I seem to have come late to the debate, judging from some of the comments in Joe's post on the issue of Pope Benedict XVI. I made my own remarks on the subject over at my own blog, but I figured that they'd be worth posting here. While I very much suspect that there is absolutely nothing I can do to change the minds of those quarters who have already decided (with all the dogmatic absolutism of anything Ratzinger did as a cardinal) that the new pope is a Nazi, a fascist, and Torquemada reborn, I figured that I might at least make the good faith effort to explain why I welcome the selection of Pope Benedict XVI, even though my own preferred candidate was Cardinal Arinze of Nigeria.
To begin with - and I think that this is a key part of understanding this situation - organized religion in general and Catholicism in particular is not a social club, nor is it a secular political institution. As a result, I tend to take a dim view towards those who want to apply secular political philosophies, whether it be conservativism, libertarianism, liberalism, etc. to what is, to put it bluntly, not a secular political institution to begin with.
All of those ideologies are philosophies that we have come up with in order to build a better secular society based on various theories of governance. That's quite a different thing altogether from a religion that bases its teachings on what it considers to be religious truths revealed by God.
The reason I want to highlight and underline this is because it is extremely easy, particularly for non-Catholics, to apply these various secular political philosophies regarding issues of Church teaching and doctrine, particularly insofar as these questions relate to the culture wars. To put it quite simply, the "Catholic" part of the Church refers to its universalism above mere political ideology, which is one of the reasons why (and this is worth noting for all those who think that the new pope is the Christianized version of Sheikh Qaradawi) there there is nothing in Catholicism resembling the Islamist conception of the Caliphate. The closest parallel I can think of would actually be Liberation Theology, which sought to reshape the Church into an agent of revolution (the "progressive" variety, naturally) and postulated a Marxist-style class struggle between the rich and the poor.
It was Cardinal Ratzinger, one might recall, who played a key role in suppressing that particular train of thought.
As far as the specific teachings, doctrines, and disciplines of the Church are concerned, they are the same as they were under Pope John Paul II and one can either accept them or reject them. To devout Catholics such as myself, the most contentious teachings that, predictably enough, refer to human sexuality, are revealed truths. The idea that they would or that they should be changed on a whim to correspond to ideas and beliefs less than 50 years old or in response to polling data strikes me as entirely wrong-headed. If one believes in the teachings of the Church, then they should be followed. If one believes they are unconvincing, wrong, immoral, or intrinsically unjust, then there you go.
Epistemology matters a lot here I think and I certainly don't begrudge my various colleagues here at WoC for finding Christianity or Catholicism unconvincing, no more than I hope they do my own belief in both. To paraphrase what I think somebody over at Bill Quick's blog said yesterday, "If they want to worship with 700 year-old theology, what do I care?" I apologize that the Catholic Church simply isn't going to transform into what more or less seems to be the Episcopal Church that some here in the US deeply want it to be (though the existing Episcopal Church is still alive and well for those who are interested in belonging a church that holds to various doctrines they want Catholicism to adopt, and would no doubt be more than happy to take on more members), but it simply isn't going to happen. There is also a well-meaning question that I got from a Mormon friend of mine earlier today. He basically said that he didn't understand what all the shrill cries were about from non-Catholics since they never accepted Rome's authority or anything resembling papal infallibility to begin with.
You'll notice that I haven't touched on what I think is really driving a lot of the hatred (and I think it's entirely fair to call it that judging from some of the comments that appeared yesterday over at Political Animal and Kos) towards the new pope is that some people simply cannot understand an event except within the context of their own domestic politics.
As I joked in the comments on Joe's post, if you changed the names and positions concerning the results of the papal election, you'd pretty much have the exact same things that were being said in the wake of the US presidential election. Indeed, I expect that many of the nastier commenters had exactly that in mind - they view the teachings of the Catholic Church solely through the very narrow prism of the US "culture war". As a result, when Benedict XVI was elected they viewed it as nothing short of the equivalent of having to endure a third election of Satan, err, George W. Bush, which is to say Bushitleretardespotheocrat.
Their main problem, when you cut through all the bile and stuff that could very easily have come out of some Know-Nothing tract, is that the election of Benedict XVI will embolden the political right in the United States with respect to the culture wars. They worry this will lead to an increasing conflation of being a Republican with being a devout Catholic, often held simultaneously with the position that nothing the Pope says matters because nobody listens to him anyway.
While I would argue that much of the less than subtle contempt for traditional Christianity and indeed organized religion in general among many Democratic activists would have at least as much to do with any Catholic exodus from the Democratic Party as anything that Benedict XVI says or does, my understanding was that one of the major party objectives now is to reach out to religious and/or values-oriented voters. Near as I can tell, any serious efforts to do so pretty much died along with Terri Schiavo (I'm referring to the outreach effort, not the debate in of itself) and the usual warnings of an imminent American theocracy have reemerged as the official party line.
In any case, let me reassure them somewhat that judging from Benedict XVI's last homily back when he was still Cardinal Ratzinger, his first target is not likely to be the DNC but rather the spirit of relativism that appears to have taken root over much of the European continent.
I believe it was Chesterton who said something to the effect of when you don't believe in God, you'll believe in anything. In Europe, what appears to have happened is that much of the continent has stopped believing in God ... or much of anything else for that matter, and by that I'm not just talking about organized religions. And so the European nations live in their welfare state wonderland, their elites engage in a post-modern version of the glass bead game, and the aging population is only recently starting to notice that their ghettoized and largely unassimilated Muslim immigrants have by and large brought with them the worst aspects of the Middle East political culture. The grand dream of a united Europe appears to have little in the way of appeal except among the elites, and the international institutions that they cling to so dearly are bleeding legitimacy out their sides like a sieve.
It is precisely because of this absence of belief in anything that neither these institutions nor the people in charge of them are going to hold up in an hour of crisis. Sooner or later, something is going to bring that point up to the European public. I would just as soon it be an old man in a papal tiara, rather than one of bin Laden's acolytes with a small nuclear device.
This is not to say that the American Church does not have severe problems within it, and needs to be fixed if it wants to continue its duties of ministering to the faithful. Just about everybody, no matter where they fall within the spectrum of American Catholics, seems to agree on this, though they argue as to how exactly that change should go about being made. I myself would tend to agree, though I strongly suspect that some of my own views on the subject would be met with a great deal of scorn and derision by many of those who are now clamoring for change.
My own take on this is for about 20 or so years now that many heterodox Catholics, for whom their heterodoxy is as much an ideology as any political leanings they might adhere to, have sought more or less to turn the American Catholic Church into the Episcopal Church. Now I certainly don't have any problems with Episcopalianism or its adherents, but I don't think that you can very well square the current Episcopal view on a variety of matters with that of Rome's. In any case, the reason these individuals continued to remain Catholic under John Paul II was because they truly believed that after his death, there would be an opportunity to remake the Church in the image of the 1960s. As such, they are now extremely bitter and disappointed that the man they so hated is now in charge of the Church. Especially since no matter how long Benedict XVI lives, the traditionalism that he represents is becoming more and more part of a long-term global trend when it comes to Christianity.
Another point should be made concerning about all the people who think that Benedict XVI should have been hauled off to trial and hanged with the rest of the Nazi leadership at Nuremburg. While I had heard the generalities of these charges before, I confess not having looked into them in-depth before now. That said, I tend to consider all the hard work that the new pope did with respect to Catholic-Jewish relations to be pretty compelling evidence that he harbors no lingering sympathies toward the Fuhrer and the swastika. So too, it seems do many Jewish organizations, who are far from uncritical of the Church and its role during World War 2.
Finally, since some have made the argument that we're going back to the Syllabus of Errors and the like as far as the Catholic view of both democracy and separation of church and state are concerned, please relax before you start fearing the approach of Opus Dei numeraries (and anyone who doesn't understand what that term is should be ignored insofar as anything else they have to say about Opus Dei) to drag you off to be burnt at the stake. I think Bainbridge did a pretty good job of skewering the first proposition the other day. As to the second, let me point out that Benedict XVI has no plans to revive the throne-and-altar view of church-state relations, since he is quite aware of the effects of what happens when you dumb religion down into nothing more than a function of government. The moribund churches of Western Europe are pretty much the result of just that, which is reason enough for anyone who is truly concerned about matters of religion to oppose the idea of a theocracy.
Also, I believe I saw on CNN that the new pope is being described as a "Catholic neocon." To the extent that such a term has any meaning anymore except as a cuss word (is "Likudnik" next, perhaps?) it refers to people who were former liberals like Father Neuhaus, thus making them Catholic analogues to their Jewish equivalents. To apply it to someone like Joseph Ratzinger strikes me as being somewhat bizarre...
But then, judging by a lot of the rhetoric floating around out there, bizarre is pretty much par for the course.
The fact is that Ratzinger has shown no interest in the teachings of Christ as they appear in the Bible --- and far greater alligience to Nazi "theology".
JP2 was elected Pope not because he was an anti-Communist, but because he represented a Church that perceived its role as that of standing up for people in the face of political and economic oppression. JP2 betrayed that, substituting political ideology for theology, and appointing a former Nazi who (as far as I can tell) never actually acted as a pastor to any parish, and who was completely removed from the souls who make up the church, to bring the hammer down on priests who were working against oppression of their parishioners just as JP2 had done in Poland.
The idea that Ratzinger had abandoned his Nazi roots is given the lie by his treatment of liberation theology --- which was based not on Marxist teachings, but the life and teachings of Jesus Christ. (The fact that Christ's teachings regarding the treatment of the poor are so consistent with the politics that derive from a Marxist economic perspective is something that right-wingers like yourself refuse to face. Of course, this is to be expected when one considers how anti-thetical to Christ's teachings the gross materialism of the Catholic Church is...)
Ratzinger basically endorsed the racism and oppression of the banana republic ruling class in Latin America when he shut down liberation theology. This was a political act, completely consistent with Nazi ideology.
I've searched and searched every on-line biography of Ratzinger I could find for evidence that Ratzinger gives a damn about human beings, and have come up absolutely empty. His entire career has been as a "theologian" and Church bureaucrat --- yet he has been placed in charge of telling over a billion Catholics worldwide how they should live their lives --- based solely on his growing up in the thrall of Hitler.
One can say that the Church needs to avoid "relativism" all one wishes to --- and when it comes to promulgating the teachings of Jesus Christ, that would probably be a good thing. The problem with Ratzinger is that he has never shown the slightest tendency to enforce compliance with the teachings of Christ --- instead, he is only concerned with enforcing obeisance to Catholic dogma that has no direct scriptural basis whatsoever --- and which is often contradicted by Christ's life and teachings.
The attitude of people like you is the exact same attitude that allowed the Inquistion, the Crusades, the sale of "plenary indulgences" in the past --- and have allowed Catholic priests to sexually abuse children in the present. It is a blind and irrational acceptance that whatever the Church says and does is consistent with God's plan. People were TORTURED in the name of the Church in the past --- and people like YOU would have stood by because it was being done by the Church, and what the Church did could not be questioned.
SOME Catholic priests stood up to Hitler --- others endorsed him. The ones who stood up to him were arrested and persecuted. After a few years of this persecution of Catholics who stood up to Hitler, in order to maintain its influence, the Catholic Church's objections were silenced.
YOU would applaud that decision by the Church, even though it meant the deaths of six million jews, and untold hundreds of thousands of gypsys, homosexuals, "genetic inferiors" and political dissidents.
You are a perfect example of the difference between religion and morality, because you are willing to follow a religious leader through rivers of the blood of children if that is where he leads you.
For those wo think that electing someone other than Ratzinger would have changed very much, I give you Cardinal Arinze of Ngeria, speaking at Georgetown University 2 years ago (all emphases mine):
I suppose it goes without saying that the speech was followed by protests.
What we seeing here is the 60s generation's "long march through the institutions" being swamped by a much larger demographic "long march" with a very different agenda. The consequences are difficult to foresee fully - but the trend is not.
P. L... I'm going to ask you, once, nicely, to stop calling Pope Benedict XVI a Nazi, He was not a member of the Nazi Party, and unless you can show that he was, I'm going to start deleting comments containing this accusation.
Our standards for discussion are higher here.
The rest of your points about religion and morality are debatable, but fair debate.
On which topic, over the past few days, I can't say that you've contributed to upholding the standards of quality discussion here. I have become somewhat more ruthless about deleting Raymond's posts for this reason, and am on the verge of lumping you into that same class. The fact that your viewpoint is opposite his doesn't change the common threads of behaviour, and those won't do.
We invite our commenters to conduct themselves as if they were guests in somebody's home. Please try to keep that in mind.
I'm an agnostic from an Anglican background, but I don't think I'm either anti-religous or anti-Catholic. I consider the Christian heritage of Western civilisation of immense cultural and ethical significance (for good, on the whole :) and generally Christian and specifically Catholic responses to contemporary issues a wholly legitimate element of debate.
As far as Catholic doctrine goes, insofar as it's any of my business, I wouldn't expect them to shift much on e.g. homosexuality, abortion etc. Though I can't see that it would hurt to reconsider contraception within marriage; and, seeing as it's a matter of discipline rather than doctrine, reconsidering married priests might be sensible.
But I would like to ask those who assert that the Catholic Church must uphold its traditional teaching: what is so uniquely correct about that teaching as it is now? If a stand on traditionis good, why not go back to an even more clearly stated rejection of relativism and liberalism, and reassert the Syllabus of Errors of Pope Pius IX?
All of them. Numbers 76 to 80 specifically.
Was it right to discard those, and once they were put aside, everthing else was just right?
On what basis is doctrine based, decided, changed?
Why did Pius IX, and the Catholic Church at that time manage to get doctrine wrong?
Could it happen again, or is tyhat unthinkable, ant it was just Pius that goofed?
