Cathedral Prayer Service is a Scandal

I know this is hard to say, but the Toronto Star’s Rosie DiManno is right. Again. It’s been happening a lot lately, so one of us is maturing I guess. In today’s column she eviscerates Toronto’s lefty clergy for a bogus, anti-American “Ecumenical Prayer Service” for the so-called Christian Peacemakers being held hostage in Iraq:

“…from the depths of their faith, a blinding if luminous faith, they bore false witness, disingenuous witness. And that is a grave sin. It wasn't the abductors who were condemned from the pulpit. It wasn't the tyranny of terror that was denounced. It wasn't the gutless tactic of holding defenceless civilians in bondage for the purpose of staging repugnant videotaped theatre that was decried.

“It was the occupation of Iraq that was damned — an exclusive assignment of blame, as if no one else in this agonizing hostage drama is culpable for what has happened: Not the four men who wilfully put themselves in harm's way in the naïve assumption that piety and a commiseration with anti-American sentiment would shield them from danger; not the Christian organization that sent them on a mission overseas after minimal preparation with instructions to intervene, to insinuate themselves between occupiers and occupied; not even the little-known militant group, the Swords of Righteousness Brigades, that has claimed responsibility for the abduction, accusing the men of being spies.

“Someone coming in cold to the Toronto service, with no knowledge of the facts, would have been forgiven for assuming it was U.S. troops who had taken these aid workers hostage, such was the thrust of the commentary that accompanied the praying and the hymnsinging. There was barely any reference to the abductors, as if they were merely bit players in a larger narrative, not central to a crime.”

As we have already demonstrated here on Upper Canada Catholic, Christian Peacemaker Teams have nothing to do with making peace, and even less to do with the teachings of Jesus Christ. Since their abduction by Islamic terrorists 23 days ago, Canadians have had their intelligence insulted by MSM reports quoting CPT members anxious to bend over backwards to top each other in their “Blame America” game. They send an envoy to Iraq to connect with the terrorists to explain how the abductions were all a big mistake; the hostages, he explained, are their friends who hate the Americans as much as they do. Of course, the envoy was also abducted.

They just really, really don’t get it do they? The abductors do not care about human life. They bomb women and school children and weddings. They want to kill every living person on this planet who fails to share their world view, and they care not a wit for their allies among western appeasers whom they would smite with equal fervour. Naturally, the abductions will be blamed on US policy, as will the hostages’ deaths once the body parts start rolling in. The hostage takers are the enemy of Christ, his people and peace. Where are the Christian warriors? (Oh yes, in the USMC - never mind).

As a Catholic, I naturally pray for the intervention of the Holy Spirit, the conversion of the hostage takers to Christ and the safe deliverance of the hostages. I am also ashamed that my Cathedral was sullied by such a wallowing in left-wing nonsense ably abetted by idiotic clergy using the Gospels as cover for an anti-American political agenda. I sign off as Rosie did with my own prayer for the faithful:

“That those who oppose the freedom of the Iraqi people and their supporters here and abroad respond to God’s grace and defend the Iraqi people victimized by terrorism, that Iraqi and Coalition Forces be delivered from harm in their fight for the freedom and security of the Iraqi people and that the terrorists holding the hostages release them in good health and lay down their arms.

The Lord hear our prayers….”