Oitocentos de Otranto: em inglês

Alfredo MANTOVANO How the Eight Hundred Men of Otranto Saved Rome from: Il Foglio, August 14, 2007. "Ready to die a thousand times for Him..." On July 6, 2007, Benedict XVI received a visit from the prefect of the congregation for the causes of saints, cardinal José Saraiva Martins, and authorized the publication of the decree of authentication for the martyrdom of blessed Antonio Primaldo and his lay companions, "killed out of hatred for the faith" in Otranto on August 14, 1480. Antonio Primaldo's is the only name that has come down to us. His companions in martyrdom were eight hundred unknown fishermen, craftsmen, shepherds, and farmers from a small town, whose blood, five centuries ago, was shed solely because they were Christian. Eight hundred men, who five centuries ago suffered the treatment reserved in 2004 for the American antenna repairman Nick Berg, captured by Islamic terrorists in Iraq and killed to the cry of "Allah is great!" His executioner, after cutting his jugular, drew the blade around his neck until his head was detached, and then held this up as a trophy. Exactly as the Ottoman executioner did in 1480 to each of the eight hundred men from Otranto. There is a prologue to this mass execution. In the early morning hours of July 29, 1480, from the walls of Otranto there could be seen on the horizon an approaching fleet composed of 90 galleys, 15 galleasses, and 48 galliots, with 18,000 soldiers on board. The armada was led by the pasha Ahmed, under the orders of Mohammed II, called Fatih, the Conqueror, the sultan who in 1451, at just 21 years of age, had become head of the Ottoman tribe, which had replaced the mosaic of Islamic emirates a century and a half earlier. In 1453, at the head of an army of 260,000 Turks, Mohammed II had conquered Byzantium, the "second Rome," and from that moment he developed the plan of wiping out the "first Rome," Rome true and proper, and of turning Saint Peter's basilica into a stall for his horses. In June of 1480, he judged the time was right to go into action: he lifted the siege from Rhodes, which was defended courageously by its knights, and directed his fleet toward the Adriatic Sea. His intention was to land at Brindisi, which had an excellent, spacious harbor: from Brindisi, he planned to move northward up Italy until he reached the see of the papacy. But a strong contrary wind forced the ships to touch ground fifty miles to the south, and to disembark in a place called Roca, a few kilometers from Otranto. 1. Otranto was - and is - the easternmost city in Italy. It has a rich history: the immediate vicinity was probably inhabited in the Paleolithic period, and certainly from the Neolithic age. It was then populated by the Messapi, a race prior to the Greeks that was conquered by them, migrated to Magna Graecia, and fell into the hands of the Romans, becoming a Roman town. The importance of its harbor had given it the role of a bridge between East and West, a role consolidated on the cultural and political level by the presence of an important monastery of Basilian monks, the monastery of San Nicola in Casole, of which a couple of columns remain on the road that leads to Leuca. In 1095, in its splendid cathedral church built between 1080 and 1088, the blessing was imparted to the twelve thousand crusaders who, under the command of prince Boemondo I d'Altavilla, were leaving to liberate and protect the Holy Sepulcher in Jerusalem. And on his return from the Holy Land, it was in Otranto that saint Francis of Assisi landed in 1219, and was received with great honor. When the Ottomans disembarked, the city's garrison numbered just 400 men at arms, so the captains of the guard quickly sent a missive asking for help to the king of Naples, Ferrante d'Aragona. With the castle under siege and all the city's inhabitants inside it, the pasha Ahmed, through a messenger, proposed a surrender with advantageous conditions: if they did not resist, the men and women would be set free and would not face any sort of punishment. The response came from one of the city's leading citizens, Ladislao De Marco: if the assailants wanted Otranto, he let it be understood, they would have to take it by force. It was intimated to the messenger that he should not come back, and when a second messenger arrived with the same proposal for a surrender, he was riddled with arrows. To remove any doubt, the captains took the keys to the city gates, mounted a tower, and in the sight of the people cast them into the sea. During the night, many of the soldiers of the guard lowered themselves over the city walls with ropes and fled. Only the inhabitants remained to defend Otranto. What followed was a relentless siege: the Turkish bombardment rained down upon the city hundreds of huge stones (many of these can still be seen along the streets of the city's historic center). After fourteen days, at dawn on August 12, the Ottomans focused their fire on one of the weakest points along the walls: they opened a breach and poured into the streets, massacring anyone in their path, and came to the cathedral, where many had taken refuge. They broke down the doors and flooded into the temple, where they found the archbishop, Stefano, who was there in his pontifical vestments and with the crucifix in his hand. To the order that he no longer speak the name of Christ, because from that moment Mohammed was in command, the archbishop responded by exhorting the assailants to conversion, and at this his head was cut off with a scimitar. On August 13, Ahmed asked for and obtained a list of the captured inhabitants, excluding the women and the boys under the age of 15. 2. This is the account by Saverio de Marco in the "Compendiosa istoria degli ottocento martiri otrantini [A brief history of the eight hundred martyrs of Otranto]" published in 1905: "About one hundred men were presented to the pasha, who had at his side a miserable priest named Giovanni from Calabria, an apostate from the faith. He employed his satanic eloquence for the goal of persuading the Christians that they should abandon Christ and embrace Mohammedanism, sure of the good graces of Ahmed, who would grant them their lives, possessions, and all the benefits they enjoyed in their homeland: otherwise they would all be massacred. Among those heroes was a man named Antonio Primaldo, a tailor, advanced in age but full of religion and fervor. In the name of all, he replied: ‘Would that all believed in Jesus Christ, the Son of God, and were ready to die a thousand times for him'." The first of the chroniclers, Giovanni Michele Laggetto, adds, in the "Historia della guerra di Otranto del 1480 [Story of the war of Otranto in 1480]," transcribed from an ancient manuscript and published in 1924: "And turning to the Christians, Primaldo spoke these words: ‘My brothers, until today we have fought in defense of our homeland, to save our lives, and for our earthly governors; now it is time for us to fight to save our souls for our Lord. And since he died on the cross for us, it is fitting that we should die for him, remaining firm and constant in the faith, and with this earthly death we will earn eternal life and the glory of martyrdom.' At these words, all began to shout with one voice and with great fervor that they wanted to die a thousand times, by any sort of death, rather than renounce Christ." Ahmed condemned all the eight hundred prisoners to death. The following morning, they were led with ropes tied around their necks and their hands bound