Mary and the Pranksters

The Sheep's Crib links to this article from the Brussels Journal. Excerpts:

The Belgian Bishops have opened their churches to illegal immigrants in order to pressurize the Belgian authorities to allow the immigrants to stay in the country.

Most of the immigrant squatters in the churches are Muslims.

Interesting, but it gets really interesting in the next part:

They display banners in the church showing the name of Allah (picture taken in the church of Our Lady of Perpetual Succour, Brussels)....

The Belgian Bishops are so ignorant that they do not see what is going on: their churches are being turned into mosques before their very eyes....

The Muslim squatters hold Islamic prayer services in the church. The altar has been moved and the statue of Our Lady covered by a cloth to hide her from the eyes of the Muslim believers....

Aggression in desecrated churches that are being turned into mosques with the approval of Cardinal Godfried Danneels. This is Brussels, AD 2006.

Those Catholic Beasts

The surprising part is that there are (at least) two interpretations to this story. Here's an example of one view:

This is just one more demonstration of the Romanists seeking to make out that the 'real' Christianity is how one supposedly does emotion in 'free' will to a demon worshipper and that the only path to 'Christian heaven' or 'the one heaven we all wait/earn/work for' in keeping with 'we all worship the same God' is through the emotional common sense of the demon who is worshipped in the stead of Jesus Christ.Once one is deceived that heaven and hell will be full of identical creatures in two different places and that there is no new birth in Jesus Christ, 'heaven' becomes mere non-confrontation and any path to any emotional positive no matter what the consequences. Doing Jesus' as emotional etiquette to 'earn heaven' simply becomes the excuse for cowardice. All this will do is inspire more Islamics to greater impeity and ruthlessness against Christians.

And another post about this evil, clueless Catholics:

You see the Catholic Church has as a big apperently church policy been organizing illegal aliens around the world to increase their political influence

so they give the squatters what they want.

and this is some of the nicer stuff. In Italy its even worse as the "guests" regularly Urinate in baptismal fonts in many of the churches

Mary, Defend Us

But, on the other hand, there are defenders of the faith:

Belgium was twice blessed by visitations from the Blessed Virgin Mary, at Banneux and Beauraing. Those of you who believe in the intercession of the Blessed Virgin, please pray to Our Lady of Banneux and Our Lady of Beauraing for mercy.

A blog documenting the closure of Roman Catholic churches has also weighed in:

In the centre of Brussels, there is the beautiful Church of the Minimes . It contains a Chapel in the form of the Holy House of Loretto which was built at the same time as the Church. A house of low repute was demolished to make way for the Church and there used to be an inscription in the Church, "Where once stood a temple of Venus, now stands a shrine to Our Blessed Lady." But now can it be said?

"Where once stood a shrine to Our Blessed Lady, now stands a mosque"....

The Chapel is now being desecrated by an occupation by a group of Kurds. They claim to be on hunger strike. Why choose a Catholic Church when there are so many other places in Belgium to protest? But is the Chapel now being used as a mosque?; the Vicariat of Brussels have neither confirmed nor denied this, despite several e-mails. The altar has been moved. The statue of Our Lady has been covered by a cloth in such a way that she is mostly hidden from the eyes of the occupants....

The Church authorities no longer defend the inheritance of the Churches. In the Church of Our Lady of Perpetual Help, a banner hangs bearing the name of Allah....

Please pray a Litany of Loretto that this desecration may cease.

And, from the same blog:

One dreads to think what will become of St Peter's Church if Cardinal Danneels becomes Pope.

The track record of Cardinal Danneels: empty Churches. Anyone who tells you that the solution to the problems of the Catholic Church should come to Belgium; the Church could not be more modern. Churches that are regularly occupied and/ or used by Muslim groups. And please correct me if I am wrong, but I don't think that Cardinal Danneels issued any statement on this report "Euthanasia responsible for half of newborn deaths in Belgium"

Well, maybe the higher-ups aren't all that infallible after all

And (told you that there were possibly more than two views), some differentiate between the Catholics and their clueless leaders. Here are two examples [1] [2]:

The fact that the Belgium government apparently is doing nothing about this disgrace, and the fact that the Belgium Catholics haven’t taken it upon themselves to free the church from the Bishop and his Islamic entourage, does not speak well of neither the Catholics church future nor Belgium’s future as a free non Islamic country.
In the case of St Boniface, the parish priest avowedly used the annual parish fair to welcome the "squatters". Some of the parishioners were not keen. Outside the Church were messages of support from "neighbours"- an exercise in enforced political correctness if there ever was one. The "sans-papiers" vacated during Lent and the Church was closed until Palm Sunday to remedy the damage done.

The parish priest of Sint Kruis which has already been occupied by a group of Afghans in 2003 said when threatened with a repeat this year that he did not want them there in the run-up to Easter....

Some of the clergy are so keen to pursue radical left causes, that they forget the salvation of souls. Cardinal Newman said that all the suffering in the world was not worth the loss of one single soul for eternity. Harsh but true.

The Dragon and Phoenix links to this story:

However, many Belgians, including many Catholics, do not agree with the “church occupations.”...The 2000 regularisation was a response to a previous series of church occupations, which had shocked many conservative Catholics, such as Father Herwig Arts, an Antwerp Jesuit and well-known author. “Black families entered our chapel and turned it into a dormitory,” Father Arts complained to the press (Gazet van Antwerpen, 21 November 1998). Father Arts saw men and women sharing beds and cooking in Antwerp’s Jesuit chapel. “They removed the tabernacle, installed a television set and radios, depriving us of the opportunity to pray in our own chapel and say Mass. [...]. It has upset me very much. For me the place has been desecrated,” he said. “I feel I cannot enter it anymore.” At the time Father Arts was severely criticised for his comments. Today he remains silent, as do all Catholic priests, given that the Bishops support the church occupations by the illegal immigrants.

