Desecration of the Crucifix: The Fruit of a World That Has Rejected Christ the King
EWTN News portal reports that an Israeli soldier destroyed a statue of the Crucified Christ in the southern Lebanese Catholic village of Debel, using a sledgehammer to strike the face of the Crucifix while the body of Christ hung upside down from the cross. Israel Defense Forces confirmed the authenticity of the photograph and announced an investigation. Israeli Prime Minister Benjamin Netanyahu expressed being “stunned and saddened” and promised “appropriately harsh disciplinary action.” Cardinal Pierbattista Pizzaballa, the Latin patriarch of Jerusalem, condemned the act as “a grave affront to the Christian faith” and warned it “adds to other reported incidents of desecration of Christian symbols by IDF soldiers in southern Lebanon.” The article also notes that Pizzaballa quoted the current antipope Leo XIV on the need for peace. This incident, while condemned by the structures occupying the Vatican, is a logical consequence of a world — and a compromised Church — that has systematically rejected the Social Kingship of Christ and the absolute primacy of divine law over human affairs.