behind their backs to the Hill of Minerva, a few hundred meters outside of the city. De Marco writes: "All of them repeated their profession of the faith and the generous response they had given at first, so the tyrant commanded that the decapitation should proceed, and, before the others, the head of the elderly Primaldo should be cut off. Primaldo was hateful to him, because he never stopped acting as an apostle toward his fellows. And before placing his head upon the stone, he told his companions that he saw heaven opened and the comforting angels; that they should be strong in the faith and look to heaven, already open to receive them. He bowed his head and it was cut off, but his corpse stood back up on its feet, and despite the efforts of the butchers, it remained erect and unmoving, until all were decapitated. The marvelous and astonishing event would have been a lesson of salvation for those infidels, if they had not been rebels against the light that enlightens every man who lives in the world. Only one of the butchers, named Berlabei, believed courageously in the miracle and, declaring himself a Christian in a loud voice, was condemned to be impaled." During the beatification process for the eight hundred, in 1539, four eyewitnesses spoke of the prodigy of Antonio Primaldo, who remained standing after being decapitated, and of the conversion and martyrdom of the executioner. This is the account of one of the four, Francesco Cerra, who in 1539 was 72 years old: "Antonio Primaldo was the first to be slaughtered, and without his head he remained upright on his feet, nor could any of the efforts of the enemy knock him down, until all were killed. The butcher, stunned by the miracle, confessed that the Catholic faith was the true one, and insisted on becoming a Christian, and for this the pasha condemned him to death by impaling." Five hundred years later, on October 5, 1980, John Paul II visited Otranto to remember the sacrifice of the eight hundred. It was a splendid, sunny morning on the plain below the Hill of Minerva, which was renamed the Hill of the Martyrs in 1480. The Polish pope took the occasion to issue an invitation as relevant today as it was then: "Let us not forget the martyrs of our times. Let us not behave as if they did not exist." The pope exhorted his hearers to look overseas, and expressly recalled the sufferings of the people of Albania, subjected to one of the most ferocious realizations of communism, although no one was paying attention to them at the time. He emphasized that "the blessed martyrs of Otranto have left us two essential gifts: love for one's earthly homeland and the authenticity of the Christian faith. The Christian loves his earthly homeland. Love of country is a Christian virtue." 3. The sacrifice of the eight hundred men of Otranto was not important solely on the level of faith. The city's two-week resistance permitted the army of the king of Naples to organize and to approach that area, blocking the eighteen thousand Ottomans from invading the entire region of Puglia. The chroniclers of the time do not exaggerate when they affirm that the safety of southern Italy was guaranteed by Otranto: and not only that, if it is true that news of the city's fall initially induced the reigning pope, Sixtus IV, to plan to move to Avignon, in the fear that the Ottomans might draw nearer to Rome. The pope renounced this intention when king Ferrante of Naples charged his son Alfonso, the duke of Calabria, to move to Puglia, and entrusted to him the task of reconquering Otranto. This took place on September 13, 1481, after Ahmed had returned to Turkey and Mohammed II had died. What makes this extraordinary episode so significant, even for today's European, is that in the history of Christianity there has never been a lack of witnesses to the faith and to civic values, nor has there been a lack of men who have courageously confronted extreme trials. But there has never been an episode of such vast collective proportions: an entire city that at first battles as it is able and survives for a number of days under siege, and then firmly rejects the proposal to abjure the faith. On the Hill of Minerva, apart from the elderly Antonio Primaldo, no other individual personality emerged, if it is true that the names of the other eight hundred martyrs are unknown: proof of the fact that it was not individual heroes, but rather an entire population that faced the trial. All of this also took place because of the indifference of the political leaders of Europe at the time, in the face of the Ottoman menace. In 1459, pope Pius II had convened a congress in Mantua to which he invited the heads of the Christian states, and in the introductory address had outlined their faults in the face of the Turkish onslaught. But although it was decided at that meeting that war should be waged to contain the onslaught, nothing happened afterward, because of the opposition of Venice and the disinterest of Germany and France. After the Muslims conquered the island of Negroponte, which belonged to Venice, a new alliance proposed by Pope Paul II was undermined by the lords of Milan and Florence, who were eager to gain from the critical situation in which Venice found itself. During the next decade, with Sixtus IV who became pontiff in 1471, there was the assassination of Galeazzo Sforza, the duke of Milan; the anti-Roman alliance in 1474 among Milan, Venice, and Florence; the Florentine Pazzi Conspiracy of 1478 and the war that followed between the pope and the king of Naples on one side, and Florence, Milan, Venice, and France on the other... All of this brought great advantage to the Ottomans, as Ludwig von Pastor writes in his "History of the Popes": "Lorenzo the Magnificent, who had warned Ferrante not join in the games and ambitions of the foreigners, was the very one who appealed to Venice to strike an agreement with the Turks and spur them on to assault the Adriatic coast of the kingdom of Naples, for the purpose of upsetting the plans of Ferdinando and his son. [...] Venice, which signed a truce with the Turks in 1479, adhered to the plan of Lorenzo the Magnificent in the hope of turning toward Puglia the Muslim tide that at any moment could attack Dalmatia, where the Venetian flag of Saint Mark was raised. [...] And the men of Lorenzo the Magnificent did not even hesitate [...] to solicit Mohammed II to invade the territory of the king of Naples, reminding him of the various injuries he had received from him. But the sultan had no need of this advice: he had been waiting for 21 years for the right moment to land in Italy, and until then it had been Venice, his direct adversary on the sea, that had been preventing this." 4. Even if history never exactly repeats itself, it is nevertheless not arbitrary to gather analogies and comparisons from its developments: exactly one thousand years after 480, the year of the birth of Saint Benedict of Norcia - a humble monk to whose work Europe owes so much of its identity - other lowly men understood Europe better than their leaders did, men who were more ready to fight each other than to confront the common enemy. When the inhabitants of Otranto found themselves facing the Ottoman scimitars, they did not find in the disinterest of their kings a reason to quit themselves; strong in the culture in which they had been raised, although many of them had never learned the alphabet, they were convinced that resisting and not abjuring the faith was the most natural choice. Try talking today with a Western