Educating A Catholic Convert On Artificial Birth Control- And 'Humanae Vitae'

Catholic 'two -percenter' Ashley McGuire - who fancies 'Humane Vitae' her "gateway" to a balanced and moral life, and liberation from "objectification".

In her recent (July 27) piece:

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The Controversial Text That Saved Me - WSJ

Catholic convert Ashley McGuire,  also a senior fellow at The Catholic Association, insists that the papal encyclical of Pope Paul VI  ('Humanae Vitae') actually "saved"  her.  She writes:

"Two years ago I was baptized and received into the Catholic Church. 'Humanae Vitae' was my gateway. Disillusioned by a culture that habitually objectifies women, I found the document stirring- as did countless other converts - with its call to "safeguard the reverence due to a woman".   Today you can call me a Catholic two percenter - one of those few American Catholic women who have never used contraception."

The preceding is what I'd characterize as the sort of naive take we might expect of a convert, seeing the document for the first time. This, as opposed to studying it in detail like I had to do while attending Loyola University -New Orleans, in Father Alvin Holloway, S.J.'s Ethics class, e.g,

Fr. Alvin Holloway, Loyola Ethics professor (1966-67)

Father Holloway was an ok guy as far as Loyola's Jesuits went, but alas - like most padres  - he was severely brainwashed by his Church to respond to certain issues - like artificial birth control - in programmed ways.  For example, without any qualification he tried to teach us that artificial contraception would be the same as mutual masturbation given both are "unnatural" acts. One because it entailed self- gratification with sexual pleasure reserved exclusively for the procreative act. The second because it is mutual sexual gratification with no openness to procreation. In each case, he argued, "natural law" is violated.

He didn't cite Humanae Vitae at the time, because it wouldn't make its way to daylight until being issued in 1968, and this Ethics class was taken over 1966-67.  But we now know Paul VI issued this document in direct opposition to his own specially appointed Papal Commission on the matter. Author David Yallop, in his book In God's Name, 1984, has portrayed Humanae Vitae in stark terms indeed, as well as its paradoxical consequences (p. 58):

"On a disaster scale for the Roman Catholic Church, it measures higher than the treatment of Galileo in the seventeenth century "

The implicit assumption in Humanae Vitae and Pope John Paul II's subsequent encyclical Veritatis Splendor, is that procreation takes precedence over any other function of sexual intercourse. This is observably true in most other animals (with estrus cycles) but it certainly doesn’t apply to humans who exhibit a diverse array of sexual play. To devalue sexplay for its own end, while extolling procreation-based sex as the be-all and end-all, is to rob humans of their uniqueness as sexual primates. Or, to refer to the words of one Catholic biologist, Elizabeth Dougherty (in Contraception and Holiness, The Lessons of Zoology, p. 110):

"Why do we call secondary the ends of the sexual act which have been accorded in fullness to us, and why do we call primary the end that we share with the lower animals?"

She's referring to the core of  Pope Pius XI's  original encyclical Casti Connubii  i.e.  that the "sin" of artificial contraception inhered in making primary a sexual aspect that in reality is only "secondary". According to that pontiff:

"Since therefore the conjugal act is destined primarily by nature for the begetting of children, those who in exercising it deliberately frustrate its natural power and purpose sin against nature."

Which is irredeemable codswallop. As Daugherty notes in her chapter (op. cit.)  what the pontiff and his ilk really sought to do is reduce humans to the state of lower animals, at the behest of their "natural" reproductive cycles. In this sense, unlike the lower animals, humans have the intellectual capacity and sense of novelty to introduce a vast variety of pleasure-play into their sex relations. They aren't yoked to  primitive instincts to simply mount and hump at specific times. As Daugherty notes (pp. 96- 97):

"After ovulation, all mammalian females are under the influence of progesterone from the corpus luteum. This is a period of rapidly declining estrogenic activity which ends the sexual receptivity of the lower mammalian female, whether or not fertilization occurs. 

But (in humans) marital relations continue during this progesterone -dominated period before the abrupt onset of menstruation. It is the period of lowest estrogenic activity and the progesterone-dominated period after ovulation which are known as the 'safe period' for marital relations."

This then, is what the Catholics'  “rhythm method” (of  Ogino-Kaus)  seeks to do: establish the "safe period" for a particular woman and then ordain that this is the time to safely have sexual relations if one wishes to not have any kids. The trouble is, it requires meticulous temperature taking at various times during a cycle to establish where that safe period begins and ends, and often this will be for no more than 10 days or so in a given month.

