Writer's Block tgh

Thursday, 27 May 2010

Chowk Insults The Prophet

PTA has established a Crisis Cell to monitor all such contents. PTA’s helpline toll free number 0800-55055 and email complaint@pta.gov.pk can be used to notify all similar URLs where such objectionable material is placed.

Khurram A. Mehran, Director (PR)

***

Here is an example of Chowk's freedom of foul speech and zero tolerance for good sense. I request all sensible people to call or email the PTA regarding the anti-Islam filth posted at www.chowk.com

The following is the latest insult ot all Muslims, despite my repeated requests and warnings to Chowk staff:

***

http://www.chowk.com/interacts/17327#455697
#28 Posted by PedoProphet02 on May 23, 2010 9:29:28 am

"Slave-Hussaini, I had a vision about Prophet last night - An Arab looking man in the town of Macca, hair full of lice with a sword in his right hand and an erect penus oozing scum in the left hand; dead men/boys on the ground; him tilling girls and women while offering peace (Salam) to people with an option either to choose sword or penis for the purpose. A bunch of slave girls/womem and boys behind his soldiers being dragged like camels. Do you think it was a good dream or bad?"

Friday, 21 May 2010

Cyber Bans

Cyber terrorism originating from the US and Europe must stop. I recall having McAfee Anti-Virus on my computer and watching with horror, a world map of the sources of such malicious attacks; they came from the so-called centres of the 'New World' and the 'civilized advanced nations' in our direction. Is there a law in place to protect us from these monsters?

Many talk-show hosts, stand-up comedians and their fans love insulting God, His books and the prophets he sent for our guidance. Non-sense must be stopped; freedom of speech does not mean THIS!

It is appalling how those who earlier felt quite amused by the abuse hurled at what is dear to Muslims are now bemoaning the recent FaceBook debacle.

Shameless indeed are those who do not hold owners of such websites responsible for the filth they allow to be published against Muslims. The Pakistan Telecommunication Authority (PTA) knows it all too and has asked the ISPs to block many offensive websites, and perhaps soon the High Court will 'do more' for our saviours in Washing-ton.

Please read '440 Volts Jolt' in the sidebar; my profile says it all. We need to openly condemn all turncoats, collaborators and traitors amongst us and elsewhere whose mission in life is to create unrest leading to wars. The world will not come to an end if there is no FaceBook, Wikipedia, Twitter or YouTube.

Each Muslim who prays sends out an SMS to every other Muslim. Let us see how satanic technology can block this!

NEWS JUST IN:

WASHINGTON: An American cartoonist whose work inspired the controversial “Everybody Draw Muhammed Page” on Facebook has condemned the effort and issued an apology to Muslims. Molly Norris, of Seattle, drew a cartoon in April to protest the decision by the US television channel Comedy Central to cancel an episode of the popular show “South Park” over its depiction of the Prophet Muhammed (PBUH).

In her cartoon, Norris satirically proposed May 20 as an “Everybody Draw Muhammed Day”.

“I apologise to Muslims and ask that this ‘day’ be called off,” the American cartoonist said.

Sunday, 16 May 2010

Bollywood Song Parodies By Tahir Gul Hasan

Saturday, 8 May 2010

Being Economically Dressed In Ukraine

The West always oppresses and taunts Muslim women for covering their faces and sometimes, entire bodies. They obviously never look at modestly dressed Christian nuns; such are the snide moves that the secularists make—not that I advocate that awful full-body battle apparel called ‘Burqa’.

Our women can and do protest but mostly in their feminine hearts. By contrast, the liberated Western women expose themselves to their admirers to sometimes launch completely or partially nude protests in full view of the public. Let us not call their condition ‘nude’ but rather one where they are very economically clad—thanks to this itch to unclothe due to global warming. Their unhappy exposure appears to have some link with the climate change that we are told is taking place all around Al Gore and his pseudo science thugs.

Ukraine is a great country—it is unfortunate that comedian Borat only spanks Kazakistan in his comedy shows (watch his movie: ‘Cultural Learnings of America for Make Benefit Glorious Nation of Kazakhstan’). So what wrong did Ukraine do? They did this. Four young women—very economically dressed from the waist up—forcefully moved into a Ukrainian polling station to hold an unruly protest just before a candidate in the country’s presidential election cast his ballot there. One can imagine the effect that might have had on the poor male voters lined up to—of all the things—push a piece of paper into a barren ballot box.