P. L... I'm going to ask you, once, nicely, to stop calling Pope Benedict XVI a Nazi, He was not a member of the Nazi Party, and unless you can show that he was, I'm going to start deleting comments containing this accusation.
will you be enforcing the same standards on the right-wingers who dominate these discussions? Will you insist that Iraqi insurgents not be called "terrorists" absent evidence of terrorist activities? Will you insist that everyone who discusses detainees from the war in Afghanistan refrain from calling them "Taliban" and Al Qaeda, because large numbers of Afghanis who were captured on the field of battle were (like you want us to believe of Ratzinger) either conscripts or there solely to defend their country, and not to defend a specific ideology?
In other words, will you insist upon the same "he has to be a card-carrying member" standard for those whom you choose to demonize as for Ratzinger?
Do you want to try and tell me that Ratzinger, as a member of the German army, was not required to swear alligience to Hitler---or that he did not do so?
I mean, its absolutely accurate to say "Ratzinger fought for the preservation of the Nazi state" and "Ratzinger fought for those who were killing six million jews". Now, if you want me to waste bandwidth and, instead of saying "Ratzinger was a Nazi," say that "Ratzinger swore alligience to Hitler and Nazi Germany, and risked his life as a member of the German Army in an effort to preserve Nazism in Germany and the leadership that was dedicated to the genocide of jews and other 'undersirables' " I guess I can do that.
Because, lets face it, that is who Ratzinger is, and what Ratzinger did, and there is absolutely no evidence that suggests that he did not do so willingly, other than his own "I vas just following orders" apologia. And when one looks at Ratzinger's record, its easy to find evidence of a continued alliegence to Nazi thought.
Heh, i dont talk religion in other peoples homes, but I'll make an exception this time.
I agree that it is both pointless and silly for non-Catholics especially to be making demands on the Catholic Church. For that matter, it is both pointless and silly for Catholic parishners to be making demands on the Catholic Church, as by being a member they have obviously made a decision to live with whatever the Vatican wants to do and never have a say in it. Thems the rules. Dont like it, there are plenty of people at the airport happy to give you literature.
Now I, being a pointless and silly Catholic, spend lots of time pointing out the hypocracy and feeling both betrayed and horribly dissapointed in what Christ's Church has devolved into in the last 2000 years. Granted, not quite as betrayed as, say, the Orthodox Christians felt being dragged from beneath the altar of the Hagia Sophia by the 4th Crusade and having my head cut off, but betrayed nonetheless.
The Church is sick, probably dying. I dont think any of us can imagine how much of the Vaticans time and effort is devoted to collecting, making, distributing (sometimes), and keeping money. This is very likely the most corrupt organization on earth. People are often surprised to hear the Vatican has a bank. In fact its one of the most influential banks in the world. I can only imagine what JC would be thinking seeing that. He didnt have a soft spot in his heart for money changers in the Temple as I recall. Bankers in the Vatican? A lot more of them than philosophers and teachers.
Anyway, to the point, for Catholics and non-Catholics alike, i recommend not worrying about who's driving the out of control train, and start worrying about why the wheels are flying off and the bodies are piling up behind it. Just my .02$ as a sad Catholic.
lukasiak:
Somehow I just knew that whatever I posted in defense of the pope wasn't going to be enough for you ...
A couple of brief points, not because I think they'll convince you so much as for the purposes of correcting anyone who reads your comments.
John Farren:
You need to distinguish between the regular teaching authority of the Magisterium (what is called the "ordinary Magisterium") and that which is defined as ex cathedra or infallible, such as papal statements to the entire Church and the rulings by ecumenical councils such as Vatican II. #77, for example, I believe refers to an excerpt from a document specifically relating to Spain, so it cannot be taken as relating to the entire Church.
That said, Piux IX more or less admitted later that it was badly drafted and easily open to misinterpretation insofar as it was taken as condemning a far greater range of positions and beliefs than it actually did. John Henry Newman Anglican, wrote quite a bit on this, I believe.
As far as the issue of Pope's "goofing up," look back at the history of the Church. There's more than enough papal sin (and I believe a book by that very name) to go around in 2,000 years. To a certain extent, this can be seen in the Catholic view of the bishops as successors to the apostles - which isn't nearly a positive as it sounds if you look at the examples of Judas, Thomas, Peter, and Paul. The good news for Catholics is that God can work through humans to accomplish His goals. The bad news is that they're still humans, with all the baggage and flaws that goes with that.
I knew the fanatical elements in our society were going to go over and over this Nazi Youth thing from now until eternity.
Ratzinger was not a member of the Nazi party. He did not voluntarely join the Hitler Youth. He skipped the meetings, he asked to be removed. His father is known to be anti-Nazi.He did not go to the front to fight for the Nazis. He deserted.
Those are the facts.
Anti Nazi and Jewish groups have praised then Cardinal Ratzinger because of his openess to dialog between Catholics and Jews, yet we have dellusional posters ranting and raving about him being a Nazi ... of course ignoring the facts and the testimony of those who know better.
One gets the sense that these people don't like the Catholic Church in the first place. And I would say it's not a coincidence they're going to level these charges against the Pope, this is nothing new. After all, these people will feel right at home with those who distribute religious tracts about the Pope being the anti-Christ.
As an aside, even though it seems our Pope didn't really do anything wrong in his teenage years ... one wonders what these same people would say about St. Paul. I mean, they do know what he was doing before becoming a Christian no?
Not being of the Catholic faith but a believer in God and Christ as our savior I have to wonder about the coverage and election of Pope Benedict XVI.
Not only has the MSM played it every which way but loose they have strutted out all the intelligentsia they can muster in defense of or against with the specific aim of controversy.
From all the coverage, it makes one wonder if people place all their faith in the Pope or in their God.
Funny, I wouldn't have expected p.lukasiak to argue that we shouldn't have taken prisoners in WW2. I mean, what he's saying is correct, in that the Wehrmacht acted as an aide to the perpetrators of genocide. Accessory to genocide, right? I think the Geneva conventions put you up against a wall for that.
This line of thinking raises all sorts of questions about the guilt of German civilians who contributed to the 'war' effort. Did they not help Hitler in his massacres? And, you're right, "I vas just following orders" isn't a mitigating factor.
Makes you re-think Dresden, right? Maybe we should have done that to every German city. Maybe we should have sewn the ground with salt. Because if a Wehrmacht conscript is still a Nazi 60 years later, most Germans were sure as hell Nazis in 1945.
So an unwilling, unenthusiastic deserter from a Hitler Youth group has the blood of 6 million Jews on his hands? Is that right, p.lukasiak? We should have made the Germans wish the Soviets got to them first.
I mean, that's the implication here. If you're willing to argue that Germany should have been erased simply in order to bash the Pope, of course, that's your choice.
Well Colt, given that p.lukasiak argues above that I specifically essentially supported the Holocaust (and if that's the case, do I have a wierd taste in friends ...), I don't think you're making too much a stretch there.
Catholicism in particular is not a social club, nor is it a secular political institution.
It also has no barbed wire fence around it, so why do Catholics who have so much contempt for Church doctrines insist on Catholic identity? And on having all the furniture rearranged to accomodate their contrary social and political beliefs?
I see three reasons, somebody tell me if there are more:
1. The same reason why Ed Koch remains a Democrat: Nostaglia and inertia.
2. Guilty conscience. Sure, you think you're right about abortion and recreational sex (etc) and the Pope is wrong. So why do you need him to give you an absolvo te? You think you can legalize sin like it was marijuana? You think your favorite liberal theologian can get a restraining order put on Jesus Christ?
3. Political opportunism. Catholic identity has long carried heavy political freight in Northeastern and Big City politics, especially in those deep Blue New England states. It's been a royal road to power for liberal strongmen like Kennedy, Cuomo, and Kerry. They treat it like an undisputable and inherent property - like being Irish or Italian - regardless of conduct. So they can live off the Catholic working class vote while ignoring the Pope and his bishops. They can profess the religion of St. Peter while practicing the Politics of the Week. This is a pretty good deal, and I'm not surprised that they don't want to give it up. It would be like quitting a no-show job.
#12 Dan Darling
Nope.
Look, I would have had no problems with Carthage redux if this were 1945. I am glad that Israel and the SWC is still hunting Nazis, and could care less that they're old men now. I'm going in to the IDF, for goodness sake. I have a very, very dim view of anti-semites. So if I thought the Pope was one, I would say so. Deserting from the Hitlerjugend 60 years ago doesn't cut it.
There's an interesting post here from someone who met him.
Also interesting:
As many of you know, I was raised a Catholic.
I've had several friends call me (thinking I'm thoroughly anti-Catholic because I'm post-Catholic) and remarking how close Benedict 16's big day coincided with Hitler's birthday. (they were actually off by one day -- today is Hitler's birthday). Lots of eye-rolling and loose talk of Naziness.
You know what? I don't know anything about Ratzinger. Nada. I don't follow the lives of Catholic cardinals closely enough to know more than the basic facts. His Hitler Youth flirtation was news to me yesterday, right around the same time I learned that he became the Pope. I had to do some research on him to know who the new pope was. Bad Catholic, me.
So I now expect anti-Catholics to make the bone-headed comparison of the entire Church to Nazis. Ad infinitum. Ad nauseum. Ad hominem. Someone should ask Senator Robert Bird how the new Pope should handle his distant past. He seems to have skated by just fine posing as a liberal among liberals. And I don't even hold it against him. Imagine Bird wearing one of those stupid KKK outfits. Ridiculous. What was he thinking? I forgive him.
People will satisfy themselves over the stupidest, most irrelevant points, just because they're there and fit into some agenda or another. So go ahead. "The Pope is a Nazi!" Spin the drill, whack the hammer, screw the screwdriver. The more people say it, the stupider they will sound. Have a nice laugh, and make your points. Just be.
I wish the new Pope lots of luck. Catholics have been luckless as of late. They're the longstanding favorite whipping boys for people who are utterly convinced they know better than most. And perhaps they do. Perhaps us Catholics and ex-Catholics are not cut out to fit into this world, such as it is.
While keeping busy at pushing the Bush-Chimp-Hilter-Pope meme, be careful how far you take to adding swastikas to crosses. It can become a pathology. Invisible swastikas will start appearing out of everything. Nasty business.
Dan: You want to argue that the teachings of Jesus Christ stipulate a Marxist-style class warfare, that's fine, though I think you'll understand if I decline to agree with you on that particular point of theology.
In the commentary about John Paul's death, I've heard much lamenting about the demise of Liberation Theology - most of it from dishwater liberals who think it means some kind of dishwater liberal social program.
I'm not a theologian, but I swear at the theologians I see on TV. Fortunately, you don't have to be a theologian to recognize the errors of Liberation Theology, which are fundamental and fatal.
1. Liberation Theology denies the fundamental princple of spiritual equality: i.e., that all men are equal in the eyes of God. This is fundamental not only to Catholicism but to Christianity in general - in fact, it is a principle in all the monotheistic religions.
Not content to divide humanity into ontological masters and slaves, Liberation Theology further divides it among every conceivable ethnic, national, and sexual line. (Any Marxed-out Maryknoll nun will tell you: It's not Liberation Theology, it's Liberation Theologies.) This is about as "anti-catholic" as you can get.
2. Liberation Theology makes the historical classes of Marxism into the agents of salvation, and replaces "primitive" notions of the Holy Spirit with political praxis. This blows the very first commandment right out of the water and is a big no-no.
3. It takes no religion at all to recognize that Liberation Theology violates its own professed goal of struggling for the poor and oppressed, by handing them over to the very forces that have oppressed more poor people than anybody else.
That is why Liberation Theology was conceived in the first place: to give bogus sanctification to a brutal materialist philosophy that has failed to justify itself politically or historically.
We have absolutely no idea why John Paul II was elected pope, that's part of the secrecy rules of the conclave. If you're Catholic, you believe that the Holy Spirit guides the cardinals in making the decision. If not, pick your own reason du jour ...
are you serious? I mean, you actually believe that Ratzinger became pope not because he and JP2 appointed a bunch of little Ratzinger clones cardinal? That Ratzinger didn't campaign? That JP2 didn't change the rules for deciding who was Pope in a way that made Ratzinger an inevitability? Your position is that all the cardinals showed up in Rome, and suddenly the Holy Spirit told them who to pick? But the Holy Spirit withheld that information until the fourth ballot?
You have attempted to "defend" Ratzinger---who fought to preserve the Nazi regime on the front lines during WWII---from some sort of "rational" perspective. You have the right to have your beliefs respected, but you don't have the right to have mysticism presented as rational argument and have it respected as rational argument.
You want to argue that the teachings of Jesus Christ stipulate a Marxist-style class warfare, that's fine, though I think you'll understand if I decline to agree with you on that particular point of theology. That certainly isn't anything resembling Catholic doctrine on the subject of economics, however, which I gather you agree with given your comments concerning Catholic materialism. In which case, Cardinal Ratzinger upheld Catholic doctrine by condemning Liberation Theology ... which was pretty much consistent with his job at the time. If you regard that as being consistent with Nazism, then I suspect you belong to a class of people who tend to see everything to the right of Dean for America as being irredeemably fascist in some murky way.
Liberation theology was Catholic economics in practice --- and a way of explaining Christianity within a Marxist perspective. Christ was on the side of the poor, told those who followed him to help the poor, and made it clear that the failure to do so was the fast track to hell. Ratzinger says that presenting Christ's teaching within the context of the conditions of exploitation and oppression in which the poor of Latin America existed was somehow inconsistent with Christianity. This bit of theological intellectual acrobatics shows just how twisted were the Nazi sympathizers who dominated the German Church at the time that Ratzinger was learning about Church doctrine. Rather than reject the Nazi interpretation of Catholism, Ratzinger clearly embraced it --- the Nazi's kneejerk rejection of anything associated with Marx is reflected in Ratzinger's pronouncements on "liberation theology." Ratzinger, with his Nazi influenced and determined theology, was the perfect foil for JP2 whose worldview was formed in the crucible of Soviet repression of the aspirations of the Polish people.
think you fundamentally misunderstand how Catholicism works (your claim that Catholic doctrines have "no direct scriptural basis whatsoever" is indicative of this) in so far as sources of revelation are concerned. I would recommend that you refresh your understanding of the Catholic view of sola scriptura, among other things.
