Squeezed in a Hellish Vise

Between terrorist cultists and militant Islamists, the Christians of Africa are having a tough time of it.

A story that broke Tuesday gives details of an attack in Sudan by the crazed followers of Joseph Kony's Lord's Resistance Army in which parishioners at prayer at Our Lady of the Angels Church were abducted and then crucified in various macabre ways.

Marauding bands of guerrillas have crucified seven Christians during a series of raids on villages in Sudan.

One of the men was tied to a tree and mutilated while six other victims were nailed to pieces of wood fastened to the ground and killed.

Villagers who found their bodies near the town of Nzara said it was like a "grotesque crucifixion scene".

Bishop Eduardo Hiiboro Kussala of Tombura-Yambio has now appealed for international help to stop the attacks by members of the Lord's Resistance Army.

He said his government appeared powerless to prevent attacks by members of the guerrilla force based in northern Uganda. He spoke out after a spate of killings and abductions in two towns near the borders of the Central African Republic and the Democratic Republic of Congo.

In one instance guerrillas stormed into Our Lady Queen of Peace church in Ezo during a novena prayer and desecrated the Host, the altar and the building before abducting 17 people mostly in their teens and 20s. One of the captives was later tied to a tree and killed while 13 others in the group are still missing, according to Aid to the Church in Need, a charity helping persecuted Christians.

The terrorists are based in neighboring Uganda. Sudanese Christians have asked their government, controlled by Muslims, for help in repelling the attacks. The help has not been forthcoming.

Which ought to tell you something.

We may not be able to do much, but we can pray for them.

President Obama Gives Advice He Won't Heed

In his recent visit to Africa, specifically Ghana, President Obama exhorted that nation to adopt business friendly policies.

According to the White House transcripts, he said:

No business wants to invest in a place where the government skims 20 percent off the top or the head of the Port Authority is corrupt. No person wants to live in a society where the rule of law gives way to the rule of brutality and bribery. That is not democracy, that is tyranny, even if occasionally you sprinkle an election in there. And now is the time for that style of governance to end.

The federal corporate rate in the United States is 35 percent, one of the highest corporate tax rates among developed nations. The president and his economic team have said the tax should be higher. Why?

There are many who would argue that the takeover of two of the Big Three American auto companies is an example where the "rule of law" gave way to the brutality of unelected bureaucrats and judges establishing new ownership and new rules. I would agree with the president: this is not democracy, it is tyranny, even if we occasionally sprinkle an election.

What is good for Ghana ought to be just as good for the United States, don't you think?

Why Condoms Aren't Africa's AIDS Solution

I get so tired of "bullet point" journalism from the mainstream, such as their coverage of Pope Benedict XVI's current African pilgrimage. So far the media coverage amounts to about one sentence: "... and the pope, in Africa, has condemned the distribution and use of condoms to fight AIDS."

Pope Benedict had much more to say, and if you see the context, you can understand his point.

“I would say that this problem of AIDS cannot be overcome with advertising slogans. If the soul is lacking, if Africans do not help one another, the scourge cannot be resolved by distributing condoms; quite the contrary, we risk worsening the problem. The solution can only come through a twofold commitment: firstly, the humanization of sexuality, in other words a spiritual and human renewal bringing a new way of behaving towards one another; and secondly, true friendship, above all with those who are suffering, a readiness - even through personal sacrifice - to be present with those who suffer. And these are the factors that help and bring visible progress.

“Therefore, I would say that our double effort is to renew the human person internally, to give spiritual and human strength to a way of behaving that is just towards our own body and the other person’s body; and this capacity of suffering with those who suffer, to remain present in trying situations."

But perhaps the language is too complex for simplistic reporters, so let's see if I can put this into simpler terms.

Teaching people to use condoms implies that no other part of their behavior or outlook should change. So you still have men seeking multiple sex partners, and women accepting this behavior because it is part of the traditional culture of Africa. Given that no condom is 100 percent effective in blocking either HIV transmission or pregnancy -- failure rates of even 5 percent are not uncommon -- you may well make the problem worse as people assume they are safe.

When you teach abstinence and fidelity, or at the very least, personal responsibility so that those who are infected adopt a moral code that says "I refuse to infect anyone else," then you begin to change the culture. If the culture is not changed, the culture will die.

I fear the dirty little secret of many "western" reporters is that they don't mind if Africa dies. That is why there is relatively little outcry about the various civil wars and insurrections that take place there. That is why millions were massacred in Rwanda in the early 1990s, and the West stood by and watched. That is why Darfur gets the least amount of real attention possible. Let's face it: most Americans profess to care but would rather ship over a crate of condoms and declare that they've done their part.

I'm glad the Catholic Church, which is experiencing rapid growth in much of that continent, has a strong presence there.