Photographers are lucky people by a poor deprived person’s standards. An AFP photographer saw the women, members of a small feminist group called ‘Femen’ known for staging eye-catching protests, being hustled out of the Kiev polling station by security guards (let us call them ‘Naked Fight Coordinators’) before candidate Viktor Yanukovich showed up to vote. And poor Viktor Yanukovich missed the entire flesh exposure. I think he might have rejoiced in the fact that it does not matter who castes the votes, what matters is who counts them.

“Enough raping our democracy!” shouted the protesters, who held signs with slogans such as ‘Help! Rape!’ and wore nothing except for jeans and strips of green electrical tape.

Whether pasting green electrical tape on one’s chest or being a Greenpeace activist, anything green is considered good these days—now that the politicians have run out of promises.

When Ukrainian women are so open about politics, one need not worry about the silent men. The women told reporters they were protesting ‘the end of democracy’ in Ukraine and not specifically against Yanukovich or in favour of his rival, Prime Minister Yulia Tymoshenko. We are not told what the men said about the demise of democracy.

Femen, whose members are mostly university students, attracted international attention last summer when it held a protest against Ukraine’s sex tourism trade where activists picketed in central Kiev wearing bras and panties.

If taking one’s clothes off as part of public protest is what they call true democracy and freedom of speech, Pakistan’s debauched elites would love to listen to overt American suggestions while ignoring the calls of all bearded and veiled tyrants.

Bras and panties cover, they hold things together nicely. The reason why Russia broke up into many small countries is that they ran out of red bras and panties that previously held together the Communist political system of the same colour.

Saturday, 1 May 2010

Bill Turns To Stone

Last winter thousands of ethnic Albanians braved low temperatures and a cold wind in Pristina, Kosovo’s capital, to welcome former US president Bill Clinton as he attended the unveiling of an 11-foot statue of himself on a key boulevard that also bears his name.

Clinton is celebrated as a hero by Kosovo’s ethnic Albanian majority for launching NATO’s bombing campaign against Yugoslavia in 1999 that stopped the brutal Serb forces’ crackdown on independence-seeking ethnic Albanians. This is Clinton’s first visit to Kosovo since it declared independence from Serbia last year.

Many waved American, Albanian and Kosovo flags and chanted “USA!” as the former president climbed on top of a podium with his poster in the background that read ‘Kosovo honours a hero’. The statue stood on top of a white-tiled base in the tiny square surrounded by communist-era buildings.

Nations raise statues of great men who are sometimes later blamed for the destruction and plunder of the same lands; the disgusted people then happily spit or beat with shoes the images of the heroes of their past. In recent history, we have witnessed such delightful spectacles in Russia and Iraq.

To name boulevards after sinful Bill is one thing but to erect statues in his tarnished name is paying undeserved homage to Oval Office erections. There was one flaw with the piece of public art: White House intern Monica Lewinsky’s marble lips were not shown attached to a readily excitable part of old Bill’s anatomy.

Even if the sculptures were to be condemned as un-Islamic in Pakistan, we need statues of our semi literate semi great men in public squares because the public needs to vent out its anger on powerless stone demigods.

Sunday, 25 April 2010

TGH Photography Exhibition (DAWN article)

A Professional’s Touch

By Mahnaz Hasan

Capturing the world through the lens is all in a day’s work for a seriously hardworking Lahore amateur

Images have their own language. While the artist, transforms even the mundane into a work of art, the photographer uses images to communicate volumes to you — in a sweeping glance. As was the case during a recent exhibition at the Alliance Francaise, Lahore. Titled, One for the Road it was photographer Tahir Gul Hasan’s first solo exhibition.

Hasan, a self-starter in photography about thirty-five years ago, has refuse to embrace the discipline as a profession. He likes the freedom of being an amateur (Latin for “lover”), who can indulge in his other passions — music, writing and travel. He did, however, study the F/64 giants, the Magnum greats and the Surrealists, but drew his own conclusions and came up with his own perspective. One for the Road was the collection of street photography, which attracts him more than any thing else.

“I am only interested in capturing fragments of the ‘Inner Reality’ when they unfold before me,” explains Hasan. He prefers older equipment to the digital because he believes that “a dose of pain always yields creative gain” — which lends him a margin of creativity with a medium that has inherent limitations.

