Mosquée de Draguignan : un Maire exemplaire, à féliciter chaudement.

Par zebulon9 le 16 mai 2008

Max PISELLI maire de Draguignan refuse de se laisser intimider par l’association culturelle musulmane de la Dracénie qui utilise des moyens peu élégants pour forcer la main au conseil municipal et à son maire au sujet de leur projet de mosquée comme l’atteste l’article suivant de Var Matin:

Max Piselli a pris connaissance « avec surprise » de notre article sur l’éventuelle construction d’une mosquée à Draguignan et apporte des éléments de réponse… très réservés.

Dans notre édition du 6 mai, l’association culturelle musulmane de la Dracénie et le conseil régional du culte musulman réclamaient un lieu de culte et culturel digne de ce nom à Draguignan. Selon les dirigeants, dont le président Slimane Hamdaoui, le terrain pourrait être fourni par la mairie et le bâtiment financé par la communauté musulmane.

Seul bémol, si le maire a prêté la MSJ pour la rencontre, il affirme désormais ne pas avoir été tenu au courant du projet de mosquée et dénonce les moyens de pression. Il affirme :

« Je déplore et condamne la pression dont la ville de Draguignan, la seule du Var dans ce cas, fait subitement l’objet de la part de l’Association Culturelle des Musulmans de la Dracénie et de son président. 

Son attitude et ses méthodes ne plaident certainement pas en faveur de la cause qu’il défend. Par ailleurs, je tiens à préciser que contrairement a ce qui est insinué, je n’ai jamais accordé un rendez-vous le 30 mai, à M. Abderrahmane Ghoul (président du Conseil Régional du Culte Musulman PACA) que je ne connais pas et n’ai jamais rencontré. Je rappelle en outre que la ville n’est nullement responsable de la situation actuelle dans laquelle se trouve le culte musulman.

Ses pratiquants se réunissaient jusqu’alors dans un immeuble de la rue Jean Boyer dont le propriétaire n’a pas souhaité renouveler le bail. Je ne vois donc pas pourquoi on rendrait aujourd’hui la mairie responsable de l’absence d’un lieu de culte musulman et surtout pourquoi on la mettrait en demeure de régler ce problème.

Je tiens en conséquence à préciser et éclaircir plusieurs points pour les Dracénois :

1 - La Ville ne dispose pas aujourd’hui d’un terrain de 3 000 m2 à mettre à disposition de quelque culte que ce soit.

Les seuls terrains disponibles sont aujourd’hui destinés à accueillir des équipements publics, d’intérêt général, qu’il n’est pas question de remettre en cause.

2 - Même si la Ville disposait d’un tel terrain, elle ne saurait prendre la décision de l’affecter à un culte sans avoir auparavant procédé à une large consultation de tous les Dracénois.

3 - La loi du 9 décembre 1905 sur la séparation de l’Église et de l’État précise clairement dans son article 2 « La République ne reconnaît, ne salarie, ni ne subventionne aucun culte. En conséquence, à partir du 1er janvier qui suivra la promulgation de la présente loi, seront supprimées des budgets de l’État, des Départements et des Communes, toutes dépenses relatives à l’exercice des cultes. »

Dans son Titre IV, article 19, dernier alinéa, il est clairement précisé concernant les associations pour l’exercice des cultes, qu’elles « ne pourront, sous quelque forme que ce soit, recevoir des subventions de l’État, des Départements ou des Communes. » La pratique religieuse relève, depuis plus d’un siècle maintenant, de la seule conscience privée de chaque individu. La collectivité n’a donc aucune obligation vis-à-vis des confessions religieuses.

Ce principe fondamental de laïcité est profondément ancré dans la société française et assure la cohésion de notre pacte républicain.

4 - Il est tout à fait possible à l’Association Culturelle des Musulmans de la Dracénie de rechercher des solutions dans le secteur privé plutôt que de vouloir forcer la main à la Collectivité publique.

