Flowers from my garden

Here are photos of flowers from my garden. They bloomed at different periods during the year. Most of them I chose and planted myself.

It gives me much joy to see these flowers as they are so colourful and beautiful. I like them all but I am particularly proud of my dahlias.


Tulip (April)


Rose (June)


Lily (June - July)



Dahlia (July - September)




The dahlias always look spectacular because of their vigrant colours and distinctive petals.

Papal Infallibility

When Catholics say the Pope is infallible, what do they mean? To many non-Catholics this may seem a pompous and conceited claim. Surely popes are human beings and are thus capable of sinning like the rest of us? Indeed, there have been some popes who have behaved in less than exemplary manner. However, one must not confuse “infallibility” with “impeccability”.

Papal infallibility does not mean that a pope is sinless or he can never be wrong on matters of discipline. What it means is that when he is speaking ex cathedra in his capacity as successor of St Peter on matters of faith and morals, with the assistance of the Holy Spirit, his teachings are without error.

Papal infallibility was debated at the First Vatican Council, summoned by Pius XI in 1869. At the time, when people were demanding greater democracy and freedom, few Catholics rejected out of hand the notion that the Pope might speak infallibly. The question was how, if at all, that should be defined. The text agreed by the cardinals, known as ‘The Roman Pontiff’ read:

“...when he speaks ex cathedra (Latin for ‘from his throne’), that is, when, exercising the office of pastor and teacher of all Christians, he defines...a doctrine concerning faith and morals to be held by the whole Church, through the divine assistance promised to him in Saint Peter, is possessed of that infallibility with which the Divine Redeemer wished his Church to be endowed...and therefore such definitions of the Roman Pontiff are irreformable of themselves, and not from the consent of the Church.”

This is a doctrine which was implicit in the early Church, but the Church's understanding of it developed and became more clearly understood over time. The doctrine is implicit in these Petrine texts: John 21:15–17 ("Feed my sheep . . . "), Luke 22:32 ("I have prayed for you that your faith may not fail"), and Matthew 16:18 ("You are Peter . . . ").

According to the text, there are limits imposed around papal infallibility. Routine papal teaching is not infallible. The pope has to be speaking in a particular and solemn form. No mention is made, however, as to how such a definition should be arrived at. These restrictions have meant that since 1870 only one papal statement has been deemed infallible – the definition of the Virgin Mary’s assumption, body and soul into heaven, made in 1950.

'Devil worshippers' attack church in Pune

Suspected devil worshippers attacked St Mary’s Malankara Catholic Church in Pune’s Warje Malwadi neighbourhood on Monday. Father Varghese Valikodath, who is in charge of the church, said several people “broke into our church in Warje Malwadi in the small hours on Independence Day, vandalized the altar, burnt the tabernacle, as well as tearing up the bible and prayer books.”

Paintings of Jesus, Mary and other saints were defaced, and the words “Satan is God” were written on walls. Robbery is not thought to be a motive as collection money and valuables were not stolen.

According to Father Valikodath, it could be the work of “some devil-worshipping group”. This would not be the first time suspected devil worshippers have attacked a church in India. In 2006 they entered a church in Mizoram and burned bibles, urinated on the pulpit and tore up pictures of Jesus and Mary. They also sacrificed an animal and splattered its blood on the altar.

Such incidences are fuelling suspicion of a rise in Satan worship in some parts of India. According to faculty members of Theological College in Aizawl, Mizoram, youth who are influenced by drugs and inspired by films about the paranormal and the occult practice bizarre rituals.

This is, however, the first incident of its kind involving Pune’s Syro-Malankara community. The local Catholic community have condemned the act. They have also appealed to the state authorities to bring the culprits to justice.

According to AsiaNews, “more than 3,000 attacks have been recorded against Indian churches in the past few years. Last Saturday, the glass protecting an image of Christ in St Anthony’s Catholic Church in Vashicherry, Alapuzha, in Kerala, was also smashed, the second attack this month.”

UK riots: a sign of social decay

The riots that we have seen in Britain over the last few days expose the decay of communities in many big cities across the country. Shocking as they are, they have had a long and steady gestation. All they needed was a spark, combined with a little coordination via social networking media, and they spread like wildfire across the country.

It is rather simplistic to blame the police; they deal with the problems of society, not solve them. Years of dysfunctional families in which the father is often absent, poor educational achievement, emotional and economic insecurity, as well as the constant drip feed of a crass materialistic and hedonistic culture have all had their destructive effects.

Although sanity has returned to the streets, we ignore the deep social problems that have manifested themselves at our peril. Do we really want to live in hermetically sealed communities, relying on an overstretched police force to protect us from the mob, or do we want a fairer and more peaceful society in which there is respect for one another? This is not a time for political point scoring, but to really reflect on what needs to be done to address the underlying problems. Otherwise we may well see a repeat of the wanton destruction and looting we have witnessed recently.

