But weren’t those people of Hindu faith in India? To me it is unthinkable and illogical how a religion that states that the Universe, the Divine Laws, the human bodies and souls, have been created by a Mother Goddess, more or less in Virgin Love towards them (because Purusha’s role is quite unexplained, apparently his main role was marrying the Goddess and then adopting humanity), can produce such violence and lack of respect towards women. And I am not arguing against Hinduism, even though most people in the West mistake Hinduism with a hedonistic immoral view on the Universe that they celebrate as ultimate freedom, Hinduism is the oldest religion on Earth, but it is so sad what some people would do seeing Divine Love as a Mother’s Love alone, unconditional, which can be abused so they are thinking why not? To handle and appreciate a Mother still seems like a problem to which humanity needs to work a lot on. Also men and women alike need to take full responsibility for their actions as they do have free will, and a sin is still is a sin. They cannot say that this/that person said something and that’s why they did it. They harmed another because they chose to, they wanted to, they sinned.

Can this fellow Ian Buruma explain why rape and violence sex and pervasive sexism/slavery date back to pre-Christian times?  In worship of idols, orgies were held, women were exploited for sexual purposes, and the sexual activity sometimes became violent.  Women had it very bad prior to Christianity’s influence on Western culture.  Jesus, the God Christians try to imitate, is well known for introducing into His disipleship a new respect for women.  The Syro-Phoenician woman at the well of Jacob - a man openly talking to a woman of sin (against the cultural mores of the time), His saving of the woman about to be stoned to death for adultery (“Go and sin no more”), his openly including women among his disciples (Mary, His Mother, Salome, Mary, Martha, Mary Magdalen).  He set a new standard for men’s respect for woman.  To single out Pope Benedict XVI as a misogynist is beyond all righteousnous.  He is in concord with the Magisterium of the Church which is unidirectional and correct.  Women in today’s world have been fed the line that the Pill grants them all kinds a freedom, the epitome of the sexual revolution.  Actually, women are more exploited now that prior to the Pill.  Try being a 26 year old woman trying to date men today.  My nieces and nephews will have nothing of the sexually decadent world brought about by the Pill.  Women are “expected” to perform according to the new sexual more “three strikes and you’re out”.  If a woman doesn’t have sex with her boyfriend by the third date, he’s gone.  So where does that leave my nieces and nephews? They all perceive the world for what it truly is:  women NOT having it all, but being enslaved to the Pill.  I’m tired of secularists claiming they have a leg up on Catholics when it comes to “relationships” which are steeped in cheap moral relativism and hedonism (including homosexual “marriages” - how many homosexuals are there, by the way?  according to the alan Guttmacher Institute, about 1% of the general population - the same precentage as schizophrenics).  The point of all this, if you read history, is to destroy the family and replace it with the State.  That is what Obama and all of his ilk are trying to do.  The time for Civil Disobedience approacheth.  Toss out what THEY are imposing on the world in a manner the Catholics never did.  It is difficult to understand that Catholicism will never be “killed”. Catholics never say “lost”, because they are as perrenial as the warm summer winds.

There must be some powerful tenure in place at Princeton, else he would have lost his position there long ago.

Mr. George is undoubtedly correct in his predictions. I see it happening in my own life.  Old friends (some of whom are Catholic) look at me strangely when I speak my views on abortion and gay marriage.  It’s like I am a pariah that they no longer wish to associate with.

So be it.

As I write this, I see the advertisement at the header of this Webpage for the book, “The Price to Pay” by Joseph Fadelle - a Muslim who risked all to follow Christ.

Are we called to do any less?

No matter how I ma treated, no matter how I am scorned, I will not back down, I will not keep quiet, I will not deny my Lord and my Savior.

Ian Buruma is a liar. We need to start calling these people what they are.

The elephant in the room is that the ‘war on women’ perceived as not contracepting all women, is actually an attempt to make sure that women are sexually available at all times so that men do not need to master their sexual drives.  Hence the unspoken opposition to natural family planning which, when used to delay pregnancy makes the woman’s cyclic fertility the determinant about when to engage in the marital act. And by extension limits men’s “freedom” to act on their impulses whenever they occur. 