Other Desecration

The term that has been used in many of the accounts above is "desecration" - namely, the desecration of a Roman Catholic Church by those who practice non-Catholic religious services within it. What if, say, a mosque were desecrated? European Ethnocentrism links to a Melissa Ridgen article that explains that the difference between a religious prank and a religious hate crime appears to be the religion involved. Her thesis is that hate crimes against Christians are not perceived as such:

While the media’s mantra is fair, balanced and equal treatment for all, we often fail miserably due to misguided attempts at political correctness....

Consider for a minute, stories about a mosque, temple or synagogue being vandalized. In fact, hit the Internet to search news files for yourself to see how such indignities are covered, paying close attention to the overall tone of the articles.

The desecration of one of these buildings is a hate-crime. The affected community is gripped by fear. The media is intensely interested — an intensity that turns into a frenzy if more than one of these places of worship is targeted.

But church vandalism is a vastly different story. You trash a church and you’re a punk or a vandal — certainly not a hate-filled tormentor. The affected congregation is disgusted, disappointed, maybe even mad, but not threatened or terrified. The media’s interest is likely lukewarm — the story will make a nice little read in the police briefs. There’s more of a tsk-tsk tone than shock and horror.

It took a handful of church arsons in Alabama to grab the attention of national and international media last month. In the span of just over a week, nine Baptist churches were burned to the ground. Despite the number, and fact that most fires were ignited on or near the altar at each church, adding insult to injury. Gov. Bob Riley told the Associated Press the fires did not appear to be “any type of conspiracy against organized religion.” Period. End of story.

Three college students were arrested last week in connection with the arsons and the Associated Press reported them to be “pranksters” — how cute. It seems it was a bit of fun that got out of control. A co-ed party gone wrong, if you will. Much less sinister than anyone who might desecrate a mosque, temple or synagogue.

Imagine the outrage if the media was as dismissive with a similar spate of crimes against another religion.

But surely she exaggerates. Let's take a look at MSM coverage of the Catholic descration of Belgium, as compiled by Yahoo:

We did not find results for "catholic desecration belgium".

I had better luck when searching for Catholic Church vandalism. Here's what I found:

CAMBRIA COUNTY -- A Catholic church which was desecrated earlier this week will hold a service on Friday to re-bless the church.

The priest of St. Bartholomew's Parish in Wilmore found the church ransacked Tuesday morning and discovered that a number of items were stolen and vandalized.

The first regularly scheduled mass at the church since the vandalism will be held Saturday afternoon.

Here are excerpts from another article:

WILMORE — Burglars broke into one of the oldest churches in the region and desecrated the sanctuary before stealing consecrated hosts, a paten used to hold communion, two chalices and an incense container.

The disturbing break-in occurred at St. Bartholomew’s Roman Catholic Church, which was started in 1840 by Prince Demetrius Gallitzin.

“We consider it a major desecration,” said Rob Egan, spokesman for the Altoona-Johnstown Catholic Diocese. The crimes included vandalism along with the theft of the blessed items.

The Rev. Charles Bodziak, who also serves a parish in Cassandra, and one of the altar servers discovered the break-in, which probably occurred between 8:30 p.m. Monday and Tuesday morning, Egan said....

Parishioners – including Pauline Minor, Betty Skrout and Carrie Dell – dropped by the church Tuesday after word of the burglary spread.

“This feels worse than if they would break into your home,” said Skrout, a parishioner at the church for the past 47 years....

Dell, who has been a St. Bartholomew member for nearly 50 years, said the burglary is reflective of today’s troubled society.

“It’s a terrible world out there,” she said as she surveyed the destruction, including the damaged tabernacle.

Caretaker Ray Schrift said the destruction and stolen items fail to make much sense.

“It’s weird. There’s valuable stuff that they left. Whoever did it knew where the church was and how to get it,” he said, speculating that the crime was more than a random act by someone passing by....

“It’s a desecration of a church. It’s something we hold sacred: Consecrated hosts were taken,” Egan said.

Roman Catholics believe the consecrated host to be the body of Christ.

“A place of worship has been violated,” Egan said.

Conemaugh Valley Times comments:

This is the latest in a string of incidents involving vandalism, threats, and intimidation leveled a various Catholic and Protestant churches in the Laurel Heights region of West-Central Pennsylvania.

Although I'm not saying there's a connection, the previous cases involved teens invading the churches during Sunday services and/or Masses, shouting obscenities and satanic slogans.

Yet, I have no doubt that this incident was aimed directly at the holiest Object in Catholic worship: consecrated hosts bearing the Real Presence of Jesus. Though incidents like this one have happened before everywhere and throughout history, it's still shocking when it happens in one's own back yard.

The goal of this activity is clearly to intimidate Catholic believers into fear, indifference, silence, and submission before wanton societal evil. Personally, I will not be intimidated. I pray for the conversion and healing of those involved.

Expect inmediate action from the ACLU and full coverage from the national Mainstream Media, coupled with their demands to curb anti-Catholic hatred and for a full investigation into this hate crime--yeah, right.

Don't be a pessimist. The Pennsylvania ACLU has an entire page devoted to religious liberty. They're certainly going to hop on this story, aren't they:

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