Posted on 11/19/2007 7:12:48 PM PST by Pyro7480
MEXICO CITY, NOV. 19, 2007 (Zenit.org).- The cathedral of Mexico City closed its doors last weekend, after more than 100 political protesters disrupted Sunday Mass.
The decision was announced the same day by Armando Martínez, the president of the College of the Catholic Lawyers of Mexico, who said that the cathedral will not open again until the government can guarantee the security of the faithful and priests.
During the midday Mass at the cathedral Sunday, a group of members of the leftist Party of the Democratic Revolution (PRD) interrupted the liturgy chanting slogans supporting Andrés Manuel López Obrador, the 2006 presidential candidate who lost by a slim margin to Felipe Calderón. López Obrador contested the results, raising allegations of electoral fraud, and proclaimed himself the "legitimate president" of Mexico.
The protesters also threatened the faithful, the priests and Cardinal Norberto Rivera Carrera, archbishop of Mexico City, who was in Rome on Sunday.
"These are acts of aggression that we should not allow," said Martínez, who said the main concern is for the safety of the faithful present in the cathedral, as well as the cardinal, bishops and priests.
The demonstrators said they were provoked by church bells that chimed for an unusually long time, disrupting a rally in the central Zocolo square at which López Obrador was speaking. The dean of the cathedral, Rubén Ávila, told the newspaper El Universal that the bells rang for the normal time for a Sunday Mass.
In a statement released by Hugo Valdemar Romero, director of communication for the Archdiocese of Mexico, he called the event a "condemnable and cowardly act of terror, unequivocal expression of religious intolerance and of the hatred toward the Catholic Church."
This is disgraceful. Are they really knocking over the altar rail in that picture?
The single most consistent fact of history is that leftist governments/political movements are ALWAYS the biggest enemies of the Church.
Ah yes, the friends of Liberation Theology showing their true colors.
Reminds me of the Marxists shooting nuns during the Spanish Civil War and the PAVN executing priests and nuns in Hue during the Tet Offensive.
“The demonstrators said they were provoked by church bells that chimed for an unusually long time, disrupting a rally in the central Zocolo square at which López Obrador was speaking.”
The modernist always hated church bells.
These leftest are acting like many leftest in this FR. They jump in to other’s discussions and try to take over. Nothing new for leftest.
My first thought too. Padre Pro pray for them.
Mexico scares me, the poor have been oppressed for too long and something will give sooner or later.
The problems of Mexico are complicated, but one of its biggest ones is precisely that it is technically a Socialist state, and of course we all know there is only one group that benefits from that: the Government and its “friends.”
That said, I would bet that none of the people in that picture are poor. They’re probably well-off Mexican university students, a group that has consistently been one of the most dangerous in Mexico. Of course, their most notable riots were several years ago when the Mexican government tried to cut off the stipends they receive...
Good points, livius. Mexico’s poor are not the greatest threat to peace, or to the Church ... as in most places, it’s Mexico’s useless intellectuals that are using the “poor” as a front.
Knights of Columbus Martyrs of Mexico, pray for your country! Viva Cristo Rey!
That reminds me, I was going to order several gross of those cards for my parish. (How a midwestern WASP like me ended up in Hispanic Ministry is one of life’s mysteries ...)
I’d better do it before the computer crashes again. Thank you, Bill Gates, for these operating system “improvements”!
If that picture is accurate then the protesters are doing a little more than just disrupting Mass, aren’t they? Shouldn’t the article mention that they also vandalized the Church? Oh, this makes me so angry!
I am not suprised. The radical left CANNOT stand the Church. But in the end God and the Church triumph because the enemy ALWAYS LOSES.
Our Lady of Guadelupe, pray for Mexico!
Yes, it’s important to remember that Mexicans are not coming here because of “overpopulation,” but because the political and economic system of Mexico is preposterously counterproductive. Mexico is a large, lightly populated country, overall, just as the United States is.
Yep, and the USA is now having to deal with the problems associated with a socialist state such as Mexico.
In other words, corruption.
Dear God! tell me that isn’t the communion rail which they have smashed to the floor!
Corruption, incompetence, destructive ideology ... it really stinks. If I were Mexican, I’d be trying to get out!