I'm well aware of how Catholicism works, and how rejection of sola scriptura has enabled the Church bureaucracy to simply ignore the life and teachings of Christ, and come up with a cosmology and theology that bears only a passing resemblance to the person whom it claims to worship.
The fact is that Christ was a completely non-dogmatic Saviour. He distilled his message down to two easily understood concepts --- "Do unto others" and "I am the way". In other words, if you have a question about what "do unto others" means, just ask "What would Jesus do?". Sola scriptura works for people of good and truth faith --- it doesn't work for people who are not of good faith, and who need a "church" that will provide an endorsement of behavior that is anti-thetical to the golden rule. The fact that the Bible is full of contradictions that people are constantly trying to resolve is a signal from God that right and wrong are, in fact, relative.
I'm very glad you think I'm such a bad, bad person though I don't recall ever voicing my laudatory remarks about the Inquisition, the Crusades, the selling of indulgences, or the behavior of the Church during World War 2 in this or any other forum. Unless you're now a telepath, you have absolutely no way of knowing what I think of this and your ad hominem against myself or anybody else who deigns to take issue with your worldview is wearing increasingly thin.
Do make the effort to read what I wrote, rather than what its convenient for you to claim I wrote. I said that you were the kind of person who WOULD defend the Church regardless of what level of atrocities it sunk to. For you, its a question of faith --- the Pope is "selected with the guidance of the Holy Spirit", and the Holy Spirit isn't about to select someone who will order the slaughter of Muslims in the name of Christ or the torture of "heretics" without very good reason, now would it?
So there must be a reason for the Holy Spirit guiding the Cardinals to select someone who was instrumental in rewarding Cardinal Law with a prestigious and highly visible position in the Vatican for covering up the sexual abuse of children by priests in Boston.
As a non-Catholic, I guess I don't understand all the mysteries that justify giving Law a prominent position in the Church....as a non-Catholic, I guess I have to think that sometimes, despite the best efforts of the Holy Spirit, human frailty and ego intercedes and we get people like Ratzinger leading the Church.
"You have attempted to "defend" Ratzinger---who fought to preserve the Nazi regime on the front lines during WWII---"
He was never sent to the front lines. But your repetitious libel is extremly ironic.
"The most brilliant propagandist technique will yield no success unless one fundamental principle is borne in mind constantly . . . it must confine itself to a few points and repeat them over and over."
-Joseph Goebbels, Nazi Minister of Propaganda
And sorry, because this part of your arguments is so absurd and outside the reasoning of any fair minded person, it's useless to discuss the rest of your "points" (rants).
Someone should ask Senator Robert Bird how the new Pope should handle his distant past. He seems to have skated by just fine posing as a liberal among liberals. And I don't even hold it against him. Imagine Bird wearing one of those stupid KKK outfits. Ridiculous. What was he thinking? I forgive him.
the difference is that Byrd, unlike Ratzinger, has acknowledged the error of his ways and his behavior reflects that acknowledgement. Ratzinger (and a host of GOP politicians) on the other hand, pretend that it never happened, yet act in a manner fully consistent with that despicable past.
I'm not aware of Byrd doing any such thing.
Maybe he's refering to Byrd's incoherent "white n***ers" comment.
I'm not aware of Byrd doing any such thing.
why am I not surprised that you are unaware of facts you find inconvenient?
Thank you, Dan, for your encouraging article. I would point out that the most severe damage done (and still being done) by liberation theology is in western universities and seminaries. The alienation between pastors trained there and those who would be their flocks but have largely fled such pastors is in large part responsible for the falling off in membership in both mainline protestant and liberal Catholic congregations.
Liberation theology teaches pastors that it is their job to "afflict the comfortable"; a job Satan has proven to have pretty well covered on his own, and unlikely to need much assistance in. Until such churches take up the cause of comforting the afflicted. period. they will continue to struggle.
Interesting juxtaposition in the lectionary texts from last Sunday that has some bearing on this conversation. Acts 2:42-47 describes early church life in what could be interpreted in a communistic manner. 1 Peter 2:19-25, however, clearly shows that the character of Christ and the character of the communists of this world could not be more different. And, yes, I did preach that sermon last Sunday. ;-)
Instead of being a condescending ass, perhaps you could show me information proving Byrd has denounced his past involvement? The only info I'm aware of is that several years after he left the KKK, he wrote an article praising it.
I've also read that he used the N word twice on national television in the last ten years, so I'm dying to hear about his mea culpa.
P.L... re: my enforcement of standards. No, I will not be enforcing your absurd standards of left-wing political correctness. I will be enforcing my standards of civility and decency, and if you doubt that they cut both ways go ask your mirror image Raymond about his list of deleted comments.
There are ways to make your case with respect, evidence, and honesty. Try them. Or face the consequences.
Too many people have worked way too hard to create a good environment for thoughtful people here on Winds. It's a standard that can accomodate a very broad range of political views - but a rather narrower range of behaviours.
On a happier note, I'd like to thank the other contributors to this thread, who have been able to express their own range of opinions re: the Catholic Church in an interesting, intelligent, and civil way. Here's hoping we can keep that up.
p.lukasiak:
Ged:
Communism (in the sense of a lifestyle) in of itself is not the problem, Marxism is. The Church has had them for over a millennia in the form of monastic communities and I believe that Jews have more or less the same thing with respect to the kibbutz. Somehow, both have managed to get along just fine without producing the body counts one associates with today's "people's republics."
Like Cicero, I'm a post-Catholic, and perhaps even an anti-Catholic at this point.
My base question is, what is the Pope's Job Description? I was taught in years of CCD and parochial school that the pope is "God's Face on Earth". He is supposed to be the Shepherd, yet my whole life i have seen John Paul caring more for the other shepherds than the sheep. Sometimes what is good for one is good for both, but most times not.
I want to know if Benedict will care more for the shepherds, or more for the sheep.
Will he advocate the useage of condoms to prevent the spread of AIDs in Africa? Will he allow contraception to prevent hunger and poverty from overpopulation in south America? Will he sanction the defrocking of pederast priests in stead of moving them to another parish and paying hush money?
What about the sheep? Most especially the lambs, that are innocent of all except being born catholic?
Do you know who the greatest landowner in the entire world is? The Catholic Church.
Instead of being a condescending ass, perhaps you could show me information proving Byrd has denounced his past involvement?
If I thought there was even the slightest possibility that you are completely incapable of doing a simple google search on your own to examine Byrd's record, I might be willing to make the effort.
But the bottom line here is that you are talking out your butt about Senator Byrd, based solely on the crap that you've read somewhere about what he did as a teenager without EVER bothering to see if he continues to pursue a racist agenda.
I admit, that I feel antipathy towards the Church. I should not, it is merely another cold-blooded ESS seeking to survive in today's competitive environment. Mark B is right, the church is doomed, and was doomed from the moment it gave away its "magic language" after vatican II. Trying to hold the line on traditional doctrine now is useless.
I don't know why i continued to be shocked and disappointed in Church policy throughout my teeenage years. The church policy towards children was absolutely clear from the second grade CCD on-- when i was horrified to learn that unbaptized babies go to limbo-- until the end of time .
jinnderella;
"As regards children who have died without baptism, the church can only entrust them to the mercy of God, as she does in her funeral rites for them."
"Indeed, the great mercy of God who desires that all men should be saved, and Jesus' tenderness toward children, which caused him to say: 'Let the children come to me, do not hinder them,' allow us to hope that there is a way of salvation for children who have died without baptism,"
Catechism of the Catholic Church.
My best Church experiences were in my teenage years (and early 20s), so obviously I'm sad to hear of yours were not as happy.
You mention you are post(?) and anti-Catholic so probably the quote above doesn't matter to you (and maybe it shouldn't anyways). Just posting it to clarify things ...
Hey, if ya got to use the keyboard for ad hominem attacks, might as well make the accusations extreme. Don't just attack public figures, let your wrath descend on people posting here as well. And by all means, read their minds! They deserve it! All of it!!
Of course, readers will notice, and judge accordingly. I take it that's okay.
ElCapitan,
Hope gets short shrift in the face of dogma. May i Remind you of the doctrine of Original Sin?
But your post is evidence of something i find in terribly short supply in today's Church, kindness .
It is indeed kind of you to attempt to offer me a more palatable belief. ;)
> Hope gets short shrift in the face of dogma. May i Remind you of the doctrine of Original Sin?
I'm very well aware of it, as I am of "limbo". One of my favorite saints and theologians is Saint Augustine, and he struggled with this difficult question.
However what I quoted is what is in the Cathechism, and what the Church affirms, and is all we need to know. Everything else, in my opinion, is about as relevant (if not sometimes interesting) as some of Thomas Aquinas questions in the Summa Theologica (like should we love demons because Jesus say we should love our enemies. Interesting, but perhaps not the most useful question in my Christian life).
> But your post is evidence of something i find in terribly short supply in today's Church, kindness
Thanks. I've found lots of it, however I know, unfortunately, not all have.
He certainly doesn't pretend it never happened, though near as I can tell you associate him with Nazism because he went after a school of theology you acknowledge had underpinnings (Marxism) that are inimical to Catholic doctrine back when he was ... charged with upholding Catholic doctrine.
talk about circular reasoning! Liberation theology was considered perfectly acceptable until Ratzinger declared it "inimical to Catholic doctrine." You can't use Ratzinger's pronouncements defining Church doctrine to prove that Ratzinger's definition of Church doctrine is self-evident.
The rejection of sola scriptura, for example, has been in place for upwards of 400 years. A lot of people don't agree with that, so over the years they've become some variety of Protestant.
I don't object to the rejection of sola scriptura, what I find objectionable is using that rejection as a justification for creating a set of beliefs that have no relationship to the scriptures. Basically, whole swaths of Catholic dogma are based on the extension of extension of "revealed truths" creating an inverted pyramid of dogma, rather than a theology whose foundation is the scriptures.
Again, if you are a non-Catholic, why do you care so strongly as to what I believe or the Church teaches? It looks to me as though you don't consider such teaching binding in any event and no one is forcing you to adhere to it, so what does it matter if we keep our peculiar medieval doctrines?
because the Catholic Church is extremely powerful, and Ratzinger is converting it to a Church of hate. This is the guy, don't forget, who wants to deny Communion to Roman Catholic politicians who don't toe the line on abortion (but has no apparent objection to providing Roman Catholic politicians who support the killing of Muslims in Iraq on completely false pretenses with the sacrements of the Church.) And he wants to deny Communion to Catholics who may understand that as Catholics they cannot have an abortion, yet recognize that Americans have the right to their own religious beliefs and support politicians who think likewise and support the right to choose.
This is the same guy who claims that I am intrisically morally evil solely because I'm a homosexual --- in other words, this hatemonger represents a personal threat to my life and freedom, because he is just as likely to decide that denying Communion to Catholic politicians who support gay rights is necessary as he is to deny the sacrement to politicians who support a woman's right to choose.
So get off of your high moral horse about how I'm supposed to respect your views, because YOU are defending someone who wants to significantly proscribe my rights and freedoms. You may find my views personally offensive --- but no one is talking about YOU being intrinsically morally evil. No one is promoting and defending anyone who wants to interfere how YOU live YOUR life.
YOU feel totally comfortable with people who call anyone who takes arms against US agression against Muslims a terrorist, because YOU perceive a threat from Muslims. Nothing I've written comes close to the kind of outrageous accusations made against Muslims and Arabs that appear with startling regularity on this blog....
"But your post is evidence of something i find in terribly short supply in today's Church, kindness."
That's funny, the church is about the only place I've found it. Or to be more accurate, the only place that can maintain it in the face of conflict.
Growing up in sophisticated suburbia, sure didn't expect to find it there, but God is nothing if not inclined toward the unexpected.
As for dogma, that's just Latin for "teaching". If we don't teach, what will our kids have to rebel against? The opposite of dogma is not freedom, but nihilism.
Dan, I'm aware of Christian experience with communal living - lived in such a community myself for 2 years and was struck by the character of the participants. But my faith tradition holds that to relate to the world, one speaks the language the world can understand (a.k.a. the vernacular) and in that language, communism is equated with Marx, for good or ill.
"I see three reasons, somebody tell me if there are more:"
True believers who feel the Church has been horribly corrupted.
If I thought there was even the slightest possibility that you are completely incapable of doing a simple google search on your own to examine Byrd's record, I might be willing to make the effort.
I'll look it up but from what I've read about him before I've not seen any sort of apology. Since you can't or won't provide any, I'm forced to assume there is none.
But the bottom line here is that you are talking out your butt about Senator Byrd, based solely on the crap that you've read somewhere about what he did as a teenager without EVER bothering to see if he continues to pursue a racist agenda.
If he's abandoned his racist agenda, why has he used the N word on television? If he slips and uses it on tv, how often does he use it in private?
Also, do you think you could try to be more polite?
"This is the same guy who claims that I am intrisically morally evil"
Um, the Pope claims that he himself is intrinsically evil, hence the need for redemption in Christ he shares with us all. Part of that redemption involves repentance from sin, which would include, for the past 3,000-odd years (but not before, this was once itself considered a moral innovation!) homosexual behavior. If you share the currently fashionable anthropology on the matter, it is you who considers this behavior intrinsic to who you are, not the Pope.