Tahir Gul Hasan’s exhibition (comprising forty-one exhibits) was a keen observation of the human condition, which he has converted into a story to be told. He appeared to pick out the human element in the spectacular and the sophisticated and present it against a pitch black background that not only lends a strong contrast to the image, but also boldly states his message, be it in the inherent abstraction and purity of black and white photography or in a playful splash of colour depicting interesting subjects.

While the Autumn in Paris, Shadow and its Butterfly and River Gilgit are brilliant examples of nature in its pure glory, the Eiffel Tower Toilettes, Old city/New city and The Wooden Bridge presented the mundane against the sophistication of modern day life.

His abstracts and still-life presentations are simple but beautiful in black and white as well as in colour. Star and Stripes, PIA No: 1, Flower and its Soul and Mad Cow at Ease displayed simple subjects with a fresh perspective, which only an amateur is perhaps capable of.

Hasan’s street portraits were the most interesting. No Jacket Required, Hubble-bubble and Boy in Trouble, Woodcutter’s Children, Lord of the Rings and Parts for Sale are brilliant examples of his rendition of the realities of ordinary existence, where he appears to be smiling at what he has captured — with the eye of a kindred soul.

One for the Road does not overwhelm your senses, as it is an uncluttered but creatively expert presentation of familiar mundane reality that you don’t have to spend hours to understand. The collection at the exhibition, was his favourite bests from his work so far — let’s watch out for more!

Reference:

http://www.dawn.com/weekly/dmag/archive/050320/dmag5.htm

For more on this exhibition, please read 'Pictures In My Mind' by Tahir Gul Hasan

http://writersblocktgh.blogspot.com/2011/07/pictures-in-my-mind.html

Friday, 16 April 2010

Cocaine-Filled 123 Condoms

Switzerland is such a peaceful little country that all the ill-gotten money and gold robbed by dictators and crooks lies in its numbered bank accounts, and they insist on providing full privacy and secrecy to their transactions. Since nothing criminal that is worth reporting ever happens in Switzerland, whenever something does happen, the press never fails to report it.

Recently, the border guards arrested a Nigerian drugs smuggler in Switzerland, with not one or two but 123 condoms stuffed with cocaine weighing 1.7 Kg in his stomach.

A spokesperson for the federal border guards said “the 123 condoms represented the equivalent of a 5.5 metre long string of sausages or 3.5 litres of milk in volume. It’s exceptional because the contents of just one of the condoms could have killed the carrier.”

Now obviously, the man was not dreaming of death when he agreed to do the dastardly deed but rather of life and money. He was among six people in a French-registered car who instead of stop when asked to, jumped a red light to speed past a border post near Geneva. They later received free medical care in the form of X-rays, which revealed that four of them were carrying a total of nearly three Kilograms of cocaine in their stomachs, in five centimetre condom packages coated with a waxy substance.

Two other similar cases were uncovered in Switzerland in the past four months in which nine people were arrested from France and Spain. Swiss border guards recovered all of the swallowed cocaine capsules after several days.

What is this world coming to? People are misusing condoms and using the device for a forbidden pleasure that ranks quite low on an average person’s must-do list: getting high on contraband drugs.

Thursday, 8 April 2010

Sorcerer, Off With Your Head!

I beg God’s pardon if the king of a certain land is going to feel offended reading what I have written here.

In two of my older articles (Segregate Or Die, Fe-Male Without A Male Guardian), I narrated the sorry tales of women who got into trouble with the law; today we shall see how consulting horoscopes (I call them whore-oscopes) and predicting the future can land one straight in jail and beyond.

I have always maintained—in line with what the Qur’an states clearly—that predictions based on the movements of heavenly bodies is both a pseudo-science and a satanic deception. Allow me now to narrate the story of a man who predicted everybody else’s future but was unable to predict his own downfall.

Ali Hussain Sibat, a Lebanese man charged with sorcery, has now been sentenced to death in a certain land where opposing segregation of the sexes and standing up to question the authorities is punishable with death.

‘Sibat is scheduled to be beheaded next Friday’, May El Khansa, Sibat’s attorney told CNN.

Sibat's family came to know about the upcoming execution through an indirect source who knew the case well. So far, the Ministry of Justice has not commented on the matter.

El Khansa has gone as far as appealing to Lebanon's prime minister, Saad Hariri, and president, Michel Suleiman, to have the execution stopped. Amnesty International, the human rights group, has called on that certain country’s king to pardon Sibat.