Our culture has reduced sexuality to the genital expression - i.e. the constant ads for Cialis,  etc.  any limitation on this expression is treated like taking candy from a baby…. time to grow up.

@Lucretia: Of course it is unthinkable and illogical, but when people, such as Ian Buruma, are pushing their agenda, they twist and spin to suit their cause.  It is called propaganda. It is rather common in our main stream media and on college campuses.  And Buruma is a college professor, is he not? To think of the fortunes people sacrifice to send their children to college to be educated and this is what they get for their “education”...scary isn’t it?

@ Lucretia: PS: I wish to clarify: My reference to “unthinkable and illogical” (your words) that were used by me to describle the lunacy put forth by the college professor who actually tried to link our dear Holy Father to that horrific crime in India.  If Professor Buruma really thought it through, he would have realized that when people follow the faith led by Pope Benedict XVI, we end up with people like Blessed Mother Teresa serving the poor tirelessly and selflessly, not raping and murdering. His twisted reasoning is not only disgusting, it is scary. After I thought about my first post responding to your comment, I realized I was not clear.  Sorry.

Where does this professor get the idea that the Catholic Church teaches a fear of sex.  If you fully understand the teachings of the Theology of the Body, sexual union rightly ordered is exalted to the level of sacrament.  It is something so valuable we wait to share it with the one person God has chosen for us to share our loves with, so that together as husband and wife we can join in marital love and become co-creators with God.  Where in that statement is there any ounce of fear?

If we teach our children the proper place for sexual union, as inspired by God and not by the media or popular culture, there is no repression, or restriction happening.  We are free to love as God created us to love;  not as we think would make us “feel good for the moment,”

If the persecution is coming, then I will be among those persecuted for speaking the truth.  Because the truth is not changed by a majority vote.

The Catholic Church is one of the only voices telling our culture that human beings are capable of self-control with regard to our sexual desires.  According to the champions of sexual “freedom”, people are harmed by not acting on any strong sexual impulse they experience.  According to this view, how can we have laws against rape?  If a man has a strong desire for relations with a woman and no woman gives her consent, is he justified in “satisfying his needs” in any way?  Since the sexual revolution of the 1960’s, we have increased abortion, pornography, abandoned women and children, sexually transmitted diseases—how has this protected women?  Women (and children) would be truly protected if everyone lived according to Church teaching.

While the comments re. the prof.‘s nonsense are interesting and even informative, are we not giving it some degree of credibility by our varying responses? The action of the rapists surely illustrates the fact that followers of religious beliefs do not always adhere to its ethical teachings as do some who are npn-believers, end of story?

  I’ve heard enough from this educated idiots!!

“[T]he more sex is repressed and people are made to fear it the greater the chance of sexual violence,” - So if the best way to decrease stealing is allowing stealing? The best way to decrease killing is allowing killing? The best way to decrease abortion is to allow abortion? Have I heard it somewhere before?

If I am going to be persecuted, let it be. I will welcome it as fulfillment of Jesus Christ, my Lord, and my King’s promise.

Our bodies are ... physical, and react in a predictable way. If you start putting drugs into body, you will make it dependent, and the body will ‘desire it’ (not spiritually, but physically.) Sex increases (I don’t remember names) levels of specific chemical elements. If you keep unrestrained sex, including thinking about it (our brains cannot distinguish difference between reality and a thought,) then you make your body dependent. What do we need to do then? Use our sexual faculty the way it is supposed to be used. The same with food, alcohol, and everything else. Masturbation, fornication, even thinking about sex will make the body ‘aroused’. Having women available without any danger of bonding (contraception makes all the women available, and men can use them as objects, to ‘release’ themselves, and in case of an accident - read God’s gift of a child, there is abortion) men become like animals without any knowledge of restrain. Their bodies are raging, for the sex is giving the greatest desires, and loosing their control (which is already not present,) they see unavailable women as ‘objects who dare to say “NO”’.
We are removing all limitations to our desires, we say that it is okay to live the way we want, as long as we do not hurt anyone, and then we become animals, and we start hurting people around us. Sex, violent games, drugs, pain killers, pornography, you name it. The war with satan is on. Get up. It is time to fight. If you think there is no evil in the world, and you are not a subject of this world then you are delusional.

