If the magic water doesn't solve my problems, I'll blow the place up
Timesofmalta.com reports:
A Maltese university student admitted in court this afternoon that he had sent an e-mail to the administrators of Lourdes Sanctuary in France, threatening to bomb the place, using four bombs.
Francis Cassar, 26 of Naxxar, admitted to sending the e-mail on August 1 this year through a fake hotmail account.
He also admitted to misusing a computer.
Magistrate Joseph Apap Bologna condemned him to a one-year jail term, suspended for two years, and fined him €200.
Informed sources said that Mr Cassar had visited Lourdes with his family earlier this year but felt frustrated that problems within his family had not been resolved.
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SOMEBODY I KNOW emailed from London after reading it:
This is hilarious, but it makes you wonder where these people get their expectations from.
Last night I watched something my friend worked on about emigration from East Africa to Europe. There was scene inside a church where a Baptist preacher was screaming, “Hold up your passports, hold them up! Now shout to the Lord, ‘This passport will get a visa! This passport will not be rejected at immigration!'”.
You think this stuff is crazy… then you remember all the people in your country who’ve had the privilege of 16 years of education and still think Lourdes is going to cure cancer.
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This is actually the first time I read about someone threatening terrorist action against God.
And I thought Fred Phelps was the craziest Christian fundamentalist around. It must take a Maltese person to outdo the world’s crazies.
It is so easy to judge and ridicule from a posh secure position, but one wonders what the position would be if the role is changed.
[Daphne – L-aqwa l-posh, eh, ghax dik toqghod il-Bidnija. Ma, xi dwejjaq ta’ nies.]
I believe Daphne made it clear that she doesn’t believe miracles are performed in Lourdes. So the “role” cannot “be changed”.
Dafne is just jelous of madonna cos madonna makes miracles but witches has only spells.
The Church does not force any of her followers to believe in apparitions – that of Lourdes included.
Hang on…..’posh’ means ‘menatally stable’ now? I’m confused.
Wish I was ‘posh’ too – maybe I’d understand what the hell John Smith (is that his real name?) is on about.
Some of the comments beneath the report are actually crazier than the actions of this troubled man.
Here’s an example:
(In reply to a foreigner’s comment)
“If you just shut up and remember that you are a stranger you will make a better figure indeed. For sure the atheist idea to solve problems…DIVORCE…does neither give a solution. Its an act of faith to go to Lourdes, but sees that the problem is that some people say no to God. Praying does not change the world, for people must also do there part. While I understand his frustration, but looking for help would have been a better idea. ”
http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20110810/local/maltese-admits-to-threatening-to-bomb-lourdes-shrine.379667
To make matters worse, I am informed that he testified that the tour leader (a priest) actually made a pass at his mother.
Phew, that’s some piece of refreshing news!
And we who for these last weeks have been led to believe that all priests are paedophiles and/or pederasts…
There is some hope left for priesthood, after all.
He’s obviously sick.
It’s unhealthy to have unrealistic expectations of Lourdes.
I’ve never been to Lourdes, but isn’t there a sign at the entrance, or maybe some ‘small print’ somewhere, perhaps a legal-cum-divine waiver you have to sign, stating that no legal, or explosive action will be taken should your ‘grazzja’ not be granted?
Oh well……I hope Mr. Cassar at least bought the T-shirt and Madonna-shaped bottle of holy water. But hang on…..would he still have to dump the latter in a bin at the airport on his way back? Maybe THAT’S why he still has family problems.
Why didn’t he make the less expensive trip to Borg in-Nadur?
We need a Maltese version of the clairvoyant octopus. Seething below is a dire need to have our own version of Lourdes, and some seem to be working overtime to make this come about .
I’m temptrd to go in with my tricycle … maybe I’ll come out with a Mercedes.
http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20110809/world/Paedophile-Christian-Brother-jailed.379484
This young man is going through a personal dilemma right now. Mocking him or the religion he has been brought up in is unkind and insensitive.
I think it’s much more insensitive to teach vulnerable people that miracles happen at Lourdes (or anywhere else).
