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More prayerful bishops required.

Archbishop accuses Cardinal who could have been Pope of heresy

Schism among schismatics

Covering up rape- all in a days work at an abortion clinic.

Feast of All Sacred Relics conserved in the Churches of the Cistercian Order

"The times of refreshing from the Lord had indeed come to the forlorn monastery ; the unheard-of conversion of so many noble youths filled the world with wonder. It was a proof that the Church was not only not dead, but not even asleep. At the beginning of the eleventh century, the heart of Christendom seemed to have failed, and all men thought that the world was coming to an end ; throughout the whole of the century the Church was either preparing for, or actually engaged in a deadly struggle with the civil power, and in that miserable confusion men seemed to ha^e lost their landmarks, and not to know what was to come of all the perplexity which they saw about them. Meanwhile, the Church herself felt the deteriorating effects of the struggle men saw the strange spectacle of courtier- bishops, acting as the ministers of kings, and behaving in all respects like the wild nobles, from whom they were only distinguished by wearing a mitre, and carrying a crozier. Let any one think how bishops behaved in the contest between St. Anselm and the king, or again in Germany, how many of them sided with the emperor against the Pope."

From Cistercian Saints of England. One day the Catholic Church will have the Bishops the laity deserve, but not in this generation either.

Linz, the Amnesty International Diocese

Those who wait for a condemnation from the Bishop will wait a long time. Cathcon understands he has to check everything with his predeccesor. In the most liberal Churches of the Diocese, the predecessor's name is inserted into the Canon of the Mass, along with the presiding bishop. A two headed Diocese- a license to revolt.

Cathcon translation-

World-wide, more and more bishops and the faithful are distancing themselves from Amnesty International as a result of their pro-abortion policy. In Linz, the clocks tick differently: next Monday, the official Women's Commission of the Diocese of Linz has organized with AI a "Political Night Prayer"

The official Women's Commission of the Diocese of Linz together with the "Amnesty International" has organized next Monday a so-called "Political Night Prayer: no to violence against women". In recent days and weeks have been quite a few worldwide dioceses, bishops and parish groups have distanced themselves from the pro-abortion activities of Amnesty International distances, organizing in different regions over recent months an alternative. This is how KATH.NET learned that also in the Diocese of Linz several pro-lifers and Catholics are horrified at the cooperation of the official Women's Commission with Amnesty.

The "Political Night Prayer" to be held on Monday evening at the Martin Luther Church in Linz, according to the Diocese of Linz, is under the direction of Sonja Riha, (seen here on the right, saying goodbye to her predecessor, who has found fame as a stealth priestess.)the women's representative of the Diocese of Linz. Co-organizers include Catholic Women's Movement of the Diocese, the House for Women in Linz, the Protestant Women's Working Group and the Upper Austrian Women's Forum for Feminist Theology and finally Amnesty International.

Cardinal Renato Martino, President of the Pontifical Council, Iustitia et Pax, in June this year, called on all Catholics as a result of their abortion policy not for a donation to Amnesty International. Until a few months ago, within this "human rights" organization, abortion remained a neutral question. Now, it presses governments that women under certain circumstances can kill unborn children. Martino stressed that due to this policy, AI should get no more money from Catholics and Catholic organizations.

See also "Friends of Amnesty- Linz Branch" This has now been taken away and a reliquary of Blessed Franz Jaegerstaetter stands by the altar. The dialogue with AI continues.

Sociologist called Marx, new Archbishop of Munich

Translation of a German press report. But nothing to get concerned about! He is in fact a cigar toting conservative.

Reinhard Marx, Bishop of Trier is known as a theological conservative but one who is open to the people. The 54 year old ecclesiastic has the best prospects of succeeding Cardinal Wetter as Archbishop of Munich. Limburg also gets a new bishop.

For months in Bavaria and in Rome, possible successors to the Munich-Cardinal Friedrich Wetter (79) have spun around on the carousel.

Now it is rumoured in church circles that the Bishop of Trier, Reinhard Marx will move to the top of the largest Bavarian diocese. An official confirmation has not been forthcoming but the appointment seems likely soon. The ascent of the 54 year old Westfalian (known for his ‘baroque’ form- Cathcon note- pun on his size and beliefs.) has been rapid: Pope John Paul II appointed in 1996 the former professor of Christian social sciences to the Paderborn Bishopric and in 2001 to be the diocesan bishop in Trier, the oldest Episcopal seat in Germany. In Munich, Marx will not only chair the Freising Bishops' Conference (Cathcon: of the Bavarian Bishops), but also has prospects of being the successor to Cardinal Karl Lehmann at the head of the German Bishops' Conference. Before the Lehmann era, the Cologne and Munich archbishops alternated in this role. Furthermore, a Cardinal’s hat is only a matter of time. The affable churchman is quick-witted, discussion friendly and has no fears about the media. He has overseen administrative matters and pastoral care in the Diocese of Trier, while there was a divisive structural reform being implemented, and has on occasion rubbed people up the wrong way. At the same time, he sees himself as a "Merrymaker in the Faith", seeking "the witness of a happy and contented priest".

