Posted on 12/19/2006 8:49:11 PM PST by lightman
'Not a pretty sight' A Virgin Mary statue was found hanging at Stewartstown Presbyterian Church. By BRENT BURKEY Daily Record/Sunday News Article Launched: 12/19/2006 06:04:14 AM
rd/Sunday News Article Launched: 12/19/2006 06:04:14 AM EST
Dec 19, 2006 — Lori Adams went to work early Monday morning and didn't notice anything out of the ordinary.
But someone else did and told the church secretary that a Virgin Mary lawn ornament was hanging by the neck in the parking lot of Stewartstown Presbyterian Church.
"It was not a pretty sight when I came into work this morning," said Adams, who added that vandalism had not struck the church in about a year. She called the display that was placed overnight Sunday into Monday "sick."
According to the church and local police, the nearly 2½-foot-tall Virgin Mary figurine was bound by the neck with a rope and tied to a light post hanging from the southeast corner of the church building on College Avenue in Stewartstown.
Someone must have climbed onto the church's roof to commit the crime that the Rev. Bob LaForce called "pretty sick."
A motive for the crime is unknown.
Stewartstown Police Chief George Cunningham said the department wants to talk with whoever might have had a lawn ornament depicting the Virgin Mary holding the baby Jesus stolen recently.
Any other help would also be appreciated, Cunningham said.
The hanging was the first case of vandalism at the church since LaForce became pastor less than a year ago.
Adams said a few months prior to his appointment, someone had bent handicapped parking signs and shot out a few windows.
"Blasphemous," LaForce said.
IF YOU HAVE INFORMATION
Stewartstown Police are asking anyone with information about a Virgin Mary lawn ornament that was stolen in the past few days or about the hanging of the ornament at Stewartstown Presbyterian Church Sunday into Monday to contact the department at 717-993-5308.
And in this case it was a fitting comeback for the poster he was replying to.
Catholics, by definition, cannot be iconoclasts.
Catholicism has always upheld the legitimacy of iconography against all comers.
Or a baby Jesus out of a nativity set.
Amen!
"mothers" are the ones doing the slaughtering. This was either aimless Godless teenagers with nothing productive to do, or TROP sacrilege to intimidate.
Sacrilege either way.
Actually, "it" began with a totally unnecessary poke at the Presbyterians. This event isn't even a case of iconoclasm. An iconclast would have gone to the nearest Catholic Church and taken a sledge hammer to the statues there ... this was intended as an insult, and maybe a threat. It's actually quite the opposite of iconoclasm ... The vandal recognises that the statue is a sign pointing to a "higher" reality, and expresses his contempt for that reality.
Oh, yes ... missed that.
Blasphemy is correct, after all.
Inquisition and counter Reformation are two different time periods. The counter Reformation was as political as religious, and shall we forget the terrors of the Roundheads, or the martyred Catholics in Europe in the 15th, 16th and 17th centuries?
The modern world despises virginity and it despises the notion of self-sacrificing motherhood.
Our Lady, spotless virgin and perfect mother, is a standing reproach to the age.
The filth who did this is biting at her son's heel, but He will place His foot on the blasphemer's neck in due time.
The St. Bartholomew's Day Massacre was a political act by the Medici family to assassinate rivals to their personal power schemes.
The Medicis tried to mask their crime under the color of acting to defend the Church, but the fact that they baldfacedly lied to the Pope himself about the circumstances shows that the massacre had nothing to do with the Church at all.
One good bash deserves another.
Merry Christmas right back at you!
Why thank you!
(I think)
MERRY CHRISTMAS LARRY!
They also murdered priests and monks and nuns during the "purging" of the monasteries during the Scottish Reformation.
They also horsewhipped people for attending Mass.
They also confiscated the land of farmers who dared to shelter priests, turning them and their children off the land to beg and starve.
The Presbyterians have more to their charge than just the vandalism and destruction of property you admit to.
Complete and utter lies.
It is no wonder that Germany, which saw one-third of its population die as a result of the religious wars of the 17th Century, became a hotbed of skepticism and atheism in the 18th and 19th Centuries.
>>And in this case it was a fitting comeback for the poster he was replying to.<<
Well, as with all the "Mary", "Pope" or "Rosary" threads, it became an insult to Catholics instead of a personal smackdown to that poster.
Honestly, I would have been cheering if a witty comment was pointed at the poster who insulted the Presbyterians. It wasn't fair. My hubby grew up Presbyterian and never smashed one of my statues!
So generalizing Catholics or any other denomination should be off limits.
We are all brothers and sisters in Christ.
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From Wikipedia(http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Irish_Rebellion_of_1641): "The number of Protestants killed in the early months of the uprising is controversial, early Parliamentarian pamphlets claimed that over 100,000 settlers had lost their lives. In fact, recent research has shown that the number is far more modest, in the region of 4000 or so killed, though many thousands were expelled from their homes. It is estimated that up to 12,000 Protestants may have lost their lives in total, the majority dying of cold or disease after being expelled from their homes in the depths of winter. The general pattern around the country was that the violence of the attacks intensified the longer the rebellion went on. At first, there were beatings and robbing of local Protestants, then house burnings and expulsions and finally widespread killings, most of them concentrated in Ulster. In one notorious incident, the Protestant inhabitants of Portadown were taken captive and then massacred on the bridge in the town. In County Armagh, recent research has shown that about 1,250 Protestants were killed in the early months of the rebellion, or about a quarter of the Protestant population."
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