The
Order has entered the twenty-first century, some one thousand seven hundred
years after its legendary foundation, with renewed vigour and sense of purpose.
Its real birth occurred at a time of extraordinary tension across Europe,
fomented by the loss of Constantinople and the Protestant reformation; yet what
inspired the Order’s founders and early supporters was a commitment to free
Christendom from the shackles of oppression. Today in a world dominated by secular
concerns, a deeply anti-religious spirit has developed in the western
democracies. This may, in part, be attributed to the actions of extremists who
have provided a justification for those whose real agenda is to suppress the
public exercise of all religious practices by eliminating religion entirely
from the school room and workplace. Christians are forced to put their
religious beliefs and conscience aside in order to conform to modern laws that
deny freedom of speech on grounds of equality – yet this same equality is
denied to that large Christian minority whose beliefs are rooted in ancient
teachings and doctrines that Catholics in particular consider immutable.
In
many parts of the world Christians face danger on a daily basis. In Egypt the
Coptic Christians who make up some ten per cent of the population live in
increasing fear of Islam extremist violence; a car bomb was placed outside an
Alexandria church following the 2010-11 New Year’s Eve Mass killing
twenty-three of the faithful and injuring another one hundred. When Pope
Benedict XVI expressed his concerns the apostolic nuncio was informed that he
was no longer welcome and the Egyptian ambassador to the Holy See was
withdrawn. Pakistani Christians have limited employment opportunities and are
regularly targeted with accusations of apostasy or purported insults to the
Koran justifying murder and assaults; refusals to reconvert to Islam may be met
with extreme violence or murder. At Easter 2011 the Catholic church of the
Sacred Heart in Baghdad was damaged by a bomb while the Syrian Catholic cathedral
in the same city was attacked in 2010, killing fifty-three worshippers. Iran,
now dominated by a militant theocracy, has imprisoned Christians accused of
spreading Christianity and being linked to Christian organisations outside the
country. In Bethlehem, the very cradle of Christianity, indigenous Christians
have almost been entirely driven out by hostile activists even though one of
the principal sources of revenue for the small city comes from tourists paying
homage to the birthplace of Jesus Christ. These latter day pilgrims are rarely
aware of the real hostility to their faith and the daily discrimination against
Palestinian Christians. Kazakhstan, which once gave equality to Christians, has
now introduced discriminatory laws whose ultimate aim is intended to force the
Christian community into exile. Nigeria where the Christian and Moslem
populations for long lived in peace together is now suffering from the brutal
excesses of a Moslem fundamentalist insurgency that is ultimately intended to permanently
divide the two communities. In much of the Moslem world history is deliberately
mis-represented in schools and colleges to justify such assaults while
newspapers and blogs claim that a Christian dominated west is engaged in a
campaign to impose Christianity by force.
The
active persecution of Christians is found most commonly where governments pay only
lip service to constitutional or legal requirements to allow freedom of
religion and sometimes actively assist anti-Christian conspiracies. While
adherents of any faith are permitted to build places of worship to celebrate
their faith in the western democracies, in parts of the Middle East no public
expression of Christianity is permitted; even in Kuwait, to whose rescue from
invasion the western powers expended much treasure, is now proposing to
prohibit the construction of new churches. Meanwhile, in the Christian or
nominally Christian west, Moslems and other religious minorities may be
accorded protection for their particular religious practices that are not extended
to Christians on racial equality grounds. This lack of toleration for Christian
beliefs, celebrations and customs has been condemned by moderate Moslem leaders
as well as by leaders of the Jewish and other religious communities. The rights
of both Jews and Moslems are also under attack by the new secularists who are
equally hostile to all faiths but less strident in their criticism of those of
ethnic minorities as they are keen to avoid accusations of racism. In Great
Britain a cross-party group of members of parliament (Christians in Parliament)
has concluded that a lack of religious literacy among judges, politicians and
officials has placed the rights of Christians below those attributed on the
basis of sexual orientation. The United Kingdom “Equality and Human Rights
Commission” according to this report is so infiltrated by those with a strong
anti-Christian bias that its rulings can almost always be relied upon to be
discriminatory when the rights of Christians are in question. Doctors and other
medical personnel are now required to carry out procedures and offer services
which directly contravene the teachings of their faith – any who decline to do
so are struck off and forfeit their careers. A similar pattern has begun to
evolve in other western democracies, particularly those of northern Europe, and
in the United States the first amendment to the constitution has failed to
prevent the government from forcing Catholic and other Christian bodies to pay
for contraception and abortifacients for their employees.
Constantine
the Great’s edict of Milan, which followed the great victory and the vision
that inspired him and the founders of this Order, provided for liberty of
conscience for Christians living within the Roman empire; the governments of
the states that once composed that empire have feebly given in to the vocal demands
of minorities to deny modrn day Christians those same liberties. These noisy
agitators claim that there should be no freedom of religion for those who deny
their demands, and instead insist that their rights supersede those of the
adherents of Catholicism or indeed any other mainstream religious body. Hence
Christians may be prevented from wearing even the smallest outward sign of
their faith (a privilege not yet denied to adherents of other faiths) and may
be forced to abjure traditional teachings on marriage, the sacredness of each
individual and the defence of the lives of the unborn, the elderly and
handicapped. Meanwhile in many parts of the world Christians are actively
persecuted for their faith and converts punished with execution, while the
leaders of western democracies mumble half-hearted condemnations that carry no
sanction for the states that perpetrate these injustices. European governments
are reluctant to intervene on behalf of persecuted Christians living in states
with which they have profitable trading or strategic relationships, even where
national leaders pay token tribute to their countries’ Christian heritage.
The
Constantinian Order is committed to defending the rights and liberties of
Christians and in particular Catholics, whether they suffer from physical
assaults intended to prevent them from practicing their religion or from the
insidious hostility of state officials and fanatical atheists that may cause
them to lose their jobs or lead to prosecution for publicly enunciating their
beliefs. Today the Order is ready to challenge those who encourage or ignore
such betrayal of religious liberty and encourage and support those religious
leaders who selflessly contribute to society by manifesting their faith without
fear of public or media censure.
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