Posted on 12/14/2005 12:06:40 PM PST by Pyro7480
Christmas is sacred, Pell warns race gangs
Jill Rowbotham and Elizabeth Gosch
CATHOLIC Archbishop George Pell has warned gangs of Middle Eastern descent not to target Christmas celebrations, after families were abused and gunshots fired into cars at a primary school's carols night in western Sydney on Monday.
Cardinal Pell said the attack in the multicultural suburb of Auburn, where Lebanese Muslims are believed to have turned on Lebanese Christians, was "apparently motivated by religious intolerance". He said: "I am deeply concerned about the targeting of Christmas celebrations at schools for students as young as five years old.
"The attack was apparently motivated by religious intolerance. This has no place in Australia today."
Police confirmed last night that they had been called to the St Joseph the Worker Primary School on Monday evening at about 9.30pm after a priest and parents heard gunshots outside the school, predominantly used by Lebanese Catholics.
Earlier in the evening, about 400 parents and children were singing carols when a group of youths of Middle Eastern appearance verbally abused them.
Neither police nor school staff could find any damage, but yesterday two school staff members discovered bullet holes in their cars, with spent cartridges found nearby.
"The cars have been seized along with a number of cartridges found at the scene and these will be forensically examined," a police spokeswoman said last night.
After two days of clashes between the Lebanese and Anglo communities in hotspots along Sydney's beaches, this was the first case of an attack on religious - rather than ethnic - grounds.
A church in Macquarie Fields, also in Sydney's west, was damaged in the early hours of yesterday morning, suffering minor fire damage after what police believe was an incendiary device was thrown through the front door. Cardinal Pell said the actions of the gang towards the Auburn school community - which was "predominantly Lebanese, with Filipinos, Chinese and Anglo families also represented" - was "as unacceptable as the violence perpetrated by Anglo elements on Sunday at Cronulla".
The incident forced the cancellation of a carols service at the Holy Spirit Primary School in Lakemba last night.
Cardinal Pell asked the Government to ensure the safety of those wishing to attend Christmas services.
To these Muslims, this has ALWAYS been about religion.
Ping!
Or what will be the consequence?
A few Crocodile Dundee types would be welcome right now!
Why do I get the impression that the media are understating the case? I doubt that only this church has been targeted by the Muslim "yoots".
The Lebanese Christians are not participants - they're victims.
Pell knows his history. When Protestant zealots burned down the Catholic cathedral in Philadelphia, the cardinal in New York responded by putting a guard of a few hundred hardass Irishmen with sledgehammers, shotguns and boards outside St. Patrick's.
I think Archbishop Pell would request assistance from local volunteers in an organized way if the police response was inadequate.
Now that would be downright refreshing...because, from all I have read over the last week (particularly Tim Priest's assessment of the police "service" in NSW), the authorities don't actually have any history of standing up to the ME gangs.
Muslims can't get along with Thais.
Muslims can't get along with Australians.
Muslim Lebanese in Australia can't get along with Christian Lebanists in Australia.
What have I left out?
Muslims of all types in France can't get along with anyone non-Muslim.
Muslims in Holland can't get along with non-Muslims in Holland.
Dundee posted that he is in an area that might see trouble.
Keep him and the rest of the Aussie Christians in your prayers.
Muslims killing 40,000 and buring churches in Africa.
KosovA/AustraliO spelling bump!
Huffing and puffing followed by more immigration?
Co myslisz? What do you think?
Dzieki
They do not get along with Philipinos either.
Too late. He was gunned down a few years ago at a police road block. AH, the price of civilization.
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