It used to be that the sanctuary of a church actually offered sanctuary, even for the worst of criminals! Now it's the Church itself that's sending in cops to arrest peaceful, Christian people.
Quote:
At least three people have been arrested today after the Archdiocese of New Orleans sent police to two occupied Catholic churches to remove parishioners who for more than nine weeks have participated in a vigil in resistance to a closure plan.
Police were instructed to arrest occupiers if they continue to resist, with Archbishop Alfred Hughes deciding "It's time to bring this to a close," spokeswoman Sarah Comiskey said.
At Our Lady of Good Counsel on Louisiana Avenue, novelist Poppy Brite and Hunter Harris Sr. were led out of the church in handcuffs and placed in a police squad car. Later, another parishioner, Harold Baquet, who had talked of having a hard-to-locate hiding spot in the building, also was arrested and removed in handcuffs..
"They broke in a door ... a 100-year-old door to get in," said parishioner Mary Alice Sirkis. "This is a very poor example of religion. Not only is it not Catholic, it isn't even Christian."
(End Quote)
Apparently the Archdiocese claims that spending the night and exercising (walking around inside) the church are both "inappropriate." Quote:
The archdiocese believes that either is inappropriate. Even though neither church contains the Blessed Sacrament, consecrated bread that Catholics believe is the body and blood of Christ, the churches are still sacred, consecrated spaces, she [Comiskey] said.
How ironic! These people are keeping vigil in their church to keep it open. Who knows? Maybe they're walking "laps" in the church to keep awake?! These people are Christians putting themselves on the line for the very sake of the Body and Blood of Christ, so that they may be in His presence and not deprived of It. Meanwhile the Archdiocese wants the church gone. Despicable.
They've even deprived one man of needed cancer medication. What in the world is the American Roman Catholic Church coming to? When I returned to the Bark of Peter years ago, never in my wildest dreams did I think that we'd be faced with the likes of this, bishops who are traitors to Christ. Pope Benedict XVI, intervene on our behalf!
Matthew 10:16-23
Behold I send you as sheep in the midst of wolves. Be ye therefore wise as serpents and simple as doves. But beware of men. For they will deliver you up in councils, and they will scourge you in their synagogues. And you shall be brought before governors, and before kings for my sake, for a testimony to them and to the Gentiles: But when they shall deliver you up, take no thought how or what to speak: for it shall be given you in that hour what to speak. For it is not you that speak, but the Spirit of your Father that speaketh in you. The brother also shall deliver up the brother to death, and the father the son: and the children shall rise up against their parents, and shall put them to death. And you shall be hated by all men for my name's sake: but he that shall persevere unto the end, he shall be saved. And when they shall persecute you in this city, flee into another. Amen I say to you, you shall not finish all the cities of Israel, till the Son of man come.