A CATHOLIC MOMENT IN A PREDOMINANTLY PROTESTANT CITY: THREE STORIES IN THIS MORNING'S AUGUSTA CHRONICLE AND AT THE BOTTOM OF THE BARREL AN EDITORIAL IN THE MACON TELEGRAPH CONTAINING THE NORMAL DRIVIL OF DR. BILL CUMMINGS

Augusta, and I don't have to add the name of the state, has an international reputation for one thing and one thing only the Augusta National and the Masters.

But apart from that, even though its nickname is the Garden City, it is anything but! I love Augusta but it doesn't in any way compare to Savannah or Charleston, cities of similar size.

Augusta is a predominately Bible Belt Protestant town but more diverse and cosmopolitan than most cities in the south its size. It has always had a very strong Catholic minority from the beginning, French to start in the late 1700's and then the Irish beginning in the 1840's.

But because of its large Army post and its university system which includes the states Medical College, people from all over the world live there. It has strong Jewish community, Muslim and Hindu community too with a variety of eastern orthodox too.

But today's Sunday morning paper which I get on line and as it looks in print, has three complete stories on the Catholic Church. I can't help but think this assists us with the new evangelization:

This is above the crease on the front page of the Sunday Morning Paper:

Pope comes home with 12 refugees

Syrians stuck in island camp flown to Vatican

BY NICOLE WINFIELD Associated Press

FILIPPO MONTEFOrTE/ ASSOCIATED PrESS Pope Francis blesses a man at a refugee camp on the Greek island of Lesbos.

PeTRos GiannakouRis/assoCiaTed PRess Pope Francis meets migrants at the Moria refugee camp on the Greek island of Lesbos, where many migrants arrive after finding their way across the Aegean Sea.

ROME — Pope Francis says his gesture is “a drop of water in the sea” of Europe’s migration crisis. Yet for 12 Syrian refugees, the pope’s decision to fly them back to Italy from Greece is an act of kindness that will resonate for the rest of their lives.

“Thanks be to God,” exulted Wafa, the mother of two children who made the trip with her husband Osama, as she arrived in Rome. “I thank the pope for this very human gesture.”

The three Muslim families, including six children, had all fled their homes amid the devastation of Syria’s civil war. They were plucked from a refugee camp on the Greek island of Lesbos, where they have been stranded for weeks. The pope said they were chosen because they had their documents in order, not to make a political point to Europe about the need to better integrate Muslims.

“Their privilege is that they are children of God,” Francis told reporters en route home to Italy after the emotional trip to Lesbos on Saturday.

The Roman Catholic charity Sant’Egidio, which is providing the refugees with preliminary assistance, welcomed them at their headquarters in Rome’s Trastevere neighborhood late Saturday. The mothers were given red roses, and they were applauded as they arrived.

Sant’Egidio released some details about the refugees but didn’t give any of their last names for privacy concerns.

Hasan and Nour, both engineers, and their 2-year-old son fled their home in Zabadani, a mountainous area on the outskirts of the Syrian capital of Damascus that has been heavily bombed. They headed to Turkey and took a boat across the Aegean Sea to Lesbos, like hundreds of thousands before them, hoping to reach Europe. But Austria and several Balkan nations shut their borders to refugees in early March, stranding more than 50,000 people in Greece.

Ramy and Suhila, a couple in their 50s, came from Deir el-Zour, a Syrian city close to the Iraqi border that has been devastated in street-by-street fighting between Islamic State militants and government troops. They arrived in Greece with their three children in February via Turkey. Ramy is a teacher and Suhila a tailor, Sant’Egidio said.

The third family, Osama and Wafa, hail from the Damascus suburb of Zamalka. Their youngest still wakes each night – and even stopped speaking for a time – apparently because of the trauma of the war and the journey to Europe.

They were selected after being identified as vulnerable and deserving of humanitarian protection, and after being interviewed about their hopes for settlement in Europe, said Daniela Pompei, the Sant’Egidio official who helped facilitate the project. She said all 12 had been registered as asylum-seekers in Greece but will now actually make their requests in Italy.

They had all arrived in Lesbos in the past two months, meaning they had lived through the brunt of Syria’s civil war, she said.

