Home
| About Us
| Contacts
| Products
|
 |
 |
|
|
|
|
CNS Story:
|
LINZ-WAGNER Feb-4-2009 (360 words) xxxi
New Austrian bishop once linked Katrina disaster to 'spiritual pollution'
By Carol Glatz
Catholic News Service
VATICAN CITY (CNS) -- A newly appointed Austrian bishop once linked the 2005 Katrina disaster to what he called "the spiritual pollution" plaguing New Orleans.
"The amoral conditions in this town are indescribable," Bishop-designate Gerhard Wagner said in a parish newsletter in 2005, after Hurricane Katrina had devastated New Orleans.
"This is not just any city which has been drowned, but the people's dream town with the 'best brothels and the most beautiful whores,'" he said, according to excerpts from the newsletter which appeared on the Austrian Catholic Web site Kath.net.
The Vatican announced Jan. 31 that Pope Benedict had named the 54-year-old parish priest of Windischgarsten, Austria, to be auxiliary bishop of Linz, Austria.
"Hurricane Katrina didn't just destroy all the nightclubs and brothels in New Orleans ... it also destroyed all five abortion clinics" in a city of less than half a million residents, the bishop-designate said.
"Is the piling up of natural catastrophes merely a consequence of the environmental pollution carried out by people or is it rather the consequence of a spiritual environmental pollution?" he asked, adding that the question should be further discussed in the future.
The Austrian newspaper Osterrich reported Feb. 2 that the bishop-designate denied describing Hurricane Katrina or the 2004 Asian tsunami as a punishment from God.
But the newspaper quoted him as saying it was probably not a coincidence the tsunami took place at Christmastime, "when people from the rich world go to poor Thailand to enjoy the world."
The bishop-designate, who received a doctorate in theology at the Pontifical Gregorian University in Rome, also told the newspaper he believes the Harry Potter book series is "satanic."
In an interview with Kath.net after his appointment, the bishop-designate was asked whether teachers of Islam in Austria's public schools should be watched by the secret services. He said, "Yes, if they call democracy into question."
"It's a significant question as to whether Islam can be seen in connection with democracy. Islam is truly a danger," he said.
- - -
Contributing to this story was Michael Lawton in Cologne, Germany.
END
Copyright (c) 2009 Catholic News Service/USCCB. All rights reserved.
This material may not be published, broadcast, rewritten or otherwise distributed.
CNS · 3211 Fourth St NE · Washington DC 20017 · 202.541.3250
|
|
|
|