and abortion easy to obtain through all nine months. Since this law took effect in 1997, even the most conservative estimates put the number of abortions that have taken place at one million. Once again, socialists and pragmatists of all stripes reveal that they cannot conceive of any form of good governance that does not involve killing on a massive scale.

Yes, some South Africans view Mandela as a nearly messianic figure. Desmond Tutu has publically thanked God for the “gift” of Mandela. But this is the same “bishop” Tutu who recently stated that he would decline his own invitation to heaven if God turned out to be a “homophobe.” Any pious invocation by Tutu has to be regarded as more than a little suspect. Nor can we have any confidence in Barack Obama when he declares that Mandela “achieved more than could be expected of any man” and that “he belongs to the ages.” Obama no doubt believes he himself “belongs to the ages,” since his signature “accomplishments”—the government seizure of medical care, the enthronement of abortion, and the promotion of homosexual “marriage”—are all policies promoted by the ANC in the new South Africa. So we should not expect to hear much from the Obama administration about Mandela’s violent past. Statists never find anything to reproach in one of their own.

O homem que não perdoou aos mais vulneráveis e desencadeou uma atroz guerra injusta e violenta genocidando multidões incontáveis - por Nuno Serras Pereira

06. 12. 2013

Infelizmente tem existido em muitos membros da Igreja uma óbvia obsessão obstinada - que parece ter-se acentuado intensa e inesperadamente, ao mais alto nível, ao longo deste último ano -, em desconsiderar objectivamente, apesar de raras e inócuas declarações sobre o assunto, com uma apatia gélida, que estende sinistramente a sua indiferença globalmente, a pessoa humana (e sua concomitante dignidade sublime, eminente e transcendente) nas suas fases ou etapas, unicelular, embrionária e fetal.  

Não obstante, o Papa S. João Paulo II ter ensinado insistentemente (em particular na Encíclica Evangelium vitae, a Magna Carta da defesa da vida, que o então Cardeal Ratzinger considerou um dos 4 pilares da Igreja no terceiro milénio), sendo seguido com o mesmo vigor por Bento XVI, que não há crime contra a vida humana tão perverso e abominável como o do aborto provocado; que se trata de uma guerra dos poderosos contra os fracos; que não há paz, nem democracia (mas sim tirania e totalitarismo) nem liberdade quando os estados o legalizam; quase todos continuamos a pensar e proceder como nada disso contasse, como se não fora verdade, mas tão só uma retórica barroca que no fundo não é para levar a sério, e muito menos para dela tirar as devidas consequências – não passam, na nossa vida, de palavras cristãs sem Cristo, para citar o Papa Francisco I.  

Se Madiba fosse responsável, em virtude de uma lei injusta por ele firmada, da matança de cem adultos inocentes ou de mil ou de dezenas de milhares quem é que o celebraria como um modelo e exemplo a seguir, tecendo elogios e lisonjas tais que branqueassem, lembrando tácticas leninistas e estalinistas, esses factos irrefutáveis? Não seria certo que isso nos assombraria como um negrume demoníaco que pairasse sobre nós, provocando um justíssimo movimento de indignação que nos empuxasse a denunciar a farsa e a repor a verdade?

Nelson Mandela que foi capaz de gestos admiráveis na sua vida teve, no entanto, também as mais altas responsabilidades na deflagração de uma guerra absolutamente injusta e tétrica, que implantou um estado tirano e totalitário, posto ao serviço da eliminação da liberdade e do trucidamento da vida de um milhão de inocentes (também aqui). Mas como se trata de crianças concebidas ainda não nascidas, ninguém, mas mesmo ninguém, as tem verdadeiramente em conta, sendo totalmente ignoradas, na “canonização” imediata de Madiba.

Independentemente da culpabilidade e responsabilidade subjectivas de Mandela, que ultimamente só Deus pode julgar, objectivamente esses actos criminosos que referi são desumanos, feros e cruéis. E deles terá de responder perante Deus, não podendo, para usar uma expressão de Bento XVI, simplesmente, sem mais, sentar-se à mesa do Banquete no Reino com as suas vítimas.

Todos devemos rezar por alma de Madiba implorando a sua Salvação; é também natural que o Santo Padre, como chefe de estado, envie as suas condolências, e como Pastor Supremo, na terra, eleve as suas orações pelo passamento de Mandela. No entanto, a falta de recato, a bajulação, a louvaminhice equivalem na prática a um desmentido, a uma descredibilização do que se tem doutrinado em relação ao giga-genocídio das pessoas nascituras. À honra e glória de Cristo. Ámen.