It is also a method that Ashley praises (ibid.):

"The teachings on contraception in Humanae Vitae are often described as arcane and antiscience. To the contrary, the science on female fertility is slowly catching up with the document. As Paul VI argues, there are natural ways to preserve a woman's fertility while still respecting her and her family's needs in limiting and spacing births. The Church calls it 'natural family planning'."

She goes on to claim it's enjoying increasing popularity with the "organics crowd" whose "fertility awareness method" is becoming more widely used.  The problem is that it requires meticulous temperature taking during a cycle to establish where that safe period begins and ends, and often this will be for no more than 10 days or so in a given month.  So harried women with five or six kids and in a rush to get to work (and then come home exhausted) will be completing a temperature v. time of the month chart.

One misstep or missed temperature or even a reading off by 1 C will yield a baby who will, according to stats from Population Connection, gobble up roughly 170 hectares of resources in his or her lifetime. So the only thing true is that it's "free" (unless of course, a mom counts time as money!)

Oh yeah, and presumably, the couple is quite happy to do without sex the other two thirds of the time! 

In the end, the Vatican, its Bishops and assorted bunkum pushers can claim all they want they have a natural method of family planning, but the reality is it's "natural"   - based on specific fertility periods-  fertility  only to chimps, Capuchin monkeys, rhesus monkeys and similar denizens.

 Sadly, neither Ashley 's "two percenters"  or her "organics" crowd appears to appreciate that artificial contraception isn't used merely to prevent births.  Contraceptives are also key in limiting severe health problems - such as miscarriage or stroke - which could ensue if a woman becomes pregnant.  Artificial contraceptives are also used to control the pain associated with endometriosis and preventing that condition from getting worse. But you'd never know any of this reading Ashley's WSJ op-ed.

Nor do her Humane Vitae adherents appreciate that the "natural birth" control method espoused by the RC Church is useless in the face of an ongoing AIDS epidemic, e.g. in Africa, or the spread of Zika as well.  Prevention of these scourges requires the use of condoms, but I am sure Ashley would simply preach "abstinence" to the forlorn millions in Africa and the Caribbean as the superior method to avoid those diseases.  This is given they can't use her cherished rhythm method.  Of course, that "solution" means no sex, period.

Ms. McGuire writes at one point:

"Women who adhere to the Church's teaching on contraception are often described as out of the Handmaid's Tale"  

 And then dispatches this by reference to  "a suite of new fertility apps and laboratory grade ovulation strips" that "make natural family planing more accessible".

Maybe. But none of these 'strips' or apps will control endometriosis like hormonal birth control pills can, nor will they expand the time over the month during which sex is possible - without risking conception. In other words, for all the tech  advances, the women are still bound by time constraints like their monkey or ape cousins.   If hubby gets the urge during a non-safe interval, the only option is to tell him to get a cold shower, or gratify himself. Oh wait, can't do that -as it's also a violation of natural law. (The same one the Church once invoked to proclaim slavery was "natural" as some humans required guidance by more advanced humans, according to Julian Pleasants, op. cit., p. 88).

Then there are all  the millions of Catholic couples unable to have children for whatever reason.  By Ms.. McGuire's thinking they shouldn't be having sex at all, given the biological conditions at work prevent conception - so the act is de facto foreclosed to procreation.   I once brought this up as a hypothetical for Fr. Holloway's consideration and yes, he insisted such a couple would be living in "sin"  even if they didn't use contraception - but knew they were prevented from having children. 

Beyond the particulars of such couples, it was the late Sir Arthur C. Clarke who rightly called all the anti-contraception Popes "enemies of humanity" and with good reason! Their persistent commitment to this deformed doctrine and perverse moral value has consigned increasing millions of people in Asia and Africa to destitution and starvation. This is because the underlying ‘natural law’ remains uninformed by current data concerning food production in relation to rising birth rates. Or, other things being equal, poverty is the natural accompaniment of larger families. Rather than adaptation based on updated information, unthinking adherence to an outmoded precept prevails.

Bottom line: No one should really object if middle class, married (or single) white women wish to embark on Ashley McGuire's "natural" method of  birth control. But no sane global citizen should have the sheer chutzpah to endorse it for all the populations, demographics of the world.  That is lunacy.

