All Saints Day : Pray for Synagogues, Chinese Catholics, Christian Churches, President Trump, and for Lasting Peace Based on Human Freedom

NOVEMBER 1, ALL SAINTS DAY. All Saints Day, also known as All Hallows' Day, or Hallowmas, is a Christian celebration in honor of all the saints from Christian history. In Western Christianity, it is observed on November 1 by the Roman Catholic Church, the Methodist Church, the Lutheran Church, and other Protestant denominations. The Eastern Orthodox Church and associated Eastern Catholic churches observe All Saints Day on the first Sunday following Pentecost. The Christian festival of All Saints Day comes from a conviction that there is a spiritual connection between those in Heaven and on Earth. In Catholic tradition, the holiday honors all those who have passed on to the Kingdom of Heaven. It is a national holiday in numerous historically Catholic countries. In Methodist tradition, All Saints Day relates to giving God earnest gratitude for the lives and deaths of his saints, remembering those who were well-known and not. Additionally, individuals throughout Christian history are celebrated, so that "All Saints Day" annually reminds us of our connectedness as Christians. Who is a saint? You are. That is if you’re a follower of Jesus. God calls a "saint" anyone who trusts in Christ alone for salvation. Sainthood isn't given by a group of religious leaders. It's granted by God Himself to any common, salt-of-the-earth person who has faith and simply trusts Christ (1 Corinthians 1:2). All Saints Day follows right after Halloween, whose name, 'All Hallows Eve," actually points to All Saints Day, also called All Hallows Day. In the early years when the Roman Empire persecuted Christians, so many martyrs died for their faith, that the Church set aside special days to honor them. In 607, Emperor Phocas presented to the pope the beautiful Roman Pantheon temple. The pope removed the statues of Jupiter and the pagan gods and consecrated the Pantheon to "all saints" who had died from Roman persecution in the first three hundred years after Christ. Many bones were brought from other graves and placed in the re-dedicated Pantheon church. Since there were too many martyrs for each to be given a day, they were lumped together into one day. In the next century, All Saints Day was changed by Pope Gregory III to today's date -- November l. People prepared for their celebration with a night of vigil on Hallows' Eve -- Halloween (possibly because of the strong holdover influence of the Celtic Samhain festival which many Christians in Ireland, Britain Scotland and Wales had continued to observe). In the 10th century, Abbot Odela of the Cluny monastery added the next day -- November 2nd -- as "All Souls" Day" to honor not just the martyrs, but all Christians who had died. The 1662 Book of Common Prayer says that the holiday stands for “the unity of Christians of all ages, countries, and races in Christ, and the perfection of that unity in heaven." It dates the holiday back to about A.D. 610 when the Pantheon in Rome, turned into a Christian Church, was dedicated to all saints -- all the faithful. In Europe, on All Saints Day -- Toussaint in French -- people take flowers, especially chrysanthemums, to the graves of their family members in a sign of remembrance. • The world has experienced a lot of turmoil leading up to this year's All Saints Day. • • • POPE FRANCIS AND CHINA. The September 22 agreement between the Holy See and Beijing was intended to normalize the situation of China’s Catholics. The Church in China has been split between the “underground” Church, in full communion with Rome, and the state-run Chinese Patriotic Catholic Association (CPCA), which was not. The Chinese government appointed bishops of the CPCA. The September agreement was designed to unify those groups, by approving a formula through which Pope Francis would approve bishops nominated by Beijing. But, there has been much opposition to the Pope's decision, arguing that the agreement does not reflect the fact that in places where Communists are the ruling party, as in China, they become the persecutors of Christians. • Hong Kong's retired prelate, Cardinal Zen, returned to China from studies in Rome in 1974, and said it had become a “whole nation under slavery,” and cautioned about society forgetting how oppressive the regime was at that time. And while he concedes that the Chinese government has made significant strides in embracing human rights, “you can never have a truly good agreement with a totalitarian regime.” The current iteration of Church leadership does not properly understand the threat Communist governments pose to Catholics, says Cardinal Zen. He praised the work of Cardinal Jozef Tomko, who was the prefect of the Congregation for the Evangelization of Peoples from 1985 until 2002. Tomko, who is from Slovakia, “understood communism, and he was wise,” said Zen. Under Tomko, the Vatican considered only the underground Church in China as the true Church, and that while there were “many good people” in the state-sponsored