5 - La perspective des élections au sein du Conseil Français du Culte Musulman semble conduire les responsables locaux des différents courants à des surenchères dont le but « électoraliste » n’échappe à personne.

Je pense pour ma part que la question des lieux de cultes pour la pratique de l’Islam doit être abordée avec sérénité et franchise mais pas dans la précipitation et l’intimidation. Elle doit relever d’une politique générale définie par le ministère de l’Intérieur, chargé des Cultes, et non d’initiatives locales dispersées.

Je voudrais ainsi dire au président de l’association, que s’il veut que les Dracénois « n’aient pas peur de l’Islam » comme il le dit, la meilleure façon d’y parvenir n’est sans doute pas de les menacer de manifestations dans la rue, fussent-elles des prières, de nature à troubler l’ordre public.

En Démocratie, si l’on veut être respecté en tant que citoyen d’une minorité, il faut d’abord soi-même faire preuve de respect pour la majorité de ses concitoyens, dans leurs convictions, leurs croyances et leurs lois.

C’est pourquoi, je ne céderai à aucun chantage, mais serai toujours vigilant à faire respecter les lois de la République ».

Source : Var Matin

Het Grote Ongedaan Maken

Als Nederland de koranfilm van Geert Wilders verbiedt dan zal dit verbod één van de meest significante acties zijn in de lange geschiedenis van vrije meningsuiting. Het zal een actie zijn voor Het Grote Ongedaan Maken van het belangrijkste politieke recht dat, gedurende eeuwen, door individuen in de westerse wereld is verworven – een recht zonder welke alle andere rechten wezenlijk zonder betekenis zijn. Het Grote Ongedaan maken in antwoord op bedreigingen van redeloze primitieven.

Als Nederland, of andere NAVO landen (die nu betrokken zijn), vrijheid van meningsuiting niet kan toestaan en deze zelfs de facto zal beëindigen waar het gaat om volstrekt legitieme islamkritiek, dan zal het nu nog Vrije Westen een enorme dreun krijgen. Het zal niet iedereen wat uitmaken of zelfs maar opvallen. Sommigen zullen zichzelf wijsmaken dat deze zogenaamd “rechtse” Wilders juist op zoek is allerlei “moeilijkheden” los te maken door de islam te bekritiseren. Maar wat dan nog? Is het niet beter dat die “moeilijkheden” zich nu openbaren? Het Vrije Westen kan zich, met name binnen de eigen landsgrenzen, nog verdedigen als tenminste het Westen de wezenlijke betekenis en dreiging van islam en jihad weet te herkennen. Anderen zullen iets zeggen als “maar onze militairen in Afghanistan lopen zo nog meer gevaar”. Anderen zullen toevoegen “ja, en ook militairen van andere NAVO landen”. Misschien is dat waar. Toch, als het waar is, dan is het wellicht de NAVO die nog eens goed na zou moeten denken over zijn “missie” in Afghanistan, en wat daar redelijkerwijs haalbaar is.

Misschien kan de NAVO zich nog eens bedenken of het werkelijk wel zo wijs is om mensen te willen “helpen” die maar wat graag moorden naar aanleiding van de simpele weigering van de westerse wereld om de vrijheid van meningsuiting op te schorten in het geval van een 15-minuten durende film uit Nederland. Misschien zou de NAVO moeten nadenken over wat dit ons zegt over de aard van de mensen in Afghanistan, of in enige andere moslimstaat of maatschappij. Mensen waarvan wij met zekere zelfgenoegzaamheid en lichte wanhoop aannemen dat zij niet onze gezworen vijanden zijn, maar die toch grote vijandigheid koesteren tegenover alle niet-moslims van de wereld. En, ja, die vijandigheid kan heel goed bestaan naast de wens om te profiteren van alle voordelen die het Westen overduidelijk biedt, inclusief alle soorten hulp. Deze vijandigheid is zelfs aanwezig bij mensen die naar het Westen migreren. Sterker nog, zelfs zij die zich ontworstelen aan het islamitische juk kunnen doorgaan met het koesteren van diezelfde vijandigheid tegenover niet-moslims. In tegenstelling tot hen die nazisme of communisme hebben ontvlucht, brengen deze migranten, in hun mentale bagage, hoe dan ook de islam met zich mee. Terwijl zekere effecten van de islam – zoals politiek despotisme en economische verlamming – hen juist bewogen heeft om vreselijke oorden te verlaten zoals, zeg, Somalië, Pakistan, of de Maghreb.

