Ratzinger giving a World Peace Day speech last year, condemning “moral relativism”. If he’d looked more closely at his own Church he’d actually find it in spades.
Yes, Catholics should exult at the first abdication of a pontiff since 1415, but that’s assuming they have any sense! But we know many religionists don’t. Especially in the case of personality cult religions like Catholicism, which feature regular ‘star boys’ (i.e. pontiffs) so the tendency is for bamboozled flocks to latch onto them like goddy celebs or superstars, or even saints. Such was the case with Joseph Ratzinger’s predecessor, John Paul II – now being deemed worthy of saint-hood following many years as the Vatican’s top celeb and media star.
But instead of fawning over these very ordinary and flawed humans(adorned with merely more finery-costumes), the flock needs to keep its eye on whether their Church is a true moral barometer, and open to change as human needs change, or it is stuck back in a medieval time warp. If the last is the case, you can be sure flimsy moral rectitude will be the norm and it will use a false moralism to try to hide its own crimes. We know, looking through history, the Church is muddied with crimes high and low
This Friday (the timing couldn’t be more perfect!) Catholics will get a look inside Ratzinger’s odious papacy with the HBO presentation of “Mea Maxima Culpa – Silence in the House of God.“ Producer Alex Gibney, on Ed Schultz last night, correctly noted Ratzinger’s resignation is his best legacy. As Gibney told Ed:
“His papacy will be haunted by the sex abuse crisis”.
On the show last night, and in the HBO documentary , Gibney documents that from 2001 – 05 Pope Rat saw every case of child sexual abuse that occurred in the U.S. – compiled in hundreds of files (including at a Wisconsin location where 200 deaf boys were sodomized by one priest). U.S. Bishops begged the Vatican to remove priests from any service or further contacts, but the Vatican refused. And where do you suppose the buck stops? With Ratzinger!
Gibney related to Ed: “What you see is patterns that emerge all over the world. Patterns are almost always of cover –ups. The Church moves forward by taking responsibility “
He added that to do this, the Vatican “needs to disgorge all documents.”
Only then, after responsibility is taken can something be done about the “Central stain on the Church”
But let’s be clear Ratzinger’s history precedes him. Church documents have revealed that as a priest Ratzinger evinced far more concern that defrocking clerics accused of sexually abusing children “could provoke some scandal among the faithful” than advocating strongly for justice for child victims. And just last year, a scandal involving leaked confidential Vatican documents portrayed the pope as a “lonely” man, plagued with trouble “keeping the shop together or getting information owing to all the filtering and intrigues surrounding him.”
Jeebus! That had to be difficult! But maybe it was his two-faced life and the strain of reconciling his moralist bromides to his Church's crimes that finally forced his abdication. At once trying to keep a lid on the sex abuse crisis which has grown like a malignancy as more and more cases have been exposed the past ten years- while portraying the outward face of moral judgment toward all sex acts of his faithful deemed as "sins". Thus, Ratzinger has had his bishops continue to crack down on Catholics of all ages simply satisfying themselves with masturbation, or sex out of wedlock –by threatening them with hellfire- while his own padres are running amuck and having their perverted way with innocents.
Let’s remind ourselves here what drives and feeds this two-faced bullshit. Recall for World Peace Day last year, Ratzinger (the former head of the Inquisition, now called “the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith”) lashed out at moral relativism, "the humanistic creed that holds there can be no objective standard on which to base morality". In his 2012 New Year's Day message, he warned all societies on the planet that justice and peace will remain "words without content" unless they are informed instead by the natural moral law, the key precepts of which are expressed in the Ten Commandments.
In this two -faced operation we have beheld the vile core of this Church which has thereby ceded any right to be a moral voice in the world. How? Because it sure as shit climbs all over its people for minor sexual peccadillos (e.g. jerking off) while turning a blind eye to the major perversions occurring right under its nose, and hence endorsing them to that degree.
Let's dispense with the Vatican's time-honored appeals to "natural moral law" or "natural law" first. This is basically an antiquated relic of Catholic teaching that never seems to go away. The central problem is that it's inherently contradictory and inchoate. For example, 200 years ago invocations of "natural law" enabled the Church's moral architects to justify slavery since: "some men needed others to guide and direct them" (see e.g., Julian Pleasants in Contraception & Holiness: The Catholic Predicament, 1964, p. 88).
Having done so, it decided to retain the sexual aspects of natural law with a rabid and unhealthy vengeance. They thereby used natural law to declare artificial contraception equivalent to "mutual masturbation" and hence meriting eternal "hellfire." Never mind that they basically placed one such act (engaged in by two loving people) — in terms of its ultimate sanction — on the same level as the vile acts of a mass murdering cannibal-rapist like Jeffrey Dahmer. Of course, this renders the whole moral foundation inchoate and absurd. You simply can't weigh the vicious acts of a serial murderer and cannibal with a loving couple using contraception on the same scales of eternal justice, no matter how brainwashed or stupid you are.