No, Not A Good Idea To Try To Bounce Radio Waves Off A Possible Alien Artifact

Object named Oumuamua now transiting our solar system. IF it is an alien artifact it's not  good idea to bounce radio waves off it.


The eccentric trajectory of the object, i.e. out of the plane of the solar system, suggests it originated from outside our system - possibly another star.

By now millions of Earthers are aware of an extraterrestrial intruder having entered our solar system. In the shape of a mangled stogey, the thing designated as 1I/ 2017 U1 (aka Oumuaua) was detected as it sped towards the Sun on 19 October.  Its orbital properties suggest it originated around another star, making it the first such body to be spotted in our cosmic neighborhood. More fascinating, its cigar-ish shape marks it as a potential alien artifact.

To wit, Yuri Milner's Breakthrough Listen program released a statement which read: "Researchers working on long-distance space transportation have previously suggested that a cigar or needle shape is the most likely architecture for an interstellar spacecraft, since this would minimize friction and damage from interstellar gas and dust."

In addition, we've learned from measurements that it has a dense structure and is comprised of rock and metal, but with little - if any - water-ice. 

What about observations? Andrew Siemion, director of the Berkeley SETI Research Center, said: "'Oumuamua's presence within our Solar System affords Breakthrough Listen an opportunity to reach unprecedented sensitivities to possible artificial transmitters and demonstrate our ability to track nearby, fast-moving objects."

The first set of observations are to commence today at the Robert C Byrd Green Bank Telescope in West Virginia is due to last for 10 hours.  These radio observations will be made across four different radio frequency bands. If passive "listening" is as far as it goes - no active bouncing of radio waves, i.e. transmissions off its surface -then that ought to be okay. But nothing more.

Stephen Hawking and others have already come out and warned if there is any chance of making ourselves known - revealed- to a much more technologically advanced civilization, we'd be wise not to do so. A nest of bugs happily ensconced in a corner of a home's kitchen won't have a very long life expectancy if the home owner finds them.

In 1978 the British Astronomer Royal, Sir Martin Ryle, pleaded for extreme caution in restricting any and all types of electromagnetic signals and noise emanating from our planet. He warned that it would be foolhardy to be anything but passive listeners given we don't know anything about alien intentions - should they receive a calling card from another world. Of course, Sir Martin likely based his cautions on a paper in the journal Science two years earlier, which showed how an advanced alien civilization could put together a detailed picture of life on Earth, especially of our defense capabilities.

Sir Martin may also have been reminded - as I am now with this object - of Sir Arthur C. Clarke's novel, Rendezvous with Rama - published in 1973. Set in the 2130s, the story involves a cylindrical alien star ship that enters Earth's solar system.  Images obtained from unmanned spacecraft reveal  that Rama is a perfect cylinder, 20 kilometers (12 mi) in diameter and 54 kilometers (34 mi) long, and almost completely featureless, making this humankind's first encounter with an alien spacecraft.

In a 1962 high school research paper, long before Hawking’s or Sir Martin's alien warnings emerged, I showed how any encounter with a truly advanced alien intelligence would likely be disastrous for the human race. While scifi films (e.g. 'Earth vs. The Flying Saucers') often painted the meetings or altercations in cartoonish terms, I reasoned a hostile future encounter was almost inevitable and that our (putatively) lesser civilization would fall to a much more advanced, alien one. It was impossible to avoid, and this may have been the basis of a 1960 Brookings Institution REPORT to that effect. (Which I cited in my paper)

Brookings Institution thinkers feared any contact with highly advanced aliens would trigger social, economic and religious upheaval - and collapse of civilization.  The Brookings Institution's conclusions were largely based on the public reaction to the infamous Orson Wells' radio broadcast of "The War of the Worlds" and the local panic that ensued in 1938.

Let's also not forget that in 1972 - at a conference on potential interstellar contact- physicist Freeman Dyson warned that the first species we are likely to encounter is going to be technologically advanced and also highly aggressive -  more likely to be predators than cosmic pals willing to share their techno secrets.. 

As one Brit astronomer put it to the BBC, this is all likely huff and puff and merely a strange shaped natural object, say asteroid. But if there's even a 1 in a billion chance it's really of alien origin, we'd be best to keep our encounter totally passive.

"Childhood's End" - Great Sci Fi But Not For Everyone (Spoilers!)

Overlord Karellan emerges for first time from his ship with two Earth kids in tow.

