- Jun 6, 2007
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The pope's recent trip to England underscores how virtue depraved the Papacy is. Pope Benedict XVI on his recent trip to England apologized dramatically for the clergy child sexual abuse scandals that have rocked the Catholic Church in the West. The laughable, hypocritical and ridiculous element of this whole "I'm Sorry" display by the Pope is that when he had the chance just in the last few months to "really" show he was sorry about the "off-the-charts" harm to these children, he passed on the opportunity. This matter involve the decent Archbishop Diarmuid Martin from Ireland who worked to get two other Bishops from Ireland that were culpable in the cover-up of pedophile priests to submit their resignations thereby giving some vindication to victims and demonstrating to the faithful that church authority is accountable, well his greatness Pope Benedict refused to accept the resignations and not only that he chastised Bishop Martin for publicly criticizing other Bishops and said he shouldn't display such behavior in the future. This whole scenario sums up one of the critical problems with the Catholic Church and this analysis is from a life long Catholic. The Catholic Church hierarchy expects not to be challenged in the hierarchy's mind set a good Catholic is one that follows the Church hierarchy's instructions and if you want to elaborate follows the instruction thinking the hierarchy is wonderful. These values displayed by Benedict XVI in the recent history of the clergy sexual abuse scandal are values Benedict has shown throughout his life, shortly after he was made Pope he changed the rules which his predecessor John Paul II put in place on how Popes are elected. John Paul had changed the rule to where after so many ballots by Cardinals in the College of Cardinals a candidate that gets over fifty percent of the vote becomes Pope, Benedict reversed that rule so that no matter how many ballots have taken place a candidate still has to get two-thirds or three-quarters I forget the exact number of votes to become Pope which all but assures that non-enlightened, non-progressive, preserve the status quo type of Popes will be elected indefinitely especially considering that the Cardinals are appointed by the Pope who is likely to appoint his own elk! The kind of amusing thing about this whole issue is that the Pope and Cardinals for that matter are supposed to be doing the will of the Holy Spirit not their own will in running the Church, the Bible has many references to this principle, even using only ordinary judgment one would conclude that there was more holiness in the pinky finger of John Paul than Benedicts whole body now who would you think would be closer to the Holy Spirit and thus better able to discern the Holy Spirit's will, the fact that John Paul's successor reversed John Paul on such an important issue is very telling about Benedict.
I know this is a secular website but since the secular media has given such large press coverage on the Papacy it seems legitimate to make a few comments on the HolySee (what an oxymoron)! The above paragraph referenced a key problem with the Catholic Church hierarchy even at the diocese level which is that it doesn't like and suppresses challenge to its authority. This character flaw in the hierarchy impedes the hierarchy in doing its duty to lead the faithful to build the Kingdom of God. I do not work in a religious field I work in a secular profession but what I think is obvious to even a lot of secular people in the world is that the Devil exists and evil is extensive in the world and in some areas is rising to really scary levels. There is so many examples but to list just a few would include in Afghanistan these Taliban blowing up polling places killing ordinary Afghanis for wanting to vote to express their God given right to have a say in their government; in Mexico these drug gangs killing police officers, government officials, the overall breakdown of civilization in Mexico; and on this Mosque at the World Trade Center Site and the Pro/Anti Muslim views amongst people how its spiraling into very neighborly realms. One of the promises of Catholicism is that it is supposed to bring about the Devil being permanently removed from the earth and permanently cast into hell heretofore the Church hierarchy has done a very poor job in trying to see this promise fulfilled. The most powerful prayer in the Catholic Church is the Mass which commemorates Jesus' death on the cross why doesn't the hierarchy change some of the key prayer petitions in the mass; the pinnacle of the Mass is when bread is supposedly turned into the body of christ and right after this pinnacle the Church hierarchy has a lot of prayers and poetry that are crap like prayers for unity amongst all christians, it is an insult to Jesus to believe he would so lack wisdom and that he would want to place his gospel and channels of graces in "one" group of men - "harmony yes" "unity your nuts", why doesn't the Holy See change the post consecration prayers to include and highlight prayer petitions to God to remove the devil from the world and until that time weaken his kingdom to the greatest extent possible. The second greatest prayer is the rosary and for years partially at the urging of the Holy See people when they prayed the rosary prayed for the conversion of Russia, granted its not now a country that is a bastion of virtue but is a more virtuous country than existed under communism; why doesn't the Holy See ask the catholic faithful to include the above "stop the devil" prayers as their ordinary rosary intentions. On a slightly different note, many people in the world live in poverty and many others live with a standard of living that is too low, fixing these problems requires action on political leaders part. It is a huge shortcoming that collectively rank and file clergy don't speak out on elections and legislative matters that could improve these "life", the bullshit pro-life church campaigns don't cut it, for one a candidate could be (and often are) as stupid as stupid can be on economic issues and if that candidate holds the right issue on abortion he or she is supported by the Catholic Church. Specifically, the needed change is that diocese and vatican authorities have to give rank and file clergy the freedom to speak their conscience on these issues if they feel pulled in that direction. It will be rather messy at times in part resulting in individual clergy advocating positions different from church authorities but the world will be a better place for it because individual clergy do have influence, most clergy like most human beings are good and wisdom calls for humanity putting there trust in individuals not institutions. With the bad way the worlds heading this writer doesn't think Church authority will be able to maintain this system they have much longer, when things operate poorly enough long enough rank-and-file people revolt; many clergy are really good people it is just a matter of time before they decide to fully use their role in life to build a good world. One last thing I don't think that many members of the Church hierarchy know Jesus or the Holy Spirit, I am referring to knowing in a personal knowledge sense through the perspective of faith Jesus' and the Holy Spirit's character, values and power, because if they did they would know this hierarchy's behavior isn't acceptable to them and not by a long shot and things will change and they can either be the facilitators or the rubble on the ground that results from the change!
