Three stories about the Catholic Church

[Stunster]

Uh-oh, trying to attract young people.... while condemning homosexual
marriage and pre-marital co-habitation.... and providing courses on
Satanism. Ahem.

Wakey, wakey!


Catholic Church Adjusts to Minority Status in Europe

Fri Nov 19, 8:12 AM ET


By Tom Heneghan, Religion Editor

PARIS (Reuters) - Now that it is often treated like a maligned
minority, the Roman Catholic Church in Western Europe has decided to
start acting like one too.

Taking a page from pressure group tactics, the Church is increasingly
staging "Catholic pride" events in public and training members to
stand up for their faith on the world's most secularized continent.

This new self-confidence marks a sharp departure from the defensive
stand the once-powerful Church had taken since the 1960s in Europe,
where religious practice has collapsed and Catholicism is often the
butt of cruel jokes.

With such vital signs as baptisms, Sunday Mass attendance and new
priestly vocations having fallen so low, some in the Church think the
only way it can go now is up.

"Something is changing," Brussels Cardinal Godfried Danneels told
Reuters at a week-long conference in Paris aimed at rekindling the
faith in the not-very-religious French capital.

"The Church had descended into the catacombs and was afraid of public
manifestations. Now Catholics are a minority and, like all minorities,
they don't have complexes. They are much less afraid of professing
their faith than they were 20 years ago."

French sociologist Marcel Gauchet saw the change as a way for the
Church to remake itself as a counter-culture. "No religion can exist
anymore without some way of displaying its identity," he told the
Catholic weekly La Vie.

IGNORANT YOUTH

Europe's younger generation has also changed, Danneels said during the
"urban mission" drive attended by Catholics from around Europe in late
October.

"They are completely ignorant of most things about the Christian
faith, but they are open to listen," he said.

The Paris "urban mission" effort, a mix of conferences and concerts
attracting Catholics from around Europe, was part of a five-year drive
launched in 2003 in Vienna and due to continue in coming years in
Lisbon, Brussels and Budapest.

This campaign to strengthen Catholicism in Europe is a telling
turn-around for a region once so solidly Christian that it sent
missionaries around the world.

Cathedrals grace its cities, but only 10-15 percent of Catholics
worship regularly.

John Paul II appealed for a "new evangelization" as far back as 1979,
during his first trip as Pope to his native Poland, and has made this
"proud to be Catholic" theme a trademark of his globe-trotting
mission. But he was clearly ahead of his time.

Paris Cardinal Jean-Marie Lustiger, a Jewish-born convert, first
suggested the "urban mission" idea to fellow cardinals as they
discussed the Church in the new millennium.

"WE ARE NOT TELEVANGELISTS"

Like the World Youth Days, the Pope's bi-annual jamborees often
described as a "Catholic Woodstock," "urban mission" events are strong
on popular attractions such as theater or rock, reggae and gospel
music concerts.

There was also a "happy hour" for young single Catholics.

The cardinals sponsoring the event, aged between 52 and 78, seemed a
bit defensive. "We are not televangelists," insisted Lustiger as he
explained why they staged the shows.

Cardinal Christoph Schoenborn, whose city Vienna has a long history of
art, architecture and music created for the Church, said contemporary
culture was an important means to address youths he said were
"practically religious illiterates."

"The Church has always appealed to the senses with liturgy, theater
and music," he said. "The sensory means are different but the sensory
perception remains."

Budapest's Peter Erdo, at 52 Catholicism's youngest cardinal, admitted
his tastes were more classical but added: "Young people communicate
much less with the printed word and more with audiovisual methods. We
have to recognize this."

MESSAGE AND MUSIC

The message is not divorced from the music. At a Christian rock
concert outside the Church of Saint Sulpice, tents were set up to
offer information about Catholicism and space to sit down for a quiet
talk with a priest. Inside, confessions were heard.

Diocesan priests in roman collars, Franciscans in their brown robes
and nuns in pastel habits easily mixed and chatted with the crowds
ranging from children to grandparents.