soldier who has returned from a mission in Iraq or Afghanistan: what one hears most frequently is their amazement at the discussions and the endless disagreements over our presence in those regions. For these soldiers, it is natural that they should go to help those in need of support, and guarantee the security of reconstruction against terrorist attacks. In Otranto in 1480, no one displayed rainbow pacifist flags, nor invoked international resolutions, nor asked for a meeting of the municipal council so that the zone might be declared as demilitarized; no one chained himself beneath the city walls to "construct peace." For two weeks, the fifteen thousand inhabitants of the city boiled oil and water, until they had none left, and poured it over the walls onto the assailants. And when the eight hundred adult men still alive were captured, they went willingly to meet the same fate that the Iraqis, Afghans, Americans, English, Italians, and others meet in Iraq and Afghanistan when they are kidnapped by terrorists. Eight hundred heads were cut off one after another, with no politically correct newsmen to censor the account. If today we have thorough knowledge of this extraordinary event, it is because those who described it were objective and rigorous. Today Europe is under attack not - as in the preceding historical episode - by an institutionally organized Islamic phalanx, but by a patchwork of non-governmental organizations of ultra-fundamentalist Muslims. Keeping in mind this structural difference, it is not out of place to ask how much there is today in the West, in Europe, in Italy, of that "naturalness" that led an entire community to "defend the peace of their land" to the point of making the ultimate sacrifice. The question is not out of place, if one considers that a truly decisive element in the struggle against terrorism is the solidity of the social body, or in any case of a large part of it, in the face of the threat and of its most bloodthirsty manifestations. The memory of Otranto does not merely emphasize that there are times when resistance is a duty, but even before this it reminds us of who we are and from what community we come. It is important to recall that in 1571, ninety years after the martyrdom of Otranto, a fleet of ships supplied by Christian states arrested the Turko-Islamic advance into the Mediterranean, in the sea battle of Lepanto. The scenario had not improved in Europe: France was in league with the German Protestant princes in opposition to the Hapsburgs, and took satisfaction in the pressure that the Turks were applying against the Hapsburg Empire in the Mediterranean. Paris and Venice had not moved a finger to defend the Knights of Malta from the naval siege conducted against them by Suleiman the Magnificent. This means that the victory of Lepanto was not the fruit of the convergence of political interests; on the contrary, it was accomplished in spite of the divergences. The extraordinary thing about Lepanto is that in spite of everything, for once the princes, politicians, and military commanders were able to set aside their divisions and unite to defend Europe. This union was realized above all because the European politics of the sixteenth century preserved what was essentially a shared vision of the world, founded upon Christianity and the natural law. And if today so many agnostic minds inhabit Europe in complete freedom, this is in part because there were those who in their day gave their time, energy, and even their lives for the good cause, when the victory of the enemy would have put Italy - and possibly Spain - into Muslim hands. 5. Otranto teaches us that a culturally homogeneous civilization - or even one predominantly animated by realistic principles - is capable of reacting in a substantially unified manner in defense of its own peace, and can do this without trampling upon its own identity and dignity. Today, Roman-Germanic Christendom no longer exists as a homogeneous civilization. Nor is the thesis valid according to which Christendom, as long as it existed, was a mirror image of the Islamic community. Three structural differences prevent any sort of overlapping or analogy with respect to the Islamic "umma": in Christendom, there was a distinction between the political and religious spheres, there was a foundation of natural law, and there was respect for the conscience of the human person. Reflection on what happened in 1480 nevertheless permits us to identify three pillars around which unity can be restored: the reference to natural law, the rediscovery of the Christian roots of Europe, and love of country, which was explicitly evoked by John Paul II as an inheritance from the martyrs of Otranto. In Sacred Scripture, when God informed Abraham of his intention to destroy Sodom and Gomorrah (Genesis 18:16 ff.), Abraham tried to intercede, and asked him: "Will you sweep away the innocent with the guilty? Suppose there were fifty innocent people in the city; would you wipe out the place, rather than spare it for the sake of the fifty innocent people within it?" Having received God's assurance that he would pardon the entire city for the sake of those fifty just men, Abraham continues, in a sort of gutsy negotiation: and if there were only 45, 40, 30, 20, or only 10? God's reply is the same: "For the sake of those ten, I will not destroy it." But there were not 50, or 45, or 30, or 20, or even 10; and the two cities were destroyed. This page of Scripture is terrifying because of the fate of annihilation that it projects for civilizations that reject the values that are inscribed in human nature. It is a page that has been sorrowfully reread over and over, especially in the twentieth century, in the face of the ravages of Nazism and communist socialism. But it just as comforting to those who maintain that the centrality of man and adherence to principles is not only the point of departure, but also the strategy for anyone who wants to practice politics. In 1480, that passage from Genesis found a unique application: Europe, and in particular its most important city, Rome, were spared from destruction not "for the sake," but rather "through the sacrifice" of eight hundred unknown fishermen, craftsmen, shepherds, and farmers of a marginal city. It is striking that what happened in Otranto did not receive, and has still not received, the widespread recognition that it deserves. The Church itself waited for five centuries, and for an extraordinary pontiff like Karol Wojtyla, to beatify those eight hundred men. Benedict XVI's July 6, 2007 decree authorizes the view that their "martyrdom" really took place, historically and theologically. This is the premise for their canonization, which will follow when a miracle has been certified. The Church, including that of Otranto, maintains a necessary caution on this point, but everyone knows that the intercession of the eight hundred has already procured many miracles; all that is lacking is official recognition. The martyrs of Otranto are in no hurry: their bones, arranged in a number of reliquaries, are waiting to greet those who visit the cathedral, in the chapel located to the right of the main altar. They remind us that it is not only faith that has a price, but civilization does, too: a price that cannot be measured, and is paradoxically compatible with having received faith and civilization as inestimable gifts. This price is asked of everyone in a different way, but there is no place for sales or liquidations. Publishing date: 12/10/2007

