KNOXVILLE, TN (Catholic Online) – I cannot help but wonder at two opposing visions of women on Mother’s Day: the postmodern feminist vision and the Catholic vision. In my first article, I explored a feminist vision of women. In this article, I will explore a Catholic vision using two sources written by Blessed John Paul II: The Gospel of Life and On the Dignity and Vocation of Women, which was written 25-years-ago come this August.

In The Gospel of Life, John Paul II says man is called to a fullness of life which far exceeds the dimensions of his earthly existence. This supernatural vocation reveals the greatness and the inestimable value of human life even in its temporal phase. Life in time is the fundamental condition, the initial stage and an integral part of the entire unified process of human existence.

Human existence is a process of divinization made possible in and through Christ. It reaches its full realization only in eternity. This means that human life is a sacred reality to be preserved and brought to perfection in love as a gift of ourselves to God and to each other.

• By Michael Terheyde

KNOXVILLE, TN (Catholic Online) – I cannot help but wonder at two opposing visions of women on Mother’s Day: the postmodern feminist vision and the Catholic vision. I will explore each of them in separate articles. In this article, I will look at postmodern feminism and explore its vision. The postmodern world we live in reminds me of two popular novels from the late 1800’s, Alice’s Adventures in Wonderland and its sequel, Through the Looking-Glass. In both novels, their author, Lewis Carroll, makes reason into a toy and turns reality on its head. Postmodernism does likewise.   I see modern feminism, which is dominated by radical feminism, as the epitome of Postmodernism. It finds sustenance in the darkest corridors of the postmodern world. And from these dark places, it constructs a fantasy narrative used to justify its ugly war of hatred against men, marriage, family, and the harsh realities of economic life, all of which it battles via politics and control of the general population.

As you can tell, I have a very negative view of feminism. But it was not always so. When I was young, I was open to what feminists had to say. It was when I listened to them and watched them spread their tentacles throughout society, that I formed an opinion on feminism. Some of my early recollections included the following statements made by leading feminists:  The feminist philosopher Sandra Harding, called Newton’s Principia Matematica a "rape manual." Luce Irigaray, a linguist and pseudo philosopher, claimed that E=mc² is a "sexed equation." Musicologist, Susan McClary, described the first movement from Beethoven’s Ninth Symphony as follows: ". . . the carefully prepared cadence is frustrated, damming up energy which finally explodes in the throttling murderous rage of a rapist incapable of attaining release."

I believe these statements represent the fantasy narrative which dominates feminism today. This narrative is largely based on five major postmodern categories. You may recall them: metaphysics which rejects truth and God; epistemology, which claims we cannot know; human nature, which emphasizes the malleability of people; ethics, which emphasizes groups in conflict with each other; and politics, which emphasizes egalitarianism, socialism and the acquisition of power.

  President Michel Suleiman stated on Friday that Lebanon’s economy and democratic system will protect it against challenges. He added: “The Baabda Declaration and a defense strategy that places the resistance’s arms at the will of the army will protect Lebanon against any Israeli assault.” He also stressed the need to equip the army with modern weapons. […]

  انها حتما المرة الاولى التي تتم فيها مناقشة كتاب حول طانيوس شاهين بمشاركة خازنية. وهي ايضا المرة الاولى التي يتم فيها تناول هذا الموضوع في اطار ندوة فكرية في زوق مكايل، حيث تشكلت النواة الاولى لحركة الاعتراض الكسروانية. عندما طلب مني الاستاذ انطوان سلامه المشاركة في ندوة حول كتابه الجديد، لم اتردد بالقبول، حتى […]

LOS ANGELES, CA (Catholic Online) – "The flight of Christians out of the region is unprecedented and it’s increasing year by year," the U.S. Commission on International Religious Freedom said. In our lifetime alone "Christians might disappear altogether from Iraq, Afghanistan, and Egypt." It appears that Iraq was the earliest indicator of the fate awaiting Christians once Islamic forces were liberated from dictators. The church attack in Baghdad in 2010, in which nearly 60 Christian worshippers died, is only the beginning.