De op handen zijnde onderdrukking, door het Westen zelf, van de vrijheid van meningsuiting zal zeer ernstige gevolgen hebben die zich nog heel lang zullen manifesteren. Want als deze ene film in de ban gaat, is het aannemelijk dat andere, gelijksoortige films hetzelfde lot zal treffen. Moslims binnen en buiten Europa zullen steeds meer censuur eisen, inclusief censuur van het geschreven woord. Zij zullen – met hun welbekende triomfalisme – steeds meer concessies eisen om zeker te zijn dat zij zich nooit meer gekwetst hoeven te voelen. En dat niet alleen in hun eigen landen maar ook in het historische centrum van het vrije en ontwikkelde Westen. De consequenties, voor als zij zich beledigd voelen, zullen dan veel ernstiger zijn dan wat het Westen bereid is te dragen. Het hoeft niet om militairen in Afghanistan te gaan. Het kan ook gaan om het opblazen van, zeg, het Vaticaan, het Louvre, of zelfs de complete Amsterdamse grachtengordel. De dreiging kan werkelijk van alles zijn. Doe wat wij willen, onderwerp je aan onze wetten… of anders!

Het moment is nu om ons hiertegen te verzetten. Niet later. Later zal te laat zijn.

Hugh Fitzgerald

Hugh Fitzgerald schrijft op www.jihadwatch.org, oorspronkelijke titel The Great Undoing.

Vertaling: Cornelis de Deugd  

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=0n21t89Zxjk

From the series "Likvidatsiya" (Liquidation):

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=mxwdBiCVFVc&feature=related

Here is the speech Bush delivered at the Knesset yesterday, May 15:

2:55 P.M. (Local) THE PRESIDENT: President Peres and Mr. Prime Minister, Madam Speaker, thank very much for hosting this special session. President Beinish, Leader of the Opposition Netanyahu, Ministers, members of the Knesset, distinguished guests: Shalom. Laura and I are thrilled to be back in Israel. We have been deeply moved by the celebrations of the past two days. And this afternoon, I am honored to stand before one of the world's great democratic assemblies and convey the wishes of the American people with these words: Yom Ha'atzmaut Sameach. (Applause.)

It is a rare privilege for the American President to speak to the Knesset. (Laughter.) Although the Prime Minister told me there is something even rarer -- to have just one person in this chamber speaking at a time. (Laughter.) My only regret is that one of Israel's greatest leaders is not here to share this moment. He is a warrior for the ages, a man of peace, a friend. The prayers of the American people are with Ariel Sharon. (Applause.)

e gather to mark a momentous occasion. Sixty years ago in Tel Aviv, David Ben-Gurion proclaimed Israel's independence, founded on the "natural right of the Jewish people to be masters of their own fate." What followed was more than the establishment of a new country. It was the redemption of an ancient promise given to Abraham and Moses and David -- a homeland for the chosen people Eretz Yisrael.

Eleven minutes later, on the orders of President Harry Truman, the United States was proud to be the first nation to recognize Israel's independence. And on this landmark anniversary, America is proud to be Israel's closest ally and best friend in the world.

The alliance between our governments is unbreakable, yet the source of our friendship runs deeper than any treaty. It is grounded in the shared spirit of our people, the bonds of the Book, the ties of the soul. When William Bradford stepped off the Mayflower in 1620, he quoted the words of Jeremiah: "Come let us declare in Zion the word of God." The founders of my country saw a new promised land and bestowed upon their towns names like Bethlehem and New Canaan. And in time, many Americans became passionate advocates for a Jewish state.

