By Peter J. Smith
GENOA, June 12, 2007 (LifeSiteNews.com) – Archbishop Angelo Bagnasco, the leader of the Italian Bishops’ Conference, has now received his second death threat–3 bullets this time—from an anonymous militant homosexual activist enraged at the Catholic Church’s campaign to defeat civil union legislation in Italy.
The package arrived Saturday at the Genoese Archdiocese. The first mailed threat had contained just one bullet.
Police, however, told the Associated Press that they did not believe the danger to the Archbishop’s life had escalated. Parishioners, on the other hand, observed Bagnasco accompanied by four bodyguards near the altar at the Cathedral on Sunday. Bagnasco previously was guarded by just two.
The Archbishop has required armed security from the police since activists scrawled threatening graffiti on his cathedral and other buildings across Genoa in April. “Death to Bagnasco” and “Shame on you, Bagnasco” were spray painted on the buildings, along with insults against Pope Benedict XVI.
The death threats began after Bagnasco openly questioned the government’s rationale for giving homosexual couples the benefits of marriage on the basis of protecting consenting sexual relationships.
“Why not say no to various forms of living together, to the creating of alternative forms of the family?” Archbishop Bagnasco said. “Why not say no to the incest of a brother and a sister who live together and have children in Great Britain? Why not say no to the party of pederasts in Holland?”
Archbishop Bagnasco has continued to lead the campaign against “civil union” legislation at the encouragement of Pope Benedict XVI. The legislation proposed by the Prodi government would give legal rights enjoyed by married couples to unmarried homosexual and heterosexual couples without the name of “marriage”. The Catholic Church has said this legislation would do grave harm to the family and further undermine sexual morality in Italy.
See related coverage by LifeSiteNews.com:
Pope and Italian President Give Public Backing to Bishop Threatened over Opposition to Homosexuality
https://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2007/may/07050106.html
Threats Escalate with Bullet Mailed to Italian Cardinal Opposing Same-Sex Civil Unions https://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2007/apr/07043001.html
Head of Italy’s Bishops under Police Protection after Threats from Homosexual Activists
https://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2007/apr/07041105.html
If We Don’t Say No to Same-Sex Unions, then Why Not Incest and Pedophilia Says Archbishop
https://www.lifesitenews.com/ldn/2007/apr/07040208.html