Welcome to the Weekend Roundup! – News & Views – 5/14/22

• Costumed pro-abortion protesters disrupt Mass at Los Angeles Catholic cathedral
• Catholic Church In Boulder Vandalized With Pro-Abortion Graffiti
• Three Catholic churches in Houston area vandalized by pro-abortion activists
• Catholics hold a range of views on abortion

Pro-abortion activists are riled over the leaked Supreme Court draft indicating the majority of justices favor overturning the 1973 Roe v. Wade decision and are looking for someone to blame. The pro-abortion group, Ruth (Ginsburg) Sent Us, is encouraging activists to target Catholic churches, even though a 2019 Pew Research survey revealed 56% of Catholics support legalized abortion at some level. Last Sunday, pro-abortion protestors dressed in red costumes inspired by “The Handmaid’s Tale” disrupted Sunday mass at the Cathedral of Our Lady of the Angels in Los Angeles (photo above). POTUS Joe Biden’s outspoken support of “abortion rights” in reaction to the leaked document will rekindle demands from conservative Catholics that Joe be banned from receiving the Jesus wafer. Catholics believe their church buildings are holy and consider vandalism and disruption of the mass as sacrilege and grievous desecration. It actually is the Catholic mass that is sacrilegious with its many anti-Scriptural elements, including the perpetual sacrifice for sin, the worship of the faux Jesus wafer, and the teaching of the false gospel of salvation by sacramental grace and merit.

• Former IFB Pastor Convicted of Sexually Abusing Teen Released From Prison

Jack Schaap, former pastor of First Baptist Church of Hammond, Indiana (FBCH), got an early release from federal prison on May 4th. In 2013, Schaap was sentenced to 12 years in federal prison for taking a 16-year-old girl across state lines for sex. Schaap had succeeded his father-in-law, the controversial Jack Hyles, as pastor of FBCH in 2001. Under Hyles, the First Baptist Church of Hammond was one of the most influential churches in the independent fundamental Baptist (IFB) movement. Schaap’s wife, Cindy Hyles Schaap, filed for divorce from her husband in 2014. See my 2020 post on Jack Schaap here.

• Pope to LGBT Catholics: ‘God is Father who does not disown any of his children’

Jesuit James Martin continues to work with pope Francis to grease the skids for the eventual full-acceptance of practicing LGBTers within RC-ism.

• Pope decries divisions caused by old-school liturgy fans

Progressive pope Francis continues to publicly scold conservative and traditionalist Catholics who defiantly cling to the Latin Mass.

• Satanic Temple pushes Boston to fly its flag after Supreme Court ruling in favor of Christian group

The SCOTUS recently ruled that Boston City Hall must fly the ecumenical Christian flag (adopted by the Federal Council of Churches in 1942). Satanists are predictably demanding their flag be displayed as well. Unlike many evangelicals, I don’t believe tax-supported government institutions should sponsor religious displays or activities of any kind. Let the church be the church and let the government be the government.