Harry Blanchard

Human sacrifice never quite went away. It persists in abstract forms as varied as sex trafficking to feed the porn industry’s meat grinder and judicial scapegoating which is becoming almost as prevalent in the hyper-fragile liberal secularism of the West as it is in the show trials of the Islamic world. Recent months have shown the resurgence of a deliberately disturbing trend within the broader phenomenon of human sacrifice, namely suicide by self-immolation.

MONDAY’S stabbing of Bishop Mar Mari Emmanuel of the Assyrian Church of the East in Sydney was bound to happen sooner or later. For those unfamiliar with the story, a 15-year-old Arabic speaker attacked the bishop and three others, including a priest, during a memorial service at the Church of the Good Shepherd in the western suburb of Wakeley. The assailant was quickly subdued by worshippers while the bishop, despite his wounds, put his hands on the boy and prayed.

MONDAY’S stabbing of Bishop Mar Mari Emmanuel of the Assyrian Church of the East in Sydney was bound to happen sooner or later. For those unfamiliar with the story, a 15-year-old Arabic speaker attacked the bishop and three others, including a priest, during a memorial service at the Church of the Good Shepherd in the western suburb of Wakeley. The assailant was quickly subdued by worshippers while the bishop, despite his wounds, put his hands on the boy and prayed.