The question the Pope would ask you is: by what authority does he overturn 3,000 years of tradition? This question does have answers (or else the original innovation would have never taken place), but coming up with those answers requires an understanding of the question you have yet to show.
Thanks, Ged, ElCapitan, for your insights.
But will no one answer my question?
Will Benedict care more about the shepherds (meaning the adherance to doctrine and the organic unity of the Church), or more about the sheep?
I keep thinking we'll know more about this Pope's intentions if he pitches Bernard Law out on his ass.
Jinnderella,
I regret that my reply to your comment did not evince more kindness in its tone. Seems an occupational hazard when discussing ideas in an internet forum, really miss the body language.
Here's an example. One out of every ten Americans over the age of sixty-five has Alzheimers. The Church is opposed to embryonic stem cell research and therapy. What is the "kind" thing to do here?
The Church can cleave to the medieval anachronistic rules (that seem so unjustifiable to me), or embrace change and step into the 21st century. the choice of Benedict seems like a furious attempt to keep the dyke wall from crumbling. but it's already cracked.
"I keep thinking we'll know more about this Pope's intentions if he pitches Bernard Law out on his ass."
Amen.
Jinn,
I'd invite you to read his ample writings and make that determination for yourself, although the way you phrase the question risks begging the question before it is asked.
If the Pope actually believes the dogma, especially the central tenets (Benedict actually has shown some flexibility on the peripheral issues), his care for the sheep will necessarily also involve a concern for fidelity to the tenets of that dogma. The very sense of conviction shown thereby, and the reliability and integrity it suggests, can serve as a source of no little reassurance to lost sheep, in my limited experience.
AMac:
LOL! That's classic!
p.lukasiak:
Ged:
Understood, good point.
And, Sparrowhawk, I do not see you lacking in kindness, your name itself says much. ;)
Dan, i'll just inject something here..
I strongly suspect that Catholic teachings on human sexuality (which are binding only to those Catholics who choose to adhere to them, when last I checked)
and binding on their children.
Yes, but the same can be said for anyone raised in any religious tradition from Catholicism to Zen Buddhism. In the case of p. lukasiak, whom I assume is of age, no one is forcing him to conform to any religious teaching.
Jinnderella: "Hope gets short shrift in the face of dogma. May i Remind you of the doctrine of Original Sin?"
Of course, Original Sin is not a doctrine peculiar to Catholicism.
In fact, secular philosophy has borrowed very heavily on the idea of Original Sin: You find versions of it in Hegel (alienation of World and Spirit), Marx (the destruction of primeval communism), and Jean-Paul Sartre (the schism between being-in-itself and being-for-itself).
"Do you know who the greatest landowner in the entire world is? The Catholic Church."
I know you're not going to go Pierre Proudhon on us, now.
Historically, Church ownership of land in Europe was a development of enormous importance to civilization. Lands held by monasteries (above all the Benedictines) were farmed by volunteer laymen who followed the Benedictine Rule, which taught that "Idleness is the enemy of the soul".
This combination of agrarian development and the dignifying of manual labor produced two stupendous improvements: The spiritual equality of commoner and noble (with the commoner even getting a slight edge), and - for the first time - a workable alternative to the slave-based economy of the ancient world. The Benedictines are due a lot of credit there.
So not only do I like this new Pope, I really like his name, too.
Glen.
I would rather that he had chosen the name Francis. ;)
p.,
He filibustered the Civil Rights Act when he was still a teenager? Wow....
Jinn
So if we dont chop up babies for body parts, and deny them life in order to benifit others who have lived theirs ...
You remind me of the monty python skit with the fellow at the door asking the dweller therin to donate his liver.
The Galaxy song was rather cute, and amusing, what you are asking for is not. No end to the demands of the selfish.
Boy is my head spinning now, between you and the rants of my bookend that wants the church to embrace the leftist religion and their mountain of 174 Million skulls.
The church dont impose their agenda at the point of a gun. the left still does. for all the leftist fears of "Theocracy" .....
Perhaps thats part of the current leftist affection for radical Islam, which is a marrage of NAZI socialism with a bit of Stalin thrown in.
Seems to me the same marrage of marxo-theism in the Roman church would be just as perverse.
So Theocracy is just fine as long as it has the proper marxist mix ?
Suddenly ive got the vision of a Priest spending his midweek time as head of leftist Terror cell, a Che Guvara with a collar, huddled down with some FARC guys wiring up bombs and cleaning their AK47s and planning their next assasinations.
Getting just a bit too bizarre for me man, thats like way out there dude.
In case some didnt get it, it was a slap at Father Camillo Torres, a Colombian priest who became a guerrilla leader under Che Guevara. cant you see the new Crusades with the full blessings of the left ? The holy cross on a red flag replacing the hammer and the sythe, Onward Christian Solgers!
The church didnt embrace killing "enemies of the people" for Jesus. so my bookend is a bit unhappy.
Is this the time to start talking about 'affirmative action'?
Jinnderella: I would rather that he had chosen the name Francis.
Francis of Assisi would be a worthy namesake, except that his real name was Giovanni.
His nickname "Francisco" is a pagan name meaning "Frank" or "Frenchman". I, for one, do not favor a Pope Frenchman, or a crusade against the Ivory Coast.
lol, Glen!
nice touche!
but you know very well what i meant. i prefer the philosophy of the Franciscans to the philosophy of the Benedictines. ;)
Um, the Pope claims that he himself is intrinsically evil, hence the need for redemption in Christ he shares with us all.
Since when has the church claimed that man is intrisically evil?
Not sinful, but evil? Not capable of evil, but intrinsically evil?
Can we look forward to Ratzinger making a point of saying that Americans are intrinsically evil?
You also misunderstand (or misrepresent or whatever) Catholic doctrine if you want to place war on par with abortion. War is an issue of prudential judgement, it says as much in the Catechism. Abortion, simply speaking, is not.
JP2 made it clear that there was no legal or moral justification for the war on Iraq --- that "prudential judgement" was not being exercised. This war was not a matter of self-defense or an imminent threat of attack, and had no "prudential judgement" basis. If there is anyone that is "intrinsically evil" it is those that will try to justify the killing of people using Church doctrines like "prudential judgement" as a cover for their murderous ambitions.
Except you will never hear Ratzinger discussing denying communion to politicians that support the war, and denying communion to Catholics who support politicians because they support the war.
Ratzinger is not bringing down the hammer on Catholic priests theologians who pervert Catholic teachings by supporting the war. For Ratzinger, killing Muslims is okay, while overthrowing despotic governments in South America is not okay.
Moreover, you haven't shown how denying communion to anyone constitutes a personal threat to your life or freedom.
lets see now. If Ratzinger described African Americans as "intrinsically morally evil" would blacks in America have a right to feel threatened? If Ratzinger wanted to deny the sacrements of the Church to people who supported civil rights for African Americans, would African Americans have a reason to feel threatened.
Ratzinger wants to impose Catholic dogma on every American, not just on American Catholics. He wants to use the power of the Church to deny all American women the right to control their own reproductive organs --- and to deny gay and lesbian American's basic civil rights.
Ratzinger is a dangerous, hateful, and evil man, who attempted to (and, given the significant Catholic population of Ohio, may have succeeded in) interfering in an American election on the side of one candidate --- and that candidate was the one who was personally responsible for a war that the Catholic Church was on record as opposing as having no moral justification whatsoever.
Ratzinger is a dangerous, hateful, and evil man who will force every Catholic political candidate to answer the question "If the Pope decides that he doesn't like a political policy that you support, and decides to deny you communion if you don't change your position, what will you do? Are you an American first, or do you take your marching orders from the Pope?"
Catholics can believe what they want to believe, and have every right to exercise that belief in their own lives. But they cross the line when they try and impose the irrational bigotry that they call their religion on anyone else. Ratzinger is the personification of that irrational bigotry, and the will to impose his hate on others.
jinnderella:
Hope you don't mind, I was musing with some others on Mossback and used your #29 post - excerpts actually - to show a relevance to non-Catholics of the choice of a pope. Hope you don't mind, and yes I did give attribution.
As to Sen. Byrd, he has apologized for his 'youthful indiscretion' of being a member of KKK, and by the way he is not the only person now a member of the Senate who opposed civil rights. Presently reborn as affirmative action, (a misnomer, since the actual Labor dpt office is about compliance), which makes it PC to oppose.
And several parts of the Bible give directions about how to treat your slaves, which is used by present day members of the clergy to point out that slavery is condoned (seldom done publicly), and others to point out that it shows the Bible is not the Word of God.
Benedict XVI: "Don't call me Francis."
Leftism uses imposition by threat of deadly force to obtain compliance.
The only force the church has is the power of ideas, there is no physical force behind it to obtain compliance from those unwilling to comply.
I think we see another example of projection.
Also so very Orwellian.
Servants, they are called, often bound to a property owner or merchant or tradsman. but not the same as chattle property.
The feudal system in europe had the same thing.
A certain German named Martin Luther started something that really shook that up.
A Blacksmiths aprenctice was a bound servant for example, and yes the bible does lay down some rules how he should be treated.
And to further illuminate what this means, this bound servant might be the son of your neighbor or another respected family in your village.
This is not the same as when the Jews lived under the governace of the Roman state however, where the trade in humans as property was an institution. and you can be certain plenty of ethnic Jews participated. but was they following biblical doctrine?
Then you saw chattle slavery introduced again by the Muslims who have yet to determine anything is wrong with it.
We saw some bound servants mentioned in early america, you will find it in the proabition of indentured servitude, a quite radical idea at the time to prohibit such a thing.
I think you are wrong to say the bible refers to Roman or Muslim chattle slavery however, and those that confused them to excuse them ...
So, to illuminate further using a question, how do you explain the Christian roots of the anti slavery movement? Or more to the point, without Christians, would there ever have been one?
"Since when has the church claimed that man is intrisically evil?
Not sinful, but evil? Not capable of evil, but intrinsically evil?
Can we look forward to Ratzinger making a point of saying that Americans are intrinsically evil?"
Well, perhaps this is just the Calvinist in me rearing it's ugly head. :)
Note where Ged ultimately found the demon he had spent a good part of his life fleeing...
You may be splitting hairs here, however, sin being evil and all that. On the other hand, it is the currently fashionable anthropology of a large chunk of the homosexual lobby that equates potency and act, not the church, so you may have a point.
The doctrine of universal (yes, even Americans!) original sin, leavened by the hope of redemption in Christ, actually functions as a useful brake on the rampant demonization and self-righteousness one can easily find, for instance, throughout the internet community.
"For there is no distinction, since all have sinned and fall short of the glory of God... Then what becomes of boasting? It is excluded."
Romans 3:22-27
P, Take a paper bag, put it to your face, and breathe deeply, you're getting hysterical. The election of a Pope who disagrees with you on social and cultural issues doesn't mean anybody is going to start passing out pink triangles. Much of your litany of complaints against the Pope assumes the factuality of controversial issues. You see abortion as a woman doing as she wills "with her own body." Many of us see it as taking an innocent human life. This isn't the place for a debate on abortion (our editors don't particularly like those anyway for understandable reasons). My point is that I have a right to vote against politicians that violate my moral code and my Church has a right to exclude from it those who violate its moral code. You assume that sexual orientation is the same as race. Many of us do not agree. We had this discussion on another post and I don't want to beat that horse any deader than it is. The point is that I have a right to vote against politicians who want to confer protected minority status based on behavior and my Church has the right to exclude those who vote contrary to its position on issues of sexuality. None of this means the Gestapo is going to kick down your door drag you to the Zyklon B showers. Try decaf, dude.
To further illustrate the existing differences between bound servants and a chattle slave, (which illustrates why the Muslum marketing of blacks as subhumans, and having then accepted that way in america and elsewhere was so particulary offensive)....
When the roman came to jesus and asked for his slave to be healed, was he making a humanitarian appeal? or was he asking Jesus to save him from property loss?
You may be splitting hairs here, however, sin being evil and all that. On the other hand, it is the currently fashionable anthropology of a large chunk of the homosexual lobby that equates potency and act, not the church, so you may have a point.
IMHO, the distinction between sinfulness and evil is one of intent. Human fraility alone can account for sinfulness that has no inherent "wickedness". But evil implies deliberate and premeditated wickedness demonstrating an absolute contempt for the will of God.
Interesting article here about the new liberal Pope, fan of De Tocqueville:
http://www.acton.org/ppolicy/comment/article.php?id=262
p.lukasiak:
the same can be said for anyone raised in any religious tradition from Catholicism to Zen Buddhism
Dan, that is so not what I'm talking about. Do you think the sub-saharan four-year-old that has just been orphaned by AIDS really cares much about his parents' sexual practices and family values? Or do you think they got what they deserved? Did the little Catholic boy get what he deserved?
We got a dispensation for eating meat on Friday, why not a dispensation for condoms in Africa. Why should doing the right thing for humanity be equivalent to destroying the organic unity of the Church? It looks like moral equivalency and rationalization from where i sit. And cowardice.
Ruth, I'm flattered. ;;bows slightly;; help yourself to anything you like. ;)
Here is an LGF link to True German Ally who apparently knows the new pope. Enjoy.
Ged, I read some of Benedict's works. I am not impressed. As far as I can tell, the new pope is the old pope with different hair. ;)
"Do you think the sub-saharan four-year-old that has just been orphaned by AIDS really cares much about his parents' sexual practices and family values?"
Oh, good grief. Are you unaware that there's a close relationship between that poor orphan's "parents' sexual practices and family values" and his status as an orphan?
Exactly, Lindsay. Guess you'd say they all got what they deserved.
"Exactly, Lindsay. Guess you'd say they all got what they deserved."