Centuries of suffering and sacrifice would pass before the dream was fulfilled. The Jewish people endured the agony of the pogroms, the tragedy of the Great War, and the horror of the Holocaust -- what Elie Wiesel called "the kingdom of the night." Soulless men took away lives and broke apart families. Yet they could not take away the spirit of the Jewish people, and they could not break the promise of God. (Applause.) When news of Israel's freedom finally arrived, Golda Meir, a fearless woman raised in Wisconsin, could summon only tears. She later said: "For two thousand years we have waited for our deliverance. Now that it is here it is so great and wonderful that it surpasses human words."

The joy of independence was tempered by the outbreak of battle, a struggle that has continued for six decades. Yet in spite of the violence, in defiance of the threats, Israel has built a thriving democracy in the heart of the Holy Land. You have welcomed immigrants from the four corners of the Earth. You have forged a free and modern society based on the love of liberty, a passion for justice, and a respect for human dignity. You have worked tirelessly for peace. You have fought valiantly for freedom.

My country's admiration for Israel does not end there. When Americans look at Israel, we see a pioneer spirit that worked an agricultural miracle and now leads a high-tech revolution. We see world-class universities and a global leader in business and innovation and the arts. We see a resource more valuable than oil or gold: the talent and determination of a free people who refuse to let any obstacle stand in the way of their destiny.

I have been fortunate to see the character of Israel up close. I have touched the Western Wall, seen the sun reflected in the Sea of Galilee, I have prayed at Yad Vashem. And earlier today, I visited Masada, an inspiring monument to courage and sacrifice. At this historic site, Israeli soldiers swear an oath: "Masada shall never fall again." Citizens of Israel: Masada shall never fall again, and America will be at your side.

This anniversary is a time to reflect on the past. It's also an opportunity to look to the future. As we go forward, our alliance will be guided by clear principles -- shared convictions rooted in moral clarity and unswayed by popularity polls or the shifting opinions of international elites.

We believe in the matchless value of every man, woman, and child. So we insist that the people of Israel have the right to a decent, normal, and peaceful life, just like the citizens of every other nation. (Applause.)

We believe that democracy is the only way to ensure human rights. So we consider it a source of shame that the United Nations routinely passes more human rights resolutions against the freest democracy in the Middle East than any other nation in the world. (Applause.)

We believe that religious liberty is fundamental to a civilized society. So we condemn anti-Semitism in all forms -- whether by those who openly question Israel's right to exist, or by others who quietly excuse them.

We believe that free people should strive and sacrifice for peace. So we applaud the courageous choices Israeli's leaders have made. We also believe that nations have a right to defend themselves and that no nation should ever be forced to negotiate with killers pledged to its destruction. (Applause.)

We believe that targeting innocent lives to achieve political objectives is always and everywhere wrong. So we stand together against terror and extremism, and we will never let down our guard or lose our resolve. (Applause.)

The fight against terror and extremism is the defining challenge of our time. It is more than a clash of arms. It is a clash of visions, a great ideological struggle. On the one side are those who defend the ideals of justice and dignity with the power of reason and truth. On the other side are those who pursue a narrow vision of cruelty and control by committing murder, inciting fear, and spreading lies.

This struggle is waged with the technology of the 21st century, but at its core it is an ancient battle between good and evil. The killers claim the mantle of Islam, but they are not religious men. No one who prays to the God of Abraham could strap a suicide vest to an innocent child, or blow up guiltless guests at a Passover Seder, or fly planes into office buildings filled with unsuspecting workers. In truth, the men who carry out these savage acts serve no higher goal than their own desire for power. They accept no God before themselves. And they reserve a special hatred for the most ardent defenders of liberty, including Americans and Israelis.