I know this is a secular website but since the secular media has given such large press coverage on the Papacy it seems legitimate to make a few comments on the HolySee (what an oxymoron)! The above paragraph referenced a key problem with the Catholic Church hierarchy even at the diocese level which is that it doesn't like and suppresses challenge to its authority. This character flaw in the hierarchy impedes the hierarchy in doing its duty to lead the faithful to build the Kingdom of God. I do not work in a religious field I work in a secular profession but what I think is obvious to even a lot of secular people in the world is that the Devil exists and evil is extensive in the world and in some areas is rising to really scary levels. There is so many examples but to list just a few would include in Afghanistan these Taliban blowing up polling places killing ordinary Afghanis for wanting to vote to express their God given right to have a say in their government; in Mexico these drug gangs killing police officers, government officials, the overall breakdown of civilization in Mexico; and on this Mosque at the World Trade Center Site and the Pro/Anti Muslim views amongst people how its spiraling into very neighborly realms. One of the promises of Catholicism is that it is supposed to bring about the Devil being permanently removed from the earth and permanently cast into hell heretofore the Church hierarchy has done a very poor job in trying to see this promise fulfilled. The most powerful prayer in the Catholic Church is the Mass which commemorates Jesus' death on the cross why doesn't the hierarchy change some of the key prayer petitions in the mass; the pinnacle of the Mass is when bread is supposedly turned into the body of christ and right after this pinnacle the Church hierarchy has a lot of prayers and poetry that are crap like prayers for unity amongst all christians, it is an insult to Jesus to believe he would so lack wisdom and that he would want to place his gospel and channels of graces in "one" group of men - "harmony yes" "unity your nuts", why doesn't the Holy See change the post consecration prayers to include and highlight prayer petitions to God to remove the devil from the world and until that time weaken his kingdom to the greatest extent possible. The second greatest prayer is the rosary and for years partially at the urging of the Holy See people when they prayed the rosary prayed for the conversion of Russia, granted its not now a country that is a bastion of virtue but is a more virtuous country than existed under communism; why doesn't the Holy See ask the catholic faithful to include the above "stop the devil" prayers as their ordinary rosary intentions. On a slightly different note, many people in the world live in poverty and many others live with a standard of living that is too low, fixing these problems requires action on political leaders part. It is a huge shortcoming that collectively rank and file clergy don't speak out on elections and legislative matters that could improve these "life", the bullshit pro-life church campaigns don't cut it, for one a candidate could be (and often are) as stupid as stupid can be on economic issues and if that candidate holds the right issue on abortion he or she is supported by the Catholic Church. Specifically, the needed change is that diocese and vatican authorities have to give rank and file clergy the freedom to speak their conscience on these issues if they feel pulled in that direction. It will be rather messy at times in part resulting in individual clergy advocating positions different from church authorities but the world will be a better place for it because individual clergy do have influence, most clergy like most human beings are good and wisdom calls for humanity putting there trust in individuals not institutions. With the bad way the worlds heading this writer doesn't think Church authority will be able to maintain this system they have much longer, when things operate poorly enough long enough rank-and-file people revolt; many clergy are really good people it is just a matter of time before they decide to fully use their role in life to build a good world. One last thing I don't think that many members of the Church hierarchy know Jesus or the Holy Spirit, I am referring to knowing in a personal knowledge sense through the perspective of faith Jesus' and the Holy Spirit's character, values and power, because if they did they would know this hierarchy's behavior isn't acceptable to them and not by a long shot and things will change and they can either be the facilitators or the rubble on the ground that results from the change!
