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.
What is well to remember is that when Ireland gained her independence in the 1920s after seven centuries of English rule, many Anglo-Irish Protestants and Anglo-Norman Catholics in southern Ireland supported independence even though the resultant Irish Free State was overwhelmingly Celtic and Catholic.
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Indeed.
Merry Christmas to all!
| 2. I greet the French Bishops who are hosting us, and the Bishops from so many parts of the world. I also extend cordial greetings to the eminent representatives of the other Christian confessions with whom we share the same Baptism, and who have wished to take part in this Youth Celebration. On the eve of 24 August we cannot forget the sad Massacre of Saint Bartholomew's Day, an event of very obscure causes in the political and religious history of France. Christians did things which the Gospel condemns. If I speak of the past, it is because "acknowledging the weaknesses of the past is an act of honesty and courage which helps us to strengthen our faith, which alerts us to face today's temptations and challenges and prepares us to meet them" (Tertio Millennio Adveniente, 33). Therefore I willingly support the initiatives of the French Bishops, for, with them, I am convinced that only forgiveness, offered and received, leads little by little to a fruitful dialogue, which will in turn ensure a fully Christian reconciliation. Belonging to different religious traditions must not constitute today a source of opposition and tension. Quite the contrary, our common love for Christ impels us to seek tirelessly the path of full unity. |
| 12th WORLD YOUTH DAY, Baptismal Vigil with young people, ADDRESS OF JOHN PAUL II, Longchamp, Saturday, 23 August 1997 |
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Please note the very deliberate wording above. |
| 33. Hence it is appropriate that, as the Second Millennium of Christianity draws to a close, the Church should become more fully conscious of the sinfulness of her children, recalling all those times in history when they departed from the spirit of Christ and his Gospel and, instead of offering to the world the witness of a life inspired by the values of faith, indulged in ways of thinking and acting which were truly forms of counter-witness and scandal. Although she is holy because of her incorporation into Christ, the Church does not tire of doing penance: before God and man she always acknowledges as her own her sinful sons and daughters. As Lumen Gentium affirms: "The Church, embracing sinners to her bosom, is at the same time holy and always in need of being purified, and incessantly pursues the path of penance and renewal".(16) The Holy Door of the Jubilee of the Year 2000 should be symbolically wider than those of previous Jubilees, because humanity, upon reaching this goal, will leave behind not just a century but a millennium. It is fitting that the Church should make this passage with a clear awareness of what has happened to her during the last ten centuries. She cannot cross the threshold of the new millennium without encouraging her children to purify themselves, through repentance, of past errors and instances of infidelity, inconsistency, and slowness to act. Acknowledging the weaknesses of the past is an act of honesty and courage which helps us to strengthen our faith, which alerts us to face today's temptations and challenges and prepares us to meet them. 34. Among the sins which require a greater commitment to repentance and conversion should certainly be counted those which have been detrimental to the unity willed by God for his People. In the course of the thousand years now drawing to a close, even more than in the first millennium, ecclesial communion has been painfully wounded, a fact "for which, at times, men of both sides were to blame".(17) Such wounds openly contradict the will of Christ and are a cause of scandal to the world.(18) These sins of the past unfortunately still burden us and remain ever present temptations. It is necessary to make amends for them, and earnestly to beseech Christ's forgiveness. In these last years of the millennium, the Church should invoke the Holy Spirit with ever greater insistence, imploring from him the grace of Christian unity. This is a crucial matter for our testimony to the Gospel before the world. Especially since the Second Vatican Council many ecumenical initiatives have been undertaken with generosity and commitment: it can be said that the whole activity of the local Churches and of the Apostolic See has taken on an ecumenical dimension in recent years. The Pontifical Council for the Promotion of Christian Unity has become an important catalyst in the movement towards full unity. We are all however aware that the attainment of this goal cannot be the fruit of human efforts alone, vital though they are. Unity, after all, is a gift of the Holy Spirit. We are asked to respond to this gift responsibly, without compromise in our witness to the truth, generously implementing the guidelines laid down by the Council and in subsequent documents of the Holy See, which are also highly regarded by many Christians not in full communion with the Catholic Church. This then is one of the tasks of Christians as we make our way to the Year 2000. The approaching end of the second millennium demands of everyone an examination of conscience and the promotion of fitting ecumenical initiatives, so that we can celebrate the Great Jubilee, if not completely united, at least much closer to overcoming the divisions of the second millennium. As everyone recognizes, an enormous effort is needed in this regard. It is essential not only to continue along the path of dialogue on doctrinal matters, but above all to be more committed to prayer for Christian unity. Such prayer has become much more intense after the Council, but it must increase still more, involving an ever greater number of Christians, in unison with the great petition of Christ before his Passion: "Father ... that they also may all be one in us" (Jn 17:21). |
| APOSTOLIC LETTER, TERTIO MILLENNIO ADVENIENTE, 10 Nov 1994 |
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Amen.