“Persecution is underway” This is exactly what is happening.  Obama and the Party of Death and Deceit have been busy over the last 20 years setting this up.  It comes in the name of “Discrimination”.  Catholic Church, you are “Discriminating” against Gays and Women. Therefore you must pay heavy fines and/or go to jail. Therefore, you will shut down your schools, hospitals, and places of worship.  This is what you 52% Catholic voters have voted for.  Thank you.

This was all predicatble.  The Presdient was apprenticed from ages 10 to 18 to a maniacal Marixst who preached that stoires of presectuion of Christians behind the the Iron curatin were Catholic propgaanda.  A Communist must hate a Catholic as surely as a Klan member hate Jews and Blacks.  The US Left’s support of the homoseuxal agenda sole purose is to portray the Chruch as a hate group which must be abolished.  The replacement cadre, which are like the leaders of the amke Catholics of the Chinese Patriotic Association are already here.  Many of its members were recruited out of both co-called Catholic collegs and from the ranks of the laiicizied.  They wear Franciscan and other oders’ habits and call themselves priests and brothers.  Their current main activities are agitating in favor of homosexula marriage, and anti-capitalist and anti-military progandizing. Some remain under cover as members of actual orders and parishes, some having lost the faith before and others after ordination.  How else did this violently pro-abortion, pro-sodmomite man get reelected?  There will not be enough of them to occupy all of the parishese once the True Church is banned, but many of the faithful wil be confused, because amny of the infiltrators will simply reamin in place and some will be apointed bihsops, as is the practice in Communist China. Oh, so you think that the FBI would know about this if it were true? Who the hell do you think that the FBI works for?  I suppose you imagine that it is just a coincidence that the fifth column in the US uses a name that is a derivative of the name used by a KGB element that infiltrated the Cathollic Chruch in Poland while Pope John Paul II was primate of that country?

rejoice, martyrdom is a quick ticket to heaven.  :)

the blood of the martyrs has long been one of God’s techniques for purifying His Church.

Brothers and Sisters in Christ:
  Sorry about the infernal typos! But I meant every word of it.  Now honestly, how many of you thought even 20 years ago that the federal government would be pressuring any relgious institution to do what that institution believed was immoral?  This diabolical change has crept upon us like carbon monoxide poisoning.  Did we imagine in 1965, the year that Vatican II closed that huge numbers of of people who call themlseves practicing Catholics would also claim the title of Pro-chice and pro-marriage equality? Did anyone imagine that such men and women would present themselves for Communion and receive the Sacrament from someone whose excuse was that to deny it to one who persists in grave public sin would be to politicicize it, while it is precisely the errant politicians who are cynically using the Sacrament for politics?  Did those of us who that same year graduated from once orthodox Cathlic colleges think that we would see the day when we could not in good conscience send our own sons and daughters to our alma maters.  Like the ooze of molten lava the corruption our culture moves. While in 1992 the USCCB opnely cautioned Presdient Clinton about allowing homosexulas to serve opnely in the US military but now Cdl Weurl claims that the Church does not take stands on such matters.  Thank God for courageous men like Abp Broglio of the Archdiocese for Military Services, who proclaimed that there would be no homosexual weddings at Catholic military chapels, even as he knows that forcing this issue is the Presdient’s aim.  The Cathloic Chruch must lead the way in defending our nation against these insidious and diabolical threats to Civilzation.  And would everyobdy who is talking about the glories of martydom please stop it?  If the heros of Lepanto and Vienna had thought like that we would all be wearing turban now.  I hope that isn’t too non-multiculutural for those of you who have not read the Koran and think that Mohammed invented a creed peace and tolerance.

Ian Buruma sounds ignorant. A professor is supposed to be literate and widely read. His explanation about the rape in Delhi indicates his utter ignorance about India. The Hindu religion teaches fidelity, abstinence before marriage, respect for women. The western thoughts about permissiveness makes incursion in the developing countries and resultantly traditional respect to elders, women, abstinence etc are not favoured by modern generation. It is a fact that human lust is created and encouraged through depiction of scantly clad females, erotic stories in the media etc. The media is responsible for building up thoughts on homosexuality, live in together and such cultures. India has enough rules to deal with all situations. But regretfully, corruption and selfishness among politicians make implementation difficult.  On the one hand media encourages lust and on the otherhand cruelties as a result of lack of control is highlighted as inefficiency of the Government.