The proscription against artificial contraception is especially interesting, since Pope Paul VI’s own appointed papal commission advised against retaining it. (Op. cit.) Despite their recommendation, Paul VI rejected his commission’s advice and the Church remained steeped in its medieval past, even as the world population has more than double since then, see also: http://brane-space.blogspot.com/2011/09/human-population-growth-is.html
But this is why the Church’s current sexual morality is false (see a far more authentic sexual morality in Sister Margaret Farley’s book, ‘Just Love’). It’s false, first because the paramount objective is not enticing the RC faithful to "do good" but to control their gonads! Any institution that can control people's sex organs, controls their lives, thinking and most fundamental decisions. Second, it's false because it ignores all the critical indicators which disclose our limited planetary resources cannot support a pseudo-ethic which encourages reproduction as the final object of any sex act. According to the site Global Footpoint Network, at:
http://www.footprintnetwork.org/
we currently need not one but one and one half EARTHS to sustain our current rate of consumption. This means it requires on average 1.5 years for the Earth to regenerate the resources humanity uses in one year. Clearly, at its rate of extrapolation, we'd need three Earth's by 2050 - which simply isn't going to occur short of colonizing another two earthlike planets.
Even now, most people don't comprehend or process that adding 2.5 billion humans by 2050 is the carbon equivalent of adding two United States to the Earth. The total added population mass with its CO2 pollution, incepted loss of habitat and drain on water supplies, will be an unmitigated disaster. But instead of facing reality, people's brains - most - are wired for what I call "technological Pollyannism" - hoping and pining for some techno-fix that will make everything all right at the last moment. Well, don't hold your collective breath, kiddies!
But what is the Catholic Church’s response? "No, NO and NO! We don't care how few resources there are left on Earth or how many people! You still can’t practice artificial contraception"! They will allow you to use a pseudo-form called “rhythm method” that requires precise temperature taking of the female for critical days in her cycle! In other words, the Church is in favor of overpopulation, famine, starvation and mass depredation ultimately leading to population crash and "die off", e.g.
http://www.dieoff.org/
With Ratzinger gone, it would be nice to think the new pontiff will be a man of change and move the Church forward into the 21st century. But don’t hold your breath. All the guys that are most likely to be picked in the upcoming Vatican Conclave are mainly members of an inner circle hand-picked by Ratzinger, so it’s doubtful they will reflect any different thinking – only more false natural law moralism.
The last REAL potential for change arrived with the selection of Albino Luciani as Pope Paul I back in 1978. He even planned to remove the binding proscription on artificial birth control. Trouble was, he also planned to investigate the goings on at the Vatican Bank under Paul Marcinkus and his contacts with Licio Gelli. Alas, he didn’t last a month, and the scoop is he was assassinated by the same sort of Vatican insiders that have strong armed Vatican conservatism on these moral issues the past three –plus decades. For more on the background to the hit on Pope Paul I, see David Yallop’s ‘In God’s Name’
http://www.footprintnetwork.org/
we currently need not one but one and one half EARTHS to sustain our current rate of consumption. This means it requires on average 1.5 years for the Earth to regenerate the resources humanity uses in one year. Clearly, at its rate of extrapolation, we'd need three Earth's by 2050 - which simply isn't going to occur short of colonizing another two earthlike planets.
Even now, most people don't comprehend or process that adding 2.5 billion humans by 2050 is the carbon equivalent of adding two United States to the Earth. The total added population mass with its CO2 pollution, incepted loss of habitat and drain on water supplies, will be an unmitigated disaster. But instead of facing reality, people's brains - most - are wired for what I call "technological Pollyannism" - hoping and pining for some techno-fix that will make everything all right at the last moment. Well, don't hold your collective breath, kiddies!
But what is the Catholic Church’s response? "No, NO and NO! We don't care how few resources there are left on Earth or how many people! You still can’t practice artificial contraception"! They will allow you to use a pseudo-form called “rhythm method” that requires precise temperature taking of the female for critical days in her cycle! In other words, the Church is in favor of overpopulation, famine, starvation and mass depredation ultimately leading to population crash and "die off", e.g.
http://www.dieoff.org/
With Ratzinger gone, it would be nice to think the new pontiff will be a man of change and move the Church forward into the 21st century. But don’t hold your breath. All the guys that are most likely to be picked in the upcoming Vatican Conclave are mainly members of an inner circle hand-picked by Ratzinger, so it’s doubtful they will reflect any different thinking – only more false natural law moralism.
The last REAL potential for change arrived with the selection of Albino Luciani as Pope Paul I back in 1978. He even planned to remove the binding proscription on artificial birth control. Trouble was, he also planned to investigate the goings on at the Vatican Bank under Paul Marcinkus and his contacts with Licio Gelli. Alas, he didn’t last a month, and the scoop is he was assassinated by the same sort of Vatican insiders that have strong armed Vatican conservatism on these moral issues the past three –plus decades. For more on the background to the hit on Pope Paul I, see David Yallop’s ‘In God’s Name’
No comments:
Post a Comment