What exactly did Sibat do? He is the former host of a popular call-in television show that aired on a Beirut-based satellite channel ‘Sheherazade’ and in which he predicted the future and advised his audience on many matters. In May 2008, while he was visiting a certain country to perform Umra (Islamic religious pilgrimage similar to Hajj), the religious police apprehended and charged with sorcery.

Sibat faced the court in November 2009, and which handed him a death sentence. He appealed the verdict in the Court of Appeal because he thought the initial verdict was premature.

Sibat’s attorney told CNN that ‘appeals court then sent the case back to the original court for reconsideration, stipulating that all charges made against Sibat needed to be verified and that he should be given a chance to repent.’

On March 10, the judges upheld their initial death sentence.

‘The court refused the sentence of the appeals court; my client will appeal the verdict once more,’ said Sibat’s attorney.

Let us stop right here and ponder over some questions.

How did Sibat—while living in Lebanon—harm the society of that certain land through his starry predictions?

Did he offend the royalty (Islamic royalty, if you do not mind) by predicting their not so rosy future?

Does the Qur’an stipulate death for sorcerers and blasphemers?

Is it right to arrest and condemn a person performing the Umrah?

Umrah and Hajj allow one to repent; since Sibat had applied to God for forgiveness, is it fair to ask him to repent before that certain land’s court?

And finally, I beg God’s pardon if the king of that certain land is going to feel offended reading what I have written.

May God help the king.

Tuesday, 30 March 2010

Fe-Male Without A Male Guardian

A woman in a certain land, that believes very strongly in segregating men and women, is to be lashed three hundred times and jailed for eighteen months for filing complaints against court officials and appearing in court without a male guardian.

Miss ‘S’ was convicted last month in a court after petitioning the officials and the monarch, over what she alleged was years of abuse by local judicial officials.

On January 25, she was convicted after a month-long trial before two judges, one of whom was a plaintiff in the case and the original target of Miss S’s harassment allegations. The NGOs have asked the higher authorities to quash the verdict.

Life for women is very harsh in such countries where they must wait for their husbands, brothers or fathers to return from work and then drive them to the shopping malls. There the women cannot drive around like they do in Pakistan or other countries that insist on calling themselves Islamic. Police states insist that driving invites sin, going out on foot encourages more sin and looking at strange men does even more of the same. Every action of a citizen has an unequal and opposite reaction. But that is their law and their country—may God have mercy on their religious scholars and rulers.

Three hundred lashes and eighteen months in prison for a woman is very disproportionate punishment. When I read such distrurbing news, I thank God for allowing me to breathe a bit more freely in my own country.

Thursday, 25 March 2010

Spencer Tunick Says, ‘Take Off Your Tunics!’

Very odd things happen in this world in the name of Art, and down-under Australia will not allow itself to lag behind in the race to lose its national face. It took the shamelessness of an American photographer, Spencer Tunick, to look for Australians willing to disrobe on the steps of the Sydney Opera House, all in the name of Art.

All Pakistanis must feel threatened by this skin-terrorism and refuse to remain in awe of all things western. Warlords, drug barons, and paid assassins be damned, a vast number of Pakistanis taken their wealth and children to Australia because the terrifying cows reared by the Taliban are beginning to eat whatever green grass remains on our side.

These days, one can say or do just about anything under the garb of Art. Take for example, sexual openness of European and Hindu temple art, or the peculiar sexual fantasies penned by Marquis de Sade. Over the centuries, many civilizations have remained comfortable with nudity to the extent that they first divided the sole Creator into males and females who did all what humans did, then depicted them in nude and finally worshipped their idols or representations of private parts in public.

Tunick is infamous—or ‘famous’, as they would have one believe—for capturing hundreds of naked people against industrial or urban backgrounds. He now wishes to create a Sydney ‘installation’, involving up to 2,000 nude volunteers. The photo will be called ‘The Base’ and will coincide with the city’s annual gay and lesbian Mardi Gras, which attracts participants and audiences from around the globe.

“In a way, I’m making a base for the structure, a base for the architecture, and by combining straight and gay and lesbian people I’m weaving the different sexes and society together to form this wonderful fabric that holds up this gorgeous building,” Tunick told Australian radio.

The media will listen to anything and then stoop to broadcasting it in the name of freedom of expression, but being free does not mean one must be dumb (free-dumb). God has already clearly spelled out in His revelations what He thinks about the perverts, but the likes of Tunick are hell-bent on having everyone’s tunics come off in public.

