Fictitious Priests Behaving Badly

ASSOCIATED PRESS, Aug. 9 — In Mexico, an upcoming film that deals with moral struggles and failings among that country's clergy has raised hackles among many Catholics — but not among all the country's bishops.

According to Associated Press, the Mexican bishops' conference spokesman described the film as a “wake-up call” for Christians.

The Crime of Father Amaro, a modern-day adaptation of Jose Eca de Queiroz's 19th-century novel by that name, opened in Mexican theaters last week. It depicts priests who violate their vows in a number of ways, including love affairs, drug trafficking and involvement with leftist guerrillas.

One bishop, Alberto Suarez of Michoacan, decried the film as “loaded with hatred of our Church.”

But Father Rafael Gonzalez, a representative for the Council of Mexican Bishops, said the film simply called on the Church “to review its procedure for selecting and training priests and [become] closer to the people.”

Since the film was partly government-funded, some Catholic groups are suing the relevant agencies that contributed to it.

More Christians Die in Indonesia

FRONTPAGEMAGAZINE.COM, Aug. 14 — The savage Muslim attacks on Christians in Indonesia's Sulawesi province have begun again, according to Ian Freestone, a director of International Friends of Compassion, a human rights group.

Writing in the U.S. Web site FrontPage Magazine, Freestone reported the massacres that marked November and December 2001 have begun again.

“Whole villages are being burnt to the ground, churches are being destroyed and Christians are being shot and hacked to death,” Freestone said. “Desperate calls for assistance are being received via CB radios to neighboring villages.”

The attacks were apparently orchestrated by Laskar Jihad, an Islamic militant with links to al Qaeda. Security forces were reportedly absent from the scene, though they have been sent to the religiously mixed region specifically to protect Christians.

“Is there a conspiracy between the Laskar Jihad and part of these defense forces?” one Christian leader asked. “Who knows! Indeed there is nothing we can do. Apparently we have no right to live in our homeland, the Republic of Indonesia.”

German Diocese Would Dismiss ‘Married’ Homosexuals

LIFESITE NEWS, Aug. 12 — While the Church in Germany was unable to prevent that government from fabricating “civil unions” for homosexual couples, one diocese has taken steps to show its profound disapproval of the law, according to LifeSite News (www.lifesite.ca).

Because the Church considers such unions an attack on the sanctity of marriage, the Diocese of Limburg will not employ people who enter such “registered life partnerships.”

In a letter sent out last week to heads of all Church-sponsored groups, the diocese said anyone who contracts such a civil union “loses credibility in fulfilling the tasks he has to perform in an ecclesiastical institution. Since entering a registered life partnership is considered a serious violation of loyalty obligations ... dismissal is in principle justified and can only be disregarded in special cases.”