Your comment makes no sense. I do not understand how you go from A to B. How you can even assume that about someone you don't even know is indicative of your own bigotry.
Believing that people should be responsible and not put themselvs and their children at risk for death does not mean that they deserve whatever horrible thing befalls them.
And it doesn't mean it's the Pope's fault either.
It's only the Pope's fault if you think Catholics are all brainwashed robots who will put on a condom while cheating on their wives or having sex outside of marriage just because the Pope says not using a condum is immoral. Or maybe they just think this about poor Africans.
lindsey.......what do think sub-saharan africa is like? Is it like Cleveland? Is it like Orlando?
let's suppose we have a nice macho husband who gets a little bit drunked up. He brings home the disease to his family. He sinned, but everybody dies. We are having a really, really hard time convincing the population to employ "safe sex" there. It's an epidemic. Anything the Church could do would help.
The pope's edicts against contraception only affect the poor and uneducated.
Of course we westerners all use birthcontrol and condoms. We don't even confess it.
And Lurker, yes it is the pope's fault. He is "God's Face on Earth" after all. :(
we see abortion as being an evil every time, hence the intrinsic aspect to it, whereas war is not.
Does this mean that if I kill someone in cold blood, its not really a serious sin because the Bible recognizes that killing an unfaithful wife can be justified?
I don't think so. Pretending that there is some greater evil in an abortion than there is in a war of agression in which tens of thousands of people will die is beneath you. It is just as intrinsically evil to support the murder of people in a war that has no moral justification whatsoever as it is to support abortion.
You are now bordering on sounding like some Know-Nothing tract, warning darkly about the dangers of "popery" and all its Romish evils.
the reason that people stopped believing in "Romish evils" is that American polticians made it clear that they owed their alliegence to the US, and not to the Vatican --- and the Catholic Church made no effort to compel American politicians to cast their vote based upon the pronouncements of the Church.
Ratzinger is the personification of the "Romish evil" that resulted in significant anti-Catholic bias in the US for over 175 years. The reason that America guarantees religious freedom is to avoid the imposition of laws based solely on dogma on those who do not subscribe to that dogma.
Even if American Catholic politicians were denied communion, how exactly would that constitute anything more than the internal regulation of an organized religion? Or are you going to assert that someone should tell the Church how to go about distributing its own sacraments?
As I've already said once, it is nothing short of treason for an American politician to take his marching orders from the Vatican. The problem is not that politicians will have Communion withheld from them --- its that politicians will act without regard to the welfare of the nation and its people because the Church will withhold its sacrements if they vote "the wrong way." And Catholics who believe that the Church has a legitimate right to withold Communion from those who differentiate between matters of faith and matters of public life are traitors as well.
With Ratzinger as Pope, I'd be reluctant to hire or promote any devout Roman Catholic, because I would no longer be able to trust that person to do their jobs because you never know when Ratzinger is going to decide that something else deserves denial of communion.
This is what my previous post was supposed to look like:
Jinn,The Pope also preaches that extramarital and premarital sex is a sin. If one consistantly follows the Pope's teachings on this, the risk of aids is very low.
If someone chooses to follow only some of the Pope's teachings and not others, then how can the consequences be the Pope's responsibility?
Certainly, it's not the orphaned child's fault. Nor is it the Pope's.
"my own preferred candidate was Cardinal Arinze of Nigeria."
See, this is my point. Benedict is a continuation of the old policies, which are perhaps relevent to western society, euros and americans. The selection of Arinze would have meant change.
How relevent is your whitebread opinion [lindsey] to a black catholic in say, Zambia? Black people are eating black people in Zambia.
There are a billion catholics in the world. how many are euros or americans?
I think it's fine for a Catholic to follow the Pope's lead WRT lobbying to make laws. However, if a Catholic is running for public office, he is sworn to uphold the laws as they are, not as he or the Pope would want them to be.
When Kerry was threatened with having the sacraments withheld over his political position on abortion, a line was crossed. Should this doctrine be reinforced, American Catholics running for or holding office will at some point be forced to choose between their loyalties to American law and the Pope... not an enviable position.
What happened to the whole "render unto Ceasar" thing?
jinnderella:
My apologies, I misunderstood the nature of what you were talking about.
p.lukasiak:
lurker:
I agree insofar as that goes, but I don't think that's the actual state of things.
The main problem that the Church has had for some time now is that a variety of politicians have sought to claim that one can support abortion, even to the point of its expansion, and still be a good Catholic. This is a pretty complex topic in of itself, since it goes into issues such as European politicians living in states where abortion is extremely unlikely to be curtailed any time in the near future as well as to the support of pro-life Republicans like Rick Santorum for pro-choice candidates like Arlen Specter or for pro-choice Republicans who support a party whose platform is avowedly pro-life. Ratzinger's position as well as that of other Vatican officials like Arinze, is that it is sinful for a Catholic to vote for a candidate solely because they support abortion and that pro-abortion politicians should not come to communion, but that if they do come that the sacrament should be administered in the spirit of charity since the priest presumably does not know the state of their soul when they step forward to receive the sacrament. That said, individual Catholic bishops have taken issue with this in the past since it is a matter of discipline and presumably will again the future, but things are far less rigid and clear-cut on this matter than p.lukasiak seems to think they are.
Oh Dan! thanx, i knew in my heart we could never disagree. ;)
"How relevent is your whitebread opinion [lindsey] to a black catholic in say, Zambia? Black people are eating black people in Zambia."
You shouldn't assume I'm white. Besides if the opinion of white people doesn't matter, then what does it matter that the Pope says? You're a horrible bigot. If you'd said that it would be hard for me to understand the situation of a person who lives in an extremely poor 3rd world country dealing with something like cannibalism because I live in a wealthy first world country, then that would be understandbale, but apparently my inability to understand is dependent on skin color.
"As I've already said once, it is nothing short of treason for an American politician to take his marching orders from the Vatican."
I'm unaware of the Catholic Church instructing American politicians to break the law or invade a country. By this definition, any devout Catholic who runs for political office is possibly guilty of treason. It's like we've gone back in time. Bigots used to say this crap about Kennedy. Are we going to bring back a religious litmus test for anyone who wants to be elected to office?
"However, if a Catholic is running for public office, he is sworn to uphold the laws as they are, not as he or the Pope would want them to be."
This goes to all people from all religions. It even goes for people like Gavin Newsome who seems more willing to throw out laws he doesn't like than any of the religious people running around.
"When Kerry was threatened with having the sacraments withheld over his political position on abortion, a line was crossed. Should this doctrine be reinforced, American Catholics running for or holding office will at some point be forced to choose between their loyalties to American law and the Pope... not an enviable position."
The Pope wasn't forcing American Catholics holding office to choose between upholding the law or their religion. This is ludicrous. You don't have to think abortion should be legal to be loyal to American law which is the clear implication of your statement. You seem to believe that the Church should have no authority over its flock, but membership of such is voluntary and has been for a long time. Politicians often use their religious faith as a way to connect with voters and get them on their side. I think the Catholic Church has every right to object to a Catholic who uses his faith to gather people to his side to pursue policies inimical to Catholicism.
jinnderella;
As to - "help yourself to anything you like. ;)"
I'm enjoying your viewpoint particularly. I worked with a member of the MD House who privately maintained that most of the opinion he saw opposed to abortion eventually boiled down to taking the role of, participating in and enjoying God's punishment on the sinner.
Wouldn't the threat to withhold sacriments be exactly that? I never said that! As President, Kerry would be sworn to uphold the law, regardless of what he truly thought of the law. As far as the law is concerned, it doesn't matter what he thinks, as long as he diligently carrys out his duty to enforce the law. I never said that! The church is free to withhold sacriments from or excommunicate any Catholic holding public office that doesn't support Church teachings. I agree. Now, what are we arguing about?
"I worked with a member of the MD House who privately maintained that most of the opinion he saw opposed to abortion eventually boiled down to taking the role of, participating in and enjoying God's punishment on the sinner."
Speaking of bigotry...
A distressingly common one, in regard to those who support life. The key word in that sentence is "saw", in that the opinion of that house member likely had as much to do with his prejudices clouding his perception as the reality of the situation.
Those who dissented from the liberal project in the 50's, and who might have fit his prejudice, have little in common with those who dissent from it today; to conflate the two is either intellectual laziness or something worse. As the nature of the project itself has changed, so has the nature of those who dissent from it.
As the Democratic Party of the 50's was held together by racial bigotry, so too its seems is today's by religious bigotry. There is hope that today's party will find the courage of their forebears in the 60's to risk short-term minority status to leave the bigots behind.
"Ged, I read some of Benedict's works. I am not impressed."
Jinn, thanks for sharing. ;)
I had hoped for something of substance, however.
To those tempted to think: "What a right wing nut!"
I cut my teeth defending real liberals from real bigots in good old Hotlanta, the city too busy to hate - much! Got a couple black eyes to show for my efforts. So, yes, I do know bigotry when I see it.
"As far as the law is concerned, it doesn't matter what he thinks, as long as he diligently carrys out his duty to enforce the law."
Objection to Kerry was based on what he thinks, on his personal opinion re: abortion, not on whether he fulfills his duty to uphold the law. If upholding the law was the issue, then all Catholics in office would be in trouble with the Church for not breaking it regardless of their position on the issue.
"I agree. Now, what are we arguing about?"
You agree but you think the Church is violating the separation of Church and State? You agree but you think that what the Church is doing is wrong? You agree but you think the Church is demanding that Kerry choose between his loyalty to America and his loyalty to the RCC? How can you agree if you think what the RCC is doing is akin to making traitors of American Catholics?
Funny I was not aware any such restriction was in force as the constitution forbids such a test. Please read Article VI Clause 3 to my knowledge there has never been nor will there be an amendment that stipulates only the non-religious can apply.
Just because there's an official amendment prohibiting religious discrimination doesn't mean that large numbers of people won't decide to vote against someone due to objections to their religious faith. Just how common is the belief that Catholics are potential traitors. That's one huge Fifth Column.
lindsey: (sorry about my poor spelling before)
The only thing that I've agreed too, is that the Church has the right to demand anything it wants of it's members. I have not agreed to agree with with those demands though.
Isn't it true that Kerry is personally against abortion? But favored it politically as Democrat typically would? This sounds like a reasonable postion WRT the establishemtn clause. If I'm not mistaken about Kerry's position, then what was it that the church objecting to? His personal position? Or his public policy one? This is exactly my fear. Not so much a fear of Catholic Americans, since they would be sworn in as a condition of taking office. I have no reason to doubt anyone's honor based solely on their religion. I do fear what this would mean for Catholic Americans. Couldn't this evenutally lead to a choice between the demands of their church and the demands of their country? The Church went out of it's way to avoid doing things like this when the original JFK ran in the 1960 elections. This was rightly taken as support for secular democracy and separation of church and state.The Church then went out of it's way to do the opposite for the second JFK during the 2004 campaign. Why? Has the support for secular democracy waned? IMHO, these are fair questions.
Perhaps you are confusing me with someone else. I never used or implied the concept of treason nor the word traitor. Cool your jets!All i see here is the old leftist demand that they suffer no bad effects from their misbehavior
Jinn your AIDS based argument is especially tortured, while I find the catholic doctrone against contraception rather strange, and against that being celibrated in the song of solomon, song of songs, (it hardly reads like anything against the enjoyment of sex from your wife)
But to demand that the pope say that those violating the rule against sex outside marrage should also ...
An extension of the "they are going to do it anyway" argument.
Which of course, is the doctrine of the hedonistic left today, they operate under the doctrine that the notion of self restraint is incoherrent.
Their unwillingness to allow their fellow man to have freedom is born out of the same doctrine, because they have already judged him incompetent in its exersize.
behold the leftist brain, behold how ugly.
"The only thing that I've agreed too, is that the Church has the right to demand anything it wants of it's members."
Good grief, even I don't agree with that :)
"Isn't it true that Kerry is personally against abortion? But favored it politically as Democrat typically would?"
I don't know if this is right. If Kerry said he was against abortion but favored it, I wouldn't believe him. If he did say that, it's just another Kerryism. If you're against abortion, then how can you favor it politically? The man has mush for brains. Remember he voted for the war before he voted against it!
Lindsey
That is not an amendment. That is in the proper text of the constitution. As for your concerns about voters voting one way or the other based on the religious faith of a politician: If voters are too blind to recognize the issues before them are less of a priority than the religious faith of the man in front of them they deserve what they get. Seemingly though our great educational system has given voters the insight to look beyond that as our forefathers had the insight to include it in the constitution.
lindsey, gee,apolos for the whitebread comment. but answer my question instead of ad homming, please, how relevent are your "family values" to the little black and brown people that make up the greatest percentage of the catholic population? Africa has the fastest growing Catholic population.
Think about Zambia, life expectency, 33 years? birthrate 4 children per woman? GDP per head-- 700 dollars? GDP per head in purchasing power parity (USA=100)-- 6.5 Niger has a fertility rate of eight children per woman!
Couldn't these people benefit from safe sex and contraception? How do you abstain when you're raped or you husband forces you? It's a sin for a Catholic wife to refuse her husband, remember?
This isn't about family values, sorry, this is about--
_one for you, and one for me,
and one for the convent and the seminareeeee!_
Ged, apolos to you too, but i just don't see any flexability (on the issues that concern me) in Benedict either. Like i said, he's John Paul with different hair. Wasn't that the point?
I mean, you're arguing about abortion? How is that even relevent to most of the world? This argument makes me want to yerk myself under the fifth rib. To me it is so simple. Progress and active change, or perpetuation of medieval cruelty in the name of "family values". feh.
"Couldn't these people benefit from safe sex and contraception? How do you abstain when you're raped or you husband forces you?"
Of course they could. That doesn't mean it's the RCC's job to provide these things. And abstinence is better than safe sex.