Marx likes a strong cigar and sip a good wine. Marx has long acted as a social expert in the German Bishops' Conference. Many anecdotes are associated with his surname. In the GDR era, he says, "the border guards were surprised by the “Christian Democrat Marx." When the professor, following the collapse of communism, held seminars in East Germany on Catholic social doctrine, he could not resist pointed remark:

"For 40 years have you been waiting for Marx. Well, he came and is a Catholic priest." According to media reports, the only remaining favorite in the Cardinal Wetter-succession stakes is not a nostalgic for redistribution of the "Heart of Jesus Marxist" type. His ideas about the reform of the welfare state in the direction of greater self-responsibility and subsidiarity are more neo-social and conform with the key messages of the new CSU-Basic Programme. His criticism of "inflated manager salaries" has been shared by the former Bavarian Minister-President Edmund Stoiber. Nevertheless, it remains to be seen whether and how Marx will continue the traditionally close relationship between the Catholic Church and CSU-lead state government. Theologically, ecclesiastically, and especially liturgically Marx thinks as a conservative. "We cannot depend on opinion polls to decide on what we believe," he says. And: "He who marries the spirit of the age, is tomorrow a widower (CS Lewis original Cathcon note)" When the Saarbrück priest and theology professor, Gotthold Hasenhüttl invited evangelical Christians to communion at one of the fringe events of the First Ecumenical Church Day in 2003 in Berlin (although this was forbidden), Marx was forced to intervene. As the responsible local bishop, he suspended Hasenhüttl from his offices. The professor had too demonstratively violated the good order of the church. Limburg also gets a new chief shepherd. Franz-Peter Tebartz-van Elst is to be the successor of Bishop Kamphaus.

Champagne or Orange Juice. Bishop Marx with Cardinal Lehmann

Bishop criticises family policy in Germany

One sided and harmful to children

Bishop Dr Walter Mixa of Augsburg has criticised Family Minister van der Leyen’s plans to enormously extend children’s nursery places from 250,000 to 750,000 by the year 2013. This is a translation of his press release. See the firestorm raining down on the Bishop for all sides of politics. In the meantime, his Catholic colleagues and ecumenical friends attack him.

He called them “harmful for children and families and one sided” concentrating an active increase in working mothers with small children. The Bishop said that it was “a socio-political scandal” to cut other family allowances in order to finance new crèche facilities. “Frau van der Leyen’s family policy does not serve in the first instance the welfare of the child or the strengthening of the family but is solely concerned to recruit young women as workforce reserves for industry”. Mixa said this in the course of an audience with the Chairman of the Catholic Family League of his Diocese. The thought pattern of the Family Minister recalls in a worrying way the ideology of state-run nurseries of the former East Germany where children were looked after not by their parents but by strangers. East Germany had the highest number of state-run nurseries and at the same time the lowest birthrate in Europe.

The Bishop energetically attacked “the repeated attempts by the Family Minister to discredit the quality of parental upbringing and to support a ‘a professional pre-school education of small children’. This means that women who bring up children on their own are given a bad conscience because the child can develop less at home than by so called professionals. The Bishop reiterated, “the real professionals for the upbringing of a child are its parents, especially its mother”. The efforts by the state for a modern family policy should therefore be aimed at the situation where more mothers could be won over to spend the first three years with the child at home to benefit its upbringing. This should be financially supported by the state. In addition, Bishop Mixa supports in this context, the demands of the Catholic Family League for the parents to receive a childcare allowance, so that parents have a choice either of spending some of it on some care outside the family or to compensate parents if they bring up their own children. The Bishop also supports an extended recognition of the period spent bringing up one’s own children reflected in pension rights as well as the state’s improved financial support of single and socially dependent mothers who are forced for economic to go to work, even in the first year of their child’s life.

“Young mothers in a prosperous society are forced to give their children to a state-run childcare systems where the care is undertaken outside the family in order to economically survive. This is contrary to a modern and humane family policy” Mixa said.

Children need for a balanced and healthy, physical and mental development, a continuous dialogue with the mother but no qualified third-party care. The aim of modern concepts in family policy should therefore “ be to guarantee the convergence of children’s upbringing and professional activity external to the family, not simultaneously but successively”.

Frau van der Leyen however clings to the already old-fashioned ideological model of a working mother in the earliest years of a child’s development and she cannot be distinguished from the erroneous family policy of the previous Socialist/ Green coalition government.