"So many people are looking for meaning in their lives," said
Christophe, a Paris seminarian enjoying the music. "If the Church
doesn't come out in public, where will they find us?"

Pontifical University to Take on the Devil

Thu Dec 9,12:54 PM ET

By Philip Pullella

ROME (Reuters) - Forget the new "Exorcist" film, the Vatican (news -
web sites) is offering the real thing.

A Vatican university said on Thursday it will hold a special
"theoretical and practical" course for Roman Catholic priests on
Satanism and exorcism in response to what the Church says is a
worrying interest in the occult, particularly among the young.

This year, Italy was gripped by the story of two teenage members of a
heavy metal rock band called the "Beasts of Satan" who were killed by
other band members in a human sacrifice.

The deaths horrified Catholic Italy, with pages of newspapers given
over to descriptions of the black candles and goats' skulls decorating
one victim's bedroom and witness statements of sexual violence.

The Regina Apostolorum, one of Rome's most prestigious pontifical
universities, said in a statement that such episodes should be seen as
an "alarm bell to take seriously a problem which is still far too
underestimated."

"In the last few years there has been a lot of interest in Satanism
and it develops because of the media. It's not that the devil is in
the media, rock and roll or the Internet but the media can be damaging
when it is used the wrong way," Carlo Climati, one of the professors
of the course, told Reuters.

"For young people, interest in Satanism can start with a CD, move onto
the Internet. From there, it sometimes develops into home-grown,
seemingly harmless things like going to cemeteries but sometimes can
lead to murders, as we have seen."

The two-month course, which begins in February and will be limited to
priests and advanced students of theology, will include themes such as
Satanism, diabolic possession and "prayers of liberation."

Satanism, the statement said, aimed to sow confusion among the young
and promote a world without moral rules.

According to some estimates, as many as 5,000 people are thought to be
members of Satanic cults in Italy with 17- to 25-year-olds making up
three quarters of them.

Interest in the devil and the occult has been boosted by films such as
"The Exorcist" in 1973 and this year's "Exorcist: The Beginning."

In 1999, the Vatican issued its first updated ritual for exorcism
since 1614 and warned that the devil is still at work.

The official Roman Catholic exorcism starts with prayers, a blessing
and sprinkling of holy water, the laying on of hands on the possessed,
and the making of the sign of the cross.

It ends with an "imperative formula" in which the devil is ordered to
leave the possessed.

The formula begins: "I order you, Satan..." It goes on to denounce
Satan as "prince of the world" and "enemy of human salvation." It
ends: "Go back, Satan." although he has kept a low

Pope Condemns Same Sex Union as Attack on Society

Sat Dec 18,12:31 PM ET

Top Stories - Reuters

VATICAN CITY (Reuters) - Pope John Paul on Saturday condemned same sex
marriage as an attack on the fabric of society and called on Catholics
to combat what he said was aggressive attempt to legally undermine the
family.

"Attacks on marriage and the family, from an ideological and legal
aspect, are becoming stronger and more radical every day," the 84-year
old pontiff said in the unusually strong statement.

"Who destroys this fundamental fabric causes a profound injury to
society and provokes often irreparable damage."

The Catholic Church teaches that marriage between a man and a women is
sacred and that homosexuality is a sin.

That stance has been under pressure in some of its core
constituencies, including the United States and Catholic Spain where
the socialist government in October approved a controversial draft law
to legalize gay unions.

But a counterattack has begun. In the United States, President Bush
was swept back to power in the November elections with help from U.S.
evangelicals and Catholics who agree with the Pope.

Votes for Bush included solid support from the religious right and his
win was interpreted by some as a victory for conservative Christians
on issues like gay rights and abortion.

The Polish Pope on Saturday also condemned abortion, artificial
procreation and equal status for cohabiting couples as undermining the
marital state.

"These things that are presented as civilized progress or scientific
conquests, in many cases are in fact a defeat for the dignity of human
life and for society," his statement read.