Do you really think a rapist is going to use a condom?
lurker: "Isn't it true that Kerry is personally against abortion? But favored it politically as Democrat typically would? This sounds like a reasonable postion WRT the establishemtn clause."
You're stating a familiar interpretation of the Establishment Clause, which we see deployed time and time again, but which is entirely illogical.
In no way could a United States senator threaten the Establishment Clause by opposing abortion in the senate, even if his opposition is entirely grounded in religion. No more than a voter (being after all part of "government by people") can violate it by casting votes entirely motivated by religious values.
Note that there exists such a thing as a "pro-life feminist", who is neither Catholic nor Christian. If such a person were elected to the senate, would they be allowed to make anti-abortion law while a Catholic senator is not? Not if there is such a thing as equality under the law, they wouldn't.
Neither the Catholic or the Feminist, of course, can get away with making Catholicism or Feminism the official religion of the United States, or give it privileges under the law, because we would expect the courts to uphold the Establishment Clause and strike it down.
It's very clear what Democratic Party politics demands from a Catholic senator: No criticism of Roe V. Wade, or support for judicial nominees who criticize it, or any deed or utterance which indicates an unwillingness to uphold Democratic doctrine on abortion - except for (and only when absolutely necessary) the statement "I am personally opposed to abortion."
Regardless of how you feel about abortion or Catholics, who can argue that a senator has a constitutional obligation to toe this line, or that his oath of office requires him to?
If a Catholic is required to do this in order to preserve the Establishment Clause, no such objection could be made against an atheist senator who takes the same position. This means that Catholics and other Christians must operate under restrictions that Secularists may ignore, which is itself probably a violation of the Establishment Clause.
Ged:
You said: "The key word in that sentence is "saw", in that the opinion of that house member likely had as much to do with his prejudices clouding his perception as the reality of the situation." and cited the 'liberal project of the 50's" which has no meaning to me. Actually the event he was specifically dealing with did not give him a favorable impression of the opponents of abortion. It was personal, and his prejudice was that of sincere affection. From your dealing with an unknown situation I would suggest perhaps your perceptions are not exactly pure.
It is disappointing so many American Catholics have the perspective that the top priority of the Church MUST be the issues currently fascinating US Catholics.
We are 6% of the Church. Affirming homosexual behavior, ordaining women, approving artificial contraception, divorce and remarriage, et al are NOT at the top of the list are not going to be.
Let's accept it -- to be Catholic is to accept the teaching of the Church.
If that causes folks to leave the Church, please go. There are many (tens of thousands) of denominations out there, or you can start your own.
Insisting upon a Catholic identity AND refusing to accept doctrinal Church teachings is an exercise in futility.
" the 'liberal project of the 50's" which has no meaning to me."
You know, um, Brown v. Board of Education? Surely you have some familiarity with what liberals cared about in the fifties, and the sorts of folks who opposed them. My point was that liberals tend to frame opposition today in the same categories which inhered in the fifties, (for example, perceiving those who oppose abortion as primarily doing so out of some twisted thirst for punishment) with predictable results.
"Actually the event he was specifically dealing with did not give him a favorable impression of the opponents of abortion. It was personal, and his prejudice was that of sincere affection."
This does nothing to refute what I was saying. Impressions are inevitably filtered through what we expect to see. Presenting actual evidence to back up your claim would carry more weight.
"From your dealing with an unknown situation I would suggest perhaps your perceptions are not exactly pure."
Of course they are not, no one's are, hence the need to get beyond "impressions" and the weakness of arguments that hinge upon them.
You'll get no disagreement from me as I was previously aware of the distinction. I was just trying to understand why the change in the public position of the Catholic Church WRT to Kerry vis-avis Kennedy and I didn't want to muddy the discussion.
Now that you have written it out the, a few things have occured to me....
Since Kennedy is pre Roe vs. Wade, the abortion issue wouldn't have been as large an issue in 1960. So, perhaps the Catholic Church (I realize there's more than one positon within it on this issue) is being consistant and no change in doctrine has occurred.
That Kerry was making a distiction between his personal and policy positions on abortion to remain a viable Democrat is a another good point that you make. Since, Kerry can take any position on this under law, the Catholic Church can require him to adhere to the Catholic position, without contradictinf American law. There's no conflict there.
So, my questions are satisfied. The church could have been consistent, and they've not forced one of their faithful to choose between Doctrine vs. American law.
Sorry about any misunderstanding Lindsey. I wasn't trying to make any assertions, just trying to understand. Being asked to choose between loyalty to your Church and your country is a tough question, I'm convinced that it remains a rhetorical one in this case.
Oh, Brown v. Board, that famous abortion case? Sorry, couldn't quite keep serious about that ellision. As to "what liberals cared about in the fifties, and the sorts of folks who opposed them" I don't recall the word liberal being used in those days. 'Commies', 'reds', niggerlovers', that sort of language, but of course, my views were perhaps colored by my experiences. Later came the 'nattering nabobs of nepotism' and the 'effete eastern intellectuals' but then the forces of justice put Spiro out of office.
As to bearing more weight by relating the particular abortion experience, No, Ged, I can't be more specific, it isn't my life experience to share. If that's unfair to you, I plead guilty.
"As to "what liberals cared about in the fifties, and the sorts of folks who opposed them" I don't recall the word liberal being used in those days."
That's funny. I think even Eisenhower declared himself a liberal back then.
Liberals wasnt a problem much when they was liberals.
Problem is they are not liberals anymore, they are leftists, and a true liberal cant call himself thus anymore, lest he be misunderstood.
The Liberal Howard govt of Austriala is using the unperverted definition, and the commies call themselves "labor" , and now we have the "Third Way" Socialist model invented by Hitler and Deng xao Peng
To make things even more confused, those few left that are actually still liberals have been in bed with the left so long, they parrort things stright out of the communist manifesto, like the progressive income tax, Something a Classical Liberal would consider akin to a crime against humanity. they fought a revolution and threw off a King over things much smaller.
Welcome to the Orwellian world, where words and defintions are twisted beyond comprehension, and where we fight against minds so twisted, that a man that rejects everything the Liberal stood for now called himself a liberal, and adopts the NAZI ideas of human worth of his fellow human, Embrace of state Tyranny, Euthenasia and chopping up babies for body parts.
The minds are as twisted as their language.
Perhaps its a permnament warp set in after all the years of pretzel logic they used to excuse mass murder. "You have to break a few eggs" is morphing into "the eggs deserved it"
Perhaps the left is still angry that the USSR tried to kill the pope, angry, because they failed.
Perhaps they had Father Camillo Torres, in line for the job.
His training in assasination and explosives at Cubas Camp Mantanzas run by Castro's KGB adviser, Viktor Semenov. would sure have come in handy dealing with those pesky anti-communist cardinals.
Viva La revolution.
Lurker: Since Kennedy is pre Roe vs. Wade, the abortion issue wouldn't have been as large an issue in 1960.
Much of the history of that period is written from the pro-Kennedy point of view, and the way they tell it the issue was pure and simple anti-Catholic bigotry: Popery, "Rum, Romanism and Ruin", etc.
Probably not far off. Some of it extended to petty stuff: Hubert Humphrey's campaign song was "Give Me That Old Time Religion", which the Kennedys took as a slam. But there had never been a Catholic president before and there was a lot of ignorance about the subject back then - and relations between Catholics and Protestants were poor back then.
As for Kerry and the bishops, and Ratzinger's involvement, I think it is very typical of a certain segment of American Catholics that they are unable to understand this as anything other than an attempt to influence a presidential election. What could possibly be more important than a presidential election?
If Catholic politicians want to claim special exemption from Catholics duties (using whatever excuse is convenient) that's their business: It's between them, the Church, God, and the voters. But what right to they have to demand that the bishops, who have avowed duties of their own, bend over backwards to make it easy for them?
Glen, Thanks for joining this thread. You addressed everything I was wondering about. It certainly helped to clarify my thinking on the matter.
"Oh, Brown v. Board, that famous abortion case? Sorry, couldn't quite keep serious about that ellision. As to "what liberals cared about in the fifties, and the sorts of folks who opposed them" I don't recall the word liberal being used in those days. 'Commies', 'reds', niggerlovers', that sort of language, but of course, my views were perhaps colored by my experiences. Later came the 'nattering nabobs of nepotism' and the 'effete eastern intellectuals' but then the forces of justice put Spiro out of office."
Thanks for making my point for me. You're still stuck in the 50's/60's I see. Is it any wonder that you can no longer tell friend from foe?
"As to bearing more weight by relating the particular abortion experience, No, Ged, I can't be more specific, it isn't my life experience to share. If that's unfair to you, I plead guilty."
It's not unfair, it's just unlikely to be persuasive, and borders on rumor-mongering. Perhaps an analogous hypothetical example will help elucidate the point:
If I related that a friend of mine in the Alabama statehouse got the impression that the freedom riders were motivated more by their passion to bring down the south than any sense of justice, whould that be persuasive to you? Of course not, nor would it to me. Just saying...
And, yes, I know that Agnew got the boot in the 70's. I am actually (barely) old enough to remember that. :)
And I've never used any of the terminology you seem to have such nostalgia for, yet I am pro-life. How can that be?
I don't know if this is right. If Kerry said he was against abortion but favored it, I wouldn't believe him. If he did say that, it's just another Kerryism. If you're against abortion, then how can you favor it politically? The man has mush for brains
only someone with mush for brains would assume that one cannot have a personal belief based on faith that the person acknowledges is based solely on demands placed on him by faith, and is totally unrelated to whether than position makes any sense in a secular democracy.
Perhaps I can get through your mush by using an issue that isn't abortion.
The Church (thanks to Ratzinger) says that homosexuality is an "intrisic moral evil." A devout Catholic will accept this as a matter of faith --- he doesn't decide if it makes any sense, because the Church has declared that God thinks homosexuality is evil.
But logic and experience will tell that same catholic that there is nothing intrinsically morally evil about homosexuality --- he will know various same sex couples who live in committed relationships and who display no behavior that any reasonable person would describe as "intrinsically evil." It is perfectly reasonable for that person to think its wrong to impose his irrational faith-based belief system on these couples, and support their right for legal recognition of their relationship.
Or consider a religious person who believes that the second commandment actually means what it says, and owns no "graven images" or allows them to be made of himself. Do you want that politician passing laws making it illegal to own or make "graven images?" Or do you want that politician to acknowledge that his beliefs concerning graven images should not be imposed on the rest of America --- especially not on American Catholics, who for some reason have embraced "graven images" as if the second commandment had been edited out of the bible?
lukasiak: American Catholics, who for some reason have embraced "graven images" as if the second commandment had been edited out of the bible?
Now you're dipping your tar brush into crude anti-Catholic propaganda.
Catholics do not embrace graven images. The prohibition against "graven images" is well understood to mean idolatry, not statuary or other religious iconography.
This is the kind of thing I used to hear from fellow Protestants as a kid - back in more ignorant days, when we thought the Vatican was full of pornography and sacred monkeys.
I guess this is a good opportunity to give you a hoist on your own petard-thingy, and point out that you as as remarkably ignorant about Catholicism as you are opinionated about it. So consider it pointed out.
On the bright side, you are probably less ignorant about it than the famous Dan Brown is, and you are more entertaining to read.
Thanks for making my point for me. You're still stuck in the 50's/60's I see. Is it any wonder that you can no longer tell friend from foe?
Strange, Ged, it was you who brought up the 50's, and for your reference that I explained what my memories were of them, and now you're talking about how 'fond' I am of the language I remembered? If you need to stretch so far to make some kind of point like that for your own evident satisfaction, don't let me get in the way of your wishes. That you are 'pro-life' and feel it necessary to insist you don't 'use the language' I remembered from the 50's is a connection you are making, not me. It's your party, you make your own games up, obviously.
To review:
You related your friends impression that those who argue for pro-life have ulterior motives. Motives which bear an uncanny resemblance to the motives attributed to 50's/60's era reactionaries.
I point out that this may be bigotry - to wit, because liberals fought reactionaries then who were thought to have such motives, and may truly have had, that finding such motives among the current liberal bete noire might be more than coincidence.
In response you have:
A. Played dumb about what liberals cared about in the 50's.
B. Assured us that your friend's impression was "personal".
C. Impugned my motives for putting forth the theory.
D. Questioned the seriousness of positing any continuity between those who fought for Brown v. Board (American heroes, in my book) and those who call themselves liberals today.
E. Made the odd claim that the term liberal was not in use in the 50's.
F. Introduced a strong of epithets from left field.
G. Suggested that I was stretching to make a point for my own satisfaction. As if.
H. Claimed that I "insisted" that the epithets did not come from me, when no one had disputed the fact.
I. Characterized my futile attempts to invite you to actually engage the question at hand as "my party".
Party on, dude.
I'd like to be a liberal, but I'm not into fighting ghosts. Good luck with that. You'll need it.
lindsey!!! ;;mimes pulling out hair;;
That doesn't mean it's the RCC's job to provide these things. And abstinence is better than safe sex.
Jesus, mary and joseph!! i don't want the RCC to provide them, i just want the RCC not to forbid them!
Glen just gave us a great example of "damning with faint praise."
Now you're dipping your tar brush into crude anti-Catholic propaganda.
Can't you simply accept that "sola scriptura" will result in a different interpretation of scripture than what Catholics believe, rather than accuse someone of falling prey to propaganda motivated by bigotry.
Catholics do not embrace graven images. The prohibition against "graven images" is well understood to mean idolatry, not statuary or other religious iconography.
if the Catholic Church has decided that is what God must have meant by the second commandment is not germaine to the question of whether or not a non-Catholic finds an entirely different, and unambiguous, meaning in those words.