Tunick has produced almost 100 ‘installations’ around the world, including one in Melbourne in 2001, and says his ‘work is not about exhibitionism or eroticism, but instead is about the vulnerability of life in a rough city landscape.’

If this mass striptease is not eroticism, what is? If he is so concerned about the ‘vulnerability of life’, he must head for places where humanity loses everything on a daily basis; what is point in remaining glued to rich cities where, at the slightest suggestion, the well dressed are willing to disrobe in public?

My criticism of Tunick may not impress him but even the authorities in the United States remain unimpressed with his argument, where he has been arrested seven times. Perhaps they expect him to include his mother, sister or daughter in one such immodest ‘installation’ to show how vulnerable they are in a rough cityscape.

UPDATE 10 July 2015:
Sea of blue behinds: 1000's of naked bodies gather in Hull for Tunick installation

Friday, 19 March 2010

Segregate Or Die

Some countries are famous for the goods they manufacture and some for the minds they produce. Having great minds around is life’s bonus but to have clerics who are out of their minds is the scourge of Satan.

A prominent cleric, in a not-so-prominent land has issued a ‘fatwa’ (an Islamic religious ruling, a scholarly opinion on a matter of Islamic jurisprudence) calling for opponents of the country’s strict segregation of men and women to be put to death if they refuse to abandon their ideas.

Please let me know clearly within the next twenty-four hours who wishes to emigrate to such a country where citizens lose heads right after the Juma prayers. What is next, I wonder? We might hear that if people did not stop thinking, they would face lethal needles or forced to make themselves uncomfortable on electric chairs.

The cleric said, “The mixing of genders at the workplace or in education, as advocated by modernizers, is prohibited because it allows sight of what is forbidden, and talk between men and women which is again forbidden”.

I think what he meant was that men could not be allowed to ask women answers to difficult questions in an examination hall.

Entertaining thoughts associated with illicit relationships is a separate issue; what God abhors in humans is their secret meetings to go forth to multiply illicitly in motel rooms. I know, more from observation and less through personal experience, that removing such a virus from one’s mental hard drive is an uphill battle, a true ‘jihad’.

Please remember that the strict segregation of men and women is a rule that some of the most unenlightened and backward societies (even by Islamic standards) practise and which is an affront to moderation itself. Of course, I will have to respect that not-so-prominent country’s segregation laws if I were to visit it, but then again, I would probably visit it just to perform obligatory religious ceremonies and then return to the Motherland by the first available flight in order to be within the mixed gathering of my loved ones.

Loved ones need to be visible; they need not cover themselves from head to toe in black overalls in order to show they are pious. Where I live, nobody that I know has ever dared to tease my loved ones because the family’s women are all moderate, neither very fashionable nor the repressed burqa-clad types.

Governments do not have the right to put people to death if they disagree; the people must do away with governments if they lead them to economical ruin. Moderation is not an aberration and to oppose extremely liberal or extremist views is everybody’s right. God has not allowed us to put others to death only because they differ or disagree. One may stop speaking or associating with undesirable persons but must we murder others in the name of misplaced religious views? Religious bigots need admissions to lunatic asylums.

Do all such extremely strict laws produce the desired results? The answer is no. Watch how most Muslim women travellers throw off the repressive ‘burqas’ and ‘chadors’ as soon as their airplanes land at foreign destinations where they wish to mingle with the crowd.

I am happy to live in a country where women have equal rights as road sweepers, brick-baking kiln workers, and as petrol station attendants who fill us all up. Take a drive into any Asian village and you will see women working alongside men; that is how God designed them. Had God wanted all women to hide their faces from men, He might have created Eve as formless and unattractive as an Arctic seal. Imagine the poor animal kingdom’s fate had it also been given, less if not more, sense of privacy and shame, and imagine a world with dogs and cats going about their business with private parts covered with banana leaves. That, of course, would necessitate the existence of animal rights NGOs and Animal United Nations, and dogs would go about murdering men all because men ogled at uncovered bitches.

God has not prescribed for women to be obsessed with hiding their faces and bodies from head to toe—at least not the way the clerics interpret it. Women do tend to fall into the trap laid by high fashion (displaying their charms to excess), and it is this natural shortcoming that they need to tame if the entire globe is not to become a free-sex ‘global village’ inhabited by drooling village idiots.

