PARIS, December 9, 2011 (LifeSiteNews.com) - One day before the opening night of what has been called a “blasphemous” play, “Golgota Picnic”, a Paris judge has refused to sign an interim ruling prohibiting the opening of the show. Judge Magali Bouvier decided not to “destroy a work of art” which, she writes, will only be seen by a few hundred spectators at the “Théâtre du Rond-Point” on the Parisian Champs-Elysées, regardless of its offensive content and messages of hate against all Christians.

An emergency proceeding was introduced on these grounds a few weeks ago by the French and Christian rights defense group, AGRIF (Alliance générale contre le racisme et pour le respect de l’identité française et chrétienne). In French law, emergency proceedings are intended to put a stop to situations which “disrupt the public order”.

AGRIF’s counsel argued that the showing of “Golgota Picnic” would do that on several counts. The play’s Hispano-Argentian author, Rodrigo Garcia, expresses hatred towards Christ throughout the play, accusing centuries of Christian art of being directly responsible for sex abuse of minors by priests and religious, violence, and more generally all that is wrong with the world. Christ Himself is portrayed as a selfish, antisocial fraud and covered with verbal abuse calling him a “devil whore” or the “messiah of AIDS”.

The play visually attacks Christians’ central, treasured beliefs about all things related to the Crucifixion. Hundreds of bread burgers cover the scene in a parody of the Multiplication of the Loaves; the actors, five male, one female, repeatedly mock the Crucifixion while endlessly reciting rambling prose, then sing and dance the last words of Christ to strident guitar music.

The DVD of the play, produced by the Theatre’s counsel, has been found to contain more disturbing elements than press reports from Spain, where the play showed at the beginning of the year, had indicated. “Crucifixion” scenes were presented lascivious or grotesque, a “Pieta” scene showed an actress, completely nude, moving sensuously on a male actor’s lap and the “making” of the Shroud received similar sexual treatment.

Another scene showed three actors, two male and one female, scantily covered and soaked with blue and red paint to evoke classical paintings of Golgotha, entwining in sexual positions. After this they all undressed completely, facing the public or moving about the stage for at least five minutes.

This was not a problem, judge Bouvier ruled today, as the lighting was “dimmed” during the scene (in fact, during part of that scene the stage-lighting was a strong red, and normal the rest of the time). The AGRIF, one of whose objects is to combat pornography and to protect the dignity of women and children, argued that this scene, among several others, constitutes “sexual exhibition” which is prohibited by law, and should at the very least justify banning “Golgota Picnic” from being shown to minors under eighteen.

French law does not prohibit blasphemy, but it does affirm all believers’ right to freedom of religion and to the respect of their beliefs. AGRIF argued that “Golgota Picnic” violently disregards this right and adds incitement to hate against Christians by its repeated desecrations of Christian beliefs and its central figure Jesus Christ. Emphasizing that these actions are subject to prosecution under the law, the AGRIF asked that the most objectionable passages of the show be scrapped and that its name, which the group called an insult to believing Christians, be replaced by a less provocative title.

All the demands of the AGRIF were rejected by judge Magali Bouvier, who openly disregarded and misrepresented the unanimous and firm reactions of the French episcopate against “Golgota Picnic.”  Bouvier quoted admiring lines from the progressive Catholic newspaper La Croix to justify Rodrigo Garcia’s artistic portrayal of his “doubts and interrogations” about the God he feared as a young boy in Argentina.

The judge went on to assess the AGRIF for court costs of 3,500 euro (over 4,600 USD) legal expenses incurred by the “Théâtre du Rond-Point” for its defense.

Last week’s hearing took place in judges’ chambers at the top of the “Caesar Tower” in the Conciergerie facing the Seine in the heart of Paris. The tower is one of the main remnants of the medieval palace where French kings lived from the 11th-15th century, after which the buildings would serve as the Parliament of Paris, the prison where Marie-Antoinette was kept until her execution, and, now, as “Palace of Justice” sheltering all Parisian judiciary courts as well as the equivalent of the Highest Court of Appeal. Ironically, upon entering this chamber the first thing that visitors see is a life-size reproduction of the “Retable of the Parliament of Paris”, an impressive 15th-century rendering of the Crucifixion.

This week several events were set to mark the “premiere” of Golgota Picnic.

In an unprecedented move, the archbishop of Paris, cardinal André Vingt-Trois, has called “all those who are willing” to participate in a vigil in his cathedral, Notre-Dame de Paris after the Mass of the feast of the Immaculate Conception. The cardinal referred to the play that “insults Christ on the Cross”, and called Catholics to participate in a “meditation of the Passion of Christ and the veneration of the Holy Crown of Thorns”. The relic is usually only shown to the faithful on Fridays in Lent and on First Fridays during the year.

