LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY sunfell)

This Salon article goes into detail about the new Pope and the President, and how they would like to run the world:

The new pope's burning passion is to resurrect medieval authority. He equates the Western liberal tradition, that is, the Enlightenment, with Nazism, and denigrates it as "moral relativism." He suppresses all dissent, discussion and debate within the church and concentrates power within the Vatican bureaucracy. His abhorrence of change runs past 1968 (an abhorrence he shares with George W. Bush) to the revolutions of 1848, the "springtime of nations," and 1789, the French Revolution. But, even more momentously, the alignment of the pope's Kulturkampf with the U.S. president's culture war has also set up a conflict with the American Revolution.

For the first time, an American president is politically allied with the Vatican in its doctrinal mission (except, of course, on capital punishment). In the messages and papers of the presidents from George Washington until well into those of the 20th century, there was not a single mention of the pope, except in one minor footnote. Bush's lobbying trip last year to the Vatican reflects an utterly novel turn, and Ratzinger's direct political intervention in American electoral politics ratified it.( Read more... )

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY sunfell)

This article has another timely criticism of the Dominionists. In Christ's time, they were called "Pharisees". Christ didn't have a lot of good things to say about them. I would doubt that he'd hold today's Dominionists in high esteem, either.

Pharisee Nation

American Nation Brainwashed

by John Dear

02/17/05 "CommonDreams" - - Last September, I spoke to some 2,000 students during their annual lecture at a Baptist college in Pennsylvania. After a short prayer service for peace centered on the Beatitudes, I took the stage and got right to the point. “Now let me get this straight,” I said. “Jesus says, ‘Blessed are the peacemakers,’ which means he does not say, ‘Blessed are the warmakers,’ which means, the warmakers are not blessed, which means warmakers are cursed, which means, if you want to follow the nonviolent Jesus you have to work for peace, which means, we all have to resist this horrific, evil war on the people of Iraq.”

With that, the place exploded, and 500 students stormed out. The rest of them then started chanting, “Bush! Bush! Bush!”

So much for my speech. Not to mention the Beatitudes.

I was not at all surprised that George W. Bush was reelected president. As I travel the country speaking out against war, injustice and nuclear weapons, I see many people consciously siding with the culture of war, choosing the path of violence, supporting corporate greed, rampant militarism, and global domination. I see many others swept up in the raging current of patriotism. Since most of these people, beginning with the president, claim to be Christian, I am ashamed and appalled that they support war and systemic injustice, that they do it in the name of God, and that they feign fidelity to the nonviolent Jesus who gave his life resisting institutionalized injustice. ( Read more... )

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY sunfell)

This article talks about the very serious consequences of Dominionist rule of the government:

There are times when what we journalists see and intend to write about dispassionately sends a shiver down the spine, shaking us from our neutrality. This has been happening to me frequently of late as one story after another drives home the fact that the delusional is no longer marginal but has come in from the fringe to influence the seats of power. We are witnessing today a coupling of ideology and theology that threatens our ability to meet the growing ecological crisis. Theology asserts propositions that need not be proven true, while ideologues hold stoutly to a world view despite being contradicted by what is generally accepted as reality. The combination can make it impossible for a democracy to fashion real-world solutions to otherwise intractable challenges.

In the just-concluded election cycle, as Mark Silk writes in Religion in the News,

the assiduous cultivation of religious constituencies by the Bush apparat, and the undisguised intrusion of evangelical leaders and some conservative Catholic hierarchs into the presidential campaign, demonstrated that the old rule of maintaining a decent respect for the nonpartisanship of religion can now be broken with impunity.

The result is what the Italian scholar Emilio Gentile, quoted in Silk's newsletter, calls "political religion"—religion as an instrument of political combat. On gay marriage and abortion— the most conspicuous of the "non-negotiable" items in a widely distributed Catholic voter's guide—no one should be surprised what this political religion portends. The agenda has been foreshadowed for years, ever since Jerry Falwell, Pat Robertson, and other right-wing Protestants set out to turn white evangelicals into a solid Republican voting bloc and reached out to make allies of their former antagonists, conservative Catholics.

What has been less apparent is the impact of the new political religion on environmental policy. Evangelical Christians have been divided. Some were indifferent. The majority of conservative evangelicals, on the other hand, have long hooked their view to the account in the first book of the Bible:

So God created man in his own image, in the image of God he created him; male and female he created them. And God blessed them, and God said to them, "Be fruitful and multiply, and fill the earth and subdue it; and have dominion over the fish of the sea and over the birds of the air and over every living thing that moves upon the earth."

There are widely varying interpretations of this text, but it is safe to say that all presume human beings have inherited the earth to be used as they see fit. For many, God's gift to Adam and Eve of "dominion" over the earth and all its creatures has been taken as the right to unlimited exploitation. But as Blaine Harden reported recently in The Washington Post, some evangelicals are beginning to "go for the green." Last October the National Association of Evangelicals adopted an "Evangelical Call to Civic Responsibility," affirming that "God-given dominion is a sacred responsibility to steward the earth and not a license to abuse the creation of which we are a part." The declaration acknowledged that for the sake of clean air, clean water, and adequate resources, the government "has an obligation to protect its citizens from the effects of environmental degradation."