Bishop Mixa also criticised in this context that when the head of the Family Ministry changed, there were hardly any personnel changes in terms of advisors and consultants.

“There are still the old socialist ideas prevalent and the new Family Minister simply puts the label “Christian Democrat” on the same policies”.

Two income families have been elevated to an ideological fetish by the Christian Democratic Union Minister van der Leyen. Those who seduce mothers to leave their children shortly after birth to place them in state-run nurseries and support this with state subsidy, they degrade the women to become a “baby making machine” and disregard all scientific understanding of the child/ mother relationship in the child’s first year, reiterated Mixa

The Bishop of the second largest Diocese in Bavaria called the Catholic voters to use the democratic opportunities as a strong and creative minority and asked them to be vigilant about the family policy which is coming off the rails and to engage in a socio-political debate.

END OF DIOCESAN PRESS RELEASE

According to the Bild Zeitung, Mixa has refused to apologise for his reproach.

“My criticism is against the policy which only supports that young mothers give their small children shortly after birth into state-run care instead of spending the first three years with the child”, was the reply of the Catholic Bishop.

Those who don’t give a choice to mothers and nevertheless demand more births in politics degrade the mother, drastically expressed to “baby-making machines”

And I stick to that, says Mixa.

Cathcon comment.

Frau van der Leyen has herself seven children. However, her position seems to have more to do with aristocratic guilt than any religious opinion (not clear which part of the religious spectrum, if any, she occupies).



She tries to "play for both teams" having set up an "Association for Upbringing" in association with both Catholics and protestants last year. With her right hand she does this, yet with her left hand!

If her ministry has been captured by the left, she may also have been stung into action by the left, which portrayed her as the Sleeping Beauty for her previous inaction.Family Policy in Deep Sleep

But more telling was the photo on the front of The Spiegel.

I am Germany.

The Crusade of Ursula van der Leyen

for

Children, Church and Career.

This is a parody of Kaiser Wilhelm II definitiom of the role for women (later taken over by the Nazis) as "Kirche, Kueche, Kinder" (church, kitchen, children.)

Combined with a parody of the later Nazi propaganda campaign "Du bist Deutschland"

The slogan was also used accidentally and much to their embarassement when it was discovered by a recent German government "feel good" campaign.



What will become of Germany when it pursues such policies?

Carnival Stealth Priestess

in the Church of St Francis in Wels "celebrates" Carnival last Tuesday with Communion from the tabernacle.

The Church were the servers wear tiaras

and the ministers funny hats

Later on, the server gets to wear the funny hat

There was an early walk-out.

The boy with the tambourine wearing the hat recycled from Halloween.

This is the Church where they no longer have the Cross but worship the twig

Let's celebrate

Altar becomes a hiding place

One day you will grow up and can be a priestess.

Just what, however, is she trying to prove?

Coming soon to a Church near you.

The Bishop of Linz is silent, so that you could hear a pin drop.

Also covered on the ever-excellent Kreuz.net

Mini-priestesses attend former Bishop of Linz

Polish bishops

What should they do now? How about declaring Christ the King of Poland.

Linz liturgical desert

Brings the first sighting at the Church of St Francis, Braunau of a stealth priestess. She is the parish assistent. She, among many important tasks, runs the parish youth group called "the Crazies" where young people are not ministered to but are allowed to be themselves.

Meanwhile the cult of the twig spreads in Linz, this time to the Solar City Pastoral Centre. Yes, that's right, a new Diocesan centre opened in an environmental centre. Not too surprising, St Conrad's Church has a roof full of EU-funded solar panels. The cult has developed. The twig is now scary and in alien form.

And, needless to say that's the new Bishop of Linz.

And spot the Benedictine nun (!) that he is here commissioning to work as another pastoral assistent.


This is the priest of her new parish. The poster says "Share". One wonders how they will share responsibility. Who will be the boss?


Worst of all, he is now employing an "Expert in Pastoral Counselling". Doesn't the Diocese have any priests left?

She is stylish and elegant


and a financial supporter of the arch-heretical new German translation of the Bible.

This pastoral assistant in the Peace Church of Linz, Rebecca Mair, dressed in pseudo-liturgical dress read the Gospel and preached on December 3rd. The priest was too lazy and claimed that it was the will of the Bishop. Either he is being presumptious or I fear that he is speaking the truth.



Two years ago, in the same Church, the homosexual artist Keith Haring displayed his work, the Marriage of Heaven and Hell. What a title for a work of "art" in a Catholic Church. For his pains, the parish priest got a verbal handbagging from my wife, which he richly deserved. He clearly no longer knows the difference between good and evil. Strange in a town that produced Adolf Hitler.



And what a performance in Linz Cathedral! Modern art meets religion. An attempted synthesis. As if modern art can contribute anything to the divine.

Bishop of Linz

now distances himself from the activities of his own Diocese.