Cardinal Reinhard Marx just can’t stay out of the news. Edward Pentin at National Catholic Register gives us the details:
The apostolic nuncio to Austria has strongly criticized German bishops and priests for their opposition to a regional politician’s mandate to display Christian crosses in the entrances of all government institutions, saying such an objection is a “disgrace.”
Speaking to an audience at Hochschule Heiligenkreuz, a pontifical university near Vienna (see video below), Archbishop Peter Stefan Zurbriggen said that speaking as a representative of the Holy Father, he was “really sad and ashamed that in a neighboring country, bishops and priests, of all people, have to criticise it when they want to erect crosses.
“That is a disgrace which mustn’t be accepted!,” he said in a loud voice and to a round of applause.
The nuncio’s reproach comes after Cardinal Reinhard Marx, the Archbishop of Munich and Freising, criticized a mandate from Markus Söder, Bavaria’s Prime Minister, that all state buildings should display crosses, though not necessarily in the form of a crucifix, by June 1.
Söder, a Lutheran, announced the decision on April 24. His office said it is intended to “express the historical and cultural character” of Bavaria and to be “a visible commitment to the core values of the legal and social order in Bavaria and Germany.”
But Cardinal Marx told the Süddeutsche Zeitung newspaper that the cross is not just a “cultural symbol” but rather “a sign of opposition to violence, injustice, sin and death.” It is not a “sign [of exclusion] against other people,” he added.
The cardinal, who heads the German bishops’ conference, stressed it is not up to the state to explain what a cross means, and that Bavaria’s government has triggered “division, unrest and adversity” with the move.
Bishop Rudolf Voderholzer of the Bavarian diocese of Regensburg has taken an opposing view to Cardinal Marx, asserting that: “the cross is the epitome of Western culture.”
Go here to view the rest. This brings to mind what Saint Paul said:
22For Jews demand miraculous signs and Greeks ask for wisdom, 23but we preach about a crucified Christ, a stumbling block to Jews and foolishness to Gentiles. 24But to those who are called, both Jews and Greeks, Christ is the power of God and the wisdom of God. 25For the foolishness of God is wiser than human wisdom, and the weakness of God is stronger than human strength.
1 Corinthians 1: 22-25
The hierarchy of the Church promoted this evil clown and tolerates him to this day. Enough faithless shepherds!
Grossly amusing crew. They don’t teach the faith. And they display the same leapfrogging loyalties every other member of the occidental professional-managerial set displays. They are worth just what? You turn them over to the types running militias in Barcelona in 1937, and their flock would be worse off just how?
Andrew van der Bilj (‘Brother Andrew’) in his memoir of his years as a sub rosa missionary behind the Iron Curtain, had accounts of clergymen who’d been suborned and clergymen who were frightened of their own shadow. He recalled a meeting with one of these and he looked down at the man’s hands. He could tell from looking at them that the man’s fingernails had been yanked out at one time. No one yanked out Cdl. Marx’s fingernails to get him to behave this way.
“a sign of opposition to violence, injustice, sin and death.”
And here I thought it was a sign of Christ victorious sacrifice, defeating sin and death to rescue us all.