Why Don't Catholic Churches Host Lectures Like These?

I was thinking recently about the many excellent lectures I've attended in the past three or four year in Boston.  I've heard Bat Ye'or, Robert Spencer, Caroline Glick, and now Wafa Sultan and Mark Steyn.  They have all given fascinating, provocative lectures on what's going on in the world, especially the rise in Islamic fundamentalism,  and the threats to Christians, Jews and Muslims by radical Islamists in the Middle East and now South East Asia. Where have I heard all of them speak?  In Jewish temples in the Boston area.   Why don't Catholic churches ever host speakers like these folks?

Where are the lectures about our history, about the persecution of Christians in the modern world, about modern day slavery?  Why do I have to look outside my own church to get information on the plight of the few remaining Christians in the Holy Land?  Instead, we're permanently sidetracked with pedophile priests and parish reorganizations, and now a priest who stalked Conan O'Brien!

Why is it that Pope Benedict and the Vatican cardinals can speak bluntly about the lack of religious freedom in the Middle East and call for freedom of religion in Saudi Arabia, but our Cardinal Sean O'Malley is silent on the subject? 

Why has the Archdiocese of Boston said not one peep about the Islamic Society of Boston (ISB) lawsuit saga, about their new new mosque built with significant Saudi funding and with Saudi trustees?  Does the Archdiocese have any concern that the recent spokesman for the ISB is a former Catholic? Think of the symbolism of that.  Does the Archdiocese really want the only Catholic person seen in the media commenting on the ISB case to be the extravagantly liberal Fr. Raymond Helmick? 

Comments

[jackhammer]

Miss Kelly makes a valid point that Catholic churches should sponsor better and more provocative speakers.

But it is interesting that every speaker she applauds from Bat Ye'or to Mark Steyn loathe Muslims with great passion. Their cartoon caricatures of Muslims and pseudo-historical analyses win approval from people who love the Bush-atollah's war on terror. Their main objection to Bush is that he has not yet attacked Iran and begun the next phase of what their ally Norm Podhoretz calls World War IV.

So to fit Miss Kelly's definition of a good speaker, Catholics may have to sponsor an array of pro-war zealots and Muslim haters. Cardinal O'Malley should resist her pressure to go nasty.

[miss kelly]

Jackhammer, I disagree that any of those speakers "loathe Muslims with great passion." As if. Nor am I recommending that churches bring in people who hate Muslims. These speakers all plainly talk about the threat of radical Islam to everybody, Christians, Jews, Muslims, Bahai, Buddhists- across the board. They, along with many Muslims, are concerned with radical Islamists who are running so many Muslim organizations. Too many people around here are afraid to say so out loud. As one Muslim reader wrote to me recently, "I did not leave Egypt to come here and have goons raise my children."

Please read the post above about the polygamy case in Sharon MA, to what suffering is going on for some Muslim women and children here in MA. Imams in MA are conducting polygamous marriages in secret, apaprently with the approval of the mosque's board of directors. That shouldn't be going on, and we need to call it out and stop it.

But at least you agreed with one thing I said, so thanks!

[Richard Cook]

If 99.99999 percent of the suicide bombers are Muslim..... Jackhammer sound like he or she has lived in a box for the past six years. Without access to the outside world. Care to discuss in a little more detail your allegations?

[Dennis_Mahon]

I wonder if that same disparity--the failure of the Boston hierarchy to make a more pointed approach to Islam's treatment of Christians in the Middle East and the growing push for a global ummah , versus the Pope's bluntness on the subjects--is part of the reason that Boston was left off the Pope's itinerary in his forthcoming visit to the US.

[Jesus]

I don't think that Catholic Churches do not have lectures like these, I think they already have done it before.