Some have speculated that the special vigil purpose is to undermine or take attention away from the emphatic public protests against the play, which will be taking place from the 8th through the 17th December, each time “Golgota Picnic” will be shown in the Théâtre du Rond-Point. Several groups are calling on Parisians to participate in these peaceful, prayerful demonstrations as they already did in recent protests against “On the Concept of the Face of Christ”, another “blasphemous” play which some bishops excused on the grounds that they found it “thought-provoking”.

April 6, 2016 (LifeSiteNews) -- Just two days prior to Pope Francis’ release of his Apostolic Exhortation on the family, a German cardinal who has been an outspoken defender of Catholic teaching on marriage and family has criticized as “impossible” the Synod’s suggestion that civilly divorced and remarried Catholic become “more integrated” into the Church. 

Cardinal Walter Brandmüller, president emeritus of the Pontifical Committee for Historical Sciences, stated in an article appearing today on the Austrian Catholic website Kath.net that integration that is not founded on the truths of the indissolubility of marriage and the sacredness of Holy Communion would lead to “conflicts,” “embarrassments,” and an “undermining of the Church’s sacred proclamation.” Reporter Maike Hickson has translated key sections of the cardinal's article at The Wanderer.

The cardinal said that a married Catholic who enters into a new civil union is “committing adultery,” and that as long as such a person is unwilling to put an end to the sinful situation, he “cannot receive either absolution in Confession nor the Eucharist.” Any path other than repentance and change of life is “bound to fail,” the cardinal said, due to “its inherent untruthfulness.” 

This “untruthfulness” directly applies “to the attempt to integrate into the Church those who live in an invalid ‘second marriage’ by admitting them to liturgical, catechetical and other functions,” he added.

The cardinal said that an integration without repentance and change of life cannot be reconciled with the doctrines of the faith. 

“What is fundamentally impossible for reasons of Faith, is also impossible in the individual case,” he said.

Referring directly to Pope Francis’ forthcoming exhortation, the cardinal said that no matter what the document contains, everything stated must be interpreted in light of the unchanging dogmas of the Church, especially as expressed in the Church’s Catechism.  

“The post-synodal document, Amoris Laetitia (The Joy of Love), is therefore to be interpreted in light of the above-presented principles, especially since a contradiction between a papal document and the Catechism of the Catholic Church would not be imaginable,” he said. 

The Exhortation is to be released April 8 at noon, Rome time. Two left-leaning cardinals — Lorenzo Baldisseri and Christoph Schönborn — will present the document, a move which Vatican experts say could suggest the document has a progressive bent. 

ANALYSIS

HOLLYWOOD, April 6, 2016 (LifeSiteNews) – If J.J. Abrams, the director of Star Wars: The Force Awakens, has his way with future scripts, expect homosexual characters.

Abrams was hosting a pre-Academy Awards event at his production company Bad Robot when asked about prospects for homosexual characters. He responded, “Of course, of course. When I talk about inclusivity it’s not excluding gay characters. It’s about inclusivity. So of course.”

Abrams like everyone else in Hollywood was talking about inclusivity in response to all this year’s nominees for acting Oscars being white (though largely unnoticed was the prominence of gay or transgender storylines). On the larger issue of color—or lack thereof—Abrams had told the Daily Beast,  “It’s shameful. We all need to do better to represent this world. It’s something that is important to me, and is something that we’re focusing on at Bad Robot.”

Speculation immediately began about the close relationship between two leading male characters, Poe (Oscar Isaac) and Finn (John Boyega), in Star Wars VII: The Force Awakens, which has already grossed 2 billion USD worldwide.

Everyone from the Daily Beast to the British Express wondered: Will the sequel, Rogue One, set for release by Christmas, see new and openly homosexual characters take the stage or will the already close friendship between Poe and Finn turn into something more?

Isaac clearly thinks he was in more than a buddy movie. He told the audience of the Ellen talk show, “You have to watch it a few times to catch all the little hints. But there was. At least I was playing romance. In the cockpit I was playing... there was a deep romance.”

Allmagnews.com noted, “After their crash landing on the desert planet, Finn seemed rather distressed that Poe may have been lost. All that was left of the pilot was his leather jacket, and Finn wore it as he made his way through the planet.” Cinema Blend commented about their happy reunion late in the movie: “Did you see that look Poe gave Finn when he told Finn that his jacket looked good on him?”

Moreover, Mark Hamill, who plays Luke Skywalker in the original Star Wars and appears for just a moment in the latest one, has emerged as a contender for the gay stakes because of a mysterious tweet to a fan asking about his character’s sexuality. “Luke is whatever the audience wants him to be. So you can decide for yourself.”  