And that is why the founding charter of Hamas calls for the "elimination" of Israel. And that is why the followers of Hezbollah chant "Death to Israel, Death to America!" That is why Osama bin Laden teaches that "the killing of Jews and Americans is one of the biggest duties." And that is why the President of Iran dreams of returning the Middle East to the Middle Ages and calls for Israel to be wiped off the map.

There are good and decent people who cannot fathom the darkness in these men and try to explain away their words. It's natural, but it is deadly wrong. As witnesses to evil in the past, we carry a solemn responsibility to take these words seriously. Jews and Americans have seen the consequences of disregarding the words of leaders who espouse hatred. And that is a mistake the world must not repeat in the 21st century.

Some seem to believe that we should negotiate with the terrorists and radicals, as if some ingenious argument will persuade them they have been wrong all along. We have heard this foolish delusion before. As Nazi tanks crossed into Poland in 1939, an American senator declared: "Lord, if I could only have talked to Hitler, all this might have been avoided." We have an obligation to call this what it is -- the false comfort of appeasement, which has been repeatedly discredited by history. (Applause.)

Some people suggest if the United States would just break ties with Israel, all our problems in the Middle East would go away. This is a tired argument that buys into the propaganda of the enemies of peace, and America utterly rejects it. Israel's population may be just over 7 million. But when you confront terror and evil, you are 307 million strong, because the United States of America stands with you. (Applause.)

America stands with you in breaking up terrorist networks and denying the extremists sanctuary. America stands with you in firmly opposing Iran's nuclear weapons ambitions. Permitting the world's leading sponsor of terror to possess the world's deadliest weapons would be an unforgivable betrayal for future generations. For the sake of peace, the world must not allow Iran to have a nuclear weapon. (Applause.)

Ultimately, to prevail in this struggle, we must offer an alternative to the ideology of the extremists by extending our vision of justice and tolerance and freedom and hope. These values are the self-evident right of all people, of all religions, in all the world because they are a gift from the Almighty God. Securing these rights is also the surest way to secure peace. Leaders who are accountable to their people will not pursue endless confrontation and bloodshed. Young people with a place in their society and a voice in their future are less likely to search for meaning in radicalism. Societies where citizens can express their conscience and worship their God will not export violence, they will be partners in peace.

The fundamental insight, that freedom yields peace, is the great lesson of the 20th century. Now our task is to apply it to the 21st. Nowhere is this work more urgent than here in the Middle East. We must stand with the reformers working to break the old patterns of tyranny and despair. We must give voice to millions of ordinary people who dream of a better life in a free society. We must confront the moral relativism that views all forms of government as equally acceptable and thereby consigns whole societies to slavery. Above all, we must have faith in our values and ourselves and confidently pursue the expansion of liberty as the path to a peaceful future.

That future will be a dramatic departure from the Middle East of today. So as we mark 60 years from Israel's founding, let us try to envision the region 60 years from now. This vision is not going to arrive easily or overnight; it will encounter violent resistance. But if we and future Presidents and future Knessets maintain our resolve and have faith in our ideals, here is the Middle East that we can see:

Israel will be celebrating the 120th anniversary as one of the world's great democracies, a secure and flourishing homeland for the Jewish people. The Palestinian people will have the homeland they have long dreamed of and deserved -- a democratic state that is governed by law, and respects human rights, and rejects terror. From Cairo to Riyadh to Baghdad and Beirut, people will live in free and independent societies, where a desire for peace is reinforced by ties of diplomacy and tourism and trade. Iran and Syria will be peaceful nations, with today's oppression a distant memory and where people are free to speak their minds and develop their God-given talents. Al Qaeda and Hezbollah and Hamas will be defeated, as Muslims across the region recognize the emptiness of the terrorists' vision and the injustice of their cause.

Overall, the Middle East will be characterized by a new period of tolerance and integration. And this doesn't mean that Israel and its neighbors will be best of friends. But when leaders across the region answer to their people, they will focus their energies on schools and jobs, not on rocket attacks and suicide bombings. With this change, Israel will open a new hopeful chapter in which its people can live a normal life, and the dream of Herzl and the founders of 1948 can be fully and finally realized.