>> but also to get away from this very disruptive going ons by the radical left. <<
Alas, the group coming into America is more concentrated with the radical left; many are “reconquistadoras,” exporting the “glorious revolution” to the “gringos.”
Yes, it’s the communion rail. In reports in the Mexican press, it says they destroyed church furnishings, something not mentioned in the US press.
As in any bar fight, its easy to figure out who to ‘remove from the scene’ to defuse the situation.
More information, first paragraph of article from “La Cronica” (Mexican newspaper):
The followers of Manuel López Obrador ...caused damage at the Cathedral, harangued by Senator Rosario Ibarra, who heard the ringing of the church bells as a call to war, and responded to it with the cry, “Pederasts! Pederasts!” And how could anybody pass up such an opportunity, in the presence of the “legitimate one” [this group claims that their candidate won the Mexican presidential elections] and in the midst of the National Democratic Convention [not the same as the US version, but obviously spiritually identical].
And, of course, Marxists murdering priests, nuns and Catholic lay people during the Mexican revolution.
Commies hate the Church, and try to destroy her both by infiltration and frontal assault.
If the 'Rats lose in 2008, and it's close ... is this what we're in for?
BLOAT
To be fair, much of the damage was caused by the church goers themselves. While only 100 or so protesters entered the church there were 10,000 protesters in the plaza in front of the cathedral. When the protesters started entering the cathedral the worshipers in fear for their lives, tried to barricade them with pews and other church furnishings.
There is quite a bit of film footage of the melee, but I can find none on the net as of yet.
Not surprising considering that Marx, Lenin, and Mao had a burning hatred for all forms of religion. The other Marxists “thinkers” like Engels, Luxemburg, et al also spewed venom towards religious belief (especially Judeo-Christian expressions thereof).
It was total chaos. They overwhelmed the minimal church security, burst through the doors and just trashed the place. Overturned pews and seats, threw stuff around and committed a total sacrilege. And watching the film, it was obvious that there was nothing spontaneous about this. It had nothing to do with Church bells. They blame the Catholic Church for their candidate's defeat. Pure and simple.
I'd also dispute the figure of 100. From the film it looked to be at least double that.
distressed ping
A some point we are going to have to occupy Mexico, sometime in this century.
Ping!
To be realistic, there is no way any churchgoing Catholic is going to tear down a communion rail to use for a barricade.
While it was reported that only 100 entered the church, there were 10,000 protesters in front of the cathedral. These parishioners were in fear for their lives and rightfully so.
One of the largest problems is the lack of education. Unless things have changed, most poor children only go to school through the 6th grade making it easy to use the poor as a front because they remain powerless and ignorant.
My son had a friend in 6th grade who was a dual citizen, they had to return to Mexico for some reason and the only way they survived was the 3 oldest children working in the tourist industry because they spoke english. They weren’t able to afford schooling and even if they could they had to work.
When he was 16 he went to California (leagally) and worked in the construction industry, changed his name to my son’s name and became a citizen.
Issue non-ceremonial swords to the Knights of Columbus. (Not that they couldn’t do some damage with the standard ones ...)
Somehow for the Left, their beloved slogans of tolerance and diversity go out the window when it comes to traditional religion, especially Christianity.
If I had to “Stand by to Repel Boarders” ... I’d want something a little more heavy duty than my KofC sword. If we’re sticking to edged weapons, I’ll take a double-bitted axe and a machete, please. And maybe a KaBar for backup.
I cut the page out of the magazine that gave the order number for the cards, and it’s been on the refrigerator for a while. I’ve left a phone message with the order department, since I need to know how much it costs to get them in bulk.
For later
Twenty posts later and no one has made mention of the info you detailed. I mean, the rallying cry, “Pederasts, Pederasts!”
If that is true, I wish the mob would have gotta hold of one, and left the sanctuary alone.
Yes, I was surprised that nobody mentioned that - I guess in many cases, people don’t read up thread, of course, so I suppose it’s understandable. However, I noticed that we had time for a few people to get into an off-topic anti-Mexican immigration rant.
I thought the “pederast” cry was quite bizarre, but at the same time, it’s something that the left is always screaming about the Church here, too - although the thing that really let sexual misconduct get going in the Church was precisely left-wing modernist thought.
In addition, people seem to have missed the fact the woman who started the attack is actually a senator (from this left-wing party).
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