Reportagem mais completa da BBC sobre perseguição aos cristãos do Paquistão.

 September 2013 Last updated at 09:35 GMT

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Pakistan blasts: Burials amid anger after Peshawar church attack

Mourners also gathered outside the church in Peshawar to protest against the attack

Continue reading the main story

Burials have been taking place in the Pakistani city of Peshawar after a double suicide bombing killed at least 80 people at a church on Sunday.

It is thought to be the deadliest ever attack on Pakistan's Christians.

Two Islamist militant groups with Taliban links said they ordered the attack to hit back at US drone strikes.

Political and religious leaders condemned the attack, but angry crowds took to the streets denouncing the state's failure to protect minorities.

On Sunday, demonstrators blocked roads in Peshawar, Islamabad, Lahore and Karachi and rallies are also expected in major cities on Monday.

The BBC's Aleem Maqbool in Peshawar reports that as mourners reached the site where the coffins bearing the dead are lined up, some broke down on the spot.

Continue reading the main story

Hundreds of women were sitting beside the coffins, clutching them and sobbing, the men hugging and crying, their children looking bewildered, our correspondent reports.

Condemnation of the attack has been pouring in. The government has announced three days of mourning.

Christian groups have said special prayers will be held for the victims. Pope Francis has condemned the atrocity, saying those who carried out the attack made a wrong choice, of hatred and war.

Sunday Mass attacked

Speaking in London on his way to New York to attend the UN's General Assembly, Prime Minister Nawaz Sharif said the attack does not bode well for any intended talks with militants.

And the Pakistani politician, Imran Khan, whose party governs the Khyber Pakhtunkhwa province, of which Peshawar is the capital, called it an attack on humanity.

He has been criticised for being soft on Taliban militants and favouring talks instead of military action.

At around midday at the historic All Saints church in Kohati Gate, a bustling area of Peshawar, two bombers blew themselves up as hundreds of worshippers who had attended Sunday Mass were leaving.

Sunday's twin attacks targeted Peshawar's historic All Saints Church

Witnesses said they heard two blasts, the second more powerful than the first. Suicide vests were later found outside the church, officials said.

Reports say the walls of the church was dimpled from the force of the ball bearings that had been packed into the explosives, in an effort to cause as much damage as possible.

More than 120 people were wounded in the assault.

It is unclear exactly who was behind the attack, with two militant groups claiming responsibility. Jandullah and the Junood ul-Hifsa - both with past links to the Pakistani Taliban - said they ordered the double bombing in retaliation for US drone strikes in Pakistan's tribal north-west.

The Pakistani Taliban, however, condemned the attack. Correspondents say the group frequently denies responsibility for attacks which take a heavy civilian toll.

It is the latest in a series of attacks on Pakistani Christians, who represent about 1.6% of the country's overwhelmingly Muslim population.

One provincial lawmaker, Fredrich Azeem Ghauri, said there were about 200,000 Christians in the province, of whom 70,000 lived in Peshawar, Agence France-Presse news agency reported.

There have been angry protests around the country against the bombings in Peshawar

The attackers struck as hundreds of worshippers left the All Saints church in a busy part of the city

More than 120 people were wounded in the assault

There were scenes of grief as relatives gathered to identify their loved ones

Security has been strengthened outside a number of Pakistani Christian churches following Sunday's attack

Nevertheless the Pakistani Christian minority feels vulnerable to militant attacks

And the anger of the community has also been stoked with many taking to the streets in protest for a second day

Correspondents say the attack has outraged many people, but there is also a sense of helplessness about the government's apparent inability to prevent such atrocities.

There were angry scenes outside the church, with friends and relatives denouncing the government, but demonstrations spread rapidly and in Karachi police had to fire tear gas.

Militants in Pakistan have long made religious minorities one of their targets and recent years have seen spiralling sectarian violence between Shias and Sunnis, with Sunni militants often targeting the Shia community.

There have been outbreaks of communal violence in areas where Muslims and Christians co-exist. In march, Muslims in Lahore torched dozens of Christian homes responding to an allegation of blasphemy.

But this latest attack is being described as the first assault of its kind on Christians in recent memory.

OU VIROU ROTINA, OU ESTÃO ESCONDENDO

Ataque a igreja cristã mata 78 no Paquistão

Templo histórico de Peshawar foi atacado por militantes islâmicos, na ação sectária mais violenta contra a minoria nos últimos anos no país

O Estado de S.Paulo

PESHAWAR. PAQUISTÃO - Um duplo atentado suicida contra uma das igrejas mais antigas do Paquistão matou neste domingo 78 cristãos em Peshawar. A maioria das vítimas é composta de mulheres e crianças. Foi o pior ataque contra a minoria religiosa no país predominantemente muçulmano em décadas, segundo o governo. Os mais de 100 feridos, muitos deles em estado grave, foram levados para um hospital da cidade.

Muhammed Muheisen/AP

Nenhum grupo reivindicou a autoria do ataque

Nenhum grupo reivindicou a autoria do ataque, mas atentados contra minorias religiosas cristãs, budistas, além de muçulmanos xiitas têm-se tornado comum no país nos últimos meses e afetado os esforços do primeiro-ministro do país, Nawaz Sharif, que chegou ao poder em junho, de controlar a insurgência ligada ao Taleban e à Al-Qaeda.

Sharif condenou o atentado. " Terroristas não têm religião e atingem inocentes, ao contrário do que ensina o Islã e todas as religiões", disse por meio de nota. "Atos cruéis refletem a brutalidade e a desumanidade dos terroristas."

Os homens-bomba atacaram a histórica Igreja de Todos os Santos, na cidade de Peshawar, no momento em que centenas de paroquianos saíam do prédio após a missa de domingo. "Eu ouvi duas explosões. As pessoas começaram a correr. Restos humanos estavam espalhados por toda a igreja", disse uma cristã, que se identificou apenas como Margrette. A religião é professada por quase 5% da população do Paquistão, de 180 milhões de pessoas.

Segundo o comissário de polícia da cidade, Muhammad Ali, dois suicidas atacaram a saída da missa. De acordo com o policial, geralmente os fiéis são orientados a se dispersar para evitar ataques. "Enquanto os cristãos se dividiam em grupos menores, um dos suicidas correu contra a multidão. Um policial tentou impedi-lo, mas ele se explodiu", contou Ali. Em outra saída da igreja, houve outra explosão.

Poucas horas depois do atentado, protestos de minorias cristãs eclodiram em Peshawar e outras cidades, como Karachi, Islamabad e Quetta.