Who gave the clerics the right to further twist misinterpretations, camouflage their cultural prejudices and force the people to lose their heads over matters that are the peoples’ business and not the state’s? If the clerics feel their women must not be ogled at, they need to ensure the women stay indoors to watch television (if that again is not punishable by death) while the men go about preaching to the converted. We, the modest but modern people, wish to live unfazed by an extremist’s view of what God prescribes.

If one were to implementing the clerical recommendation of putting to death people for minor offences—something not prescribed in the Qur’an—not many would walk with their heads held high on the shoulders. Will it not be best for harsh governments to act less hypocritically by leaving religion out of this equation and declare that all they intend to achieve is reduction in the head-count?

A ‘fatwa’, even if issued by a recognized religious authority, suffers from one snag: Islam does not prescribe a hierarchical priesthood and a ‘fatwa’ is not necessarily binding on the faithful. What one must consider before jumping into following a ‘fatwa’ is that the people who pronounce such rulings need to be wise persons who must base their rulings on knowledge as well as on wisdom, and quote the evidence for their opinions from Islamic sources. Since that seldom happens in real life, we often see scholars doing what they do in our corridors of political power: come to each other’s throats and declare one another’s followers apostate and worth killing. The emphasis must tilt in favour of living, not dying.

Miss Huda, a Muslim writer and teacher from the Middle East states: ‘As Muslims, we need to look at the opinion, the reputation of the person giving it, the evidence given to support it, and then decide whether to follow it or not. When there are conflicting opinions issued by different scholars, we compare the evidence and then choose the opinion to which our God-given conscience guides us’.

In conclusion, a ‘fatwa’ is still an opinion that cannot override God’s prescribed laws. The primary job of any government is to succeed in providing its citizens with a just and secure environment in which opportunities for earning a legal livelihood is within everyone’s reach, everything else is secondary.

Now if you would excuse me, I am expecting some guests. My mother has invited all my female cousins for dinner and, by God, I will sit with them decently, converse with them modestly and let them have the best of my brotherly love.

Friday, 12 March 2010

The Line Of The Lord

I have no quarrel with Roman Catholics; they are taught to end up being sinless. While many Muslim bearded ones cause irreparable damage to our brain cells, the Church takes the cake for its novel religious innovations.

The Code of Canon Law requires all Catholics to confess mortal sins at least once a year. As a Muslim, I ask God directly for such forgiveness five times a day without any cleric taking over my soul.

We will closely look at what Catholic confessions mean but first allow me to announce the news that French Roman Catholics now have a pay-by-the-minute confession telephone line that charges 0.34 Euros plus a connection charge for mobile phones.

Bishops are upset over the religious stunt and Catholic leaders have stated that ‘the fraud had no approval from the Catholic Church in France’. This is how a male voice greets Catholics when they dial up the Le Fil Du Seigneur (The Line of the Lord): ‘For advice on confessing, press one. To confess, press two. To listen to some confessions, press three’.

A group of Catholics working for AABAS set up the phone confession service at the beginning of Lent (the forty days' Christian fast preceding Easter). The group’s leader admits that ‘it does not offer absolution for sins, but Catholics can confess minor sins. For actual absolution for sins, only a priest can help but the money from the calls got to charity’.

At this rate, all Catholics will soon outdo pious Muslims who insist on performing Umra and Hajj at Makkah, not one but multiple times. The Catholic Church, instead of helping people commit less sins, has taken upon itself to forgive them on behalf of God and His messengers.

Now let us see compare what the Church literature says with what God commands. My aim is not to offend or provoke but rather to help good Christians walk on a path prescribed by Prophet Jesus.

"There is no offense, however serious, that the Church cannot forgive." Pg. 256, #982

"By Christ's will, the Church possesses the power to forgive the sins of the baptized..." P. 257, #986

"The Church, who through the bishop and his priests forgives sins in the name of Jesus Christ..." Pg. 363-364, #1448

"Indeed bishops and priests, by virtue of the sacrament of Holy Orders, have the power to forgive all sins 'in the name of the Father, and of the Son, and of the Holy Spirit.'" P. 367, #1461

"The Church must be able to forgive all penitents their offenses, even if they should sin until the last moment of their lives." P. 255, #979

"Were there no forgiveness of sins in the Church, there would be no hope of life to come or eternal liberation. Let us thank God who has given his Church such a gift." P. 256, #983

Considering that the contents of the entire Bible do not come from God or from Jesus Christ (Prophet Isa for Muslims), let us look at what the Bible says about forgiveness of sins:

"Why doth this man thus speak blasphemies? Who can forgive sins but God only?" Mark 2:7

"And be ye kind one to another, tender hearted, forgiving one another, even as God for Christ's sake hath forgiven you." Ephesians 4:32

"Let us therefore come boldly unto the throne of grace, that we may obtain mercy, and find grace to help in time of need." Hebrews 4:16

"I acknowledged my sin unto thee... I said, I will confess my transgressions unto the LORD; and thou forgavest the iniquity of my sin..." Psalm 32:5.

