Church Under Attack

Friday, November 16, 2012

The following excerpts are from an article by Brent Bozell on Townhall.com:

A Christian can be crushed gazing at the picture of Mary standing at the foot of the cross, watching her beloved son suffocate and die. But in that vision, she stands there for hours, patiently enduring her suffering. For two millennia, she has been a role model for Christians, a woman who practiced obedience in the most difficult of human circumstances, with fervent hope for what this sacrifice will offer all mankind as it struggles with sin.
This is why it seems so hard to reflect that vision of patience when black-hearted "artists" practice character assassination on the Blessed Virgin Mary to strip her of every virtue: her patience, her obedience, her courageous love and her prayerful faith in God. On Nov. 13, Simon and Schuster launched a vicious little 96-page novella titled "The Testament of Mary."
The author, an Irish ex-Catholic named Colm Toibin, presents us instead with a Bible-burning "reimagination" of an alienated Mary who fled the scene of her son's death in fear for her own life. Two decades after the Resurrection -- or was there one? -- this anti-Mary is filled with bitterness and rage. She describes herself as "unhinged" and bubbling with contempt for her son's demented followers, to the extreme that she threatens the Gospel writers with a knife. She lives as a bandit, stealing to survive.

The following excerpts are from Catholic Culture's Catholic World News:

Politicians, pundits, and even a few dissenting Catholic clerics are calling upon Catholic priests to break the confessional seal in sex-abuse cases.
Attorney general Nicola Roxon said that a federal commission investigating sexual abuse would take up the question of whether priests should be required to disclose information from sacramental confessions. Prime Minister Julia Gillard also said that the commission should discuss the matter. But Senator Nick Xenophon, a persistent critic of the Catholic Church, was more candid, saying that the government’s recognition of the confessional seal is “a medieval law that needs to change.”

The following excerpts are from Catholic Culture's Catholic World News:

Cardinal George Pell of Sydney, Australia, has said that while the Church will cooperate with a federal commission investigating child abuse, priests will not break the seal of confession.

Read more by clicking below:
Australian cardinal: confessional seal is inviolable, even in abuse cases : News Headlines - Catholic Culture

The following excerpts are from LifeSiteNews.com:

A Minneapolis-area priest has called for the resignation of Archbishop John Nienstedt after the archbishop supported Minnesota’s effort to pass a constitutional amendment banning same-sex “marriage.”
Fr. Michael Tegeder wrote a letter to the editor of the Minneapolis Star-Tribune oh Thursday requesting that Archbishop Nienstedt “prayerfully consider stepping down from his office.”
Calling Nienstedt’s support for the marriage amendment a “misguided crusade,” he suggested that the archbishop’s resignation would be “healing for our state” and “would show some magnanimity on [Nienstedt’s] part.”
Tegeder has long been a dissenter from Catholic teaching on the issue of homosexuality. He and the archbishop have clashed repeatedly over the issue.