Question: How badly, to what degree, will humanity shit bricks if the first ever aliens to visit Earth - indeed, subdue it, look like the spitting image of Satan? My guess is that half the planet will go batshit nuts and probably off themselves and the other half will run to gun stores to purchase the biggest weapons legally available. Of course, neither choice will make much difference because the Overlords featured in the Syfy channel's miniseries - Childhood's End - will have their way anyway.

In Arthur C. Clarke's 1953 science fiction novel, Childhood's End, an armada of benevolent alien Overlords arrives at Earth and cultivates the growth - maturity of humanity. They are not here as "invaders"- the first reaction of the military minds - but rather as "enablers" to help us reach our destiny in evolving beyond the state of lizard-brained greedheads, congenital assholes and warmongers.

Only very late in the novel do the Overlords finally reveal their physiognomy - looking just like assorted depictions of "Satan" through antiquity. Of course, it helped that the Overlords waited 15 years for their Earth supervisor Karellan to reveal himself. It took that long for humans to mature enough psychologically to see his Satanic frame without passing out from fright or going into shock.

But one wonders what would have transpired if the visiting aliens  foolishly revealed themselves first. It doesn't take a lot of imagination to project all the human armies of the world would likely have attacked the invaders but the results would have been radically different from 'Independence Day'. The  scenario provides a definite cautionary tales on how humans may have to process any future alien landings.

The Syfy adaptation of the book was fine as far as it goes, though more or less a modern interpretation  - also with some twists. For example, the Overlords chose their earthly emissary as an ordinary Missouri farmer (Ricky Stromgren) not the UN representative and dignitary in the book. After all, no one would respect a UN honcho today - what with all the conspiracy theories circulating about UN "black helicopters", the "New World Order" and  being in bed with a hidden Earth power to take over the U.S. We can surely thank Alex Jones and his InfoWars site or most of that!

Clearly, once Karellan reveals himself there are all kinds of repercussions and Earth religions - especially evangelicalism - fear their faith is under siege even if indirectly. (After all, Karellan and the Overlords can provide at a technological 'touch' all that humans have been praying for since the year dot, e.g. world peace, good health, financial security etc.)

 The religious resistance is embodied in the person of one hyper-Christian woman who firmly believes Karellan has only come to deceive and sow evil, never mind how humans have thrived. I mean, the whole planet and all its inhabitant are finally on an even keel  - helped by the fact all earthly armies have had their weapons neutralized.

But for many the utopia that emerges is too boring so they have to eventually establish their own little chaotic city in "New Athens" where losers can still commit crimes, money rules, poverty abounds - but hey - art and literature are blossoming again!  It appears all the nasty stuff is necessary for those to thrive - or so the "mayor" of the place claims.

The religious zealot, meanwhile, is not happy given no one is taking her seriously even when she digs up ancient images of Satan from assorted books. "Looka the bat wings! The horns! The goat's hoof feet! What more y'all want?" Well, most humans want to keep enjoying the bounty of the Overlords and not rock the boat!

Of course, while the little "counselor", as she calls herself, may have studied lots of religion it appears she didn't do much evolutionary biology during her school days. Hence, she was unaware of how a planetary environment might shape a species to appear the way Karellan does.

Indeed, in one scene in Ricky's barn it is proven once and for all that Karellan is not a spirit being (like Lucifer is alleged to be by the religious) but an ordinary flesh and blood mortal. Unable to convince Ricky that Karellan is deceiving him and his wife she grabs a shotgun and fires into Karellan's midsection. He falls to the ground in a heap gasping,  and it's clear he will soon die but Ricky injects him with an Overlord prepared medicinal (intended for him, dying of a fatal disease). Karellan comes back and faces down his would be killer who shouts at him:

"You are destroying our faith! You have deceived us!"

TO which the Overlord replies: "NO, you have deceived yourselves."

 A point he later reinforces when he also adds that humanity has been far too prone to believing and not sufficiently invested in knowing. Another point constantly made is that Karellan is not acting unilaterally or as his own agent for his own agenda. He is a "servant" doing the bidding of an "over Force" or "Over mind". (Think of The Force in Star Wars as an ultimate linked consciousness that drives unity or unification of all sentient beings, as opposed to divisions.  The physical counterpart also comes fairly close to what I described as "Being" in my book, 'Beyond Atheism, Beyond God')

My favorite character, apart from Karellan (who some reviews erroneously refer to as a "villain" - maybe because he resembles Satan),  is Milo. He's a black astrophysicist frustrated because with the reams of knowledge the Overlords have delivered - including of quantum physics, general relativity and astrophysics -  scientific inquiry has become redundant. So, in order to satisfy more of his curiosity Milo decides he must stow away on an Overlord ship and check out their home world in the constellation Carina. (It is the "sixth planet in the Carina system")

Suffice it to say I was glad the book didn't divert too much from Clarke's central plot and that included not allowing a fringe story to manifest, i.e. that Karellan really was a Satanic being and the "counselor" and her religious gang were going to triumph.