Episcopado Africano toma Fortíssima posição em Defesa do Papa Bento XVI

AU SUJET DE LA CONTROVERSE AUTOUR

DE LA POSITION DU PAPE BENOIT XVI SUR LE PRESERVATIF

LES EVEQUES DE LA CERAO DECLARENT

Etonnement face à une manipulation outrageante planifiée

Nous avons été tous surpris et étonnés de la façon dont une phrase du Saint-Père a été totalement sortie de son contexte proche et lointain pour devenir le motif récurrent de toutes les émissions de RFI et d’autres médias français sur le premier voyage apostolique du Saint-Père, le Pape Benoît XVI, en Afrique. Le comble est cette occultation systématique des autres idées de l’interview et la minimisation de tout ce que le Saint-Père s’est efforcé de communiquer comme espérance à l’Afrique, tant au Cameroun qu’en Angola. A cela précisément ne devrait-on pas reconnaître que c’est à l’Eglise et à sa mission évangélisatrice que les acteurs de l’ombre s’en prennent ?

Nous, évêques de la Conférence Episcopale Régionale de l’Afrique de l’Ouest (CERAO), nous avons pris la mesure de l’événement et nous tenons à déclarer à tous ce qui suit :

Démolir la morale est crime contre l’humanité

On n’arrivera pas à bout du Sida, en cassant les ressorts spirituels et moraux des hommes, surtout des adolescents et des jeunes, en les fragilisant et en faisant d’eux des paquets de désirs sexuels sans les régulateurs prévus par le Créateur. C’est un crime contre l’humanité que de priver l’enfant, l’adolescent et le jeune de l’entrainement à la maîtrise de l’esprit sur le corps et ses pulsions qu’on appelle éducation sexuelle. En ce sens, les slogans publicitaires et la distribution de préservatifs pourraient n’être qu’irresponsabilité et crime contre l’humanité.

Des propos irrévérencieux, injurieux et sacrilèges

Pour nous, Africains, le Pape est le père de la Grande Famille qu’est l’Eglise et, à ce titre, nous lui devons respect et affection. Il est sacrilège selon nous, du simple point de vue de notre culture africaine traditionnelle, pour ne pas encore parler de la foi, que des fils et des filles d’Eglise qui se prétendent catholiques s’en prennent au Pape avec vulgarité, arrogance et injures, comme certains journalistes d’organes français et certaines personnalités françaises, espagnoles, européennes, se sont permis de le faire. Nous déplorons et condamnons ces propos irrévérencieux et injurieux.

L’Attentat post-moderne contre la vérité et ses conséquences violentes sur les relations humaines

Mais nous ne sommes d’une culture qu’au titre de la vérité plus profonde de notre humanité. Et l’humanité qui est commune à tous, est unique ; elle se concrétise dans un certain nombre de droits et de devoirs, inséparables de la dignité de toute personne humaine. Il est absolument intolérable qu’un petit groupe de communicateurs -parfois hélas des Africains émargeant sans gêne à la richesse « sale » de ceux qui ont dépouillé leurs peuples- s’arroge le droit de déformer la vérité pour se présenter en bienfaiteurs responsables face à la condition dramatique de nos frères et sœurs porteurs du VIH SIDA, et, par contre, transformer le Saint-Père en un personnage « irresponsable » et dépourvu d’humanité, et ainsi pouvoir l’injurier et tenter d’ameuter contre lui une cohue d’individus, qui s’estiment en droit de parler de ce qu’ils n’ont pas pris le soin de connaître avec précision. Ils oublient que, ce faisant, ils se disqualifient professionnellement, puisqu’il existe une différence essentielle entre créer du sensationnel scandaleux et informer. Nous déplorons et condamnons l’attentat contre la vérité qui est le péché de notre monde post-moderne, et dont résultent les graves blessures que subit de plus en plus la Sainte Eglise, Notre Mère. Quel est ce monde où l’on ne prend pas le temps d’écouter l’autre, de l’écouter jusqu’au bout et où on lui fait dire ce qu’on veut qu’il dise ? La sagesse africaine et la Sagesse Biblique toutes axées sur l’Ecoute ont une autre vision du monde à proposer.

Profonde union de pensée et de cœur entre Benoît XVI et l’Afrique

Nous, évêques africains, nous remercions du fond du cœur le Saint-Père, qui a tant d’affinités avec nous, du fait de notre communauté de pensée sur l’Eglise et de notre engagement commun en faveur de nos frères et sœurs malades du Sida, des pauvres, des blessés de la vie et des petits. Qui ignore que les titres : Eglise, Maison (Famille) et Peuple de Dieu ; Eglise, Fraternité Chrétienne, Eglise-Communion sont de lui ? Il y a cru et y a travaillé depuis longtemps comme jeune théologien et plus récemment comme Cardinal Préfet de Dicastère ; nous y croyons aussi et nous sommes à pied d’œuvre pour édifier en Afrique l’Eglise Communion comme Famille de Dieu et Fraternité du Christ. Il est venu chez nous pour nous confirmer dans cette foi. Nous l’en remercions.

