Tuesday, April 9, 2013

Devastating cathedral news

In Cairo, Christians are under attack in and around the Coptic cathedral.

In Christchurch, we awake to a different kind of devastating news, the court has ruled that cathedral insurance money should not have been used to build the transitional cathedral.

4 comments:

Andrew Reid said...

Hi Peter,

What an awful day yesterday was! I've posted some more information on my FB feed, but here's an eyewitness account, as well as some particularly blunt analysis of the situation here, highlighting the two key issues:
- Discrimination by govt and society
- Refusal to enforce the law when Christians are attacked.

http://www.acus.org/egyptsource/search-new-prayer-eye-witness-account-cathedral-attack
http://www.dailynewsegypt.com/2013/04/08/morsys-christian-problem/
http://www.dailynewsegypt.com/2013/04/08/please-be-nice/

During the revolution, I found Psalm 55 very helpful in the midst of the violence and strife. Today, I turned to Psalm 56 for my prayers, especially vv 8-9.

"Record my misery;
list my tears on your scroll—
are they not in your record?
Then my enemies will turn back
when I call for help.
By this I will know that God is for me."

Peter Carrell said...

Thank you Andrew!
Egyptian authorities turning a blind eye towards persecution of Christians has been going on for quite a while, as I recall (though maybe more so, until recently, in the provincial cities and smaller towns).

Father Ron Smith said...

Peter, in the scale of things, I find only one of these events to be 'devastating'. The other is surely inconvenient, but not devastating.

What seems amiss, in Christchurch, is the notion of equity in insurance claims. I the insdiurance company is paytng less than would be need to replace or substantially re-build an insured property, why should civil law prevent the insured from applying their insurance payout to their own replacement projects?

After all, if I insure an expensive diamond ring, would I have to guarantee its exact replacement,in order to collect my insurance pay-out?

Something seems wrong, somehow.

Peter Carrell said...

Hi Ron
The judge is not applying civil law re insurance but the cathedral's own trust deed.

It is as though the diamond ring is loaned to you by a family trust and if the ring is damaged you must check the terms of the trust before proceeding to apply the insurance payout to buy your daughter a diamond ring.

(I make no judgement here as to whether the judge is correct or not. I leave that to the appeal court, should we proceed there.)