Pope target in open war on Christianity

"... because you are not of the world, but I chose you out of the world, therefore the world hates you." (John 15:18-19)

The issue of abusive priests has become another excuse for the war of secularism against Christianity, says a former president of the Italian Senate, Marcello Pera. Excerpts from his article, "Paedophile priests and the pope," (Mercator.net, April 3, 2010):

The recent uproar in Germany about paedophile and homosexual priests is an attack on the pope. It would be a serious mistake to think that it is too monstrously daring to harm him. And it would be an even worse mistake to think that the whole affair will be quickly brought to an end like so many others. This is not the case.

There is a war on. It is not openly against the pope in person as it would be impossibile on this ground.... No, the war is between secularism and Christianity. The secularists know that a spot of mud on that white robe would mean that the church was sullied, and if the church were sullied so the Christian religion likewise. So they accompany their campaign with such refrains as “Who will take the children to church?" or "Who would send their children to Catholic schools?" or "Who would have our little ones cared for in a Catholic hospital or clinic?"

... This war against Christianity is a total war. One has to look back to nazi rule or communism to find anything like it. The means change but the end is the same: today as yesterday the aim is the destruction of religion. Then the price paid by Europe was the loss of her freedom. It is incredibile that Germany, once again a democratic country, still beating her breast in memory of the sacrifice she inflicted on the rest of Europe, should forget and not understand that her democracy would be lost if Christianity were vanquished again. The destruction of religion then brought about the destruction of reason. Today it would not lead to the triumph of secular reason but to another barbarity.

This is an exceptionally important and insightful article. Read the rest of it for further details.

A related article of notable insights, "An interview with George Weigel from the Italian newspaper, La Stampa" (Where the Rubber Hits the Road, April 5, 2010), in which Weigel points out the following:

It is important to distinguish between the U.S. crisis of 2002 and this latest tempest of criticism of the Church. In 2002, the press did an important job of bringing to light situations of clerical sexual abuse and some bishops' mishandling of that abuse that had too long been hidden. The Church, which had begun to address these problems seriously in the early 1990s, then accelerated its efforts to discipline abusers and to create safe environments for young people throughout American Catholicism. Those measures have worked. There are 68 million Catholics in the United States, and there were only six credible reports of the sexual abuse of a young person in the Church last year; that is, of course, six too many, but it completely falsifies the picture the press has painted of an ongoing crisis of sexual abuse and cover-up in the Catholic Church in the U.S.. Cardinal Ratzinger's support of the bishops of the U.S. in their post-2002 efforts to put this awful problem behind us was a large part of the U.S. bishops' success. The firestorm of the past few weeks has been shaped by several different factors, few of which have anything to do with protecting young people: grossly distorted reporting of abuse cases in Milwaukee and Munich, falsely implicating the Pope in cover-ups; the inability of American editors and reporters to understand that the Catholic Church is not a gigantic international corporation in which the Pope controls every aspect of Catholic life down to the parish level; commentators (and some reporters and editors) who see an opportunity to take the Catholic Church out of the public debate over issues like the nature of marriage and the right to life by painting a picture of the Church as a hypocritical criminal conspiracy of abusers and their enablers; and unscrupulous lawyers who see in that false portrait a way to bring the resources of the Vatican within the reach of American courts. The Church and its defenders were beginning to get a more fair hearing this past week; but then Father Cantalamessa made some exceptionally stupid and inappropriate remarks during the Solemn Liturgy of Good Friday, which have made the Church look insensitive and inept. I do not think, however, that serious Catholics have, as yet, been much affected by this recent controversy. At the same time, every serious Catholic wishes the Holy See would take a firmer grip on this story, get the facts out in a coherent, comprehensive, and compelling way, and take decisive action against prelates (as in Ireland) who were clearly irresponsible in handling abuse cases.

Weigel's otherwise helpful remarks do not address the fact of impending total war in quite the way Marcello Pera does. Every serious Catholic should be forewarned and ready with his "armor of God" (Eph 6:11), prepared to fight, if not already engaging the opposition, keeping in mind that his warfare is not "not against flesh and blood, but against principalities, against powers, against the rulers of the darkness of this world, against spiritual wickedness in high places" (Eph 6:12). Let us pray for one another, and especially for our priests, bishops, and the Holy Father.

[Hat tip to E.E.]