But even for green activists in evangelical circles, Harden wrote, "there are landmines."

Welcome to the Rapture!

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY sunfell)

This Salon (day pass or subscription required) article talks about the Christian Right's interference in what should be a private affair:

"This has nothing to do with the sanctity of life"

The Rev. John Paris, professor of bioethics, says Terri Schiavo has the moral and legal right to die, and only the Christian right is keeping her alive.

***

So what do you think this case is really about?

The power of the Christian right. This case has nothing to do with the legal issues involving a feeding tube. The feeding tube issue was definitively resolved by the U.S. Supreme Court in 1990 in Cruzan vs. Director. The United States Supreme Court ruled that competent patients have the right to decline any and all unwanted treatment, and unconscious patients have the same right, depending upon the evidentiary standard established by the state. And Florida law says that Terri Schiavo has more than met the standard in this state. So there is no legal issue. ( Read more... )

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY brigidsblest)

Pharisee Nation

by John Dear

Last September, I spoke to some 2,000 students during their annual lecture at a Baptist college in Pennsylvania. After a short prayer service for peace centered on the Beatitudes, I took the stage and got right to the point. “Now let me get this straight,” I said. “Jesus says, ‘Blessed are the peacemakers,’ which means he does not say, ‘Blessed are the warmakers,’ which means, the warmakers are not blessed, which means warmakers are cursed, which means, if you want to follow the nonviolent Jesus you have to work for peace, which means, we all have to resist this horrific, evil war on the people of Iraq.”

With that, the place exploded, and 500 students stormed out. The rest of them then started chanting, “Bush! Bush! Bush!”

So much for my speech. Not to mention the Beatitudes.

( read more... )

Cross-posted to my own journal. The original article may be found at:
http://www.commondreams.org/views05/0215-21.htm

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY sunfell)

This article from Yahoo News is interesting:

Samanthapettai, Jan 16 (ANI): Rage and fury has gripped this tsunami-hit tiny Hindu village in India's southern Tamil Nadu after a group of Christian missionaries allegedly refused them aid for not agreeing to follow their religion.

Samanthapettai, near the temple town of Madurai, faced near devastation on the December 26 when massive tidal waves wiped it clean of homes and lives.

Most of the 200 people here are homeless or displaced , battling to rebuild lives and locating lost family members besides facing risks of epidemic,disease and trauma.

Jubilant at seeing the relief trucks loaded with food, clothes and the much-needed medicines the villagers, many of who have not had a square meal in days, were shocked when the nuns asked them to convert before distributing biscuits and water.

Heated arguments broke out as the locals forcibly tried to stop the relief trucks from leaving. The missionaries, who rushed into their cars on seeing television reporters and the cameras refusing to comment on the incident and managed to leave the village.

Disappointed and shocked into disbelief the hapless villagers still await aid.

"Many NGOs (volunteer groups) are extending help to us but there in our village the NGO, which was till now helping us is now asking us to follow the Christian religion. We are staunch followers of Hindu religion and refused their request. And after that these people with their aid materials are leaving the village without distributing that to us," Rajni Kumar, a villager said.

The incident is an exception to concerted charity in a catastrophe that has left no one untouched.(ANI)

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY seshen)

Could the church have its head up its sphincter any further? To deny a holy sacrament over INGREDIENTS?

8-year-old's first Holy Communion invalidated by Church

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY hagazusa)

I never thought it would happen to me!

For the start, I'm a very sceptical person, not easily swayed or influenced by stuff I don't care about. But this experience was very weird.

This happened on my Swiss vacation. I was in Sankt Gallen, visiting the famous library at the monastery there. The monastery dates from the 7th century, I believe, founded by Gallus, a wandering Irish missionary who fell over and found himself face to face with a bear. This he interpreted as a message from God to found a monastery in the wilderness. At least that's the legend.

The existing library at the monastery dates from the 17th century and is decorated in a high baroque style with fanastic paintings on the ceilings. It's visually beautiful. They make you wear felt slippers over your shoes so you don't dirty or dent their beautiful parquet floor. And they have one of the biggest and most impressive collections of original medieval, handcopied (by monks, of course) manuscripts, including one of the original medieval copies of the Nibelungenlied, and Boetius' Consolation of Philosophy (in the original Latin, of course). They had an Irish gospel with calligraphy, scrollwork, and painted illustrations, as beautiful as the Book of Kells.

Most of the books were locked in their cabinets, but the ones I mentioned and many others were displayed in glass cases.

So why was this a dark experience? I love books, love old libraries, and haven't had any previous bad experiences with monasteries. I used to teach in a Catholic girls school run by nuns.