Sobreviventes descreveram uma transição instantânea da calma à carnificina. "Eu estava no corredor do prédio da igreja quando a primeira explosão ocorreu", disse Kamran Sadiq, que ficou ferido com estilhaços da explosão. Segundo ele, cerca de 350 pessoas estavam na missa na hora do atentado.

Outros fiéis criticaram a reação da polícia, que não teria feito a segurança adequada do templo, e do governo, que segundo lideranças cristãs teria se engajado numa política de apaziguamento com o Taleban. Nas últimas semanas, Islamabad ordenou a libertação de militantes do grupo para impulsionar as negociações de paz entre o Taleban e o governo do Afeganistão - o grupo atua nos dois países. 

Comentário: O ataque ao Shopping Center no Quênia foi muito bem mais noticiado, mas atacar Igrejas Católicas matando dezenas de pessoas, como no Shopping Center, não é mais notícia, é rotina.

Enquanto o Papa e os Bispos criticarem esses atentados genericamente, sem dar nome e adjetivos exatos aos culpados, que todos sabemos sabemos que é o islamismo, não haverá reação ocidental, só o fim do cristianismo no oriente. 

Do Reinaldo Azevedo

23/08/2013

 às 3:45

Merchandising pró-aborto na novela “Amor à Vida”, da Globo, mente, mistifica, doutrina e demoniza a religião. É um atentado ao bom senso, aos fatos e à educação dos telespectadores. Em uma palavra: vergonhoso!

Estava programada para esta quinta uma manifestação de militantes de esquerda no Congresso Nacional em defesa do controle da mídia. Nem sei se aconteceu. Acompanhei depois o julgamento do mensalão, fiquei estudando o caso da saúde, li sobre as barbaridades na Síria e deixei de lado os pterodáctilos. Escrevi no começo da tarde um post a respeito. Perguntei, então, por que as esquerdas querem tanto controlar essa tal mídia se controlada ela já está. E citei o caso da Globo. Indaguei se havia como a emissora ser mais de esquerda — em qualquer área que se escolha, incluindo as novelas.

Vi há pouco uma cena chocante de “Amor à Vida”. Está inaugurado o merchandising militante pró-aborto. Nunca houve antes nada parecido. Como há no enredo um hospital, lugar preferencial paras as maldades de Félix, o vilão que caiu no gosto popular, eis que, do nada, chega uma paciente com hemorragia. Mobiliza-se o socorro de emergência. Um médico então diz: “Eu não posso atender!”.

A equipe tenta salvar a moça, mas em vão. Ela morre. E começa a discurseira. O médico mais velho diz que ela fez um aborto ilegal, que o procedimento foi malfeito e que a mulher morreu por isso. Vai mais longe: “Infelizmente, essa é uma das principais causas da morte de mulheres no Brasil”. É mentira! É mentira escandalosa! Já chego lá. A enfermeira, com o cadáver ainda à sua frente, quentinho, dispara: “Morte de mulheres pobres, né? Porque as ricas fazem aborto em segurança” (se a fala não é exata, tratou-se de algo ainda mais primitivo). Foi mais longe, dizendo que essas mulheres também são vítimas da miséria e da ignorância. Ainda era pouco. O médico mais velho vai, então, procurar o outro, que havia dito que não poderia fazer o atendimento.

— Por que você não quis atender a paciente?
— Porque ela fez aborto. Isso é contra as leis divinas.
O chefe lhe dá uma carraspana. O rapaz, então, reproduzindo uma caricatura do discurso religioso, emenda:
— Me recuso a atender uma pecadora!
— Você está fora do corpo de residentes deste hospital!

Vergonha
Fiquei com vergonha de assistir à cena.  As peças didáticas de Padre Anchieta para convencer os índios de que sua cultura original estava cheia de demônios eram mais complexas, mais sofisticadas, com  mais nuances. Estou lendo “Sussurros”, de Orlando Figes, sobre a vida cotidiana na URSS de Stálin. O didatismo brucutu dos comunas, nas escolas, contra os reacionários, era mais sutil e nuançado. Prometi a mim mesmo que não vejo a novela nunca mais, nem excepcionalmente, como hoje. Como vocês sabem, de hábito, estou trabalhando a essa hora. E nunca mais verei não porque ofenda as minhas convicções, mas porque ofende a minha inteligência. O merchandising social — a morte de fetos se insere nessa categoria? — tem um compromisso com a verdade.

Principal causa de mortes?

Eu não sei, ou sei, por que os abortistas precisam mentir tanto. Qual é o problema dessa gente com os fatos e os fetos? Até outro dia, os mentirosos contumazes diziam que 200 mil mulheres morriam, por ano, vítimas de aborto. Eleonora Menicucci, a abortista e ex-aborteira que é ministra das Mulheres, chegou a levar esses números a uma reunião da ONU. Em fevereiro de 2012, fiz uma conta com os dados disponíveis, todos oficiais.

Acompanhem.

Em 2010, o Censo do IBGE passou a investigar a ocorrência de óbitos de pessoas que haviam residido como moradoras no domicílio pesquisado. ATENÇÃO! Entre agosto de 2009 e julho de 2010, foram contabilizadas 1.034.418 mortes, sendo 591.252 homens (57,2%) e 443.166 mulheres (42,8%). Houve, pois, 133,4 mortes de homens para cada grupo de 100 óbitos de mulheres.

Vocês começam a se dar conta da estupidez fantasiosa daquele número? Segundo o Mapa da Violência, dos 49.932 homicídios havidos no país em 2010, 4.273 eram mulheres. Muito bem: dados oficiais demonstram que as doenças circulatórias respondem por 27,9% das mortes no Brasil — 123.643 mulheres. Em seguida, vem o câncer, com 13,7% (no caso das mulheres, 60.713). Adiante. Em 2009, morreram no trânsito 37.594 brasileiros — 6.496 eram mulheres. As doenças do aparelho respiratório matam 9,3% dos brasileiros — 41.214 mulheres. As infecciosas e parasitárias levam outros 4,7% (20.828). A lista seria extensa.