This is a bold vision, and some will say it can never be achieved. But think about what we have witnessed in our own time. When Europe was destroying itself through total war and genocide, it was difficult to envision a continent that six decades later would be free and at peace. When Japanese pilots were flying suicide missions into American battleships, it seemed impossible that six decades later Japan would be a democracy, a lynchpin of security in Asia, and one of America's closest friends. And when waves of refugees arrived here in the desert with nothing, surrounded by hostile armies, it was almost unimaginable that Israel would grow into one of the freest and most successful nations on the earth.

Yet each one of these transformations took place. And a future of transformation is possible in the Middle East, so long as a new generation of leaders has the courage to defeat the enemies of freedom, to make the hard choices necessary for peace, and stand firm on the solid rock of universal values.

Sixty years ago, on the eve of Israel's independence, the last British soldiers departing Jerusalem stopped at a building in the Jewish quarter of the Old. An officer knocked on the door and met a senior rabbi. The officer presented him with a short iron bar -- the key to the Zion Gate -- and said it was the first time in 18 centuries that a key to the gates of Jerusalem had belonged to a Jew. His hands trembling, the rabbi offered a prayer of thanksgiving to God, "Who had granted us life and permitted us to reach this day." Then he turned to the officer, and uttered the words Jews had awaited for so long: "I accept this key in the name of my people." City

Over the past six decades, the Jewish people have established a state that would make that humble rabbi proud. You have raised a modern society in the Promised Land, a light unto the nations that preserves the legacy of Abraham and Isaac and Jacob. And you have built a mighty democracy that will endure forever and can always count on the United States of America to be at your side. God bless.

Bush's speech to The Knesset was excellent.  Would that his policies better reflected the words he uttered, and the sentiments that those words are meant to reflect. But his policies don't, and unfortunately, he has by now become, in much of the world, both fairly (and often unfairly) a dismissable figure of fun.

So imagine someone else saying these words or rather, expressing the same support, the same admiration, but in different words, indeed expressing an even stronger support and admiration, and a dismissal, that Bush did not make, of all the false claims -- historical, legal, and moral, trumped up and repeated so  often that even some who should know better, should not have forgotten what they once knew,  no longer do, and so like the callow ignorant young will have to learn (in some cases, re-learn) the history of Israel, and of its enemies, learning the simplest demographic and cadastral facts, in order to recover attitudes that have been lost under the steady onslaught that the BBC, for example, gives evidence of every day in every way.

Take something like or much better than these words, your own variant depending on whom you are imagining standing in Bush's stead. Take Winston Churchill, or Jacques Ellul, or Eric Hoffer, or Raymond Aron, or Indro Montanelli, or Magdi Allam, or Andrey Sakharov, or Henry Jackson, Oriana Fallaci, or Malcolm Hay, or Pierre van Paassen, or, for that matter (and for this one),  Jorge Luis Borges or Vladimir Nabokov. 

That's a baker's dozen. There are plenty more at a similar level: Dmitri Likhachev. Alain Besancon. Conor Cruise O'Brien. Would you like to be inside that bakery, or would you like to remain standing outside, your mind full of misinformation, your face contorted with viciousness and hate, with Robert Fisk and George Galloway, Noam Chomsky and Pat Buchanan, Ward Churchill and David Duke, Louis Farrakhan and Jean-Marie Le Pen. If you would like inwardly to listen to that still small voice that suggests there is yet another way, a via media, an "on-the-one-hand-this-on-the-other-hand-that" way, tell that still small voice that in this case -- not always, but because of all that has happened, all that is certain to happen because of the promptings of Islam -- that still small seemingly sweet-reasonable little voice that always finds, in the end, that everyone has a point, is quite wrong. There isn't a third way. It's all, or nothing at all.

http://www.youtube.com/watch?v=1NmaX9bmWPU&feature=related

Not everyone on the Financial Times is ignorant of Islam, and therefore of how it explains the  Jihad against Israel. I know of at least one person there who knows what's what about Islam, and some day his time will come.