Iraq’s Christian population was at least one million in 2003. Today, fewer than 400,000 remain the result of an anti-Christian campaign that began with the U.S. occupation of Iraq. Countless Christian churches were bombed and countless Christians killed, including by crucifixion and beheading.  The same pattern has come to Syria, after the U.S. has shown its support for the jihad on Syria’s secular president Bashar al-Assad. Regions and towns where Christians lived for centuries before Islam came into being have now been emptied, as the opposition targets Christians for kidnapping, plundering, and beheadings.

The last Christian in the Syrian city of Homs, in October of last year — which previously had a Christian population of some 80,000, was murdered. "We left because they were trying to kill us. because we were Christians . Those who were our neighbors turned against us. At the end, when we ran away, we went through balconies. We did not even dare go out on the street in front of our house," a teenage girl said.

  UNITED NATIONS – The UN peacekeeping force in southern Lebanon has protested to Israel after it observed increased violations of Lebanese air space by Israel, which carried out raids in Syria to target what it said were Iranian missiles bound for Hezbollah militants. Intelligence sources said Israel on Friday and Sunday attacked Iranian-supplied missiles stored […]

  BEIRUT: Acting President of the Syrian National Council George Sabra said Wednesday that the two Greek Orthodox bishops kidnapped in Syria are being held in a small village north west of Aleppo by a rebel group. In a telephone conversation with Kataeb Party leader Amin Gemayel, Sabra said that Aleppo’s Greek Orthodox Archbishop Boulos Yazigi […]

  Last week – clearly and officially – the war in Syria widened to become an extraordinary regional conflict. First, Hassan Nasrallah, the leader of Lebanon’s Hezbollah, formally acknowledged that his forces are indeed fighting alongside those of Syria’s president, Bashar al-Assad. Meanwhile, in Iraq the confrontation between the government of Nouri al-Maliki and demonstrators […]

  BEIRUT: Lebanon is set to launch negotiations with Syrian authorities to secure the release of the remaining nine Lebanese being held hostage by rebels, a statement from the office of caretaker Interior Minister Marwan Charbel said Monday. According to the statement, Charbel received a list containing the names of 371 female prisoners in Syria that […]

ALEPPO, SYRIA (Catholic Online) – The news out of Syria continues to shock the conscience of anyone who still has one. However, the solutions, at least from a geopolitical perspective, evade a clear answer. The regime of Bashar al-Assad, the President of Syria, is committing atrocities against the Syrian people.  The allegations I they have used chemical weapons against their own people.

However, the opposition is composed of some groups which may be even worse than the regime. For example, the militant Islamists. In the crosshairs of this escalating violence are the Christians. Just this week, Bishop Boulos Yazigi of the Greek Orthodox Church and Bishop John Ibrahim of the Assyrian Orthodox Church were kidnapped. They were traveling from the Turkish border to Aleppo, Syria.

Among the strongest voices in the growing international outcry calling for the release of the Bishops is Pope Francis, a champion of peace who is also well aware of the dangers of militant, extremist versions of Islam. He referred to the kidnapping as "a dramatic confirmation of the tragic situation in which the Syrian population and its Christian community is living."

Like most of my readers, the continual images coming out of the Syrian tragedy trouble me greatly. The horrors inflicted upon men, women and children by a regime which seems to have no conscience continually fill our television, computer and smart phone screens with an almost surreal regularity.

However, the infliction of these wounds and the multiplication of murderous acts is not limited to the current regime in Syria. Some who claim to be combating the regime seem just as hell bent on killing, maiming and inflicting evil upon the people of Syria, and, in particular, upon the Christians of that ancient land. Our Christian faith precedes in time and history the presence of Islam in Syria.