church, it was “unlawful.” After Tomko’s retirement, however, Zen said things a turn for the worse with the appointment of Cardinal Crescenzio Sepe, who Zen described as “a young Italian with no foreign experience.” Sepe “began legitimizing official Chinese bishops too quickly, too easily,” he said, which created an impression that the Vatican would “automatically” approve of any Bishop appointed by the Chinese government. This continued through Cardinal Ivan Dias, the next prefect, who was a “proponent of détente” with former Soviet states. This mentality carried over into Dias’ view of China and the Chinese Church. • While the exact terms of the agreement between China and the Vatican were not released, Zen is not optimistic about the future of the underground church. While Pope Francis could still “veto” the nomination of a state-approved bishop, “how many times can he do that, really? What good is having the last word when China will have all the words before it,” he asked. He also expressed doubt that the approximately 30 bishops of the underground church will still be permitted to function as bishops if the two churches are reconciled. Since the agreement in September, two CPCA bishops were invited to attend the synod on youth. These men are “known to be close to the Chinese government,” and their attendance at the synod, says Cardinal Zen, is “an insult to the good bishops of China.” • • • ANTI-SEMITISM BLASTS ONTO THE SCENE IN PITTSBURGH. American Thinker's Monica Showalter labeled the mass murderer who opened fire on a Pittsburgh synagogue "an anti-Semite and a rabid Trump hater. Yet that hasn't stopped the left from trying to pin the massacre on Trump as they pin all calamities. Never mind Trump's kind words. Never mind the strong support of him from Israel. Never mind that his favorite daughter is an Orthodox Jew and his three grandchildren are Jewish as well." • Showalter points out that : "Just weeks ago, we watched as former President Bill Clinton and other top Democrats sat there side-by-side in the front row with open and notorious anti-Semite Louis Farrakhan at Aretha Franklin's funeral. I remember writing at the time : 'Seriously, how'd that freak get in there, and why the heck was he seated in the front row, alongside the other so-called leaders of the black 'community,' such as the just barely past the respectable line Jesse Jackson; Al Sharpton; and America's supposed 'first black president,' Bill Clinton? Jewish Republicans have pointed out that not only has Farrakhan been prominent himself in the Democratic Party, the party itself is loaded with people closely tied to him....They include former Nation of Islam employee, Congressman Keith Ellison, who is Deputy Chair of the DNC. Ellison has tried to excuse his 2013 meeting with Farrakhan, while ignoring his more recent meeting with the NOI leader in Farrakhan’s hotel room, in 2015. At least six other Democrats are known to have embraced Farrakhan. These members of Congress -- Maxine Waters, Barbara Lee, Danny Davis, Andre Carson, Gregory Meeks, and Al Green -- have all, while in office, sat down with Farrakhan for personal meetings. There can be no question about how abhorrent it is for these Democrats to be connected to Louis Farrakhan. Farrakhan is first and foremost a preacher of hate. He preaches about Jewish 'control' over the government and media and has claimed to have 'pulled a cover off of that Satanic Jew,' saying 'your time is up, your world is through.' And those were just the comments from last week." • The Daily Caller says : "The man poised to head the Democratic Party was a spokesman for the Nation of Islam well into his 30’s who publicly spewed anti-Semitism and later in life as a Congressional candidate knowingly accepted $50,000 in campaign contributions given and raised by Islamic radicals who openly supported Islamic terrorism and were leaders of front groups for Hamas and the Moslem Brotherhood. And once in office as a Congressman, Keith Ellison more than hinted that 9/11 was an inside job carried out to create pretext for war against Moslems -- a trope often pushed by anti-Semites who claim Israeli or 'Mossad' complicity -- by comparing 9/11 to the Reichstag Fire, the infamous 1933 arson of the German Parliament building, which the Nazis pinned on Communists and thus used to gain majority control of the government and establish Nazi Germany." • Showalter notes that Democrat leaders have smeared Jews, but says : "Now is sneakier but just as bad. We have Linda Sarsour, who still hangs around with Farrakhan like the other Democrats, but promotes a more sophisticated anti-Semitism, designed to rub out the Jewish state of Israel. According to the New York Post : "An example of how that works came last month in Durham, NC, where the city council passed a resolution banning the local police department from taking part in 'military-style training' in Israel. The measure was the result of agitation by Jewish Voice for Peace and its allies in the Black Lives Matter movement. Ostensibly the goal was to push back against a national trend of