Persecution and Apostasy?
Coming to a town near you?
One would really have to have their head in the sand not to recognize the wave of anti-Catholicism sweeping the planet. Almost every day on The View, Whoopi a former Catholic, brings up something Church related. It is no secret she has nothing but contempt for the Pope, the Vatican, and Catholic moral teaching. Today they were talking about the sacrament of penance. Whoopi didn’t exactly attack it or anything, but she gets her digs in about religion. Pop stars hate religion and they promote their hatred every chance they have a captive audience, which contributes to the lessening of respect for religious values amongst people. (Elton John is always shooting off his mouth on how religion should be banned, and of course Joni Mitchell recently released an anti-Catholic CD.)
Politically correctness.
Secular society, which has abandoned the natural law in favor of political correctness, is gradually putting the screws on those who uphold traditional moral values. In Britain a firetruck load of firemen were recently fined and suspended for flashing their lights on four homosexual men engaged in illegal public sex acts. In effect, the firemen, who committed no crime were charged with criminal activity while those engaged in illegal acts were excused.
Compromises with the State.
The recent decision of the Connecticut Bishops to allow the morning after pill in emergency room situations involving rape, has now been backed by the Catholic Health Association, according to the Connecticut Catholic Hospital spokesman, Barry Feldman. The Bishops gave into pressure from the the State and gave the go ahead to implement the policy. Pressure from the State resulted in a compromise of Catholic teaching and capitulation. At least, that is what it looks like to me.
Under the Cardinal’s nose.
Then Fr. McBrien, writing for Tidings, the newspaper of the Los Angeles archdiocese - Cardinal Mohoney’s paper - tells Catholics they do not need to listen to the Pope, who approved the recent CDF document on the Catholic Church as the one true Church. Huh? This McBrien guy, along with those Dominicans in Holland who are making up their own Mass, certainly are starting to sound a lot like apostates to me.
“In Portugal, the dogma of Faith will be preserved, etc….” - Our Lady, 1917
Reports have long been coming out of Fatima that the rector of the shrine, Luciano Guerra is not exactly the most orthodox Catholic, having allowed Hindu rituals at the altar of the Capella of the Apparitions. Today there is news that as the new auditorium style shrine Church is readied for the dedication on May 13, he intends to change the image of the Fatima shrine - he wants to forbid the “superstitious” pious practices of the Portuguese peasants, who walk to Fatima in pilgrimage, and finish the last hundred or so feet walking on their knees to the site of the apparitions. Wouldn’t it be more appropriate to say Hindu ritual is superstitious and forbid that kind of stuff instead?
As persecution intensifies from without, is there really apostasy surfacing from within? Maybe there is more to that 3rd Secret thing? Naw, can’t be.
[Photo: Hindu ritual at Fatima shrine. Source.]
