Priest ejects group with anti Jewish links

Parish warns congregation about radical Apostles for Life

A Lismore priest has distanced his parish from a local extremist group of Catholics who back claims of a Jewish conspiracy of genocide against Christians.

St Carthage's Cathedral rector Father Dennis Carroll this week took the unusual step of censuring the anti-abortion group Apostles for Life in his parish bulletin.

Fr Carroll told parishioners the group had lost his support and had been discontinued as a parish group. He warned parishioners 'to be wary of the anti-Jewish views expressed' on the group's website.

Those views included an article by anti-Semitic writer Joanna Francis, which says abortion-on-demand 'for American Jews signified the beginning of their Messianic age, wherein they could now freely practice genocide against their ancient enemies, the Christians, with impunity'.

In other articles, Ms Francis has also claimed Pope Benedict XVI was a Zionist double agent and that Israeli snipers were killing US soldiers in Iraq.

When contacted by The Northern Star, Fr Carroll said he stripped Apostles for Life of its status as a Parish group early this year 'because they have spun off into the crazy right wing of Catholicism'.

This week's censure came after Fr Carroll was contacted by the Inter-Faith and Ecumenical Commission about the anti-Semetic material. He said he had not known of the material before being contacted by the commission. Apostles for Life is run by Lismore woman Angela Martello and her husband Nadir. The website is run by Ms Martello and includes a link to her husband's website, called Shedding Light, which includes more of Ms Francis' articles, links to anti-Semitic websites, including Holocaust denier Michael Hoffman, and Mr Martello's writings. Ms Martello yesterday said her website was designed only 'to talk about pro-life issues from a Catholic perspective'. Asked if she was disturbed by Ms Francis' views, she said: "Of course it disturbs me. I don't like to hear that."

Asked if she believed what Ms Francis wrote about Judaism and abortion, Ms Martello replied: "I think there's a strong possibility." Ms Martello said the group had no formal membership, but had actively campaigned on issues such as the abortion pill and human cloning for stem cell research. Fr Carroll said he would be 'very disappointed if there were still people (from the Parish) involved' with the group.

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