Your interpretation is pure dogma. Now there is nothing wrong with dogma, but there is something wrong with insisting upon others adopting that dogmatic interpretation when an impartial observer would conclude that Catholic practices are clearly in conflict with the meaning of the second commandment. The Church tolerates, and in many cases encourages, its believers to pray AT and TOWARD graven images --- and these include images of "Saints" whose divinity has no scriptural basis whatsoever.
I didn't need to be exposed to "anti-Catholic propaganda" to notice the self-evident difference between what the 2nd Commandment actually says, and what the Church encourages.
Incredibly well thought out, if not long winded, post.
As long as the church does not promote violence, then i don't see a problem with sticking to a 2000 year dogma. Do we really want it to change the churches absolute faithful beliefs?
I am an ex-cathoilic and have no problems with the church. in some strange way it is comforting to know that they stick to their religious beliefs inspite of changing social times. "Peaceful" faith cannot change due to the world around them changing. what would that be exactly? No belief at all.
Try and remember they were the FIRST christian church founded by the apostles of Christ. There are plenty of other Christian Churches that have broken off the Catholic Church, and splintered from there, for people to go to that wish to be Christian. I am not a christian. I am not a muslim. I guess a lable i can live with is a deist.
And what you want, realy dont matter, does it, any more that what they allow or forbid should matter to you.
It ceased to matter, on the sense im focused on, when they lost the ability, and the desire, (the current pope is turning out to be freedomist in good standing) to impose their doctrine by force.
Now they operate in the marketplace of ideas, where all free men are allowed to particiapate
And in the the free market you will find diversity.
If course, leftist dont allow this kind of diversity, their doctrone is forced conformity. using their thugs with guns to enforce their leftism upon the unwilling.
So, dispite my own disagreements with the church, you will just have to accept that they will still be held in higher standing than those we see currently carping at them, calling the pope a nazi etc.
Lets see the left adopt the idea of freedom, lets see them adopt the marketing of ideas instead of the force of the gun.
Then you will have a position to carp about Church doctrines and those that voluntarially follow them.
lukasiak: ... an impartial observer would conclude that Catholic practices are clearly in conflict with the meaning of the second commandment. The Church tolerates, and in many cases encourages, its believers to pray AT and TOWARD graven images --- and these include images of "Saints" whose divinity has no scriptural basis whatsoever.
A fair observer would take into account the fact that Catholic doctrine condemns idolatry, and makes it clear that visible icons are not themselves objects of worship: "The icon is venerated not for its own sake, but points beyond to the subject which it represents" [John Paul II, "Letter to Artists", 1999].
In order to contradict this, your impartial observer would have to be a mind-reader.
As a Protestant, I hold no particular brief for Catholic iconography. But I notice that my own church contains "graven images": namely, depictions of Jesus Christ, the Apostles, etc.
If you insist on Scriptual foundation, though, I point out that in Numbers 21:8, God himself orders Moses to make a graven image of a serpent, to cure the people of Israel. However, years later, the serpent became the subject of idolatrous worship, so the King of Judah had it taken down and destroyed (II Kings, 18:4). That pretty well illustrates the uses and abuses of graven images in Scripture.
Since you're in the habit of railing against the Religious Right, let me tell you that one of the things I find annoying about some people on the Religious Right is the tendency to believe things like "Catholics worship statues."
It's sort of ironic to find enemies of the Religious Right - including many atheists, alleged humanists, best-selling authors, even Catholics - borrowing some of the stupidest ideas of fundamentalism and making them their own.
p.lukasiak:
"Since you're in the habit of railing against the Religious Right, let me tell you that one of the things I find annoying about some people on the Religious Right is the tendency to believe things like "Catholics worship statues."
hehe We also worship salt stains under Chicago underpasses and grilled cheese sandwiches with graven images on them!
Ratzinger isn't the pope that a lot of people wanted, but they'll get him sooner or later: a Gorbachev figure who will reform the church into oblivion. But G-d won't allow that until the Catholic people have somewhere better to go and they are ready to go there.
A fair observer would take into account the fact that Catholic doctrine condemns idolatry, and makes it clear that visible icons are not themselves objects of worship: "The icon is venerated not for its own sake, but points beyond to the subject which it represents" [John Paul II, "Letter to Artists", 1999].
a fair observer would find this to be a distinction without a difference.
******************************************
You'll forgive us, however, to refrain from arguing that you are mischaracterizing our beliefs. As I believe Glen pointed out, you seem awfully opinionated about Catholicism for someone who appears, just on the basis of your own statements in this thread, to know remarkably little about it.
The problem here isn't that I don't know enough about the beliefs of the Catholic Church, the problem is that you are unable to grasp how little objective sense those beliefs make to "a fair observer." You fail to see the distinction between understanding the Church's interpretation of scriptures, and accepting that interpretation. I understand what the Church says about the Bible, I just don't accept it.
An impartial observer would note how the Church will parse language and impose meaning on scriptural text in order to make the scriptures consistent with Catholic practices --- you think it makes sense based not on any rational consideration, but as a matter of faith.
Catholic teaching on graven images, saints, and a whole host of other things makes no sense unless you start with the premise that they do make sense. I mean, the Commandments say that you aren't allowed to make graven images, and you aren't allow to bow down to them --- and that the only way to "come to the Father" is through Jesus Christ ....yet the Catholic church authorizes Catholics to knell in front of a graven image of someone it has designated as divine, light a candle, and ask for intercession from that saint.
Now the fact that the Church has declared that the statue of a saint is not a "graven image" but an icon which makes it okay, that kneeling before it is not "bowing down before it", and that asking the saint for divine intervention doesn't mean that you actually worship that saint doesn't mean that any of it makes any sense to a non-believer.
Geez P, I thought you lefties were all into nuance (voting for a war before you vote against it etc). So how can you possibly be so narrow and unnuanced as not to recognize the difference between worshipping a crucifix and worshipping Christ in front of a crucifix that makes the Christ we are actually worshipping a bit more concrete to our finite human minds. Frankly, I don't believe you are that ignorant. You've just painted yourself into a corner with an ignorant argument and you refuse to admit you were wrong and extricate yourself from it. Here's a clue: the first rule of holes is when you're in one quit digging.
Frankly, I don't believe you are that ignorant. You've just painted yourself into a corner with an ignorant argument and you refuse to admit you were wrong and extricate yourself from it.
here's a clue for you. When your conviction that an argument is wrong is based solely on your religious beliefs, you haven't rebutted the argument, but merely professed your faith.
Ged :
You make the following exposition/my answers are interspersed: You: To review:
1. You related your friends impression that those who argue for pro-life have ulterior motives. Motives which bear an uncanny resemblance to the motives attributed to 50's/60's era reactionaries.
Me (hereafter indicated by */*Ulterior motives is your interpretation. What he said and says is that; my words:” most of the opinion he saw opposed to abortion eventually boiled down to taking the role of, participating in and enjoying God's punishment on the sinner. *
I point out that this may be bigotry - to wit, because liberals fought reactionaries then who were thought to have such motives, and may truly have had, that finding such motives among the current liberal bete noire might be more than coincidence.
In response you have:
A. Played dumb about what liberals cared about in the 50's.
As I said, I never heard liberal bandied about in the 50's. My words: “As to "what liberals cared about in the fifties, and the sorts of folks who opposed them" I don't recall the word liberal being used in those days. 'Commies', 'reds', niggerlovers', that sort of language, but of course, my views were perhaps colored by my experiences.”
B. Assured us that your friend's impression was "personal".
Correct. My words: “As to bearing more weight by relating the particular abortion experience, No, Ged, I can't be more specific, it isn't my life experience to share. If that's unfair to you, I plead guilty.
C. Impugned my motives for putting forth the theory.
By impugn I guess you mean: “Strange, Ged, it was you who brought up the 50's, and for your reference that I explained what my memories were of them, and now you're talking about how 'fond' I am of the language I remembered? If you need to stretch so far to make some kind of point like that for your own evident satisfaction, don't let me get in the way of your wishes. “*
D. Questioned the seriousness of positing any continuity between those who fought for Brown v. Board (American heroes, in my book) and those who call themselves liberals today.
I guess there you are referring to your words: “ (a reference to your posited liberal project: of the 50's" - which has no meaning to me, and simply doesn’t, now you say "You know, um, Brown v. Board of Education? Surely you have some familiarity with what liberals cared about in the fifties, and the sorts of folks who opposed them.” which still seems a little out of place when the issue was prolife.
E. Made the odd claim that the term liberal was not in use in the 50's.
My words: “" I don't recall the word liberal being used in those days. “
F. Introduced a strong of epithets from left field.
Can’t find those.
G. Suggested that I was stretching to make a point for my own satisfaction. As if.
I guess that’s the impugned motives, which seems to refer to my words: ““Strange, Ged, it was you who brought up the 50's, and for your reference that I explained what my memories were of them, and now you're talking about how 'fond' I am of the language I remembered? If you need to stretch so far to make some kind of point like that for your own evident satisfaction, don't let me get in the way of your wishes. “*
H. Claimed that I "insisted" that the epithets did not come from me, when no one had disputed the fact.
Still looking for those.
I. Characterized my futile attempts to invite you to actually engage the question at hand as "my party".
Okay, enjoy. I have repeated my posts and if you still don’t see them in light of what I said rather than your strained interpretation of them, well, help is available from several sources, but I’ve spent enough time on it.
Party on, dude.
Ruth,
I have gone back and re-read your initial comment. And to be fair, you did quote the MD house member on anti-abortion as though he were an authority, creating the impression you agreed with him. If that's not the case, you probably should have said so. I don't blame Ged or anyone else who takes the pro-life position for being offended. I certainly can't deny that some anti-abortion folks feel that way. Believe me, there's no shortage of holier-than-thou people on all manner of subjects here in the Bible belt. But the majority of anti-abortion folks I know are good people who believe the fetus is a person and that taking its life is morally wrong. Could be that's a difference between MD and FL, but I doubt it. I tend to agree with Ged that your house member is a bigot.
Ged and Fred:
Excuse me, I do now realize what Ged indicated by a "string of epithets" which when I originally saw it seemed to infer that I had been calling names - but of course the string of epithets was referring to what names I indicated I had heard instead of the word "liberal" during the 50's. And the ones I used, ;commie, red, and nigger-lover', were milder than some others I heard. And yes, Fred, MD is a little north of FL in many ways.
As to agreeing or not agreeing with my friend, I agree with his experience, which is not fair to you because I will not relate it.
My own experience of pro-life people has been varied, but on the whole I do find that the pro-life stance is one that is welded like a club - and I do feel that anyone truly wanting to save the unborn can offer to adopt and support any number of children. That will certainly mean that some one who cannot support a child that has been conceived may well bear that child, if the child is given a home and a future.
However, saying some one is 'pro-life' who is merely telling other people they ought to bear, and support, children is purely theoretical and has no real meaning. Especially as it concerns imposing a lack of birth control on other, impoverished, countries.
"you are talking out your butt about Senator Byrd, based solely on the crap that you've read somewhere about what he did as a teenager without EVER bothering to see if he continues to pursue a racist agenda."
Funny, that's exactly what you are doing with Ratzinger.
Joe, you've been very nice and liberal and tolerant, but there is enough evidence at this point to ban this clown.
I am tho exthited that frauline ratzinger is the new head of the catholic man-boy love association!
Ruth,
"Me (hereafter indicated by */*Ulterior motives is your interpretation. What he said and says is that; my words:” most of the opinion he saw opposed to abortion eventually boiled down to taking the role of, participating in and enjoying God's punishment on the sinner."
If one says they care about unborn children being killed, and you (or your friend) claim that they are actually enjoying God's punishment, that is what is known as claiming that these folks have an ulterior motive, is it not?
That is not just "my interpretation" - it is a fact we can agree on or to which you can present countervailing evidence. Until you choose to do so, I will assume we agree on that point.
A. You said that the liberal project of the 50's has no meaning to you. No meaning? That is highly unlikely - you're more intelligent than that.
C. No, you impugned my motives when you noted that my motives are not exactly pure, which, while true (no one's are), is beside the point. Weak ad hominem.
D. The issue I brought up was possible prejudice among today's liberals regarding how they perceive their opponents, and trying to come up with a theory of how such a prejudice could arise. The uncanny resemblance between liberalism's past opponents and how they see their opponents today seems like a relevant data point to such a theory.
E. Considering that you were around then and I was not, your recall of its use could be understood as a claim from someone "on the scence" that it was, you know, not used.
H. You said I "insisted" that the epithets did not come from me. To insist something implies that someone else has contested my claim, requiring me to insist it is true, rather than merely assert it, as I actually did.
I. I have no idea why you thought that merely repeating your efforts to dodge the question would advance the discussion. I keep hoping that if I can outlast all the peripheral junk you keep throwing out, that you will finally speak to the matter at hand.
You do finally take ownership of the view you attribute to your friend in your last post, but again the question is:
How much of your "finding", that pro-life folks use their beliefs like a club, has to do with the blows you evidently received in the fifties/sixties, and how much is a real reflection of the actual pro-life movement (which, unlike those folks that hurled those epithets at you int he fifties, see themselves as an oppressed minority defending the defenseless)?
"However, saying some one is 'pro-life' who is merely telling other people they ought to bear, and support, children is purely theoretical and has no real meaning. Especially as it concerns imposing a lack of birth control on other, impoverished, countries."
I think in your last sentence you've finally offered a productive counter-point. And one which I can (surprise!) agree with you upon! = )
Ruth
So if unwanted kids are created, your answer is to kill them.
I dont defend their doctrine on contraception, Im no Catholic, but the Church people attend is a choice, and as long as it is ...
You know, the freedom thing. one of the things you violate when you kill your kids.
You then can kill the aged and infirm, then those that are depressed, and next those "Enemies of the people" and Capitalist Jews.
