Romney sought to capitalize on the violence in Libya and Egypt that has made Obama vulnerable in the national security realm long seen as his strength. The Republican nominee vowed to “change course in the Middle East,” including by taking a hard line on Iran and arming Syrian rebels. Romney said he knows “the president […]

  BEIRUT: Gunfire from the Syrian side of the border with Lebanon struck a former General Security facility in the area Monday, security sources told The Daily Star. No causalities were reported. The center is located on the outskirts of the northern border village of Abboudiyeh and was a target of heavy gunfire from machine guns, […]

Ever since the attack on our embassy in Benghazi, Libya and the murder of four Americans on September 11, the news has been flooded with pictures of mobs burning American flags and effigies of President Obama throughout the Muslim world in protest of a video, which we are told hurts the feelings of the Muslim people.

Days after the "Love the Prophet Day" demonstrations in Pakistan, where the largest, most violent, week-long demonstrations occurred, I read a headline article in Asia News that says, "The wave of anti-Christian violence has not stopped in Pakistan. Abuses continue to be perpetrated in the name of the blasphemy law and acts of sexual violence are carried out against underage girls from religious minorities. . . ." Allah Rakhi is 10 years old. She is from a poor Christian family in Yousafabad, Madina Town, Faisalabad in Pakistan. In late August she went to a store to sell some things. It was there she met Muhammad Nazir. He lured the trusting 10 year old to his house under the pretense that he was interested in buying her things, but the money was at his house. When Allah’s father found her, she was unconscious on the floor, naked and bleeding. A porno movie was playing on the television.  The vicar general of the Diocese of Faisalabad, Father Khalid Rashid Asi, said, "The lack of justice in Pakistan means that the rich and powerful think that they can commit such acts and get away with it." If a Muslim girl had been raped, he went on to say, "It is likely that all the Christian homes in the area would have been torched."

According to another Asia News article, about 11:00 A.M. on September 20, 16-year-old Shumaila Masih was walking through the streets of Faisalabad when the Christian girl encountered three young Muslim men: Iftikhar Hussain, Shahid Munir and Muhammad Imran. They tried to get her to go with them but she refused, so they forced her. She cried for help as they dragged her through the streets, but no one helped her. Once they got her to Hussain’s house, they took turns raping her until her father and cousins found her hours later and rescued her.

  RIYADH, Saudi Arabia — For months, Saudi Arabia and Qatar have been funneling money and small arms to Syria’s rebels but have refused to provide heavier weapons, like shoulder-fired missiles, that could allow opposition fighters to bring down government aircraft, take out armored vehicles and turn the war’s tide. While they have publicly called for […]

  If there were any doubts as to how futile the debate over a new election law has become, they were dispelled when the parliament speaker, Nabih Berri, declared that he supported the formation of a parliamentary subcommittee to discuss such legislation. That’s because the body will only push the discussion into a labyrinth of […]

  President Michel Suleiman has stressed that Lebanon will not be a “mailbox” anymore or “a place to protect any regime or state.” “Lebanon paid dearly for its freedom and democracy and from now on it will not allow anyone to turn it into a launchpad for sending messages to anyone or into a place to […]

By Joe Tremblay *

As the presidential election heats up, Catholics in America are bound to weigh in and give their two cents worth.

A robust engagement in the political arena by Catholics has always been encouraged by the Church. With that encouragement, however, the Catholic Church makes the distinction between endorsements and denunciations; between officially supporting a political party and publicly condemning them.

The former is forbidden for good reason. But it should be noted that the Church reserves the right to denounce or condemn evil in the political world. To condemn one party or regime does not imply the endorsement of the alternative party or regime.

Historically the Church has condemned many civil rulers, political regimes and ideologies which proved themselves to be contrary to God’s law and the common good. During the twentieth century, for instance, the Catholic Church condemned the Communist governments of Mexico, Spain and the Russian Bolsheviks. In 1937 Pope Pius XI wrote an encyclical entitled, “On the Church and the German Reich” (or “Mit Brennender Sorge”). His condemnation of the Third Reich speaks to that ancient pagan error which held the State as supreme:

“Whoever exalts race, or the people, or the State, or a particular form of State, or the depositories of power, or any other fundamental value of the human community – however necessary and honorable be their function in worldly things – whoever raises these notions above their standard value and divinizes them to an idolatrous level, distorts and perverts an order of the world planned and created by God; he is far from the true faith in God and from the concept of life which that faith upholds.”

WASHINGTON, DC (Catholic Online) – On May 4, 2009, Pope Benedict XVI spoke to members of the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences. He sounded a common theme of his papal Magisterium – that there is a Natural Law which can be known by all men and women through the exercise of reason. He explained that this Natural Law reveals to all men and women the existence of fundamental human rights which are binding upon all Nations and for all time.

"The Church has always affirmed that fundamental rights, above and beyond the different ways in which they are formulated and the different degrees of importance they may have in various cultural contexts, are to be upheld and accorded universal recognition because they are inherent in the very nature of man, who is created in the image and likeness of God. If all human beings are created in the image and likeness of God, then they share a common nature that binds them together and calls for universal respect."

Believing in the Natural Law as the source of fundamental human rights is absolutely critical in the light of the current decline of Western civilization. In the U.S. and much of Europe there is a denial of fundamental Human Rights which began with the denial of the foundation of all true human rights, the Right to Life. Rights are goods of the human person – not ethereal concepts floating around somewhere. When there is no human person there can be no rights for him or her to receive as an endowment from our Creator and exercise in civil society.

The Pope told the leaders: "Strictly speaking, these human rights are not truths of faith, even though they are discoverable – and indeed come to full light – in the message of Christ who "reveals man to man himself" (Gaudium et Spes, 22). They receive further confirmation from faith. The Church’s action in promoting human rights is therefore supported by rational reflection, in such a way that these rights can be presented to all people of good will, independently of any religious affiliation they may have."

  President Michel Suleiman on Thursday noted that Syria was not seeking to stir chaos in Lebanon, stressing that the weapons of non-state actors will be eventually removed, “whether they belong to Hizbullah or the Salafist forces.”   “Syria does not have the objective of stirring chaos in Lebanon as it is barely being able […]