From the Australian Broadcasting Corp: Pope's Birthplace Sprayed With Abusive Graffiti
A vandal has spray-painted an abusive message on the house in southern Germany in which Pope Benedict was born.
Police spokesman Konrad Rutzinger says the graffiti was sprayed in blue on the front door of the house, a three-storey, 264-year-old building in Marktl am Inn in the predominantly Catholic state of Bavaria.
He says the message seems to be linked to the abuse scandals that have engulfed the Catholic Church.
"F*** yourselves" read the graffiti, according to photographs published in the German press. It has been hastily painted over.
A recent survey found that a quarter of Germany's Catholics were considering quitting the Church in the wake of reports of hundreds of cases of sexual abuse by clerics, some many decades old.
Last week clerics in Germany used Easter sermons to pray for the victims as public sentiment against the Church turned decidedly negative.
Remember to pray the novena. As the prayers increase, the intensity and frequency of attacks will also increase. Satan is attempting to discourage the faithful - we mustn't allow him the full measure of pleasure. As the article states, plenty of Catholics are abandoning the Church - so part of the Evil One's goals are being accomplished. Include these discouraged brethren in your prayers. Now is not the time to flee.
BTW - It goes without saying that our prayers cannot stop at the conclusion of the novena. The novena is just the beginning.
Oh - this is somewhat related - head over to Fr Z where he has links to two spurious polls concerning Pope Benedict XVI. While it's true that these polls have no bearing on anything, other than fan the flames of irrational behavior and feed the bigoted beast of anti-Catholicism, it's important to show support for the Holy Father wherever and however he is attacked.