At 26 it is about time he grows up.
I do not believe in a miracle trade system because that opens the door to a god of preferential treatment which then sounds human in all its flaws and fancies .
The Madonna at Borg in-Nadur in Birzebbugia is way better than the one in Lourdes because it speaks and understands Maltese.
I do not care where the Madonna “appears”, but am very worried that Borg in-Nadur is a prime historical and archaeological site. The people who trample these sites for a weekly religious high must be disuaded by Heritage Malta from using this site.
Let us not confuse mental illness with the phenomenon of Lourdes.
I have been to Lourdes twice. I am trained in science and consequently am very sceptical on the subject of miracles.
Both visits had a very positive impression on me for a multitude of reasons which I will not go into since some are of a very personal nature. May I add here that I am a firm believer in a God and in Jesus Christ. I am also a staunch Catholic.
I visited the headquarters of the vast medical set-up in Lourdes and was overawed by the professionalism of the international staff.
I will just submit two figures to try and explain what I mean.
In the past 150 years the Church has officially authenticated just over 60 miracles associated with Lourdes.
The last miracle was confirmed well over 20 years ago. Since then nothing.
The sieve is now very fine indeed. Some of Europe’s most eminent clinicians sit on the board of assessors. They have done so for years.
Lest anyone is under the false impression that in Lourdes miracles are dished out like pastizzi these are the facts.
Yes, miracles do happen at Lourdes rarely; indeed, very rarely.
‘Miracles’ also occur in a ‘non-Lourdes’ secular environment. The medical literature bears testimony to such cases. I myself have seen a man riddled with recurrent tumour and abandoned to his fate inexplicably recover.
60 miracles in 150 years. That’s a very interesting statistic, Anthony.
What I would find even more interesting would be to know what percentage of ‘miracle aspirants’ the 60 represent. In other words – how many sick people hoping for a miracle have visited Lourdes these last 150 years, and what percentage is 60 of that number?
The next step would be to do a similar exercise and determine the percentage of ‘miracles’ in the non-religious hospital context, and compare this figure with what is obtained at Lourdes.
The trouble is that I doubt whether reliable comparable statistics on this subject would be available from general hospitals around the world.
And, of course, to complicate matters further,we will never know how many of the Lourdes visitors were there for a miracle, how many for the experience, and how many for the wine.
But if comparable statistics could be made available, my gut feeling is that there will be no statistically significant difference between the two figures.
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I’m curious. How does one “authenticate” a miracle? I believe all one can reasonably do is declare that there is yet no scientific explanation to account for the phenomenon. A miracle is by definition unscientific, and therefore unprovable.
Of course, if someone were to go on Lourdes, and grow a missing limb, I wouldn’t be so sceptical. But this has never happened.
It has been only in the last 20 years that certain specific technologies REALLY came into the fore. I am talking on the lines of DNA understanding, genome mapping, chemotherapy etc. Does this have anything to do with the lack of miracle confirmations?
What you say must certainly be part of the reason for the recent paucity of miracles.
With more sophisticated tools at their disposal, the experts would find a proper scientific explanation for an apparent cure in an ever-increasing proportion of cases.
To reiterate my point. The Church takes the question of miracles (the faithful’s term for scientifically inexplicable events) in Lourdes very seriously indeed.
What I find strange and inexplicable is that all ‘miracles cures’ at Lourdes and other such sites always involve unseen illnesses. For example, there are no cases of amputees growing a new leg or arm overnight. Why would that be?
“misusing a computer” – wow, that’s a catch-all.
How many Maltese individuals does that apply to?
I guess this incident says something about the admission standards of our university nowadays.
Bet the university is very proud to turn out such students.
Off topic, but could not resist.
http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20110810/local/child-s-pushchair-stolen-in-domestic-argument.379662
The kettle calling the pot black. One steals toddler’s pushchairs; the other steals the daddy.
I have worked in some major countries in Africa. The crap I have seen promised by multi millionaire evangelical preachers with homes in all the major first world countries would leave you gobsmacked.