Again, this series will not be for everyone,  particularly those of a highly religious mold who will have difficulty reconciling Karellan with any kind of benign entity. I am reminded of Dorothy Rabinowitz' recent review in the WSJ,  actually making comparisons of the Overlords to the Nazis, i.e. when they occupied France in 1940. But given her Jewish background this is perhaps understandable. Other people of religious bent will likely also see into the series what they will, but they ought to realize that - as an atheist- Arthur C. Clarke had no use for "evil" - he believed we humans were its only authors.

Nonetheless, it is at once entertaining and enlightening to behold th extent to which Arthur C. had woven metaphysics (of a sort) into his work with the "Overmind"- which seems an awful lot like the "Universal Mind" of mystics or the Holomovement of physicist David Bohm, described in his 'Wholeness and the Implicate Order'.

The end of the story can best be described as hurling the characters and the planet into the "Implicate Order". Anyway, I won't reveal the end part because that is what the whole story pivots on: the future of homo sapiens and planet Earth as facilitated by Karellan and the Overlords.

Is the Vatican Gaming Sainthood To Enhance the Piety of the Faithful?

Way back in the old days, ca. 1953-54 when I attended Catholic grammar school in Milwaukee, we were informed over and over about the qualities that made a saint. The good nuns introduced us to Saint Perpetua, for example, who was tossed into prison with her nursing infant because she refused to recant her newfound Christian faith. Subsequently, despite pleas from her father, she was horrifically butchered along with Felicity, her servant.  Then there was Saint Sebastian (after whom the school I attended was named) who suffered an ignominious martyrdom with his detractors unloading their quivers of arrows into him. The nuns also introduced us to Padre Pio (Saint Pio) who was capable of performing bilocation (being in two places at once). Then there was St. Gerard Majella who demonstrated levitation on several occasions - documented by witnesses.

In other words, in the old days the dutiful Catholic kid learned that Sainthood didn't come on the cheap nor was canonization "streamlined" to get the faithful from departing from the Church. (Of course, back in those days broad concepts of spirituality hadn't yet come into the mainstream and people more or less remained with their religion of birth. No more, as people learn to think independently and break off onto spiritual paths of their own - or no spiritual paths at all.)

Contrast this with today, when hordes of pilgrims have already gathered in Saint Peter's Square and in front of big screens erected across Rome for the canonizations of John Paul II and John XXIII. The crowds, along with a global audience, will watch as two popes are jointly proclaimed saints for the first time in the 2,000-year history of the church.

But the question that arises for us familiar with Church history is whether the bar is being excessively lowered for sainthood? Is there really proof that these two popes deserve to be canonized, or is it being done for ulterior motives? Say to enthrall the faithful and keeping them under the Vatican's tent.   What incites these questions are the circumstances as well as the popes themselves.

The path to sainthood for John Paul II, for example,  was the fastest in modern history, raising eyebrows among traditionalists for packing a painstaking process that can sometimes take centuries into nine incredibly short years.  It also has raised serious eyebrows for those aware of how John Paul II covered up the sexual abuse cases, in terms of inhibiting the apprehension of the perpetrators as well as the enablers. (J.P. II  actively and knowingly moved around pedophile padres to avoid their prosecution in numerous jurisdictions, especially in the States. All this is well documented and well known, except perhaps by the speed canonizers who seem not to care how this looks.)

Beyond that, though that ought to be enough to halt the canonization nonsense, Arthur C. Clarke once referred to John Paul II as "the world's most dangerous man".  Why? Because of his active opposition to birth control, setting the stage for mass destitution across the third world, especially Africa - where he wouldn't even condone the use of condoms despite an AIDS-HIV epidemic. Indeed, this was the same disgusting hypocrite who preached that  a Catholic contracting AIDS was a lesser evil than using condoms.