David asks God for forgiveness: "Wash me thoroughly from mine iniquity, and cleanse me from my sin. Against thee, thee only, have I sinned, and done this evil in thy sight..." Psalm 51:2,4

King Solomon was also aware that he and the children of Israel could pray directly to God to seek forgiveness for their sins: "Hearken therefore unto the supplications of thy servant, and of thy people Israel, which they shall make toward this place: hear thou from thy dwelling place, even from heaven; and when thou hearest, forgive." 2 Chronicles 6:21

God commands people to come to Him for forgiveness: "If my people, which are called by my name, shall humble themselves, and pray, and seek my face, and turn from their wicked ways; then will I hear from heaven, and will forgive their sin, and will heal their land." 2 Chronicles 7:14

God does not require anyone to go through a church or a priest to seek forgiveness for their sins. "For thou, Lord, art good, and ready to forgive; and plenteous in mercy unto all them that call upon thee." Psalm 86:5

"... if any man have a quarrel against any: even as Christ forgave you, so also do ye." Colossians 3:13

"Bless the LORD, O my soul, and forget not all his benefits: Who forgiveth all thine iniquities..." Psalm 103:2-3

While almost all Christians agree that repentance and forgiveness of others are great virtues, and that forgiveness must be sought from God, many feel lost in the jungle of doctrinal differences about the process of forgiveness. This is how the books of Mark, Matthew, Luke and John justify it.

In Catholic doctrine, Jesus had the power to forgive sins (Matthew 9:2, Luke 5:20).

Jesus granted that authority also to His apostles (Matthew 16:18-19, Matthew 18:18, John 20:22-23).

What is the instrument used for this process? In Catholic doctrine, the authority to forgive sins remains with the Church through the bishops as successors of the apostles through the sacrament of Reconciliation (also known as confession or the sacrament of Penance). A sinner confesses his or her sins to the priest who assigns a penance (often some prayers to recite) and grants forgiveness and reconciliation with the Church ‘in the name of the Father, the Son and the Holy Spirit.’

The old school Protestant doctrine prefers severe penances such as fasts, pilgrimages and floggings. In the Middle Ages, the Roman Church made fortunes by selling ‘indulgences’ to reduce the severity of such penances in exchange for monetary contributions to the Church, and which led to the Protestant Reformation in the 16th century. Protestants naturally rejected the Roman Catholic Church's sacrament of Penance, its claims of apostolic succession, and its authority to forgive sins (1 Timothy 2:5).

Authority on doctrine was placed in ‘Scripture alone’ rather than in the Church. For most Protestants, the Church is instrumental in bringing people to repentance, but the power to forgive sins belongs to God and Christ alone.

According to the teaching of the Catholic Church, the Sacrament of Penance (Confession, Reconciliation or Penance according to Catechism of the Catholic Church, Sections 1423-1442) is the method given by Christ to the Church by which individual men and women may be freed from sins committed after receiving Baptism. It is not necessary to confess sins committed before baptism, as baptism itself is considered to remove the guilt of all prior sins.). While the official Church publications of the Latin-rite always refer to the sacrament as ‘Penance’, ‘Reconciliation or ‘Penance and Reconciliation’, the average Catholic continues to use the term ‘confession’.

In 1215, a requirement that every Catholic Christian receive this sacrament at least once a year was instituted in Canon 21, the famous "Omnis utriusque sexus", of the Canon Law at the Fourth Council of the Lateran. Catholics believe that no priest, as an individual man—no matter how pious—has the power to forgive sins apart from God. However, the priest does not merely announce that the penitent has received God's forgiveness but rather recites the formula of absolution and forgives the sins of the penitent in God's place. Hallelujah!

On Judgment Day, Christ will question the erring before God passes judgment on such novel religious innovations.