I do not think it is fitting to make fun of Lourdes and there have been miracles recorded. Of course, miracles are exactly that: miracles and hence they happen rarely. As somebody said, it is unhealthy to go to Lourdes with unrealistic expectations though faith does work miracles.
Be that as it may, it is incredible that somebody could actually threaten a terrorist attack on Lourdes because their prayers have not been answered. I think two years in a mental institution would have been more fitting (though, legally speaking, the magistrate was perfectly correct).
Anyone can record miracles. Proving miracles is another matter. That has never happened, and never will.
Could more sophisticated and more rigorous scientific methods be the reason that no miracles took place in the last 20 years?
Could the sub plot be that he wanted to eliminate Lourdes so that the faithful will instead come to Angelik`s Borg in-Nadur?
Speaking of Borg in-Nadur – I think it was Daphne who first pointed out that the real agent behind it all is Angelik’s wife. Perhaps the psychiatrist should be watching her and not him.
Though I do suggest that what one needs here is not a man of science but a man of magic tricks, like for example our Vanni Pule.
Vanni (if he is allowed) should take a leaf out of the book of the Amazing Randi ( I think that was his name), a ‘magician’ who exposed many so-called mystics like Uri Geller.
“To one who has faith, no explanation is necessary. To one without faith, no explanation is possible.”
@pat – now that’s what you call blind faith – if explanation is not possible to non-believers why do religious institutions of all denominations spend so much time, effort and euros on proselytizing?
Very much with my tongue in cheek I would reply by saying that they do this in order to make believers out of the people they are speaking to.
Once they achieve this, then no further explaination is required.
PS: please see my reply to Kenneth below.
Seemingly profound but actually bereft of any substance. To see what I mean, apply it to elves (not the PL kind):
To one who has faith in elves, no explanation is necessary. To one without faith in elves, no explanation is possible.
But does it tell us anything about the actual existance of elves?
I think it all boils down to what one understands by “faith”.
I reckon there is “faith” and “blind faith”. A person with blind faith believes in all sorts of things …….even elves. Blind faith seems to be what you are referring to and I would agree with you that this is bereft of substance.
However, “faith” in the sense of a belief in some reality beyond this one, for me at least, does not fall into that category.
I don’t think that anyone can deny that something DID happen at Lourdes all those years ago. Exactly what it was I don’t know…..I’ve read a bit about it but I still feel I haven’t a clue what it was.
Having been there myself all I can say there is a lovely “feeling” to the complex itself.
[Pat – However, “faith” in the sense of a belief in some reality beyond this one, for me at least, does not fall into that category].
I define blind faith as belief in things on which there is no evidence.
[Pat – I don’t think that anyone can deny that something DID happen at Lourdes all those years ago].
I do deny that anything miraculous happened, and so do many others. Apparitions are extraordinary claims that require extraordinary evidence. There simply was no evidence that anything miraculous happened. Hallucinations usually feel very real.
[Pat – Having been there myself all I can say there is a lovely “feeling” to the complex itself].
I’ve never been, but I’m sure Lourdes is beautiful.
I think you need to Google ‘Dan Dennet, Deepity’.
More “Maltese” news:
“Armour was also sentenced to 26 years while a second hit-man, Michael Farrugia, who testified against Moran, pleaded guilty to manslaughter and was jailed in December for four years.” http://news.sky.com/home/strange-news/article/16047236
[Daphne – That’s what happens when you mass-export the underclass and call it emigration. You just send the problem off elsewhere.]
I think that part of the problem lies in the fact that many people say or do things from their computer keyboards that they would never dare say or do in real life.
On a couple of occasions I have found myself re reading some email that I had sent and saying, My God, what was I thinking?
This medium has made it very easy for us to transfer and even build up our emotions and then funnel them through one of its many outlets.
I know because I have done it and if you allow me to say so, Daphne, sometimes when you write unpleasant things about people (I have done it too) I think that the fact that one feels detached from the real world when behind a monitor has something to do with it.