Agora eu os convido a um exercício aritmético elementar. Peguemos aquele grupo de 443.166 óbitos de mulheres e subtraiamos as que morreram assassinadas, de doenças circulatórias, câncer, acidentes de trânsito, doenças do aparelho respiratório, infecções (e olhem que não esgotei as causas). Chegamos a este número: 185.999!!!

Já começou a faltar mulher. Ora, para que pudessem morrer 200 mil mulheres vítimas de abortos de risco, é forçoso reconhecer, então, que essas mortes teriam se dado na chamada idade reprodutiva — entre 15 e 49 anos. É mesmo? Ocorre que, segundo o IBGE, 43,9% dos óbitos são de idosos, e 3,4% de crianças com menos de um ano. Então vejam que fabuloso:
Total de mortes de mulheres – 443.166
Idosas mortas – 194.549
Meninas mortas com menos de um ano – 15.067
Sobra – 233.550

Dessas, segundo os delirantes de então, 200 mil teriam morrido em decorrência do aborto — e necessariamente na faixa dos 15 aos 49 anos!!!

Cessou a mentira
Quando desmoralizei, COM NÚMEROS OFICIAIS, a mentira das 200 mil mortes, essa bobagem parou de ser veiculada no país. O doutor que disse aquela besteira na novela, fosse de verdade, seria um mentiroso, um mistificador, um vigarista. Vejam acima as principais causas da morte de mulheres no Brasil, ricas ou pobres. Se a enfermeira histérica faz seu trabalho tão bem quanto pensa, coitados dos pacientes!

Os números reais
O número de mortes maternas, no Brasil, está abaixo de 2.000 por ano! Atenção! Estou me referindo à morte de mulheres em decorrência da gravidez. O aborto, segundo dados do DataSUS, corresponde a 5% dessas mortes, entenderam? Ocorre que esse número inclui tanto o aborto espontâneo como o provocado. Assim:
a: o aborto não é a principal causa da morte de mulheres;
b: o aborto não é nem mesmo a principal causa de morte materna.

Não gosto de merchandising, de nenhuma natureza, comercial, social ou, como é o caso, ideológico. Repugna-me a ideia de que se deve pegar o telespectador distraído para, então, “pimba!”. Sabem por que jamais defenderia a sua proibição? Porque a engenharia legal para isso resultaria, com certeza, em algo ainda pior. Então que permaneça o mal menor — mas que chamo de “mal” ainda assim.

Demonização da religião
Aquele médico que se negou a atender a paciente que chegou morrendo, exibido na novela, não existe. Criou-se uma caricatura para, no fundo, demonizar o discurso religioso. Os índios caracterizados como diabos nas peças de Anchieta, no século XVI, eram personagens mais complexas e verossímeis. Imaginem se alguém formado em medicina se referiria a uma paciente terminal como “pecadora”; se diria a seu chefe que o aborto atenta “contra as leis divinas”. Usa-se, então, o discurso ridículo de um médico para ridicularizar os que se opõem ao aborto por motivos religiosos, o que é um direito num país em que há liberdade de crença.

Há um outro nível de falsificação nessa história. Existem médicos às pencas que são agnósticos, mas que se recusam a praticar o aborto mesmo nos casos em que ele é legalmente permitido. O Código de Ética Médica lhes assegura o direito de alegar objeção de consciência. Nesse caso, sua obrigação é informar a paciente dos seus direitos e encaminhá-la para um colega. “E no caso de não haver quem faça, num rincão do Brasil qualquer?” Assegurado um direito a ser conferido pelo poder público, o estado tem a obrigação de prover os meios. Que se crie, sei lá, uma central nacional, com um número de telefone, para ocorrências dessa natureza e garantia de atendimento.

Uma coisa é certa: obrigar um médico a fazer um procedimento que viola a sua consciência seria um absurdo. Mas há uma pressão nesse sentido. Que eu saiba, nem os cubanos poderão se encarregar da tarefa…  A novela entrou de forma grosseira nessa questão. “Amor à Vida” faz proselitismo em favor da adoção de crianças por gays e levou ao ar, nesta quinta, essa cena patética, mentirosa e patrulheira, sobre aborto. No Globo Repórter, a gente aprendeu que só uma família deve ser chata: a que tem papai e mamãe. Dia desses, um programa discutia a descriminação das drogas na base de quatro (a favor) a um (contra). Certamente não reproduz os percentuais que estão na sociedade.

E os pterodáctilos ainda querem fazer o controle social da mídia, muito especialmente da Globo, acusando-a, imaginem só!, de ser conservadora, reacionária. Pois é! Com todo o suposto conservadorismo e reacionarismo, um “médico” foi demitido. Deus nos livre da versão progressista. O coitado teria sido fuzilado em nome do povo e da vida.

Pode não parecer, eu sei, mas o que se viu em “Amor à Vida” foi uma manifestação absurda de intolerância. Intolerância com a divergência (os que se opõem ao aborto — e que, curiosamente, são maioria absoluta no Brasil) e intolerância com a religião, reduzida a uma patética caricatura. Deus nos livre da intolerância dos tolerantes! Sabem ser obscurantistas em nome das luzes.

Finalmente
A militância pró-aborto não tente tomar de assalto a área de comentários. Será inútil. E não porque eu me oponha à descriminação, mas porque este texto não propõe um debate de mérito. Admito, sim, uma contestação: quero que provem que os dados com os quais trabalho são falsos. Mas têm de provar. Não basta apenas repudiá-los porque eles desmontam as teses pró-aborto. Eu estou é contestando uma mentira transmitida a milhões de brasileiros.

CORREÇÃOUm colega da VEJA.com me alertou — e, depois, constatei que leitores já haviam me advertido nos comentários — que, em vez de “Amor à Vida”, chamei a novela das 21h de “Páginas da Vida”. Já fiz a correção. Não era telespectador habitual do que nunca mais verei nem ocasionalmente. E, fico sabendo, já houve uma com aquele nome, o que pode explicar a confusão. Mas também pode ser algum mecanismo de resistência que disparei sem querer. Talvez tenha me negado a aceitar que uma novela chamada “Amor à Vida” faça um proselitismo tão furioso e desinformado em favor do aborto…

Texto publicado originalmente às 23h50 desta quinta

Por Reinaldo Azevedo

Do Blog CaiaFarsa: QUEM VOTOU NO NAZISMO
MAPA N ° 1

Votos nos nazistas
(parte escura)

Votação na Alemanha,
em 1933 .