Francis said his decision to bring the refugees to Italy was a “purely humanitarian” gesture and not a political act. Speaking on the flight home, Francis said the idea came to him only a week ago from a Vatican official. He said he accepted it “immediately” because it was in keeping with the message of humanity that he wanted to send with his trip to Lesbos.

Francis said the Vatican would take full responsibility for the 12 Syrians.

He cited Mother Teresa in responding to a question about whether his gesture would change the debate about Europe’s migrant crisis.

“It’s a drop of water in the sea. But after this drop, the sea will never be the same,” he said.

This is on page 6 A, the first section of the Augusta Chronicle:

Pope says meeting is not related to politics

BY KEN THOMAS Associated Press

ROME — Pope Francis said his brief encounter Saturday with U.S. presidential candidate Bernie Sanders was a sign of good manners “nothing more,” and hardly evidence of interfering in American politics.

The White House hopeful called it a “real honor” to meet “one of the extraordinary figures” in the world, a kindred spirit on economic inequality, which is a main Sanders’ campaign theme.

“This morning when I left Sen. Sanders was there. … He knew I was leaving at that time and I had the kindness to greet him and his wife and another couple who were with them,” the pope told reporters traveling back with him to the Vatican.

“When I came down, I greeted them, shook their hands and nothing more. This is good manners. It’s called good manners and not getting mixed up in politics. If any one thinks that greeting some one means getting involved in politics, they should see a psychiatrist,” the pope said.

Earlier, Sanders said that he told the pope that he appreciated the message that Francis was sending the world about the need to inject morality and justice into the world economy. Sanders said that was a message he too, has tried to convey.

“We had an opportunity to meet with him this morning,” Sanders said. “It was a real honor for me, for my wife and I to spend some time with him. I think he is one of the extraordinary figures not only in the world today but in modern world history.”

This is in the Editorial Section:

DEFENDING THE INDIVIDUAL

Birth-control case puts a valuable human right on trial

By The Augusta Chronicle Editorial Staff

JacQUELYn MaRtin/aSSociatED pRESS Nuns and their supporters rallied outside the U.S. Supreme Court in Washington, D.C., on March 23 as the court heard arguments to allow birth control in health care plans in the Zubik vs. Burwell case. The Supreme Court seems deeply divided over the arrangement devised by the Obama administration to spare faith-based groups from having to pay for birth control for women covered under their health plans.

The individual is on trial in the U.S. Supreme Court. It just might lose. And that could very well herald the death of the individual and the final triumph of the state.

Under Obamacare, employers are required to arrange for birth control in their health care plans – even if they object on deep religious grounds.

The high court recently heard oral arguments in a challenge to that requirement, in the case called Zubik v. Burwell – but more famously entangling a group of nuns known as the Little Sisters of the Poor.

In essence, the government is arguing that it has a compelling interest to – in other words, it has no other choice but to – force the sisters, the other plaintiffs, and every other religious opponent of killing the unborn to participate in what they con sider to be doing just that.

The government says not only that it has a compelling interest in decreeing universal access to birth control – but also in forcing employers to provide it, so it’s “seamless.”

In short, the government is saying that women can’t be expected to pursue birth control on their own – even if it’s free and provided by another entity. Nope, it has to be employers who arrange for it and fill out any necessary paperwork – in short, participate in it.

Again, why does the government feel it can trample on the religious liberties of objectors? Answer: so that access to birth control is “seamless” – in other words, convenient.

Think about that for a moment. This government is arguing that the convenience of access to birth control trumps the employers’ religious liberties under the Constitution.

And let’s be real, here. Much if not most of birth control is used for recreational sex. And while you may have a constitutional right to that, you do not have a right to force another human being to violate his or her religious conscience by participating in it in any way.

As convenient as that may be.

This is a frightening new low in our republic’s history. This case could signal the end of the individual in America, at least as we’ve known it under the Constitution. The “seamless” convenience of the many outweighs the deeply held religious beliefs of the few? That doesn’t even sound like the America we knew.

What rights does an individual have after that?

“Does the government really have a compelling interest in making sure women can not just get free birth control but get it without so much as filling out any paperwork?” writes Stephanie Slade at Reason magazine. “Is needing to enroll in a separate plan from my employer’s – even if the supplementary plan will be paid for by the government – such an enormous obstacle to my good health as to warrant trampling the religious liberties of the Little Sisters of the Poor and others?”

Pray not.