Our Lady of Siluva

During the Reformation, a painting of the Virgin and Child, placed in the first chapel to be built in the Lithuanian town of Siluva in 1457, came under threat when local Calvinist authorities ordered the confiscation of all church property.

The parish priest had other ideas! He believed that Calvinism would be short-lived, so in 1532, he decided to protect their church’s possession and to wait things out. Helped by a parishioner, he hid the title deeds to the chapel site, the vestments, sacred vessels and painting of Our Lady within an iron-bound wooden box, which they buried near a large rock, planning to recover the precious items as soon as it was safe. Calvinism, however, proved to be of longer duration than the priest had anticipated. He died without having a chance to retrieve the precious articles. Eventually only his helper, blind and almost one hundred years old, remembered the little church’s existence.

Apparitions

One day in 1608, in the fields close to Siluva, small children played as their sheep grazed. Suddenly they heard crying. Looking towards a large rock, they saw a strange light surrounding a beautiful young woman and her baby. She sobbed brokenheartedly. As the puzzled children stared, the pair disappeared. The youngsters rushed home to tell the town’s Calvinist pastor and their families what had happened. The pastor accused them of lying, but the children’s parents and neighbours were unsure. They needed to investigate further.

Next morning, the townsfolk gathered around the rock where the children had seen the young woman. There was nothing there...except for one angry pastor. Accusing them of “Romish superstition” and of “following Satanic influences,” he scolded his parishioners – and then stopped in amazement. There, on the rock, just as the children had described, was the young woman with the baby.

The pastor spoke first. “Why are you crying?” he asked. “There was a time when my beloved son was worshipped by my people on this very spot. But now they have given this sacred soil over to the ploughman and the tiller and to the animals for grazing,” she replied, and vanished.

The townspeople decided that the woman and child were Mary and the infant Jesus, coming to recall them to their earlier faith. The site of the apparitions soon became a place of pilgrimage from across Eastern Europe, eventually requiring successively larger churches to accommodate the pilgrims. It is recorded that on the feast of Our Lady’s Birthday, 8 September 1618, more than 11,000 people received Holy Communion.

Rumours of the apparitions eventually reached the blind old man, who asked to be taken to the site. Immediately when he reached the rock his sight returned. He told his story to the amazed townsfolk. No longer blind, he pointed to where he and the priest had buried the wooden chest. The villagers dug and there it was, unharmed, with its contents intact, including the large paining of Our Lady and the Child.

Suppression and revival

In 1795, Russian forces occupied Lithuania and suppressed both religious freedom and the Lithuanian language. Restrictions were relaxed only after an uprising in 1904. Pilgrimages to Siluva resumed in 1905, and during that first year of freedom more than 30,000 people visited the shrine.

During the Communist era, pilgrimages were suppressed and the press forbidden to mention Siluva. Armed police blocked and patrolled the approach roads, banning cars within a radius of four miles of the shrine. The KGB followed vehicles travelling towards the town, fining or arresting their drivers and passengers. Pilgrims risked severe penalties. A Soviet monument replaced the statue of Our Lady in the town centre...and still the people kept coming.

On 8 September 1991, Lithuania was entrusted to the Immaculate Heart of Mary. The Act of Entrustment is preserved at the shrine of Our Lady of Siluva, where on 7 September 1993, during his own pilgrimage, Pope John Paul II prayed.

Russia: government bans abortion ads that don't inform women of the risks

Concerned by the continuing population decline that afflicts the world's largest country, the Duma (the lower house of parliament) has approved a bill according to which, all advertisements relating to practices of abortion must contain warnings about possible risks to the health of women. The draft has passed its third reading last July 1 and now awaits the green light from the Federation Council (Senate) and then its signing - virtually taken for granted – by President Dmitry Medvedev, who has always championed the values of life and family.

According to Russian press reports, it is an amendment to the law on advertising, which states that 10% of the space used to advertise abortion should also inform women about the possible negative consequences such as infertility. "The advertising for abortion should not contain statements on the safety of these health services," reads the text of the bill, released by news agencies. "These ads - said Viktor Zvagelsky, deputy of the ruling party United Russia – lead the young people to believe they will have no problems interrupting a pregnancy”, and he motivates the proposal of the new law with the "depressing" situation of abortions in Russia.

The Federation has one of the highest abortion rates in the world and for time now, experts have been speaking of "a demographic coma". According to figures published by the Duma website, in 2007, there were 1.5 million abortions. The Soviet Union was the first country to legalize abortion in 1920, banned again by Stalin (from 1936 until his death in 1954) interested in encouraging births. For the same purpose, the Communist Party also bestowed awards and money on the most prolific couples, but immediately after the collapse of the USSR the demographic decline has become unstoppable: from 1992 to 2008 the population fell by more than 12 million people to about 143 million. The United Nations estimates that by 2050, Russia will lose a fifth of its population, reaching 116 million. The phenomenon is due to a poor diet that causes heart problems, high rates of alcoholism among men, the spread of HIV / AIDS and the high number of violent deaths.

