The following comes from a January 4 story from Catholic News Agency.
An online petition asking the White House to designate the Catholic Church as a “hate group” for its views on marriage is drawing criticism for generating unjust animosity.
The petition reveals an “underlying agenda,” which is not simply to prevent violent crimes, but to “stigmatize any disapproval of homosexuality at all and essentially to silence us,” said Peter Sprigg, senior fellow for policy studies at the Family Research Council in Washington, D.C.
He explained to CNA on Jan. 3 that applying the “hate group” label to organizations that are morally opposed to redefining marriage is simply “name-calling designed to cut us out of the public debate.”
Initiated on Christmas Day, a petition on the White House website had collected 1,640 signatures by Jan. 3.
The petition – which is aiming for 25,000 signatures by Jan. 24 – argued that Pope Benedict XVI’s 2012 Christmas address to the College of Cardinals “demeaned and belittled homosexual people around the world.”
“Using hateful language and discriminatory remarks, the Pope painted a portrait in which gay people are second-class global citizens,” it charged.
“Pope Benedict said that gay people starting families are threatening to society, and that gay parents objectify and take away the dignity of children,” the petition said. “The Pope also implied that gay families are sub-human, as they are not dignified in the eyes of God.”
It called for the Obama administration to recognize the Catholic Church as a hate group, as defined by the Southern Poverty Law Center and the Anti-Defamation League.
For entire story, click here.
I suggest the president call ALL speech a hate crime, then everybody will shut up about homosexuality, including homosexuals, and we will all finally have some peace and quiet.
haha. Silence is a very fine thing. It would also bring an end to the insane rhetoric spewed on CNBC, et al.
Thanks for the laugh Anne. That WAS funny!
You are welcome. One young blogger on another website said he finally realized why older people kept to themselves. He said, “They are tired of hearing all the b.s.” Well at my age I can vouch for that. I am ready to go off and join a Trappist Monastery if they will have me.
I agree Anne. As soon as I went to the White House BLOG site I realized that the WH was allowing HATE speech against the Church……I’m sure that is the only hate speech that would be allowed there.
Yes, Sandra and Dana, sexual impropriety is EVERYWHERE — on the computer, in most advertisements, in the sitcoms and movies, and on and on and on. Even commercials for products that children use, such as M & M Candies has been sexualized. One little boy got in trouble at his school for doing the M & M Candy dance in front of a little girl after he had been warned not to do it. This society is sick, sick, sick. in more ways than one.
And all who will live piously in Christ Jesus, shall suffer persecution. (2 Tim 3:12)
May Our Lord bless us and strengthen us for the days of persecution to come. The world hates the Lord, the world hates His Church and the world hates those who love Christ and the Catholic Church.
I imagine there sufficient Catholic politicians willing to label their church a hate group for opposing gay marriage to preclude Obama’s having to do so.
Brace yourself, Persecution of Catholics is coming, as sure as the sun rises from the east.
oh, for goodness’ sake, not this “persecution” thing again.
some posters in here seemed addicted to the notion that we’re all going to be rounded up and sent to concentration camps.
talk about drama queens and kings…
Max – According to history, it is not such a far-fetched idea that the Church will experience another severe form of persecution.
“And ye shall be hated of all men for my name’s sake: but he that endureth to the end, the same shall be saved.” Mathew 10:22
Candace: But Max is right on this point: it’s not likely to involve blood as much as money. Slow economic strangulation, beginning with an end to tax-exempt status, followed by denial of licenses to Catholic schools and other institutions, ending with a refusal to license individual Catholics in the professions. It could become impossible to even find a genuine Catholic doctor, nurse, lawyer or teacher. It won’t be Stalin’s Russia but post-Stalinist Russia, where Christianity was legal, but Christians couldn’t get into college or have any but the most menial jobs. That could happen in the leftist Bay Area very rapidly.
They starved two million Irish to death; so economic “strangulation” is powerful stuff. The tons of fiat money today can buy stuff; but tomorrow sometime there won’t be enough to buy no matter how much fiat money or cyber money you have. That is when the starvation will begin. And to keep it from the doorstep of the USA, we will have to fight violently against others who would compete for the same loaf of bread. It will be sort of like “whoever has the most guns and ammo wins”. This is one more reason “they” want to denude Americans of their guns. Had the Irish only been armed to the teeth like we Americans are today, they would not have starved.
max, to coin an old cliche’…if they accused you of being of Christian, would there be enough evidence to convict you? Perhaps you don’t have to worry about persecution, but I’m sure there are some on this site who will be at some point unless things change drastically in the next few years. Even ten years ago, did you ever think you would see same-sex sham marriage actually being considered lawful by a relatively sane society? You need to reflect for a moment on the changes we’ve already endured to see the ‘big picture’ and fill in the dots, darlin’. ‘Thimk’
Further in 1925, if you told a German that in less than 20 years Germany would be gassing jews in ovens, they would have told you that you are insane, perhaps even Hitler himself would have called you nuts. The sentence would have ended with ‘you are nuts’
Do not underestimate the Devil. He is very very evil and hates human beings very much.