In essence, the government is arguing that it has a compelling interest to – in other words, it has no other choice but to – force the sisters, the other plaintiffs, and every other religious opponent of killing the unborn to participate in what they consider to be doing just that.

And now, at the very bottom of the barrel, is this in this Sunday morning's editorial section of the Macon Telegraph by the former Catholic and former Catholic priest, Dr. Bill Cummings, still banging that 1960's drum and ideology. He just doesn't get it! But we Maconites gets this drivel from him almost every Sunday!

Are you a Christian?

By Bill Cummings - Sprecial to The Telegraph

 

As a youngster, when one of my little Protestant friends would ask me: "Are you a Christian?" I would hesitate, a bit embarrassed, and then blurt out: "No, I'm a Catholic." Even back then this question made me defensive.

Lately, I got interested in the litmus test many Christians use and now I know why I get defensive. They use this question: "What do you believe?" It doesn't seem to matter what you do -- as long as you believe in the "right things." The right things come from a long list drawn up by a group of 318 bishops in the year 325 AD at the Council of Nicaea, and edited at Constantinople in 381 AD.

You remember: The Christians had split into many different sects, and the emperor needed one religion to impose on his conquered nations; so he forced the bishops to come up with a creed. He didn't care what it said. What he got, he called Christianity. Believing in this list makes you a Christian. OK, maybe it does, but I can't see how it makes you a follower of Christ.

And let's be honest about this title: Jesus was not a Christian, he was a Jew. He was born a Jew, lived in a Jewish family in a Jewish town and died a Jew. Jesus didn't recite the Nicene Creed. Neither did Mary Magdalene or Peter, James or John, or any of the followers of Christ until the year 325 AD. Were they Christians?

I received a beautiful letter from an anonymous person last week who wants to convert me. She outlined her faith in God and Christ but once again, she said nothing about what she does. It was all about what she believed -- the infancy narratives, the atonement theory, the divinity of Christ, the resurrection and ascension etc. Very close, I think, to the words of the Nicene Creed.

But she said nothing about feeding the poor in downtown Macon. Nothing about helping to curb the amount of teenage pregnancies and gang wars and crime in Middle Georgia. Nothing about standing up to our race problems and stopping the prejudice and discrimination that permeates our churches and clubs and businesses like an ever-growing cancer. She said nothing about loving people who are different from us. I don't know, aren't these the kinds of things Christ would be concerned about?

I know that Paul says: "Faith without works" is the road to salvation. (Romans 3:28) But "works" for Paul was the Jewish law, all 613 statements of it. Paul wanted to break away from Judaism and this was his way of saying it (Gal. 2:11). But he certainly didn't tell his converts that all they had to do was "believe" and they could do whatever they wanted -- in fact, just the opposite. His famous statement to the Corinthians (1Cor. 13:2) makes it clear that if he had enough faith to move mountains but didn't love his neighbor, he'd be nothing.

If all it takes to be a Christian is to say: "I believe," both Paul and I want to be something more than that. We want to be followers of a young charismatic Jewish man who captured the hearts of all who watched him "walk the talk." Words like Messiah and Son of Man and Son of God are meaningless to 21st century ears, but words like: "Don't judge others" and "Forgive others" and "Love others" still ring true if we live it. And I think Jesus lived it.

Today, when someone asks me if I'm a Christian, it still puts me on the defensive. It's like being asked if I'm a Republican. Sure, I'm all for lower taxes and less government, but I don't want my political party issuing religious dogma and telling me what I have to believe, so I don't say I'm a Republican.

Or, am I a Democrat? Sure, I want to help the disadvantaged, but I don't want to create a whole society of free-loaders who pay no taxes and live off the largesse of those who do, so I don't say I'm a Democrat.

It's the same thing with this question: "Am I a Christian?" Sure, I think Christianity has done a tremendous amount of salvific things over the ages and still does here in Middle Georgia. I admire the work of the Salvation Army and Loaves and Fishes and Daybreak and most of the other Christian charitable organizations, but I don't condone things like the Medieval Inquisition, the Salem Witch Hunts, and our modern day prejudices and discriminations -- all of which flew and still fly -- under the banner of Christianity.

So, am I a Christian? Not really. I'd rather say I am a follower of Christ.

Read more here: http://www.macon.com/opinion/opn-columns-blogs/article72266967.html#storylink=cpy