To combat what Moscow sees as a real war for survival, the government also supports the Orthodox Church which for years has asked for more stringent measures to reduce the number of abortions. According to data from the Russian Social University, the annual abortion rate is far higher than official figures, and in reality is around three to four million.

Source: AsiaNews

Libya: “Humanitarian war” is creating a humanitarian crisis

The irony of this supposedly “humanitarian war” in Libya is that it is creating a humanitarian crisis. This is a farce which is happening with the servile complicity of the mainstream Western media. I am actually quite shocked at how our media and politicians can repeatedly lie to us about what is really happening. Do they expect us to believe that dropping hundreds of bombs will not kill any civilians? That defies logic no matter how accurate or sophisticated these NATO missiles are. Also, do they expect us to believe that Gadhafi has no support in his own country?

A sanitised version of events is clearly being presented by the Western media, as well as Qatar’s Al Jazeera, to keep this war going and justify its goals. NATO has already strayed well beyond its stated objectives of protecting the civilian population of Libya in accordance with UN resolution 1973. France recently admitted it has been secretly arming the Libyan rebels – clearly taking sides and supporting regime change when UN resolution 1973 forbids that. Stories of Gadhafi’s men using Viagra to gang rape women have been denied by Amnesty International.

What is going on is the complete plunder of Libya, a resource rich country that had higher living standards than some European countries before this conflict began. Billions of dollars of Libyan assets have already been seized illegally by the US and the European Union. NATO bombs have not only hit military targets, they have increasingly hit economic ones too like the Libyan Mint which prints dinars; and there has been collateral damage. According to the Libyan Ministry of Health, after the first 100 days of NATO bombing, 6,121 people were either killed or injured. The conflict is also creating a refugee crisis.

If NATO thought they will be seen as liberators by the Libyan people, nothing could be further from the truth. On Friday 17 June one million Libyans marched in Tripoli in support of Gadhafi. That’s a substantial number of people in a country of only 6 million people. Why wasn’t this news covered by the mainstream Western press? There is no national uprising against Gadhafi. Tripolitania - Western Libya - has rallied behind Gadhafi.

Who are the Libyan “rebels”?

So this begs the question, who are the Libyan “rebels” NATO is supporting? They are a motley crew of Al-Qaeda infested mercenaries who have long resented Gadhafi’s control over Cyrenaica (Eastern Libya). African American US congresswoman Cynthia McKinney, who recently visited Libya, was shocked to discover that these "racist" rebels were mercilessly killing and driving out black African migrants. Already gruesome videos of black Africans being lynched by the rebels are circulating on the internet, and yet there’s a silence in the mainstream media about these atrocities.

According to an Eritrean priest, Don Mussie Zerai, President of the Habeshia Agency for the Development Cooperation, 800 Africans were massacred in Misrata alone. He said black Libyans risk an ethnic cleansing action because of the determination against them by Libyans of Arab origin that sympathise with the rebels, who attack them as though they were Gaddafi's mercenaries. He decried the ongoing indifference to this carnage despite previous reports and warned that "hundreds of thousands of Darfur Sudanese," also trapped in Libya, risk "being crushed by this intolerance that is spreading in the territories occupied by the rebels."

Does the West really think the rebels can govern Libya? That would mean the subjugation of Tripolitania and a great deal of bloodshed. The best way out is a ceasefire and a demilitarisation of the conflict. That is what the African Union (AU) want. The AU has already said Gaddafi "can no longer lead Libya", but that does not mean that the AU - unlike NATO – wants regime change straight away. The BRICS prefer the AU approach of a negotiated settlement. NATO just seems to want to keep bombing.

Al Qaeda

As reported in the Telegraph in March, Al Qaeda then issued a call then to its supporters to back the Libyan rebellion. Now that NATO is supporting the Libyan rebels, the United States is allying itself with Al Qaeda linked elements despite spending over $1 trillion dollars trying to fight Al Qaeda over the last ten years – a case of our enemy’s enemy is our best friend. The danger of course is that in the long run such tactics are likely to backfire. I’m inclined to agree with Magdi Allam, a high profile Italian politician and convert to Catholicism, who says:

“The only real certainty is that the Islamists will win and that consequently, the populations of the eastern and southern shores of the Mediterranean will be increasingly submitted to shariah…an outcome exactly the opposite of the official proclamations of Sarkozy and Obama and their excessive use of catchphrases such as ‘freedom’ and ‘democracy.’”