MAPA N° 2

Áreas católicas
(parte escura)

De acordo com o Censo
de 1934.

Mostra, claramente,que os católicos não votaram 
em Hitler.

Ou seja, as áreas protestantes votaram maciçamente em Hitler e
nos nazistas, ao passo que os católicos, não !!.

Roman Catholics and Immigration in Nineteenth-Century America
Julie Byrne Dept. of Religion, Duke University ©National Humanities Center

The story of Roman Catholicism in the nineteenth century IS the story of immigration. Until about 1845, the Roman Catholic population of the United States was a small minority of mostly English Catholics, who were often quite socially accomplished. But when several years of devastating potato famine led millions of Irish Catholics to flee to the United States in the mid 1840s, the face of American Catholicism began to change drastically and permanently. In the space of fifty years, the Catholic population in the United States suddenly transformed from a tight-knit group of landowning, educated aristocrats into an incredibly diverse mass of urban and rural immigrants who came from many different countries, spoke different languages, held different social statuses, and emphasized different parts of their Catholic heritage.

Many members of other faiths—Jews, Protestants, and even some Muslims, Hindus and Buddhists—arrived in the successive waves of massive immigration to the United States between the 1840s and 1920s. But Catholics from various countries were the most numerous—and the most noticed. In 1850 Catholics made up only five percent of the total U.S. population. By 1906, they made up seventeen percent of the total population (14 million out of 82 million people)—and constituted the single largest religious denomination in the country.

When your students hear the enormity of the demographic and religious shift caused by immigration, they will start to understand why so many American citizens became uneasy about the so-called "Catholic hordes." Change is always difficult, and this was a huge change. Why did things change? Why did so many Catholics come to the United States at this time? Why did the country take them? To answer these questions, you might paint for your students a scene or two of the broad Western-hemisphere trend towards economic and social "modernization." The newly centralized states of Europe and the New World were promoting capital investment in urban industries that disturbed ancient customs of farming, craft labor, and land inheritance. A new managerial "middle class" of clerks and bureaucrats was prospering in the cities, but thousands of peasants were displaced from their land and labor by new farming techniques. The Catholic citizens of Italy, Poland, parts of Germany, and the Eastern European kingdoms of what are now Slovakia and the Czech Repuclic began to cast their eyes towards America. The country had a growing world reputation for democratic ideals and work opportunity. For these peoples, as well as for French Canadian Catholics to the north of the United States and Mexican Catholics to the south, the chance for a new life free of poverty and oppression was too good to pass up. Millions of sons, fathers, and later whole families left behind their former lives and possessions and boarded crowded ships sailing for New York.

America, for its part, docked ship after ship at Ellis Island for both idealistic and practical reasons. It was the American ideal to welcome the foreigner; all the country's founding groups and many of its leading citizens had been, after all, immigrants. The motto on the Statue of Liberty, "Give Me Your Tired, Your Poor," exemplified the strong tie between immigration and freedom in the national imagination. But more practically speaking, America's new industries and booming frontier towns demanded large quantities of cheap labor. So immigration was a benefit to both sides—at least in theory.

To Think

But theory doesn't always translate into the feelings and experiences of real people in real situations. Immigration was supposed to be beneficial to the immigrant and to the country, but it also unleashed many fears, insecurities, and troubles on both sides. It might be a good idea to brainstorm with your students about the positive and negative FEELINGS that both natives and immigrants could have experienced at the time. Let the students imagine and talk about what it might have felt like for the immigrants, who didn't know "the ropes" or in many cases the language. Let them also imagine what it might have felt like for those already living in America, who saw their cities change so quickly: suddenly there was a Catholic church in every neighborhood. Immigration is, of course, still very much a part of the American reality and public debate. Some of your students may be Catholic themselves and may be surprised to hear of the former low status of the "assimilated" religion they know. Some of your students may know of immigration from firsthand experience, being immigrants or children of immigrants themselves. Others may know about immigration from news reports or experiences with neighbors. Don't hesitate to make the connections between the realities and perceptions of Catholicism and immigration then and now. Their experience of the present realities can help them understand the past, and vice versa.

Then, refocus the discussion to make the point that in the nineteenth century, the immigrants' RELIGION, Catholicism, became a focal point for these feelings about immigration on both sides. The immigrants held onto Catholicism for spiritual comfort and group identity. The older Americans blamed Catholicism for the immigrants' "foreign ways." Both sides used Catholicism as a way of resisting the other. How did the immigrants express their feelings through their faith? How did Protestant Americans use Catholicism as a "substitute" for immigration issues?

After several years in America, many Catholic immigrants became sorely disillusioned. "American Dreams" of rich farmland and easy money evaporated in the run-down, neglected quarters of big cities and died during long hours working lowpaying, backbreaking jobs. Yet sooner or later, many families managed to improve their economic situations, through luck, ingenuity, hard work, and—they strongly believed—help from God, the saints, and the Church.

For it was the Catholic Church, more than any other organization, that made a concerted effort to welcome the new Catholic immigrants. Catholic citizens helped them find jobs and homes; sisters (nuns) taught their children English in Catholic schools; priests tried to protect their political interests and shield them from a sometimes hostile Protestant environment; the local church held religious festivals and social events. It is important to stress that for the immigrants, the neighborhood Catholic church was not just a church; it was the focal point of a whole community, a whole way of life. Even if the relationship between the Church and Catholic immigrants was often far from perfect, local parishes provided millions of heartbroken, homesick immigrant men and women the familiar comforts of ritual and belief that gave their world meaning.

Students should know what parts of Catholic ritual and belief set it apart from Protestant Christianity, although it should also be emphasized that there is much more continuity than difference between the two forms of Christianity. Catholic tradition had held for centuries

1. that the institutional Church, with its highly organized hierarchy topped by the pope in Rome, was the sole source of spiritual nurture, divine authority, and final salvation;
2. that the sacraments—religious rituals like the Mass and confession—were the main means of human contact with the divine; and
3. that the saints—who, like Mary, the mother of Jesus, were holy people held up as examples by the Church—could be called upon in prayer to "intercede" for Catholics with the Father and the Son.