[Daphne – I never write unpleasant things about people. I write true and accurate things about public figures, a necessary function of the press. It is not what I say that is unpleasant, but what they do. And if they don’t like it, tough. You don’t go into public life to be loved, and if you do, then you’re in the wrong business. And something else: the computer keyboard has nothing to do with it. I have absolutely no sense of detachment and, as somebody who has written for public consumption for around 25 years (and an opinion column for 21 of them) I am hardly comparable to somebody whose only writing is firing off anonymous comments or signed emails. To put it bluntly, I actually know what I am doing. I am exactly the same in real life, as people who have crossed me or got on my wick once too often, or who love the sound of their own voices and their insufferable endless opinions at dinner parties, have discovered.]
Ok you are different from the rest of us. But my main argument is that this young man was not thinking clearly when he sent that email. He might have felt detached from what he was doing. It was still wrong, mind you.
[Daphne – Are men who stab their ex 50 times in a mad frenzy thinking clearly? Obviously not. But they still go to prison for life.]
The internet is probably one of the most important technological inventions of the last century or so. I would say even more important than space travel and atomic fission.
This invention descended upon us in a way that most if not all of us were not biologically and psychologically prepared for. My argument is that many people say and do things on the internet that they would never do in real life because evolution has not prepared us for this sort of interaction.
The detachment that I am speaking of has nothing to do with the man who stabbed his partner 50 times. This is the sort of detachment which even clear headed people may feel.
And yes, you do sometimes say unpleasant things which need not be said and which have nothing to do with the main thrust of your argument.
Need I give examples? You don’t do this to people in public life only but also to people who who you choose to pick upon because you feel that they have slighted you.
I understand your argument that you want to keep your blog popular but If I were in your position I don’t think I’d choose to be so wicked (a word that you used to describe yourself or your writing).
[Daphne – As I often say in another context, dery, better the wife who greets you with a deserved harsh word after working all day than the wife who greets you with a smile and supper after spending the day screwing her tennis coach. The same applies here. Maltese culture is rooted in private and well-concealed nastiness and malice and public ‘niceness’. Count me out.]
Condemmed to a one-year jail term, suspended for two years, and fined €200 – for making a terrorist threat to a religious institution.
Do I sense a mood of forgiveness here? Methinks the sentance would have been (and should have been) much worse if the threat was made to some other institution. I wonder what a French court would have done if this act was committed from a PC in France.
Forgiveness? Not at all. Here’s a similar (though not exact) case for comparison:
http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20110128/local/bomb-threat.347501
Here’s something interesting and topical:
http://www.timesofmalta.com/articles/view/20080911/world/no-new-lourdes-miracles-despite-eased-criteria.224401
To those who passed through terrible moments in life to those who are going through them now, Lourdes perhaps is a link to hope.
Medicine has made great advances but is still far off from having a disease free society and definitely death will never be conquered. It is part of the ordinary course of life.
Frank Sinatra went on record as saying: ‘that the idea of Death was a constant pain in his ass’.
Social malaise is also the fruit of a society having nothing to grip to. If we are lucky in life, we do well and go near to people who are suffering rather than passing silly remarks. If anything it would make us feel more luckier than we are.
To create a disease-free society is neither the purpose, nor the function of medicine. Disease is the product of germs and/or genes, so it can never be completely eradicated.
That said, medicine is all we have and all we can hope for. I don’t believe one actually helps people when giving them false hopes, as this case strongly attests.
I believe that the power of Lourdes can cure. I went there and a saw things happen. On the other hand I did not go there expecting them to happen so I was prepared for disappointment.
When I see a man without a limb who goes in the water and comes out complete I would start thinking.
Hail teapot, full of tea, the Lord is with thee; blessed art though amongst ceramic artefacts, and blessed is thine overflow, tea. Holy teapot, container of tea, quench our thirst for miraculous intervention, now and at the hour of the dark tea time of the soul. Amen.
PS otherwise, we break you.
Miracles DO exist, as anyone who saw United beating Bayern in 1999 will testify.
It-talb hu l-akbar poter f’id il-bniedem.