In the case of John XXIII, Francis took what sticklers decry as an even more radical move. He took the unusual step of dispensing with the Vatican’s modern requirement for two vetted and verified miracles to become a saint, elevating him based on a single 1966 case of a nun allegedly cured of gastrointestinal hemorrhaging after appeals to the man known across Italy as “the Good Pope.”  But, of course, no proper medical documentation was forthcoming so we've no remote idea if this was valid or mere hearsay.


Why is Francis so hyped up about creating more saints and how is he able to do it? Vatican experts point to his right to “equipollent canonization” — a papal prerogative to fast-track saints by requiring fewer proven miracles.   But to the critical thinking onlooker it looks more like a bag of tricks designed to rev up the faithful in 'down times'.  The latter would clearly mark the present era  when the Church is losing more people than ever before - especially among the young - in the more developed nations.  So why not pump out more saints to garner attention and perhaps more piety from the faithful?  The effect in any case has been that Francis has invoked the doctrine more times than any other pontiff since Leo XIII, who served from 1878 to 1903. In three cases, Francis elevated saints without a single confirmed miracle under their virtuous belts.


Why not? Perhaps because - as a former scientist (chemist)- Francis is more aware than any of his predecessors of the "miracle test" of philosopher David Hume.  Hume provided perhaps the best benchmark for what might supposedly be called a "miracle"

 "No testimony is sufficient to establish a miracle, unless the testimony be of such a kind that its falsehood would be more miraculous than the fact which it endeavors to establish."


Consider the miracle claim of  Jesus “walking on water”. Prof. Hugh Schonfeld has a simple explanation for this:  a mistranslation of the Hebrew word “al” which can mean “by” or “on”. So, when a scribe really wrote “walking by the water” it was translated to “walking on the water”.

Applying the Hume test, one is led to ask:  Is the Schonfeld claim of mistranslation MORE or LESS miraculous than a man actually violating the law of gravity and walking on water?  It doesn’t require a lot of thought or effort to see that the mistranslation of a passage of the New Testament is LESS miraculous (or if you prefer, less improbable) than that a man actually, literally walked on water. Francis then could have applied the same standards to John Paul II's claimed miracles - especially the first where it was far more plausible that Sister Simon-Pierre enjoyed a partial, somewhat improbable recovery from her condition, than that J.P. II effected a nonlocal "cure" from the grave. But let us hasten to emphasize that Francis' recognition of the severe constraints on modern day miracles does not merit invoking equipollent canonization to generate saints a dime a dozen.

According to Rev. Peter Gumpel, a senior Vatican figure and church historian:

“I know the Holy Father well enough to know that he believes in miracles, as we all do, but the question is simply and purely, should we require the confirmation of miracles for saints?”

Well, in conformance with previous standards, yes. Else the process and the spiritual form has receded into insignificance. Any human can then be thought of as a 'saint' if he or she is a reasonably good person. Special canonization by a pope is merely window dressing. The other aspect to this is whether the knowledgeable faithful would really put John Paul II in the same class as St. Perpetua or St. Sebastian.

Incredibly, a certain enclave in the Church is completely in favor of tossing out all historical sainthood standards and  lowering the bar. They insist that such a move could "open the door to more and faster-made saints, who tend to serve as public relations dynamos for the faith" in their countries of origin — a fact seen as a huge bonus as the Vatican casts its eye on fast growth in Africa and Asia.  In other words, when all is said and done it comes down to public relations, nothing more. The Church is merely invested in publicly projecting a more superstitious image to garner more primitive minds, in primitive lands.


Left unsaid is that such lowering of the bar could also pave the way to the quicker elevation of potential "blockbuster saints"  such as Mother Teresa. Much better not to inform people that the good Mother simply kept people in a state of dependency in Calcutta but never really addressed their physical needs. Also, keep hidden the unsavory backing of S&L slime ball Charles Keating. "No we don't wanna go there! We want our saints with no questionable ties!"

Sounding a more rational warning note is John Thavis, author of “The Vatican Diaries":

"Francis has caused some apprehension among the Vatican saint-makers, who see the pope waving his hand and saying we don’t need to follow these rules as much. They are saying, ‘We need to be very careful about how we do this.’ ”


Indeed, because it could backfire and result in even more people leaving the Church - having been able to see through the PR stunts. And if a religion requires PR stunts to survive then how much credibility  does it really have? If popes can manufacture saints at will to pump up piety, perhaps the doctrine of "infallibility" is also just a huge historical PR maneuver.