What an absurdity to turn a necessary argument for enhancing family ties and kinship structures into a thoughtlessly propaganist diatribe against The Roman Catholic Church. Further, to exploit a Hindu contextualised incident in doing so increases the sense of disorientation of those who advocate what is tantamount to moral anarchy in society.

The contrary needs emphasising. Claims by radical homosexual groups and their like that natural law, biological gender and sexual norms do not and should not exist are arguments based on emotive subjectivised political nonsense flying in the face of objective scientific realities. Once society yields to those ideologies then we will see unbridled sexual license publicly displayed; exponential increases in rape, gang rape and child abuse hitherto unexperienced in the history of humanmankind. Even animals will be subjected to every kind of human bestiality as a consequence. No member of any family will be safe from the threat of human sexual predation.

The civilised world so hard fought for over many centuries with its admirable achievements creating increased safety & welfare for women, children and the family generally is on the verge once again of being thrown to the wolves of licentious barbarianism with a concomitant loss of civilised behaviour both in public and in private. In such conditions, no one will ever be safe again.

If Prof Ian Buruma is right, he need to explain why in the sexually-let-it-all-hangout post-60s UK, of women aged 16 to 59 in England & Wales interviewed for the 2006/07 British Crime Survey, 0.5% (1 in every 200) reported that they had suffered rape or attempted rape in the previous year, equating to approximately 85,000 nationally.

Is our nutty professor aware of anywhere in the sexually liberated west sexual crimes have plummeted in the last forty-years?

And myself-a homosexual-have never been allowed my own religious freedom.

By the way
I’ve been violently attacked and threatened by people who take the pope’s words of fear seriously. If any of you would like to hear any particulars I’d be glad to describe.
None of the dioceses I’ve contacted have any interest in how one goes from hearing his leader claim I’m a threat to humanity denying my gender to beating me up. Would you?

Whatever happened to personal responsibility in exercising one’s own free will? I am so sick and tired of hearing that is was what someone else said, or it was the teachings of a particular Church, or it was a film or cartoon published that made someone do something heinous. We choose to act, we own our own actions. The culpability belongs to no one else but ourselves. PERIOD!

Unfortunately Western Civilization has become enslaved to it sexual passions.  Any person or organization that seeks to help men understand that they are the masters of their passion and not it slaves is in for serious conflict.  This is well documented in the book Libido Dominandi: Sexual Liberation and Political Control by E. Michael Jones.  Libido Dominandi – the term is from St. Augustine’s City of God – is the history of the sexual revolution, from 1773 to the present. This book examines the development of technologies like psychotherapy, behaviorism, advertising, sensitivity training, pornography, and, when push came to shove, plain old blackmail – that allowed the Enlightenment and its heirs to turn Augustine’s insight on its head and create masters out of men’s vices. Libido Dominandi explains how the rhetoric of sexual freedom was used to engineer a system of covert political and social control. Libido Dominandi is the story of how that happened.

“Whatever happened to personal responsibility in exercising one’s own free will?

That’s exactly what your church is campaigning against: for me to not have the free will to choose my own religion which may allow gay marriage.

Why others become violent against those portrayed as less than human and an imminent threat should really be self evident. I’ve experienced it throughout my life.

With regard to Joe Yungk’s comment, most violence against homosexuals is committed by be fellow homosexuals.  Mr Gay UK a few years back killed his homosexual companion and chopped him and boiled him on the stove.  Thomas Hamilton, the guy that killed sixteen children and one adult at Dunblane was a homosexual - the liberal media just forgot to mention it.  As was Dennis Nilsen, who killed sixteen young men - the media forgot to mention that also.  While homosexuals comprise only about 1% of the population, they make up approximate 43% of serial killers.

” It’s like I am a pariah that they no longer wish to associate with.”

this his how it feels to be gay.