But whoever wrote this editorial is not one of them, and the piece radiates with the shallow maliciousness that one by now has come to expect, from so many sources, whenever the subject of Israel is treated. The pink-sheeted Financial Times is also heavily dependent on Arab clients for advertising -- Arab banks, multi-page ads for the wonders of Dubai or Qatar or "economic towns" in thrusting Saudi Arabia -- and then there are all those other ads, Strutt-&-Parker stuff, offering a Plantagenet hunting lodge that only a crooked Arab (or, nowadays as well, a crooked Russian) could afford, or a half-timbered Tudor (with all the computer-wiring trimmings) in Virginia Water, or a brand-new pseudo-true oast house in Sevenoaks or, in London itself, flats in Cadogan Gardens with keys to the private park, or...

This is the kind of thing that butters the bread, and molds the minds, at the Financial Times. Money, money, money. Arab money, Arab money, Arab money.

What do you expect?

The first of Dennis Potter's television dramas to be shown  in the United States was "Pennies From Heaven." Few will have forgotten where they were, and with whom they were watching, that first episode, and the first song in that episode, when Arthur (played by Bob Hoskins), hapless and hopeless but full of hopeful schemes and dreams, gets out of bed, where his uncomprehending wife (played by Gemma Craven) stonily remains, goes over to the window, pulls the curtain, looks out, and suddenly starts to sing a song.

Here is that song:

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=R_AQvsPB9n8&feature=related

The song has been misidentified at YouTube as "My Troubles Are Over"; it is, in fact,  "You're Mean To Me":

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=QmyhIV_a5UM&feature=related

And Gaylord's "My Troubles Are Over" can be found identified as "Mean To Me" here"

http://uk.youtube.com/watch?v=d1-wS_Ldt_U

VATICAN CITY - The Vatican's chief astronomer says that believing in aliens does not contradict faith in God.

The Rev. Jose Gabriel Funes, the Jesuit director of the Vatican Observatory, said that the vastness of the universe means it is possible there could be other forms of life outside Earth, even intelligent ones.

In an interview published Tuesday by Vatican newspaper L'Osservatore Romano, Funes said that such a notion "doesn't contradict our faith" because aliens would still be God's creatures."

"...aliens would still be God's creatures."

So those creatures flying around in the ether, their wings attached, are also God's creatures, because He covers the Universal Waterfront.

In that case, the well-known (and increasingly difficult to accept) insistence that "nothing human is alien to me" should be replaced by "nothing alien is alien to me. "

I'm having a little trouble accepting that notion, but I promise to give it the old school try.

"Bomfoggery" is a highly expressive word, not silly at all. I learned it from a friend, a supernumerary in Opus Dei who continues to overlook my little fault of atheism as I overlook his obvious little fault of believing – and how! – in God. Each of us forgives the other his trespasses and awaits patiently the sorting-out at the Last Judgment, and the Last Trump, or whatever it is that comes after Le Grand Trepas. What "bomfoggery" mocks is not the idea or ideal of the "brotherhood of man, fatherhood of God" but rather the hollow invocation of that idea, reduced to a commencement-speech banality.

In the United States, the most famous indulger in Bomfoggery was the priapic plutocrat, and non-Catholic, Nelson Rockefeller. The notion long ago became a fixed formula, thixotropically treacly, the rhetorical maple syrup on the pancakes at the pancake breakfast to which the politician dutifully shows up, amd where he says a few words about This Great Land Of Ours, and about the Brotherhood of Man and the Fatherhood of God, and extends his hand to as many well-wishers as he can reach, asking each of them “hi, how ya doin’” before going in for the but-enough-about-everything-else-what-about-me kill: “I’m X, and I’d like your vote.”