I do not understand why people always use the Jewish Holocaust as an example, when there was an equal number of non-Jews exterminated by the Nazis, and three or four times that by the Soviets, and ten times that number by the Chinese Mao pogroms, and several million by Pol Pot, and millions by the English (Ireland potato famine), and several million Armenians by the Turks. Hitler’s pogrom seems somewhat diminutive comparatively.
Max, you are naive, Society can sink into some very serious crimes in very short order.
There are generally 5 steps
1. Identifying:
2. Marginalizing:
3. Vilifying:
4. Criminalizing:
5. Terrorizing.
I would say we are right about 4. Now, this particular group is just jumping to #5.
If you do not think that there are laws being passed in the United States to criminalize faith, look around the most ‘liberal states’ and you will find hundrends of laws especially executive ordinances design to criminalize faith.
In your life time if you are around 35-40, do not be suprised if you end up being shot at the village square.
max,
There is a saying: “When you are tried for being a Christian, will they find enough evidence to convict you”. In your case, the word “Christian” could be subsituted by “Catholic”, and it is highly doubtful they would find enough evidence, so you really don’t need to worry about the coming persecution!
May God have mercy on your poor soul,
Kenneth M. Fisher
max is good. Leave max alone. He is a good Catholic. You have set up false idols and then you criticize max because he does not worship them. Max is right to stay with the Holy Catholic Church.
max is at the vilifing stage.
and yourself?
thanks, KENNETH!
and may GOD have mercy on your soul, also!
No, max, you’re wrong. We’re not afraid of being rounded up and put in camps; no, we’re fearful that we’ll have to blow away so many fools who would try to make that happen. Add up the semi-automatic weapons owned by the civilian population … say 200 million … and compare that to how many the military has … say a couple hundred thousand. Sure they have planes, tanks and so forth … but so do the national guard units, the reserve units … all manned mainly by civilians … and then there are the countless sheriff departments beholden to their local voters and not to the feds or to the states. max, we’re afraid of the calamity,not the outcome. Another factor you might not have considered max, is who controls the fuel for the planes and tanks … civilians, max, civilians. The govt could issue infinite amounts of money to its soldiers, max, but guess who they have to buy from … yep, civilians. If push comes to shove, it will be the end of the gay movement and the end of fools running the govt and the end of lap dogs running the military, and the end of dolts running the religions (try to figure this one out, max … but don’t lose your mind in the process).
oh, boy, SKAI, here you go with the pro-death, pro-violence, pro-shooting thing again.
you really should switch to decaf…or use up your energy helping the poor…or volunteer at a shelter…anything to keep you from becoming so violent.
our poor country has seen enough violence lately, and we don’t need anyone adding to it…enough dead bodies have been on the news!
max not everyone drinks coffee…so how can someone switch to decaf if they don’t drink coffee at all? Just saying, you always seem to think everyone drinks coffee…how about you switching to something better!
Actually the persecution of Catholics IS already taking place. It IS and has been happening for some time in China, in Iran, in Egypt, in the Sudan and in other places around the world. The only difference now is that it appears to be a very real risk for those of us who live in the USA.
For years now I always been saddened when a priest in his homily talks about “the martyrs” and then indicates that this is fortunately something that we don’t have to fear anymore. As if those Catholics living outside of the USA don’t count. Shouldn’t “we” indicate everyone in our Catholic family and not just those of us who live in the USA? It’s as if our Catholic brothers and sisters outside of the USA don’t even exist. The second point is that we sure are arrogant as well as profoundly ignorant of history if we believe that it would be impossible for religious persecution to ever occur in the USA.
If and when it comes down to it, it could be a great blessing if “they” took away the bishops first, which would remove a huge road block for any resurgeance of faith among the laity.
Skai,
Study your Church history, in France and in England it was the apostate bishops who did the worse persecuting of the faithful Catholics, and we will probably see it repeated here!
God bless, yours in Their Hearts,
Kenneth M. Fisher
Pray for all Bishop’s and Clergy…..do not attack them.
That’s right Sandra. I agree, our prayers are with them. When they mess up, there are countless souls being attacked spiritually for being mislead. God have mercy on us all!
Tracy,
I can personally testify that it is already happening right here in the once Free United States of America, now the Dis-United States of Amerika!
God bless, yours in Their Hearts,
Kenneth M. Fisher
Those that don’t feel the persecution that a faithful Catholic is enduring, are the ones who are not fighting the good fight….
Before the 2012 election, Barack Hussein Obama declared war on the Catholic Church by requiring Catholic institutions to provide health insurance to employees which covered abortions, contraception medications and the morning after pills. After some outcry, Obama and Kathleen Sibelius, his Health and Human Services cabinet secretary (who claims to be Catholic) gave a temporary reprieve from the insurance mandate. The Obama administration is anti-Catholic. But it is pro-homosexual and pro-abortion. Get used to it. Obama is a lame duck president and he can to anything he wants to. His war on the Church has just begun.
Bring it! I want to die a martyr! I want to go out “with my head held, above my enemies on every side,” (psalm 27) for God and the faith! I pray God gives us all the complete strength to endure it to the end with complete
On fire with the Lord….you go girl!
