Commentary by Susan Brinkmann, OCDS
A representative from the radical feminist group known as FEMEN climbed onto the altar during Christmas Mass at the Cologne Cathedral in Germany to protest the Church’s teachings against abortion.
Newsbusters is reporting that a topless woman named Josephine, who calls herself a “sextremist”, climbed onto the altar during Mass on Christmas Day with the words “I AM GOD” written on her flesh. The woman had to be forcibly removed from the church.
“Sextremist of FEMEN Germany Josephine foiled Christmas mass in the main cathedral Kölner Dom of Cologne,” the group boasted in a statement afterward.
“In the presence of thousands of audience activist climbed onto the altar of the cathedral, protesting against the Vatican propaganda about criminalization of abortion. FEMEN requires the Vatican elders and their fanatical followers to stop producing medieval chimeras and edit their rotten dogma in accordance with the modern world and human rights.”
Josephine’s attack wasn’t the only one that took place during the solemnity of Christmas.
Agence France-Presse is reporting that a FEMEN protester knelt on the pavement outside of the Church of San Manuel y San Benito shortly after Mass on the morning of December 23. She reportedly bared her breasts and the slogans ‘Christmas is Cancelled’ and ‘Free Abortion’ which were painted on her chest.
The protest was in response to new legislation introduced by the Spanish government to ban abortion except in cases of rape or threat to a mother’s health. The Roman Catholic Church is known to have pressured the government to roll back its 2010 abortion law, which allowed women free access to abortion up to 14 weeks of pregnancy. The new law is expected to pass because the ruling Popular Party currently enjoys an absolute majority in parliament.
The Ma’an News Agency reported that Catholics in Bethlehem were worried about a similar attack at the Church of the Nativity. According to their report, FEMEN leader Inna Shevchenko told the local press last week that while she could not confirm the next target, “Bethlehem can be a place for us to attack. This city can see the rebellious naked breasts of Femen.”
Just a week before, Shevchenko ran through Vatican City yelling “Christmas is cancelled” with the words “Jesus is aborted” written across her chest.
The group staged a similar protest in Vatican Square last January when four topless members with the slogan “In Gay We Trust” emblazoned on their chests. Just as Pope Benedict began to speak, they began screaming, “Homophobes shut up!”
Unfortunately for the protestors, the faithful reacted angrily to their antics, One woman in the crowd began hitting them with her umbrella while calling them “diabolical.” Vatican police eventually hauled the protestors out of the Square and detained them briefly before letting them go.
FEMEN’s stated ideology is “Sextremism, Atheism, and Feminism” and their world outlook is that the world is in the control of “male economic, cultural and ideological occupation.”
“In this world, a woman is a slave, she is stripped of the right to any property but above all she is stripped of ownership of her own body,” the group states. “All functions of the female body are harshly controlled and regulated by patriarchy. Separated from the woman, her body is an object to monstrous patriarchal exploitation, animated by production of heirs, surplus profits, sexual pleasures and pornographic shows. Complete control over the woman’s body is the key instrument of her suppression; the woman’s sexual demarche is the key to her liberation.”
They claim their “naked attacks” hit upon “a naked nerve of the historic woman-system conflict” and that their nudity represents an “undisguised hatred toward the patriarchal order and new aesthetics of women’s revolution.”
FEMEN is obviously run by women who are bitter and enraged by their own life experiences, emotions that have blinded them to the true beauty that was given to them by the God they claim to despise. Instead of finding victory over oppression by claiming their God-given dignity, their vision has been distorted by anger and hatred, causing them to see these half-naked antics as a kind of “liberation”. But let’s face it, in reality, they’re only parading themselves around before men who are much more interested in their nakedness than their message.
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