Perhaps the best analogy yet to what Francis is doing  - in terms of mass-saint making - was expressed by Rev. Marc Lindeijer, a senior church official in Rome who compiles ­cases and serves as an advocate for prospective saints. He compared elevating saints without vetted miracles to "allowing everyone  who plays baseball to be a major league baseball player.”


“I believe in quality rather than quantity,” Lindeijer said.

He later added, “Even if you are the president of the United States or Bill Gates, you can’t buy a miracle. Miracles are a great protection of justice, a sign of approval from God.”

Other observers say Francis, like many before him, is simply cherry-picking favorites, fast-tracking select candidates to save them from a Vatican bureaucracy with a backlog of thousands. In many ways, Francis is indeed  just continuing the legacy of John Paul II, who changed the rules in 1983 to require fewer proven miracles and ended up proclaiming 482 saints — more than in the previous 600 years combined. Maybe JP II figured that by jiggering the rules back then he'd stand a better chance himself of making the cut when the time came. Helped along in this, Benedict XVI, a fellow conservative and longtime confidant of John Paul II, championed his cause by dropping the traditional five-year waiting period to begin the process of sainthood. Neat!


But one of the saddest observations emerging amidst all the hype this week has been that despite John Paul II turning a blind eye to widespread reports of sexual abuse within the church, the "pressure to canonize him was so great that it would have been next to impossible for Francis to avoid it."   So the "pressure to canonize" trumps moral or ethical rectitude?  If that doesn't define the meaning of blasphemous I don't know what does. But in any case, it's at least a morally dubious expedient: clean the guy's history and neglect by elevating him to "sainthood." Then once the reprobate attains saint status, accountability no longer matters. He's ascended to such a rarefied realm that normal moral (and historical)  responsibility becomes passé and the faithful's piety has been jazzed up too. Heck, it's a win-win.

In the end, the whole farce of mass sainthood merely shows us the sterility of religions and how public relations has come to more and more replace whatever residue of spirituality they once had. This is especially the case with the Roman Catholic Church, and is also one reason why it may never be united with any other Christian sects. (The belief that Catholics can directly pray to saints to intercede with God on their behalf remains a fundamental division between them and many Protestants.)

Another danger not yet on the radar of the easy saint makers is that if more saints are created without vetted miracles,  the glow of the faith could fade for millions of Catholics who turn to saints in times of need. One would then behold a religion that had some degree of consistent canon and standards turn into one more cult, in this case a saint worshipping cult.
 
All of which confirms the wisdom of scientific Materialism and the benefits of atheism!
 

Pope John Paul II: Ersatz Sainthood, Anyone?

I had high hopes that Pope Francis, hailing from a scientific (chemistry)background, wouldn't fall for the folly of "sainthood". Let's be clear that this is all supernatural mumbo -jumbo and no one - be he pontiff, king or potentate, has any business deifying any mere mortal with this patently absurd term. Least of all, Pope John Paul II.  Yet, Francis appears to have succumbed to the cries and swoons of the "faithful" to give them this guy as a new saint.

According to the UK Guardian in a report this morning:

"The Vatican said the Argentinian pontiff had decided that the late pope John XXIII, who opened the landmark Second Vatican Council in 1962, should also be canonised, despite no second miracle having been approved in his case."

Note that the standard path to sainthood has always required two "miracles" - but in the case of John Paul II, even the first one attributed to him looks suspect. The original claim involves one Sister Marie Simon -Pierre (a nun of the Congregation of the Little Sisters) from Parkinson's Disease. The claim is that Sr. Simon-Pierre awakened one morning, 2 months after John Paul's death, to discover all her symptoms were gone. She insisted she'd prayed to the dead Pope and he "answered my prayers".

Maybe, but maybe not! While she does remain symptom-free there are loads more possible explanations for her recovery than that some dead pontiff performed or enabled a "miracle". The most plausible is that she never had Parkinson's disease in the first place. The only objective clinical diagnosis, in fact, rests on the pathology and identification of the accumulation of alpha-synuclein protein forming inclusions called Lewy bodies.

Since this identification requires autopsy, it means that at the very least the beatification phase ought not have progressed until Sr. Simon-Pierre's death. (In which case, canonization is postponed even longer.) Then, careful examination ought to reveal the abatement or diminution of the Lewy bodies. In addition, such examination would confirm she had Parkinson's rather than some other condition.