Once you decide a class of humanity has no rights, look how easy it is to enlarge on that. its all so perfectly utilitarian.
Funny, that's exactly what you are doing with Ratzinger.
Unlike Byrd, who has acknowledged his error and repented, Ratzinger simply denies any error. Byrd doesn't claim that he was forced by circumstances into joining the KKK, but Ratzinger would have you believe that he had no choice. But he did. Individual Catholics (and people of other religions, such as Jehovah's Witnesses) refused to become part of the Nazi war machine -- including people from his own village. (Resistance to Nazism was pretty much eliminated about the German Church hierarchy early in Hitler's reign, but individual Catholics of conscience did continue to resist.) Those who claim that Ratzinger never fought for the Nazi's and deserted the German Army are deliberately distorting the facts --- Ratzinger was assigned to defensive units, and it is only a historical accident that he never saw combat. (perhaps it wasn't an accident, but merely cowardice -- he didn't desert until days before the war ended, when the German Army was in disarray and his unit was likely to be overrun by Allied troops)
Ratzinger does not, of course (at least not publicly) embrace all aspects of Nazism. Instead, he is creating a synthesis of fascism and Catholicism.
The best example of this may be his admiration for and promotion of Josemaria Escriva, founder of Opus Dei. Escriva clearly had fascist sympathies, and his movement flourished under fascism. Formed originally as a reaction against the Jesuits, Opus Dei expanded greatly during the Spanish Civil War when it allied itself with Spain's wealthy families who supported supported Franco and fascism.
Opus Dei operates pretty much like a cult within the Catholic Church. It has managed to amass huge fortunes during its relatively short existence (enough to spend at least $42,000,000 on a 17 story skyscraper in Manhattan for its US headquarters -- so much for vows of poverty, eh?), has placed many of its adherents in high positions in far-right wing governments (including those of Franco and Pinochet) and operates in great secrecy. It members are highly militaristic -- one Archbishop in El Salvador assumed the title of Brigadier General during the civil war there and forbade observation of the martyrdom of Archbishop Oscar Romero, who was murdered on orders of the Salvadoran military while celebrating a mass for the poor (In other words, a member of Opus Dei aligned himself with the military that had murdered another Archbishop). Escriva was rushed into sainthood in a way that ignored Canon law (his "miracles" were not independently verified, but were based on reports from Opus Dei doctors, for instance) by the Vatican when Ratzinger was running things there.
Facism's authoritarianism and centralization of power is echoed in Ratzinger's own "philosophy", and its difficult to find any significant difference between Nazi pronouncements on the nature of homosexuality, and Ratzinger's own.
In other words, unlike Byrd who evolved from a supporter of racism and segregation to a leader in the fight for racial equality, tolerance, and diversity, Ratzinger has exhibited no signs of rejecting the tenets underlying fascism, and has in fact worked to create a Church that would be have no trouble adapting to a new version of Hilter.
I would be interested in just where the pope supported the authoritarian state.
His speaches talk of freedom, the opposite of your charges.
(Big Surprize)
And as for a general non acceptance of perverts, that is not particular to the NAZI's, there are some things even monsters find offensive.
What made the NAZIs evil isnt who they didnt like, but what they did to, how they treated, those they didnt like.
Something the national socialists share with the Internationale flavor.
What those sects of the left lacked, (and the left still lacks) and what made them evil, was the lack of repect for the rights of the individual, that respect rules out all the heinous crimes they commited.
You know, that freedom thing that dictates your right to live however you chose.
That freedom also says nobody has to accept you, or you them.
Totalitarian regimes have always had their scapegoats, those "others" to blame for their problems, also as part of the terror mechanism, the both the soviets and the nazis would target minorities for extermination, it had the effect of reminding everyone what would happen to them if they captured the interest of the state, without generating as much loathing from the majority.
You are a not a good advocate for your cause, this man here, whos writing I enjoy, has done more to remove the perception of "other" than your zulu-bird routine.
Perhaps if you really want to be accepted as normal, appearing a bit more normal, might help.
But, its a free country, and just think, in Iraq there is a chance you could go there without being stoned to death, if they ever get the Freedom thing working there.
Christians see certain behavior as a sin, in fact the same doctrine the constrictions are so narrow, and man so flawed, that none of us are sin free.
That means as hard as I try, without foregivness, im in no better standing than you are.
But that does not mean we abandon morality because we cant measure up.
Its simple stuff really.
Of the teachings of Christ, he had a very stern warning about harming kids, that he mentioned specifcally. and other than that, I dont know of anything he held more in contempt than any other.
Well, i take that back, he just might have a really big problem with the Vatican bank.
Gee, see there, something we agree on. imagine that.
His speaches talk of freedom, the opposite of your charges.
Ratzinger gives lip service to freedom while promoting authoritarianism in the church, and in the public sphere by advancing the careers of the fascist sympathizers in Opus Dei.
Ratzinger's efforts to force Catholic politicians to enforce compliance with Catholic dogma on non-Catholics is pure authoritarianism. His extemism on issues such as gay rights is pure authoritarianism. It is literally none of the Church's business to interfere in the question of whether or not non-Catholics who happen to be gay are protected from discrimination --- Ratzinger's hate campaign toward gays and lesbians is pure fascist authoritarianism.
So your objections is that god is a facist.
Since god wont embrace sin, then god is being authoritarian.
Ill admit there is plenty of debate about who has the purest interpetations of scripture.
But if thats what you mean by "the popes a facist" because he is faithfull to the interpetation held in his church, a church people attend by choice, (which is the opposite of authoritarian) ....
Perhaps you need to educate yourself what Facism is, and what authoritarian means when uttered.
Mousulini has socialist parents, he published two socialist newspapers, one of them his own. he came to power thru the Italian socialist party.
Facism, the name, comes from the roman facis, a bundle of sticks around an axe, that was a roman symbol of authority
A symbol of unity, the handle of the axe made stronger, by the unity reflected by the bundle.
A very Itallian logo and name for his "Third Way" flavor of socialism.
This brand of socialism embraced the need of a strongman, because socialist goals would take too long otherwise.
You see this echoed by the national socialist of Germany, and even Stalin should be tagged as a national socialist with his "Socialism in one country" and WWII was the "great patrotic war", dispite the communal economic model, But Gorbachov, who did not want the desoultion of the USSR, also saw the "Third Way" as the cure for their problems. you then saw "Third Way" mentioned in the speaches of Bill Clinton and Tony Blair.
We also saw the same two factions between Mao, and the "Capitalist Roaders" of Deng Xao Peng.
Deng was brought back from near exile after the death of Mao, and is the reason the Chicoms have adopted the "Third Way" invented by Benito and Adolph.
So, with this finer defintion of what you meant to say in you tirades, im not sure you advanced your argument.
You are hardly the first fellow to take issue with the scriptual interpetations of the Church, i myself can see nothing there that forbids a priest being married for example.
Hey, but man, you really need to find better terms than "NAZI, Fascist" et al to descibe them.
Not that we dont have real nazis facist and commies among us, CommuNazis I call them, since from where I am, the vanishing point perspective from here allows me to see no difference at all between them.
They even think they can do all that again, without the mass murder. (they are wrong)
But the pope?
You was almost suggesting that Simon Wesenthal(sp?) missed one in his hunt for war criminals.
You really need to fine tune the way you express yourself, I mean .. some here used to think i was over the top ... but you made me look tame and suave by compare. I suppose I should thank you for that.
Raymond:
You accuse me of wanting to 'kill' kids.
I wrote:
"However, saying some one is 'pro-life' who is merely telling other people they ought to bear, and support, children is purely theoretical and has no real meaning. Especially as it concerns imposing a lack of birth control on other, impoverished, countries."
Your accusation has to do only with your own imagination. And I did say that if you truly want anyone to bear a conceived child they cannot support, you will be more likely to save it if you offer to support it. Which is not anywhere near condoning 'killing' anyone or anything, but you evidently wish to see that in what I said. It was not anywhere near.
I do urge you in the interests of saving lives to contact Planned Parenthood, they will be glad to put you in touch with any number of potential mothers who would prefer to have children if they did not then have to support them.
So your objections is that god is a facist.
no, my objection is to those who use the Church to promote a fascist ideology.
The Catholic Church has become a parody of Christianity with Ratzinger at its helm. Ratzinger wants to punish people for not insisting that Catholic rules be observed by everyone --- while allowing priests to act as Chaplins in a war for which there was no legal or moral justification---- and providing Sacrement to soldiers who are killing people without any "legal or moral justification."
#114 from p.lukasiak
"The Church (thanks to Ratzinger) says that homosexuality is an "intrisic moral evil." A devout Catholic will accept this as a matter of faith --- he doesn't decide if it makes any sense, because the Church has declared that God thinks homosexuality is evil."
This is false.
Letter to the Bishops of the Catholic Church on the Pastoral Care of Homosexual Persons
"3. [...] Although the particular inclination of the homosexual person is not a sin, it is a more or less strong tendency ordered toward an intrinsic moral evil; and thus the inclination itself must be seen as an objective disorder. Therefore special concern and pastoral attention should be directed toward those who have this condition, lest they be led to believe that the living out of this orientation in homosexual activity is a morally acceptable option. It is not."
It is not homosexuality that is evil, just as kleptomania is not evil. It is what this inclination is directed towards that is evil.
Ruth
You are what you do.
Imposing ? they have no authortity to impose anything.
If you find acceptable killing the baby as a way to deal with the burden their irresposibility created, then that is what you are saying.
Ill make it even harder for you to accept, a baby is an innocent, and he/she has no resposibility for the circumstances that brought him/her into being.
And that baby has rights, rights that are immutable, the most basic right is to be protected from being killed. even if the child is the result of rape, that does not forfeit a persons right to live. the child is innocent, and should not suffer the death penalty for something he/she did not do.
Its that simple.
I suggest you read Being by Cicero
One of the things you find there is how difficult it is to find a child for adoption, there are couples that wait in line for years.
And you suggest they are unaware ?
In fact we have seen them chafe at even the suggestion, that they tell their clients about other options.
Frankly I find even the postiton names offensive.
Pro-Life, while accurate, is weak to describe what that means, these same people stood out in nazi germany to protest what they did, and shared the fate of the Jews.
Pro-Choice ? paging mr Orwell.
Germany wasnt big on abortion, they would wait untill the baby was born, and deal with it then, it was cheaper that way.
Ahh yes, as long as its painless.
The nazi doctors also used carbon monoxide, because it was "painless", and even had creamation ovens right there at the hospitals.
And all this happened before the jews had to wear a yellow star, before the camps were built.
The german death machine, began with the doctors, including the idea of the on site creamtoriums
It started, with Euthenasia of the dieing then the insane, then the old and infirm.
Abortion wasnt on the radar, in fact it was a German duty to have children by all those that wasnt destined for the death camps, to abort a baby was a crime. Hitler even setup breading programs.
The idea of Eugenics via aborton was invented by Margeret Sanger, to control the population of blacks and the stupid, did you know that some states here in the USA still had bits of that in force into the 70's
I became aware when the Governor of the state issued the apology, for all the girls they sterilized for having grades that was too low. What he didnt talk about is all the black people the same was done to, just because they was black.
Lots of material if you want to read about it.
Here you can read about Sangers involvment with Eugenics. link
And here you can read about her Negro Project
The basis for German euthanasia that was the intellectual genesis that led directly to the killing of disabled infants and disabled adults had little to do with racial theories. Rather, it came from a book, Permission to Destroy Life Unworthy of Life, published in 1920, long before Hitler took power.
Written by a famous law professor, Karl Binding, in collaboration with a noted physician, Alfred Hoche, and called "the crucial work" by Holocaust historian, Robert Jay Lifton
The Eugenics monsters in germany and the usa shared lots of notes.
Even before WWI, socialists such as the novelist Jack London and the psychologist Havelock Ellis, saw socialism as leading both fortunately and necessarily to the triumph of the white races over the "black and the brown".
The left no longer tout their Eugentics any more, and thank goodness its no longer hip to be a racist, but they still use race as a political tool, dont they.
Now, its those that opposed the nazis and the party of Lincoln that are called biggots, they have gone from racial and intra-racial Eugnenics to pointing the accusing finger where none exists.
Well I suppose thats progress, now all we need to do is rid ourselves of the culture of death.
Perhaps then we can say, the menace of the NAZIs, will finally be over.
Since you begin this post with the same accusation as the last, don't worry, I realize your words are served up for your own engagement, having nothing to do with mine.
It is not homosexuality that is evil, just as kleptomania is not evil. It is what this inclination is directed towards that is evil.
in fact, what Ratzinger says is that the person who is homosexually inclined is not intrisically evil but that homosexuality is.
(Homosexuality is the evil, however the person who is inclined toward that evil is not necessarily evil.)
Other Church teachings describe entertaining lustful thoughts (except toward your spouse) as sinful in and of itself. Ultimately, this means that all homosexuals are sinful/evil, because the defining nature of homosexuality is lustful/sinful thoughts --- you don't even have to act on your homosexual desires to be "intrisically morally evil".
Well, there is a parody in view here, but it isnt the new Pope.
Even the word "Become" is rather strange, since his unofficial nickname seems to be John Paul III
We found mass graves full of kids in Iraq, still clutching thir toys. It told a story of then herded to the bottom of a fresh ditch, shot, and covered where they fell.
We found a prison for children, full of children.
We found them crippled from torture, such as crushing their feed in front of their parents.
We learned that brothers Hussein would fetch 12-14 year old girls from the school of friday, they would be sex slaves all weekend and live tiger food on sunday evening.
George Orwell wrote about your type of inverted morals. and even our late pope had a few words about what we found there.
But unlike you, he was not so morally obtuse.
This thread is past its due date.