Anti-Catholic students protest at university chapel in Madrid

[Amapola]

Madrid, Spain, Mar 11, 2011 / 08:01 pm (CNA).- Some 70 college students stormed into the chapel of Madrid’s Complutense University on March 10, shouting insults against the Catholic Church, Pope Benedict XVI and priests.

Several females from the group stood on the altar, undressed from the waist up.

Another female student who was in the chapel praying at the time told the Spanish daily ABC that two of the young women on the altar “boasted about their homosexual tendencies.”

The group of students stormed into the chapel with a megaphone and pushed the chaplain out of the way. They proceeded to shout insults against the Catholic Church and her teachings. The group also placed posters in the pews and on the bulletin board at the entrance to the chapel.

The entire incident was caught on film.

Another student interviewed by ABC asked, “what would have happened had this taken place in a mosque? These people should know that Catholics will never respond to a provocation with another provocation just to defend themselves.”

“Nobody will silence us by acting with hostility, mockery, intimidation or any other illegitimate pressure that offends the religions sensibilities of everyone,” she continued. “Moreover, acts like these are punishable by law. How easy and cowardly it is to do something like this anonymously!”

University administrators condemned the act and said an investigation will be carried to identity those responsible. They reiterated the university’s commitment to respect for freedom of worship and belief and urged students to be tolerant of each other’s religious sentiments. “The neutrality of the government in religious matters means no specific belief can be imposed or subjected to persecution.

“Tolerance and respect are absolutely indispensable,” they said.

ABC reported it was not the first time the chapel has been the target of anti-Christian acts. Last week the doors and walls of the chapel were painted with anti-Catholic graffiti.

The Archdiocese of Madrid released a statement condemning the desecration of the chapel and filed a formal complaint with the university. “These actions are an attack on freedom of worship and a profanation of a sacred place, which carries with it canonical penalties for any baptized parties who took part.”

The archdiocese called it “shameful that in a democratic society where there is supposed to be respect for others, for religious institutions and for the right to celebrate one’s faith in public,” a group of young people would tarnish the good name and hard work of the Complutense University.

[The Lawspeaker]

I may feel some disdain for the corruption within the Catholic Church and for the Pope's rather weak and dogmatic response but these people should have been thrown out of the Chapel.. and out of university.

[Cato]

Tolerance and respect, but only of officially-approved minorities and groups. The college students, probably the same kind of drug-using, long-haired, Marxist-influenced anarchist trash that you see protesting anything and everything in the U.S.

[Mordid]

I feel disgraceful.

[Murphy]

Simple answer: time to keep cricket bats in the sacristy. These attacks are becoming more and more common in the western world and eventually will become day-to-day problems. They are no longer content with graffiti or putting in the windows, something my own church has suffered, having the necessity of bars on the windows today and plastic windows for the priest's home! When the priest restrained one wee bastard for having a go in the Church he was threatened with charges of assault!

It's time we defend the Church's property. The Anabaptists had their way. The French revolutionaries had their way. The modernists have had their way. Enough is enough now!

Anti-Catholicism is alive and well and perfectly acceptable in the western world. We are quite literally under siege (I will be more than willing to bring you to Mass with me and show you the bunker in which we celebrate the Most Holy Sacrament).

[Amapola]

Simple answer: time to keep cricket bats in the sacristy. These attacks are becoming more and more common in the western world and eventually will become day-to-day problems. They are no longer content with graffiti or putting in the windows, something my own church has suffered, having the necessity of bars on the windows today and plastic windows for the priest's home! When the priest restrained one wee bastard for having a go in the Church he was threatened with charges of assault!

It's time we defend the Church's property. The Anabaptists had their way. The French revolutionaries had their way. The modernists have had their way. Enough is enough now!

Anti-Catholicism is alive and well and perfectly acceptable in the western world. We are quite literally under siege (I will be more than willing to bring you to Mass with me and show you the bunker in which we celebrate the Most Holy Sacrament).

Christianity was not made by pacifists, pro-dialogue postconciliar ecumenists, not even by charlatan demo-christians.
I just say: GOOD COMBAT, MILITIA and FIGHT!!

[Cato]

It's a rather brazen display. Is this sort of thing common in Spain and other parts of Europe? I've read news stories of people vandalizing churches in the U.S., usually solitary individuals and small groups, but never mobs of this size. Such a large group means that it was organized, and given that the rabble are college "students" it was probably under the auspices of some Marxist organization like America's SDS (Students for a Democratic Society, whereas democracy in the jargon of the new left is a code-word for Marxism).

[Raskolnikov]

Protestants and Catholics, at it again.

Thing is these protests are often fake. At a college I was going to there was some protest over budget cuts that was organised by the college itself with none of the students caring.

And you know what, I know Marxists and Anarchists, and whenever I talk about where I'm sympathetic for this or that of Marxism and Anarchism they don't know what I'm talking about.

[Murphy]

Protestants and Catholics, at it again.

I don't think it was Protestants in Madrid's case unlike my own.

Thing is these protests are often fake. At a college I was going to there was some protest over budget cuts that was organised by the college itself with none of the students caring.

So the Jesuits were behind this?

[Raskolnikov]

I don't think it was Protestants in Madrid's case unlike my own.

Protester = Protestant. That's my sincere usage of the term. An Anglo-Catholic, for instance, is not a Protestant in this sense of being oppositional and nothing else.

So the Jesuits were behind this?

No.