Magic Statistics

Chuck Strahl, Conservative MP for Chilliwack-Fraser Canyon, is angry about gun violence in Canada.

Of course I'm angry at the thugs, the gangs, and the murderers who use guns so carelessly and with such tragic results. These people know they're breaking the law, that lives are endangered or lost, and they couldn't care less. They don't fear the consequences of their actions cause the proof is in the pudding- there aren't enough consequences. We should fix that in a way they can't misinterpret.

The other group I'm angry at are the liberal politicians who are holding press conferences to denounce the violent crime, and who now want to get tough on the bad guys. WHERE HAVE THESE GUYS BEEN for the past twelve years?

When we pushed for tougher laws for car theft- they no-can-do. When we want to reinstate the Ports police to crack down on gun smuggling- sorry, not possible. When we say throw the book at people who use guns illegally- they say, confiscate guns from people who play by the rules, obey the laws, and have never had a problem with the police.

And now these same guys say they want to get tough on crime? They've had lots of chances and failed to act.

Read the whole thing.

via CaNN.

Yesterday Hugh Hewitt interviewed Father Joseph Fessio, Provost of Ave Maria University Naples, Florida, founder of Ignatius Press, and student and friend of Benedict XVI. Fr Fessio recently attended a talk given by Pope Benedict and reported that the pope shares many of the concerns voiced earlier this week by Mark Steyn. Large parts of the western world are disintegrating because of depopulation and loss of cultural confidence and seriousness.

The pope recognises that the growth of Islam in Europe presents a grave challenge to Christianity. Muslims in Europe, most of whom are quite serious about their faith and culture, are procreating at much higher rates than people of European background. Within a few decades, Muslims will be numerous enough to direct political and social policies in Europe. Fr Fessio suggests that, given lack of religious freedom in Muslim countries elsewhere in the world, European Christians are potentially facing a very difficult future. How might the faith be preserved and passed on in such circumstances? In the so-called Dark Ages, monasteries maintained learning and preserved important writings for future generations.

HH: [T]he last time Christendom went under the waves, so to speak, in Europe, there were the monasteries, beseiged as they were by the barbarians, sacked as they were by the Vikings, they endured.

JF: Yeah.

HH: That doesn't happen in modernity, because of the technology of oppression. And you've just noted the reluctance of Islam to accept religious pluralism, or to embrace it and celebrate it.

JF: Yes.

HH: And so what happens in Europe?

JF: Well, Hugh, I've got one of the very few things that I've said, which I'm proud of, because it's become kind of almost a slogan to some, is that home schools are the monasteries of the new dark ages. That is…and you non-Catholic Christians have a lot more of them than we Catholics do, but we've got a lot. And I think that is where families are having children. They're passing on the faith to their children. They're giving them wisdom and the knowledge of our culture.

(Emphasis added.)

Read the transcript of the entire interview, posted here. See also this and this.

via little green footballs.

John Piper, senior pastor of Bethlehem Baptist Church, Minneapolis, and author of many thoughful Christian books, including Desiring God, has been diagnosed with prostate cancer. Surgery is planned for early February. The blog at reformation21 reprints the letter he wrote to the church family at Bethlehem Baptist. Please remember him, his family, and his church in your prayers.

via Prydain.

For the second year in a row, the Muslim Council of Britain is refusing to participate in the observance of National Holocaust Day.

A spokesman said it would not participate in the event on Jan 26 because it was not sufficiently inclusive.

The MCB would be honoured to participate in a national memorial day providing that it clearly affirmed that the lives of all people, regardless of race or religion, are to be valued equally, he said.

That's rich. Muslims are notorious for intolerance, oppressing women, condoning wife beating, persecuting Christians and Jews, promoting hatred of Western democracy, conducting campaigns of genocide, rioting in the streets for weeks on end, and absurd claims of being offended. The protestations of the MCB are impossible to take seriously.

The collect for today, the Epiphany, or The Manifestation of Christ to the Gentiles, from the 1662 Book of Common Prayer:

O God, who by the leading of a star didst manifest thy only-begotten Son to the Gentiles; Mercifully grant, that we, which know thee now by faith, may after this life have the fruition of thy glorious Godhead; through Jesus Christ our Lord. Amen.

The Epistle: Ephesians 3:1-12
The Gospel: St Matthew 2:1-12