Eglise d’Afrique, une Eglise porteuse d’espérance

Nous lui savons gré aussi pour tout le message d’espérance qu’il est venu nous livrer, au Cameroun et en Angola. Il est venu nous encourager à vivre unis, réconciliés dans la justice et la paix, pour que l’Eglise d’Afrique soit elle-même une flamme ardente d’espérance pour la vie de tout le continent. Et nous le remercions pour avoir reproposé à tous, avec nuance, clarté et pénétration, l’enseignement commun de l’Eglise, en matière de pastorale des malades du Sida.

Humanisation de la sexualité et don de soi aux malades du Sida

Il nous encourage tous à vivre et à promouvoir l’humanisation de la sexualité et le don de sa propre humanité pour être avec et secourir en vérité les frères et sœurs malades du Sida, comme l’authentique attitude responsable des catholiques face aux malades du Sida et de tous ceux qui aiment vraiment les Africains atteints de ce mal. Nous accueillons son message qui est aussi notre propre position. Et nous déclarons tous avec lui : « … On ne peut pas surmonter ce problème du sida uniquement avec des slogans publicitaires. Si on n’y met pas l’âme, si on n’aide pas les Africains, on ne peut pas résoudre ce fléau par la distribution de préservatifs : au contraire, le risque est d’augmenter le problème ». Telles sont les paroles de Benoît XVI qu’un matraquage médiatique s’est évertué à travestir. En vain.

Responsabilité des media

Dire moins, c’est mépriser l’Africain et témoigner de zèle à tuer ce qu’il y a d’authentiquement humain en l’homme noir dont par exemple toutes les traditions valorisent tant la virginité constatée au mariage. Nous déplorons et nous condamnons cette prétendue responsabilité vis-à-vis de l’homme noir qui n’aurait de solution que mécanique à un problème aussi vital qu’est la sexualité pour tout homme et donc pour l’Africain lui aussi. La responsabilité des media est élevée ; ils ne doivent pas déchoir, sous peine de faire déchoir quelque chose de l’humain fondamental.

Non à la pensée par procuration

Nous disons enfin que les Africains ont la capacité de penser par eux-mêmes, aussi bien les problèmes qui les concernent que ceux de toute humanité. Nous déplorons et dénonçons le crime, venant du fond des âges, où l’on traitait nos frères et nos sœurs en marchandises et en « biens meubles » (Le Code Noir, Art. 44), et qui aujourd’hui consiste à s’acharner à penser pour nous, à parler pour nous, à faire à notre place sans doute parce qu’on ne nous croit pas en mesure de le faire par nous-mêmes. Peut-être dira-t-on que c’est à des Communicateurs Africains qu’habilement on confie la sale besogne de jouer aux pitres pour amuser le monde et rendre l’Afrique doublement pitoyable : non seulement matériellement mais aussi moralement. Mais il n’y a pas que ces Africains ignorants des structures anthropologiques les plus solides et des valeurs morales les plus sûres de l’Afrique qui soient à même de parler au nom du continent.

Nous, évêques de l’Eglise catholique de l’espace CERAO, nous exigeons qu’on cesse de penser pour nous, de pousser l’Afrique de la rue à parler au nom de l’Afrique et amuser la galerie aux dépens de nos peuples. Nous exigeons que pour parler de l’Afrique l’on respecte les valeurs essentielles, sans lesquelles l’homme n’est plus l’homme, et qui sont synthétisées dans la dignité de tout homme, créé à l’image de Dieu. Oui, à la suite du Concile Vatican II, nous réaffirmons que « sans le Créateur, la créature s’évanouit tout simplement ». Nous remercions le Saint-Père d’avoir fait du Dieu d’Amour et de la foi en lui la priorité des priorités pour notre temps. C’est bien l’illusion qu’il puisse y avoir une autre priorité, qui a créé la situation paradoxale et violente, où l’on prétend être responsable de nous, tout en mettant à sac ce que nous avons de plus vital : notre relation de foi, d’espérance et d’amour avec le Dieu vivant, Père de Notre Seigneur Jésus-Christ, et notre vie morale.

Abidjan, le 27 mars 2009

+ Théodore Adrien Cardinal SARR

Président de la CERAO