militarizing law enforcement that is supposedly linked to police shootings of African-Americans. But the real purpose was to score a victory for the BDS movement that would undermine Israel and smear American Jews....Some of these people have apologized when they were caught out, but many, such as Farrakhan, who was last seen calling Jews 'termites' have not. Others, such as Sarsour, who insists her efforts to erase the Jewish state have nothing to do with anti-Semitism, make claims to not being anti-Semitic at all. It's rubbish. We can see what's going on with these efforts to evade responsibility, and carry on with the anti-Semitism unchallenged. And the conclusion is obvious : The left has made itself a fount of anti-Semitism, with all major currents of its poison coming from its direction. Democrats have normalized it, promoted its participants and celebrated its advocates. Now they are trying to pin a hideous massacre by an unhinged monster on Trump. This won't wash." • • • PRESIDENT TRUMP SPEAKS OUT. It was the Canada Free Press's Judi McLeod who reported on Sunday : "Picture President Donald Trump making his way waist-high through a vile and treacherous Swamp, Home Office of the Deep State. Is that a tree stump up ahead, or a camouflaged crocodile lying in wait? You won’t know until what you may have mistaken for a harmless tree stump clamps its teeth into you, getting a grip good enough for the drowning finale. There are many creatures of different stripes who loiter in the Swamp, where so many booby traps lie in wait. In the past three days alone, an alleged maker of pipe bombs media-dubbed the ‘MAGA Bomber,’ owner of a white van they call the ‘TrumpMobile’ -- who purportedly loves Trump -- sent packaged pipe bombs to top Democrats, and an alleged anti-Semitic Synagogue killer, -- who purportedly hates Trump -- struck in Pittsburgh, Pa., killing 11 and wounding another 6." McLeod asks : "Has the world gone haywire overnight, or is something else afoot? There are 9 infernally long days to get through before Midterms with many in the masses out there wondering : 'What’s next?'....a plethora of hate-spewers in the Entertainment industry keep openly wishing him dead; ‘comedians’ have sent pictures of his severed head viral; witches and wizards continue to cast hexes on him, and at the same time news of the so-called MAGA Bomber struck, the New York Times was slammed by the Secret Service for its fictional Trump assassination story, condemning it as 'outrageous' and an 'insult.'....We’ve all seen the endurance characteristics of salacious 'fantasies' like the one written by former British spy Christopher Steele, which even though roundly debunked, is still out there today as the basis of Robert Mueller III’s special counsel investigation into fantasy Russian collusion. Given the growing hostility that surrounds us, this is certainly a suspicious time for what Media Research Center analyst Clay Waters labels 'a Trump assassination fantasy.' " BUT, President Trump continues on his path to Make America Great Again. McLeod says : "It takes real COURAGE for Trump to appear at airport hangars and other public venues for his rallies, where the risk of being targeted runs high. But not a single media outlet is talking about Trump’s remarkable courage, only about how reviled he is by those claiming he’s a 'racist’, 'misogynist', etc. It is courageous for Trump to declare 'We trust in God,' 'We protect the freedom of worship,' 'We believe in the power of prayer' at his latest rally in Murphysboro, IL. at a time when the foes he faces have driven The Almighty out of the Public Square, push the wholesale slaughter of babies through abortion, rob children of their God-Given birthright of gender and who fail to provide safety in school washrooms." You can listen to President Trump's "God...freedom of worship...power of prayer" remarks at the 2:14:20 mark of < https://youtu.be/FX7zgO6FQaI >. • McLeod distills the current situation goign into the mid-term elections : "The Democrats, led by 'Resistance' leader Barack Obama and egged on by the Deep State plants he left behind, are trying to claw back control, while patriots, led by a courageous President Donald Trump, are fighting to get their country back." • And, on this All Saints Day, we can join Judi McLeod in her call : "People of America, and fans of America in the seriously threatened West, pray for President Trump. Pray not just for his safety but for his survival. Ladies and gentlemen of America, Nov. 6 is only days away and your country is calling you!" • • • PRESIDENT TRUMP VOWS TO DEFEND JEWS. Thomas Lifson wrote on Sunday for American Thinker : "I was stunned yesterday watching live coverage of President Trump’s campaign rally in Murphrysboro, Illinois. He said something that may be the strongest statement ever delivered by an American president about the Jewish people. Trump’s enemies expected him to offer some sort of boilerplate denunciation of anti-Semitism, owing to the awful slaughter in Pittsburgh. I am sure many were preparing to dismiss whatever he said, and no doubt