Pastor of Swedish Catholic church: vandal wanted to ‘create an eternal Good Friday’

By Courtney Mares

November 17, 2020 CNA Daily News News Briefs 2 Print

The vandalized altar of Christ the King parish in Gothenburg, Sweden. Credit: Diocese of Stockholm.

CNA Staff, Nov 17, 2020 / 10:00 am (CNA).- The altar of Christ the King parish in Gothenburg, Sweden, was vandalized on Friday, Nov. 13, in an act that the pastor believes was intentionally symbolic.

Fr. Tobias Unnerstål arrived at his church to find that the pulpit had been overturned and the altar completely stripped. Hymnals were cleared from the shelves and chairs had been thrown off the sanctuary. A wreath and plaque with a commemoration of those who died this year was also vandalized.

“I wonder if the culprit knows much about Christian symbolism. Because what has been done is very specific,” Fr. Unnerstål told ACI Stampa, CNA’s Italian language news partner.

“We ourselves remove everything from the altar once a year and it is before Good Friday. It is as if he wanted to create an eternal Good Friday, the worst thing you can imagine for a believer,” he said.

Unnerstål reported the vandalism to the police, but no perpetrators have been identified.

The priest said that the local community responded by offering support.

“I got a lot of phone calls, emails, and text messages after this,” he said.

“What made me particularly happy was that so many also said that they will pray for that person. I have not seen any desire for revenge.”

Unnerstål said that he would not lock the church gate during weekends but instead was encouraging his parishioners to visit the church to pray throughout the week. The risk of vandalism decreases when people are present inside the church.

Cardinal Anders Arborelius, the first native Swede to be named a cardinal, responded to the vandalism “with pain and dismay,” according to the Diocese of Stockholm’s website. Arborelius said that he was praying “for the community in this difficult moment.”

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Only a well-formed conscience can decide: Cardinal Marx on sexual morality

December 28, 2017 CNA Daily News 12

Munich, Germany, Dec 28, 2017 / 02:39 pm (CNA).- German Cardinal Reinhard Marx has stated that decisions about sexual morality must be discerned according to a well-formed conscience, respecting “the interplay of freedom and responsibility.”

The chairman of the German Bishops’ Conference said in a new interview that a person “has to be guided into the full reality of the faith and heed the voice of the Church. It is not sufficient to say that one knows by oneself whether something is good for you, or not. That would not constitute a conscientious decision-making process in the context of the Gospel.”

Speaking to the German magazine “Herder Korrespondenz,” Cardinal Marx affirmed that this also applies to homosexuality.

A “truly comprehensive assessment of the severity of guilt” is not possible “without looking at the individual’s conscience, without looking at his reality, at the concrete circumstances.”

Cardinal Marx warned against interpreting this “interplay of freedom and responsibility” as “relativism,” saying that while “there must be respect for the decision that one freely takes,” it is always within the context of the Gospel.

“It would be quite terrible to consider this as relativism, like some indeed have repeatedly claimed, as though everyone could just go about doing whatever they please.”

Asked whether he sees a risk of a new schism in the Church, given the current debates and controversies in Catholicism, Cardinal Marx answered: “I don’t see this being the case. I’d rather say not to be afraid, the Lord guides the Church.” In fact, the Archbishop of Munich and Freising continued, “productive debates” are “particularly important in our time.”

With regard to the question of “synodality,” something Pope Francis has repeatedly underscored as an important part of his papal agenda, Cardinal Marx said that he considered synodality an expression and consequence of the responsibilities and autonomy of the local churches, for example in liturgical translations.

“We can’t just publish texts in Rome that are then simply translated around the world. Even under John Paul II there were synods for each continent in order to focus more on specific regions. We should continue on that path.”

On the question of ordaining women to the priesthood, which the German interviewers also raised, the Cardinal gave a short, definitive answer: “That really is not for discussion. The pope has spoken decisively on the matter.”

 

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1 Comment

  1. … In a related move, Pope frankie 1, decided that the look was so much in the current genre of “jesuit style” (tear down, rip up, destroy & deny) that he wanted st Peter’s basilica to be ‘redesigned’ by the perpetrator, noting the new caption above the high altar to read: “Quis ego sum iudex est”

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