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Loading ...Anti-gay bishop withdraws name
02.17.2009 11:05am EST
(Vienna) An Austrian priest who has been quoted as calling Hurricane Katrina God’s punishment for sin in New Orleans has withdrawn his nomination to become auxiliary bishop, saying he had received “merciless” treatment for his views.
The Vatican earlier this month announced that Pope Benedict XVI had tapped the Rev. Gerhard Wagner, 54, to be auxiliary bishop in Linz, Austria. It made no mention of the reported remarks about Hurricane Katrina.But Wagner’s extreme views drew fire from liberals within the Austrian Catholic Church.
“Ever since I was nominated, I sensed opposition that often was carried out in a merciless and unkind way,” Wagner told Austrian public radio after handing in his withdrawal.
Wagner has served since 1988 as pastor of a church in the Austrian town of Windischgarsten and received a doctorate in theology from the prestigious Gregorian Pontifical University in Rome, the Vatican said.
In 2005, Wagner was quoted in a parish newsletter as saying that he was convinced that the death and destruction of Hurricane Katrina earlier that year was “divine retribution” for New Orleans’ tolerance of homosexuals and laid-back sexual attitudes.
“The conditions of immorality in this city are indescribable,” Wagner was quoted as saying.
A group of senior Austrian priests released the 2005 statements to the media calling Wagner’s nomination “unacceptable.” A lay organization called for believers to withhold their church tax, while an above-average number of Catholics reportedly have left the Church in recent weeks.
We should talk about the immorality of the Vatican. The only defense they have is that the extremist Islamics are worse.
Oh yes, IL Papa – can’t you remember who shared hitlers ovens with Jesus own people during the Holocaust?
The gays of germany, while your Pius the whatever (named Papacelli(?sp) said nothing.
I heard the same thing from one of the Christian ministers who I think was a pal of that u know what Hucklebee from Arkansas.
I always thought that katrina and 9/11 were God’s punishment for so many ignorant Americans supporting these backwards churches, and failing to use the brain God gave them. Of course their ignorant followers never question these destructive power mongers.
And for the Pope, who tapped this guy for that job, I have a few words
Seig Heil, mein churchfuhrer. Don’t you get it yet, or are the lessons of your growing up in Nazi germany still stuck in your mind. Same as your proposal to unexcommunicate the holocaust denier, and calling gays equivalent to pollution – which is nothing but a subtle call for their elimination, and a blessing from your pulpit for the minds of the more extremists of your following to go commit murder.
Life, HuH?
Morgan: right on. I’d just add that overpopulation is being fueled by the Roman cult.
Chris: I would agree that we should ignore these delusional people except they have made it their life’s work to demonize us. I’m up for the fight.
Religious delusion will ruin us. It is causing overpopulation. It causes “act now, repent later” i.e. murder rape etc. It caused fear of diversity and change, something needed for our race to evolve.
It even removes the drive to improve ourselves, since this life doesn’t matter. Ruin the planet..who cares, I’m only here until I get into heaven.
Religious delusion is an evolutionary flaw. The problem is we stopped evolving. Everyone is kept alive via medical advances until breeding age.
Perhaps if we just let the strong breed we’d be rid of religion and many other diseases.
But we won’t, and this race is doomed. I wonder how we will be petitioning the EPA to list us as endangered? It is just a matter of time. The Bald Eagles were just delisted. What are we doing to save ourselves?
If it wasn’t for my probably juror duty this Wednesday, I would be in CA joining in the anti-Prop H8 rally in Sacramento. and I would be helping in Maine.
The only people who believe in the ridiculous supernatural/magical dogma of covilizations that existed thousands of years ago are those who are most susceptable to brainwashing. A rational and intelligent mind pays no attention to these people.
Wagner’s views are untruthful, merciless and unkind.
The worsening storms, hurricanes, etc are part of global warmimg and climate change. Brought in part due to man deforesting and altering his planet as human population booms out of control. More people consume more and more things and resources. Needs more food, schools, jobs, more cars and housing and medical care more this and more that and not enough people are trying and/or are educated to not waste, to conservite in their own way energy and resources. And we are all getting pumped full of gots to have it, whether we really need it or not of this, that and the next thing to appear. We are burying ourselves and and land, air and water with more and more burned and buried waste. More and more pollution into air, earth and water. the list of ugly results of what we are doing goes on and on and air, earth and water have olny so much ability to clean away, refresh and renew itself.
That is why I have days of zero car use, why I have called a screeching halt to the technological advances in my house.
I DVD and VHS players for my TV, I have e-mail and internet. Alls kind of appliances and gadgets and microwave oven. I have bicycles. A document shredder. Adding machine. things to aid in quick food preparation. I am thinking of getting a palm pilot to keep track of my busy calendar. Have a water-proof cordless radio for my shower.
That is enough technology for my household.
I knit and weave the rest of what need.
I believe a certain amount of non-polluting, non-electricity consuming low-tech is needed to balance out all this teachnology and latest stuff around me.
Mankind’s and womankind’s needs and huge populations and not their sexual orientations are what is behind an increasing out of balance earth, deforested, polluted and one day running out of adequate food and resources and increasingly plentiful and violent storms.
Poor Baby, got flax for being a self righteous bigot. I really need to look up the passage where Jesus tells the people that a group that was killed when a wall city fell down were not worse sinners, kind of just in the wrong place at the wrong time.
Tom in Long Beach
Tom in Long Beach
Honestly, why does anyone CARE what the “catholic” “church” says or does? Unless they allow married priests, gay priests, and women priests, the Roman “Church” will cease to exist in exactly 30 years. The average age of a priest is 58 and rising. Do the math. Oh, some will hang on into their 90s, but the vast majority won’t.
GOOD RIDDANCE!
Cheers,
Bud Burgoon-Clark
San Diego CA USA
served the Church faithfully for 50 years; all I got was a kick in the nuts
The problem is that we have no idea whether what the bishop says is true or not…and who cares? Most Catholic leaders are anti-gay – perhaps the protests should include the current pope in their complaints. He is one of the more anti-gay leaders in that church!