some already have (I haven’t bothered looking because they are so predictable). But he said something that electrified me, going far beyond any ritual condemnation to make what struck me as a declaration that the United States is the guarantor of the survival of the Jewish people : "The Jews have endured terrible persecution, and you know that we've all read it: We've studied it. They've gone through a lot and those seeking their destruction...we will seek their destruction." You can watch President Trump's declaration on video at < https://youtu.be/7riALAeGzlw >. • • • DEAR READERS, Lifson says every Jewish Democrat should watch this moment, and "ponder whether the party of Keith Ellison really deserves support. This was no mere boilerplate, it was outright love and a desire to protect....This is a message to not only neo-Nazis, it applies to the Middle East. It is a promise to destroy those who seek to destroy Judaism, and by implication, Israel. Destruction is not mere condemnation, and goes far beyond punishment. It is biblical in scope. History, ancient and modern, is littered with nations an empires that tried to destroy the Jews and which themselves passed from existence, from Egypt and Babylon to Hitler’s Germany. Trump has just promised to add America's might to the continuation of this pattern, almost as God's willing instrument in protecting His Chosen People. This is not a small thing, in my book." • Following the massacre of 11 Jews, and only Jews, at a synagogue in Pittsburgh, the local chapter of Bend the Arc, "the only national Jewish organization focused exclusively on Progressive social change in the US," published an open letter telling President Trump that he is not welcome in the city. The reason, said the letter, is because "for the past three years your [Trump] words and your policies have emboldened a growing white nationalist movement." Here we have the Progressive socialist-marxist Left -- represented by a small faction of the Jewish community -- saying the synagogue killer wasn't an anti-Semite, but rather a white racist who was supposedly empowered by Trump's supposed politics of hate against 'people of color, Moslems, LGBTQ people, and people with disabilities.' Bend the Arc, which seized the opportunity to attack the President, ended up dividing the Pittsburgh Jewish community. The anti-Trump sentiment shared by most American Jews is apparently more powerful than the need for unity. When the same dividing line appeared in Israeli media reactions to the massacre, Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu tried to put a stop to it, tweeting : "Jews were killed in a synagogue. They were killed because they are Jews. The location was chosen because it is a synagogue. We must never forget that. We are one." And, at a memorial vigil for the victims of the Pittsburgh synagogue massacre, Education Minister Naftali Bennett, head of the Jewish Home party, said : “today, we stand in the shadow of death. In the shadow of evil. In the shadow of a cowardly, terror attack on Jews who were in a synagogue to pray. The deadliest antisemitic attack in the history of the United States.” • Netanyahu and Bennett were clearly trying to mend what may turn out to be an unrepairable split in the Jewish world, according to the journal Israel Today. But, states Israel Today : "As in America, Israeli politicians and journalists from the left followed the example of Bend the Arc. The head of the far-left Meretz party, Tamar Zandberg, tweeted : 'Horrifying massacre in Pittsburgh. Strength to the Jewish community. A terrible result of violent hate toward minorities, immigrants and Jews.'....Chemi Shalev, an extreme-left Ha'aretz journalist, went so far as to say that 'unfortunately, their [Israeli government representatives] message of sympathy is being undermined by the shameful effort by Israel’s top diplomats in the US to absolve Donald Trump of any responsibility for fomenting an atmosphere of right-wing hate and, even more outrageously, to implicate antisemitism on the left instead.' This kind of argument prompted political commentator Gadi Taub to tweet what many Israelis think about this attack on Trump and Netanyahu in the name of 11 dead Jews : 'I had to rub my eyes to believe that people are actually arguing that the most friendly administration to Israel since Truman, headed by a President whose daughter converted to Judaism and her husband is his [Trump's] close advisor, that this administration proliferates antisemitism. Wow. Wake me up when the discussion shifts back from the parallel universe.' " • BUT, when all the divisions in the Jewish world are reported and pushed by the Progressive propagandist media as "evidence" that all of Jewry supports the fiction that Trump is anti-Semitic, one thing remains -- the Israeli and the American flags are screened interlocked and moving together in a breeze on the walls of Jerusalem's Old City in solidarity with the victims of the Pittsburgh synagogue shooting. • As for the Catholic Church and Christendom, The Catholic Thing published an article by Father