Pope Ratzo names wingnut bishop

[bobcr...@gmail.com]

Fresh off of gettting spanked for un-excommunicating a holocaust
denier, Pope Ratzinger has now turned the Austrian James Hagee a
bishop.

Gerhard Maria Wagner, 54, is to become auxiliary bishop in the
Austrian city of Linz, where he is viewed as a controversial figure by
churchgoers and clergy alike. In 2005, he wrote in a parish newsletter
that Hurricane Katrina was an act of "divine retribution" for the sins
of a sexually permissive society.

You're gonna love some of this:

He said it was worth considering whether environmental
catastrophes should not be seen as a result of "spiritual
environmental pollution" - a type of "divine retribution" for New
Orleans' relaxed attitude towards sexual promiscuity and
homosexuality.

"It is surely not an accident that all five of New Orleans'
abortion clinics, as well as nightclubs were destroyed," he wrote,
adding: "It's not just any old city that has gone under, but the
people's dream city with the 'best brothels and the most beautiful
whores'."

In 2001 he warned children against reading JK Rowling's novels
about the boy wizard Harry Potter, describing them as spreading
satanism.

http://www.guardian.co.uk/world/2009/feb/02/pope-controversial-austrian-bishop

h/t: Dispatches from the Culture Wars for some of the stuff I cribbed.

http://scienceblogs.com/dispatches/2009/02/pope_names_john_hagee_bishop.php