God bless you Deb….fight the good fight
Trust in Him!
The faithful are Him, Deb. If you expect Him to do something, then you need to do just that.
No, Skai, the faithful are in Him, not Him!
God bless, yours in Their Hearts,
Kenneth M. Fisher
Mr Fisher AMEN!
if the ROMAN CATYHOLIC CHURCH is going to labelled a hate group for being anti-gay, then many other religious bodies will have to labelled the same way.
many orthodox, protestants, etc., not to mention many muslims, jews, etc., are just as opposed to gay marriage as we are.
Not just Catholics will be the targets of the coming persecutions. Any Christian that maintains traditional values will be a target. Many of the evangelical Christian groups will be involved.
Sorry, I’m so upset, I posted my comments about Bishop Soto and John Perez under the wrong article.
Yes, we Catholics are definitely a hate group: we hate sin and stand together against the desecration, defiling, denigration and destruction of the human body.
Great point Maryanne. If we don’t hate all of these things that you mention then we are smiling as we walk down that wide and easy road to hell.
What this society is doing is called self destruction. It cannot help itself and refuses to let God help it.
The world hates anyone who believes God’s word. Especially if you want to live by it. Satan has deceived so many and will continue until Jesus returns. Besides, your not to hate the sinner. It’s the SIN you are to hate.
They do not care about such distinctions.
Beth, since there is or will be a “man of sin”, then there are or will be many men of sin. Sometimes the sin and the sinner are one and the same. We hate the devil who is a creature, Beth. Why would we not hate a man of sin also? The mantra, “hate the sin, but love the sinner”, was made up to collect larger baskets of money, not to express the Gospel.
Seemingly no end to the insanity but there will be an end to it some sweet day!
Viva Cristo Rey must be our Cry!
God bless, yours in Their Hearts,
Kenneth M. Fisher
Has anyone looked at the White House site? There are 196 petitions listed that run the gamut from ridiculous to positive efforts. There is one asking Gov. Brown to give Cal ferret owners a fair hearing! One of the petitions with the largest number of signers is the one asking the gov. to exempt Hobby Lobby from obamacare mandates. Over 30,000 signers. There is also a new petition that reads “Designate as a hate group the bigoted people who started the petition to designate the Catholic Church as a hate group”. Perhaps all who read this site could sign the positive petitions thus counteracting the negative ones. It also appears that anyone can initiate a petition.
Useful information – thank you!
And you think that the white house will be moved by the signatures? I would not suggest that you give out your e-mail address with your opposing position to your enemy.
You can create a phony email data bank very easily. Yes, of course such could be traced, but not very easily. It would be extremely time consuming and manpower exhausting to try to trace several million such email accounts.
Yes, to hate sin, to prefer the light, that is worthy of examination. Most pagans such as President Obama have no moral compass. Our God sees all, knows all, protects all. We place ourselves in the hands of the Almighty God as we pray for those who persecute and calumniate us.
If media would publish frequent photographs of aborted babies, abortions in ultrasound progress, and describe the physical actions that define homosexual relations, they would not be permitted with getting away with ever even using the words “dignity” or “choice” or health “care”,
We faithful Catholics and other pro-lifers need to hit the streets and display the photographs of what a murdered fetus looks like ourselves. Actually, this is already happening on college campuses as well as in front of churches and various other places on our city streets. The media is the enemy. We must do the work ourselves. Please find a group and go out to join them in this effort. Please also keep their work in your prayers.
What is the orange thing in the picture?
Anonymous,
Cardinals wear scarlet and Bishops wear red, that is not orange but red!
God bless, yours in their Hearts,
Kenneth M. Fisher
Heterophobia is here.
The group that posted the petition did not read the Pope’s remarks. He did not mention homosexuals as second class citizens or anything like that. He stated that marriage is under attack. He even quoted a Jewish Rabbi from Paris who stated the same thing. Both groups are hate groups that hate the Catholic Church. Soon, those of us that pray in front of abortion clinics will be arrested. So be it. I am Catholic and proud of it. The Church and I hate no one. We demand nothing of anyone that we don’t demand of ourselves, When is the rest of the world going to realize that fact?
I don’t care what an extremist group says about the church…they mean nothing to me…as for my household and I, we will focus on our salvation first…the rest…its up to them now. They alone will have to nurture and tend to their salvation…it’s their free will.
Abeca,
Believe me, most of THEM don’t even believe in Eternal Salvation! Many who call themselves Catholic believe that no one is in Hell except the Devil and his angel supporters, especially those lke my buddy who have been indoctrinated at the REC!
God bless, yours in Their Hearts,
Kenneth M. Fisher
Those who organized the petition are a “HATE GROUP”.
And they are ultimately asking for FREEDOM of SPEECH to be deleted from the US Constitution.
The Church does not hate homosexuals.
Read the CCC: 2357, 2358, 2359.
We must love our neighbors, but never tolerate sin.
We want all persons including those with ‘same sex attraction’ to get to Heaven.
“If enough Christians followed the gospel, they could bring any state to its knees.”
Father Philip Francis Berrigan