From the article ...:
... whoever might have had a lawn ornament depicting the Virgin Mary holding the baby Jesus stolen recently.
***In a way this is chickens coming home to roost so to speak. The Presbyterians did so much to encourage iconoclasm in the sixteenth and seventeenth centuries.***
But lets remember that Savanarola encouraged iconoclasm before that, and a certain Byzantine emperor before that.
Don't forget John Knox's personal hand in the murder of Mary Queen of Scots (and others), and John Calvin's personal hand in the murder of Michael Servetus.
Methodists?
The people who did this dont care about denominations. They are haters. They just wanted to insult Christiantiy. To see it as anything else is mind masturbation.
>>This is not an image representing anything divine.
From the article ...:
... whoever might have had a lawn ornament depicting the Virgin Mary holding the baby Jesus stolen recently.<<
Zing!
There is blood on the hands of both sides of the religious wars of the 16th and 17th Centuries.
Well said! Thank you!
You wrote:
"The Presbyterians may have broken a few statues and stained glass window, but the Inquisition broke many thousands of humans on the rack, the wheel, the auto da fe, and the gallows."
Untrue. The inquisition was never allowed to use any devise which might draw blood, break bones, maim anyone or cause permanent harm. That was the law. They followed it.
"Perhaps you have forgotten the St. Batholomew's Day Massacre,.."
Nope. I haven't forgotten. I know it better than you ever will. That's why I know it has nothing to do with what we're talking about.
"... a highlight of the Counter-Reformation offensive against Protestants."
There was no Counter-reformation, nor was there an Offensive. There was a Protestant Revolution and a Catholic Reformation.
You wrote:
"Learned well from the Catholics."
Nope. We have no notable history of iconoclasm -- except destroying pagan images.
You wrote: "But lets remember that Savanarola encouraged iconoclasm before that, and a certain Byzantine emperor before that."
Savonorola never encouraged a general, wanton iconoclasm. The wall paintings in his monastic cell were never damaged for instance. He encouraged the destruction of images he considered immodest.
...and so we mention both. These were political as well as religious as the ruling class in the middle ages always saw the Church as a way to subjugate the common folk. In the 15th century it was Moslems killing Catholics; in the 16th the German princes and Henry got into the act.
Yes, it's a blessed celebration, but it's also time for the traditional "Sparring With The Infidels", so I guess these threads are to be expected.
Calling the Reformation a Revolution is equivalent to the liberals renaming A.D. and B.C. as CE and BCE. In other words, a "rad trad" Catholic version of political correctness.
I pointed out a historical fact: Presbyterians were iconoclasts in the 16th and 17th centuries. That is irrefutable.
You wrote: "Vlad, you were the one who started this Papist-Prod food fight with a pointless, gratuitous insult to Presbyterians, and by extension, all Protestants."
The truth is insulting to Protestants? You might be right about that! LOL!!!
"As far as I am concerned, both sides in that era behaved little better than the Communists and the Nazis in the last century, or the Islamist extremists of our time."
Nonsense. Neither side really deserves such a ridiculous comparison.
"Making excuses for the atrocities on either side is on the level of the Holocaust denial of anti-Semites or ignoring the concentration camps and mass murder committed by the Communists on the part of liberals."
Thank goodness I never made such excuses.
"Calling the Reformation a Revolution is equivalent to the liberals renaming A.D. and B.C. as CE and BCE. In other words, a "rad trad" Catholic version of political correctness."
Again, nonsense. The Protestants overthrew regimes, squelched opposition, seized property, books, imposed new and unheard of laws, slaughtered their enemies in many cases, suppressed languages and cultures while raising up and championing others, etc. All of this is indisputable. That's what many revolutions do. That's what the Protestant Revolution did. Don't like it? Too bad. It's all true.
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