Finally, the latest novel in the print series, has introduced three new LGBT characters to its parallel story line. Though its fictional reality is parallel but not identical to the movie series, its corporate universe is identically dominated by Disney and LucasFilm. At least in print they believe their fans are ready for a gay hero named Sinjir Rath Velus, an Imperial officer who has crossed over to the Rebels.

So far, parents of preteens and early teens have only had to worry about excessive violence (The Force Awakens is rated among the most violent episodes and the darkest). Now must they go the theatre in December 2017 with their “gaydar” units turned on? Does it matter?

“Of course it does,” Dan Gainor, vice president of the conservative Media Research Center, told LifeSiteNews. “Hollywood is mass marketing propaganda. If it isn’t environmental and anti-American propaganda in Avatar, it’s sexual propaganda. There are a lot of gays in Hollywood. But it doesn’t mean that the rest of America is like that.” The MRC has summarized its beliefs succinctly, in a 2012 report titled “Hollywood: Driving the Homosexual Agenda for 40 Years.”

Homosexuals are presented as healthy, normal, living in married relationships with children, a picture that differs significantly from the woeful health and relational patterns of most homosexuals, warns Gainor.  “They are presented as far more common than they are in reality.”

He cites a 2015 Gallup poll showing 53 percent of Americans believe that from 20-25 percent of the population is homosexual, up from 13 percent who believed this in 2002. “That’s Hollywood’s work,” said Gainor. “It means we are deciding policies thinking we are accommodating a sizeable group when it’s a miniscule minority.”

The direct influence of the entertainment media on popular attitudes is well documented. A 2012 survey of “likely voters” by THR showed, according to the Hollywood Reporter, that  “27 percent said gay TV made them more pro-gay marriage, and six percent [said it made them] more anti. Obama voters watched and 30 percent got more supportive, 2 percent less supportive. [As for] Romney [supporters]… 13 percent got more pro-gay-marriage, 12 percent got more anti.” Concluded the Reporter: “Social conservatives who fear the influence of gay-friendly TV are evidently right to fear it.”

But movie studios are far behind TV in pushing homosexuality, laments the Gay and Lesbian Alliance Against Defamation, which noted only a slight increase in homosexual content between 2013 and 2014. “Of the 114 films GLAAD tracked this year [for 2014], only 20 (17.5%) included depictions of LGBT characters, and some of those would have been better left on the cutting room floor,” it reported.

But anecdotal evidence indicates a shift last year to movies with dominant homosexual or LGBT themes. While GLAAD could find no transgender characters in 2014, last year saw the release of The Danish Girl, a biopic about a Danish artist in the 1920s who died from complications of sex-change surgery; Carol about a 60s housewife having an affair with a shopgirl; and Freeheld, about a lesbian police officer dying of cancer and fighting for her partner to get her death benefits. All featured major stars such as Eddie Redmayne and Cate Blanchett.

Still, for Gainor, nothing tops the popular, well-made new TV series called Lucifer. “I’m unshockable. Why should I get upset about a gay character in Star Wars when there is now a TV series marketing Satan as the good guy?”

WASHINGTON, D.C., April 6, 2016 (LifeSiteNews) -- Hillary Clinton has doubled down on her contentious position that “the unborn person does not have constitutional rights,” now stating that even the child just hours away from delivery is deprived of rights because “that is the way we structure it.”

Paula Faris of ABC’s “The View” asked the Democratic frontrunner to clarify her position stated last Sunday on NBC’s “Meet the Press.” Faros asked Clinton, “At what point does someone have constitutional rights, and are you saying that a child, on its due date, just hours before delivery still has no constitutional rights?”

“Under the law that is the case, Paula,” replied Clinton. 

Clinton then went on to declare her support for the 1973 Roe v. Wade ruling that legalized abortion, calling it “an important statement about the importance of a woman making this most difficult decision with consultation by whom she chooses, her doctor, her faith, her family. And under the law — and under certainly that decision — that is the way we structure it.”

Weeks prior to birth, a preborn baby is a completely formed human being with perfectly functioning brain, eyes, heart, and lungs. The baby is able to hear sounds from the outside world and recognizes its mother's voice. The baby is capable of surviving outside its mother's womb. 

Critics have called Clinton’s position on life out-of-touch with the American mainstream.

“Clinton revealed that she believes no unborn child is subject to constitutional rights,” the Republican National Committee said in a statement on Sunday when Clinton first made her position clear. 

“Voters now know Clinton’s extreme stance against the value of protecting life, and can no longer be misled by her deceptive pandering,” the Committee stated.