Anti-Catholic bigotry is really becoming the worldwide fad these days. Speak up against the Catholic Church, it's freedom of speech and expression. Speak up against gays, lesbians, abortion rights, Jews, Muslims...you are a bigot.
Read this news about the singer Madonna's latest stunt against, this time, Polish Catholics.
***
Madonna, who was brought up as a good Catholic girl, [was she?] is taking her Sticky and Sweet tour to Poland, the heartland of European Catholicism — where the faithful, backed by the Solidarity founder Lech Walesa, have made it clear that they will not welcome the pop star.
The problem is one of timing. The Madonna concert, at an old Warsaw airfield, is to be staged on August 15, the Feast of the Assumption, the day Roman Catholics believe that the Virgin Mary was taken to Heaven.
It is the climax of a season of pilgrimages; across the country hundreds of thousands of mainly young people have been sleeping rough in cornfields on their way to the Jasna Gora monastery in southern Poland which shelters a darkened icon of the Virgin Mary, known as the Black Madonna.
The Virgin Mary is supposed to have saved Poland in two moments of peril: in 1655 against marauding Swedes and in 1920, when the Soviet Red Army cavalry tried to attack the country.
As a result, August 15 is also Armed Forces Day, a deeply patriotic as well as religious occasion.
“I am a man of faith and ask for such events not to happen on such an important feast in my religion,” said Mr Walesa, who wore an emblem of the Madonna [THE MADONNA. The Virgin Mary. The REAL ONE.] when fighting against the Communists.
Prayers are being said in the centre of Warsaw every afternoon, calling on God to stop the singer in her tracks; open-air masses are planned to mobilise support; priests will thunder from pulpits this Sunday. The 70,000 fans are to have a solid phalanx of loudly praying Catholics pitted against them when she takes to the stage. [Wow! Talk about spiritual warfare! The other with prayer. The other with loud singing. Who do you think is on God's side, eh?]
“This is an attack by the devil on our immaculate Catholic nation, “said Father Stanislaw Malkowski, one of the protest leaders. “This concert is a profanity and blasphemous.” [You got that right, Father! With Madonna, expect the unexpected. See the picture above? That's during her concert...in Rome?]
Some protestors even believe that the collapse of the stage on the French leg of the tour last month — killing two technicians including a British man and injuring eight — was an omen, a sign of divine displeasure. [?!]
The thrust of the campaign is to ensure that Madonna of Bay City Michigan and Notting Hill( twice divorced, mother of Lourdes) [is it a figure of speech or is this woman really toying with anything related to the Virgin Mother?] is not confused with the Madonna of Czestechowa(Virgin, mother of Jesus Christ) and thus lead young Poles up the wrong path. [Now that's Catholic vigilance!]
In truth there does not seem much risk of that. Madonna Louise Ciccone (First Communion 1965) has built much of her career on upsetting the Catholic Church. The Like a Prayer music video featured burning crosses and a scene in which she kisses alive a Christ-like figure. [See?! Told yah!]
On her Confessions [She loves playing with Catholic terms.] tour three years ago she appeared on stage strapped to a crucifix, wearing a crown of thorns. [Still surprised?] Various milestones in her career have included masturbating on stage in a golden Gaultier corset and merging sado-masochist imagery with a mockery of Catholic ritual. [That for her and her fans is entertainment.]
A German prosecutor investigated whether she should be charged with deliberately offending religious communities (she wasn’t); at least one Cardinal has called for her to be excommunicated, and her photo album “Sex” was banned in several countries.
The Polish protest groups too are considering taking legal action, although against the organisers rather than the singer herself.
***
If you pay to see her concert on the premise that you go to be entertained but not to condone her anti-Catholic tirade, think again. You pay the tickets. She gets a percentage of the proceeds. Her conclusion? "They love what I am doing! So I'll continue by anti-Catholic charade!"
So by patronizing her work, you are fuelling her rage against the Catholic Church.
Anti-Catholic "Rapture" Doctrine
ReplyDeleteWhile recently looking at the "Opinionated Catholic" blog I was drawn to its lead story entitled "Tim LaHaye Does Most Silly Anti Catholic Charge Ever." Then my eye caught the first "Comments" which listed several web articles which expose the popular Evangelical and Fundamentalist belief in an "any-moment pre-tribulational rapture." You can't believe the huge amount of deliberate dishonesty and cover-up in the same "fly-away rapture" view since its strange birth in Scotland in 1830! To see what I mean, Google "Pretrib Rapture Diehards," "X-Raying Margaret," "Deceiving and Being Deceived," "Pretrib Hypocrisy," and especially "Pretrib Rapture Dishonesty" - all written by author and historian Dave MacPherson who has spent 40 years locating long forgotten (and covered up) early "rapture" documents in libraries in Britain etc. The same "Comments" urged Catholics to read MacPherson's highly endorsed and massively documented book "The Rapture Plot" (see online stores including Armageddon Books), and I got the impression that his findings could finally silence all anti-Catholic "rapture" traffickers such as Hal Lindsey and Tim LaHaye. Don't forget that these two have been THE bestselling authors worldwide since the 1970s simply because they have discovered how to thoroughly brainwash tens of millions of deceived Protestant Evangelicals and Fundamentalists with the unscriptural "rapture escape" - no little achievement! Catholic leaders and writers apparently now have the ammunition and documentation to finally demolish the same anti-Catholic publishing craze! ----J. Edwards
[Recently saw the above on the web - Rocky2]