“how many homosexuals are there, by the way?  according to the alan Guttmacher Institute, about 1% of the general population - the same precentage as schizophrenics).”

this is a great example of trivializing the needs dignity, and humanity of others. To say it’s only so many and in the same numbers as the insane feeds right into homosexuals’ rights not being a significant concern or that we are not being considered an entire human being. Being human we have the same rights as others.
I was unable to find such documentation on the Guttmacher Institute’s website. Please state the article.

Mr. Moorhouse really needs to cite where he got his information. I cannot find any supporting data on his statements about serial killers and domestic abuse.  Where did you hear this?

It does provide an excellent example of how people make statements about homosexuals in order to inspire such fear and trivialize the issue of heterosexuals who are inspired to attack us.

Yes, there will be persecution against Christians.  This became certain years ago when the freedom of association became a legal matter and therefore also a political matter.  It is never a question of whether there will be discrimination or no discrimination.  The question is what forms of discrimination will be permitted or even required by the State.  Discrimination is inevitable but the forms of permitted or required discrimination is not.  The freedom of association is gone and discrimination is now a legal and political matter.  Since homosexuals are coming to have more political influence than Christians discrimination against Christians is rising.  As mentioned discrimination is inevitable particularly in a diverse society.  If there is to be discrimination let it be in favor of those who on average are more intelligent, productive, competent, less crime prone, and less prone to immorality.  Such positive discrimination advances and elevates civilisation.  The reverse destroys civilisation.  It is no less unjust to treat people who are different the same as it is to treat people who are the same differently.  Both are unjust.  Justice requires that people be treated according to their status.

There are no need for sophisticated refutations for a woman who personifies the old adage that there are some ideas that are so stupid, only intellectuals can have them.

Sorry folks, it’s over. There is no stopping the inexorable flood of secularism, relativism, and materialism that is drowning the West. We are morally, intellectually, and financially bankrupt. You can blame Obama but the people put him there. We, the people, are vile. The Church and its faithful need to understand what is going to happen from this point. The pressure from the secular government is going to become greater and greater. First, the Church will be forced to abandon its “public” ministries (adoption agencies, anti-human trafficing, hospitals, other charitable activities) because it cannot submit to the government-imposed mandates on moral and life issues (e.g., providing or making referrals for contraceptives & abortion, placing adoptees with gay couples). This is already happening, and will dramatically accelerate.  Next, the Church and its faithful will be labeled as societal pariahs because they will not endorse or recognize “gay” marriage.  Both the institution and its members will be labeled as bigots, many will lose their jobs (already happening) and will be shunned by society. These battles are already lost. Are you willing to suffer this for the teachings of the Church? My guess is that 75% of American “Catholics” are nots o willing (especially considering more than half of all self-identified Catholics voted for Obama), which means Church membership will shrink dramatically, the pews and coffers will be empty, parishes and schools will close, and the Church will become completely marginalized in the U.S.  After the house of cards that Western Civilization has become crahses down, as it inevitably must, the Chuch will be left standing and people will start to return to it. But it ain’t gonna be pretty in the meantime.

Professor Burma’s spiel is a bit reminiscent of the rantings of Professor Leonard Jeffries of CUNY fame. It is an exercise in twisted logic, easy pseudo-intellectualizing, and historical misrepresentation (or would that be “lies”). The moral and intellectual degradation of this country has simply been astounding. The Church does not promote rape nor persecute homosexuals, nor does it bar them from membership any more than it does anyone else who has sinned (which by the way means all of us.) The Church does teach that homosexuality is not in accordance with natural law and Church teachings on the family. A man who murders his wife for committing adultery is not acting on the Pope’s instructions, but his own feelings of rage, wounded pride, and sense of betrayal. Anyone persecuting homosexuals is just as surely acting on motives other than the teachings of Christianity. Likewise a rapist is driven by his own inner demons. It was Christ who saved the woman caught in adultery from being stoned—“Let he who is without sin cast the first stone.” Our culture of victimization demands someone to blame, and thus adolescents blame authority, blacks blame whites, women blame men, and gays blame the Church (probably because everyone else by this time has caved in to social pressure). The Church is its faithful — the Body of Christ. Christ assures us the gates of hell shall not prevail against us. We will be persecuted but we will endure.