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Cardinal George fears successors will be imprisoned, martyred

CWN - October 24, 2012

The problems created by secular materialism in the US will not be solved by the November elections, Cardinal Francis George of Chicago has warned.

Secularism is a “much larger issue” than any single campaign question, the cardinal said. The secularized world, he added, is “on the wrong side of the only history that finally matters.”

Cardinal George observed that strong anti-religious sentiments have emerged clearly during this year’s political campaigns, and said that he had been quoted accurately in predicting that “that I expected to die in bed, my successor will die in prison and his successor will die a martyr in the public square.”

The cardinal said that he had made that dramatic reference to the prospect of martyrdom in an effort to underline the urgency of the problems created by aggressive anti-religious secularism. He added that he was confident that in the long run the Church would “pick up the shards of a ruined society and slowly help rebuild civilization, as the Church has done so often in human history.”

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  • Posted by: frjpharrington3912 - Oct. 24, 2012 11:28 PM ET USA

    Cardinal Mundelein's comment about efforts by Hitler's Nazi government to undermine the credibilty of the Catholic Church in Germany by a smear campaign of lies and accusations against innocent priests and religious has been documented by Rev. Walter Mariaux S.J. in two volumes under the pseudonym "Testis Fidelis." It was the anti-Nazi encyclical "Mit brennender Sorge" (With Burning Concern) of Pope Pius XI issued in 1936 that provoked Joseph Goebbels attack on the Church.

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