According to one AP report from two years ago: "Vatican-sponsored doctors simply determined that her cure had no known scientific explanation". But under pressure from the Vatican, how hard did they really look? Nice try, but it won't wash! What we need is the actual examination of the nun's brain for the presence of diminished Lewy Bodies (see image in link). That would confirm: a) she did have Parkinson's and b) that the primary source (Lewy bodies) had retreated. Then, the Vatican's medical experts or others could search the archives for any similar cases. If they exist, then what happened to the nun is not a miracle, merely an unusual and improbable happenstance.

Ironically, in the real world the actual plausible cure for Parkinson's rests with stem-call research which the Church foursquare opposes on the grounds that it uses and destroys human embryos. (In fact, the embryos are already allocated for destruction and most of them resulted from natural abortions or miscarriages).

Back to the Guardian report:

"No dates were given, but the ceremonies are expected to take place by the end of the year. There is some speculation that John Paul's could be scheduled for 22 October, his feast day and the anniversary of the liturgical inauguration of his 27-year-long papacy in 1978. Equally, however, 8 December – the feast of the immaculate conception – has been suggested as a fitting date.


The rapid process by which Karol Wojtyła has been propelled towards sainthood will be welcomed by many of the world's 1.2 billion Roman Catholics, who regard him as a towering figure who hastened the collapse of communism, encouraged inter-faith dialogue and brought charisma to the church."


The Guardian also aptly pointed out:

"But it is likely to be met with anger among his critics, including those who cite his record in handling the clerical sex abuse scandal. Some of them believe he should never be made a saint, let alone less than a decade after his death."

More disturbing is the evidence that J.P. II  actively and knowingly moved around pedophile padres to avoid their prosecution in numerous jurisdictions. When he died, that stratagem was passed on to "Pope Rat" aka Joseph Ratzinger. So how does such an action make this guy a "saint"? Maybe Francis needs to look again at the trove of documents which - if anything - don't support assigning any such label.

Arthur C. Clarke once referred to John Paul II as "the world's most dangerous man".  Why? Because of his active opposition to birth control, setting the stage for mass suffering across the third world, especially Africa - where he wouldn't even condone the use of condoms despite an AIDS-HIV epidemic. Indeed, this was the same disgusting hypocrite who preached that Catholics contracting AIDS was a lesser evil than using condoms.

AIDS! A disease of horrific and debilitating suffering! How is this guy remotely considered a "saint" as opposed to devil in disguise? Consider the implications just for this policy in Africa where nearly a fifth of the population of the continent are Catholics and where over 22 million people are living with HIV.

Apart from all these considerations, philosopher David Hume provided perhaps the best benchmark for what might supposedly be called a "miracle"

 "No testimony is sufficient to establish a miracle, unless the testimony be of such a kind that its falsehood would be more miraculous than the fact which it endeavors to establish."

Consider the miracle claim of  Jesus “walking on water”. Prof. Hugh Schonfeld has a simple explanation for this:  a mistranslation of the Hebrew word “al” which can mean “by” or “on”. So, when a scribe really wrote “walking by the water” it was translated to “walking on the water”.

Applying the Hume test, one is led to ask:  Is the Schonfeld claim of mistranslation MORE or LESS miraculous than a man actually violating the law of gravity and walking on water?  It doesn’t require a lot of thought or effort to see that the mistranslation of a passage of the New Testament is LESS miraculous (or if you prefer, less improbable) than that a man actually, literally walked on water.

The same standards can be applied to Pope John Paul II's claimed miracles - especially the first - since no second miracle was found, so the Church has evidently violated its own standards and definitions for "sainthood". In the case of the first, it is far more plausible that Sr. Simon-Pierre enjoyed a partial, somewhat improbable recovery from her condition, than that J.P. II effected a nonlocal "cure" from the grave.

The Church's faithful also firmly believe that J.P. II did more than anyone to "bring down communism"  - but this is more ineffable bollocks and codswallop. The actual person most responsible (and it wasn't Ronnie Ray-gun) was Mikhail Gorbachev! See the book 'The Untold History of the United States' or hell - just investigate the downfall of the former Soviet Union on your own. Don't take my word for it!

But in the end, the 1.2 billion R.C. faithful will believe what they want. And hey, if it takes the flock's collective mind off the sexual travesties committed by padres the past 50 years (including on my brother John, btw) then so much the better!