Thomas G. Weinandy on Wednesday that reveals the same schism in the Catholic-Christian world that the media is reporting in the Jewish world. Father Weinandy writes : "A year ago tomorrow I made public a letter that I wrote to Pope Francis expressing my deep concern about the 'chronic confusion' in the Church and the way that his 'seemingly intentional lack of clarity risks sinning against the Holy Spirit.' The Body of Christ presently suffers more than it did then -- and I fear the suffering will become even more intense. Moreover, in the midst of what has been exposed, many commentaries and analyses have been published in newspapers, journals, the Internet, and in blogs, some better than others, but all decrying the present ecclesial situation and often offering ways forward. For me, what is presently most troubling is the vague, uncertain and often seemingly nonchalant ecclesial response to the evil, not only to the grievous sexual misconduct among the clergy and bishops, but also to the scandalous undermining of the doctrinal and moral teaching of Scripture and the Church’s magisterial tradition. Likewise, there appears to be little awareness of or concern for the suffering that this mentality has inflicted upon the Church, especially upon the laity. Significantly and sadly, even if those in authority were to make adequate responses to the evil at hand from this point on, it would not be sufficient to rebuild the trust that has been broken by their past words and actions....Yes, many in high ecclesial positions are good and forthright men, but they are not the ones who are presently being listened to, or making the decisions, or setting the ecclesial tone. I am, nonetheless, hopeful. I am hopeful because I know that many are praying and even fasting for the renewal of faith within the Church. Moreover, I am convinced more now than a year ago, that by exposing all of the evil, the Lord Jesus is in the process of purifying his body, the Church. The present sin within the Church is often terrifying and disheartening to see. It is good for us to keep in mind, however, that the fire of the Holy Spirit may burn, but its burning is unto holiness -- and that is wondrous to behold." • We cannot sit on the sidelines. Every person in the world is being called on to defend freedom -- of religion, of faith, of prayer, of culture, of history. Ronald Reagan said in 1964 in a speech titled A Time for Choosing : "If we lose freedom here, there is no place to escape to. This is the last stand on Earth. And this idea that government is beholden to the people, that it has no other source of power except to sovereign people, is still the newest and most unique idea in all the long history of man's relation to man. This is the issue of this election. Whether we believe in our capacity for self-government or whether we abandon the American revolution and confess that a little intellectual elite in a far-distant capital can plan our lives for us better than we can plan them ourselves. The trouble with our liberal friends is not that they are ignorant, but that they know so much that isn't so." • President Trump said it differently, in Poland in 2017 : "Finally, on both sides of the Atlantic, our citizens are confronted by yet another danger -- one firmly within our control. This danger is invisible to some but familiar to the Poles : the steady creep of government bureaucracy that drains the vitality and wealth of the people. The West became great not because of paperwork and regulations but because people were allowed to chase their dreams and pursue their destinies....This great community of nations has something else in common: In every one of them, it is the people, not the powerful, who have always formed the foundation of freedom and the cornerstone of our defense. The people have been that foundation here in Poland -- as they were right here in Warsaw -- and they were the foundation from the very, very beginning in America. Our citizens did not win freedom together, did not survive horrors together, did not face down evil together, only to lose our freedom to a lack of pride and confidence in our values. We did not and we will not. We will never back down....Our own fight for the West does not begin on the battlefield -- it begins with our minds, our wills, and our souls....Our freedom, our civilization, and our survival depend on these bonds of history, culture, and memory. And today as ever, Poland is in our heart, and its people are in that fight. Just as Poland could not be broken, I declare today for the world to hear that the West will never, ever be broken. Our values will prevail. Our people will thrive. And our civilization will triumph." • Along with the saints you are praying for on this All Saints Day 2018, pray for President Trump, for Jews and synagogues everywhere, for all Christian churches, and for the true peace that can only return when we have put "We the People" back in full charge of ourselves and our governments. As President Reagan told us : "As long as a love of liberty is emblazoned on our hearts, Jefferson lives."