The reformers of the Protestant Reformation objected vehemently to these emphases, insisting instead on

1. less hierarchy in church structure,
2. the Bible rather than sacraments as the source of revelation from God, and
3. Jesus himself as the only necessary intercessor with God the Father.

For four centuries Catholics and Protestants had waged real and polemical wars against each other about these and other issues that calcified their mutually antagonistic positions. In the context of nineteenth-century America, where Bible-believing, evangelical Protestants constituted the clear majority, the Catholic minority faith, with its elaborate rituals and statues of the saints, seemed to most people very strange, even "wrong." Of course, for Catholics these were natural and familiar ways to express their faith in God. There was nothing strange about them at all. In fact, they thought Protestants were strange and "wrong."

To Protestants, the immigrants' religion was cause for great consternation. Protestants prided themselves on living in a country founded as a Protestant "light unto the world," as the Puritans put it. They felt threatened that America might soon become a "Catholic" country; they worried that the Catholic religion, with its hierarchies and traditions, had made the immigrants unsuitable for democratic and individualistic America. They even mused whether the Catholics were coming in droves in order to colonize America for the pope! The churches could try to protect the immigrants, but they could do little to counter the prejudice Catholic immigrants faced in "mainstream" America every day. Neighbors called Catholics names, employers refused to promote them, landlords rented them their worst apartments, newspapers blamed them for rising crime rates, and banks refused them loans. A popular national organization, the American Protective Association, was founded specifically to promote anti-Catholicism and other prejudices.

All this because Catholics believed a different Christianity than Protestants? Partly no, and partly yes. On the one hand, anti-Catholicism wasn't all about Catholicism; it was partly about class, too. Many people of the upper classes didn't particularly pay attention to Catholics' religion, but assumed that because the immigrants were poor, foreign, and different, that meant they were also dirty, dangerous, and lazy. Many people of the lower classes assumed the immigrants represented competition for jobs, homes, and social prestige that rightly belonged to them. On the other hand, anti-Catholic prejudice was about religion. For Catholics did become good American citizens—winning political races, organizing labor unions, opening businesses, and founding schools and hospitals. But no matter how hard Catholics strived to prove they were good, upstanding, patriotic American citizens, some Protestants would never accept them, simply because they were Catholic. This instance of naked prejudice may be a hard thing for students concerned about "equality" and "tolerance" to hear. Others may feel more sympathetic towards the Protestants' religious conviction. Again, pointing out the continuities with present-day instances of prejudice would only help to illuminate both.

Given the social stigma of being Catholic, students might naturally wonder why most Catholic people who came to this country remained Catholic. There are several reasons, all of which speak to the very teen-accessible issue of "identity"—how people have it, create it, or change it. One reason Catholics stayed Catholic is that they truly believed that Catholicism was the "right" religion, and converting to Protestantism was simply not an option. Another is that Catholicism was an "alternative," "different" religion in America at the time, and some Catholics wore that "differentness" as a badge of pride or a marker of identity in an unfamiliar environment. Finally, some stayed out of habit and culture. They were Catholics in the Old World, therefore they were Catholics in the New, and that was that.

The American public's resistance to immigration culminated in a series of immigration restriction laws passed in the early 1920s that placed quotas

 on the numbers of people allowed from each foreign country. Quotas for Catholic countries were set so low that Catholic immigration virtually halted by 1924.

Historians Debate

In some ways, the Catholic immigrants of the nineteenth century faced as much conflict within their churches as without. The debate raged between Church leaders about the best strategy to deal with the immigrants—"Americanize" them as quickly as possible, or encourage them to retain their own national language and faith customs as long as they could. The proponents of the first view, called "Americanists," tended to be theological liberals and social progressives who were quite optimistic, in the spirit of the "Gilded Age," about the compatibility between America and the Catholic religion. The advocates of the second view, considered "conservatives," tended to be traditionalists who regarded America's infatuation with the new technology, "materialism," and social reform as a dangerous context for preserving the troubled immigrants' faith. Often the immigrants themselves had their own opinions in the matter, but were caught between warring bishops. Over the long term, both the Americanists and the conservatives "won": the pope pronounced in favor of the conservatives in 1891, but as new generations were born, of course, Catholics became quite "Americanized" as aspects of the Old World devotional culture and theology were gradually left behind and shades of a new, more individualistic and democratic Catholicism appeared.

Scholars of American Catholic history have universally considered immigration by far the most dynamic force in the nineteenth-century American Church, but they continue to debate the issue of "Americanization." The magisterial histories of American Catholicism written successively by John Gilmary Shea, Peter Guilday, and John Tracy Ellis from the 1890s to the 1950s considered "Americanization" a good thing and countered popular perceptions of Catholics' unfitness for America with numerous examples of American Catholic achievement. More recent histories by Jay Dolan and Patrick Carey (1990s) reconsider the merits of "Americanization" in light of contemporary discussions of "Catholic difference" and "multiculturalism." Their work suggests that traditional immigrant Catholicism contributed to changing the definition of "America" from a nation of Anglo-Saxon Protestants to a culture of diversified regions and peoples. They also carefully distinguish between religious styles, political leanings, and social status associated with different ethnic groups within Catholicism; for example, the Irish Catholic political machines in New York were much different than German Catholic sodalities in the Midwest, though both kinds of groups grew out of the immigrant Catholic experience.

Other historians have pointed out that concepts like "Americanization" and "assimilation" assume there was a coherent "American" population, when in fact immigration itself was overshadowed and interimplicated with the great social debates over slavery and, after the Civil War, the so-called "Negro problem"—issues whose very existence proves that a homogeneous "American" population could not be taken for granted (Jenny Franchot, Roads to Rome).

Other studies have taken up the history of African Americans who were themselves Catholics; this minority within a minority persevered with little attention from their Church throughout the period of European immigration (Stephen Ochs, Cyprian Davis). Some historians have found the "differences" between Catholics and Protestants in this period overplayed; both groups, for example, were implicated in a broad cultural concern to establish a "domestic" religion alongside church attendance that emphasized religious commodities in the home and family prayer (Colleen Mcdannell, Ann Taves). Still other historians have painted in great detail the complex social worlds of the immigrant neighborhoods, raising the question whether ordinary immigrant Catholics really noticed or cared about the "mainstream" Protestant world much at all (Robert Orsi).