But from the moment I walked up the stairs and into the library, I felt something weird catching hold of me, like a forcefield holding me in its fist. I shrugged it off, paid my entrance ticket, and went in. It was fine until one of the staff gave a talk to all the assembled tourists about the library's history. Instead of giving the usual sort of tourist information or talk about the most famous or rare volumes, he talked about the role of the monastaries as centers of education (about the only place you could get an education or find books in the Middle Ages) and as keepers of the Truth. The One Truth. Their role, he said, was to guard against false beliefs and heretics. Then he explained the paintings on the ceiling and I saw, for the first time, for all their beauty, how violent and gory they were. He pointed out the figure of a heretic being struck by lightening and killed. He spoke disparagingly of the Reformation. If the monastery possessed books by Zwingli and Luther (and further infidels such as Islamic and Jewish writers), it was only to know the enemy. He was so filled with self-righteousness and, I have to say it, hate, so convinced that his truth was the only truth.

And this fanaticism in a secular age, in a country which has been traditionally regarded as a haven for religious freedom and tolerance.

That's when I began to comprehend the "force field" that I perceived when I entered the place. This was a hostile place, a hateful place. Not a good place for me to be.

And think about it: monks like this were the ones who wrote down our surviving Germanic Heathen and Celtic Pagan texts: the Eddas and the Mabinogian, the Irish myths. The monks controlled all learning, all knowledge, all literature and its disemination in their era. How much of our lore did they convolute, twist, obscure, censor, and otherwise manipulate?

I felt quite sick at the end of his little lecture. My husband, who had an agnostic upbringing could laugh it off, but I was raised in a strict Catholic household and the hate sank into me like a hook. That night I had nightmares of being pursued by priests. Like I said before, this sort of thing rarely happens to me. I am a grown up skeptic.

But this makes me very very glad I live in a secular society. For me freedom FROM religion is as important as freedom of religion.

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY zoethe)

The Pope is canonizing again (Slogan: "More Saints Than Ever Before!"), and among his choices for Sainthood is an Italian pediatrician who did nothing more than die because she refused to abort a fetus that was threatening her life.

Once again, the message of the church is loud and clear: the women don't matter; only the unborn do.

I used to be fairly staunchly pro-life. The first crack in that belief came in a conversation I was having with a Catholic relative who was also a physician and I mentioned that a Catholic friend of mine, whose first three children had been delivered by c-section, had just gone through a tough time because an ultrasound had revealed that the baby she'd been carrying was ancephalic and would not live more than a day or two, but that the doctors had induced her at 30 weeks so she could deliver the baby rather than having to go through surgery again and how much it meant to her to have delivered naturally and had a chance to hold her son and have him baptized.

"That was wrong," this relative growled. "It's just like an abortion."

"You mean that they should have let her carry a child who wasn't going to live all the way to term and have to go through surgery again? What about the mother's health."

"It doesn't matter. It was an abortion, and they shouldn't have done it."

In other words, the health of the women means nothing, even when the unborn child cannot live.

In the case of the woman being cannonized, she had a tumor in her uterus that the doctors told her would kill her unless it was removed, a procedure that would necessarily cost her the fetus. She chose to follow the church, which preaches that it is far better for her to leave this child and her other three children without a mother, far better for her to die, than for the child to die. That she has no value outside of her role as baby-making vessel.

And now the Pope is holding her on high for a choice that no doubt brought grief to all her children. She is credited with miracles of birth. The Vatican apparently sees no problem with this view of women.

I look back on the time when I was trying to change the church from the inside, deeply involved in the focus groups on women's rights.

I was so naive....

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY seshen)

A man claiming he was God and said he was "going to save everyone from idol worship" went on a rampage that destroyed a number of old statues in San Antonio's San Fernando Cathedral. Archbishop Patrick Flores said he was "depressed" and "I couldn't help but cry" over the destruction. This is the same man who brushed off the child-molestation scandal plaguing the church, actually getting angry in a videotape deposition .

Someone here is not living in reality, and someone is connected to God's message. Guess which one is which, IMHO?

Full story of the statue destruction here .

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY seshen)

Since Pope John Paul II seems to be in rapidly declining health, I thought a look at prophecies about the last popes and the Catholic church would be interesting. Enjoy.

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY seshen)

"The Magdalene Sisters"

It is the story of a church whose theology of Eve could justify the destruction of women to ‘save’ their souls. Labeled temptresses because men could not control their own sexual urges, Irish women were sent away to the laundries--many of them for life--for being pregnant out of wedlock, for being independent, for being flirtatious. It’s the story of what happens to women when they are made invisible in a world that wreaks on its women a morality and theology written only by men.

LJ-SEC: (ORIGINALLY POSTED BY seshen)

Sex Crimes Cover-Up By Vatican?

(CBS) For decades, priests in this country abused children in parish after parish while their superiors covered it all up. Now it turns out the orders for this cover up were written in Rome at the highest levels of the Vatican. The confidential Vatican document, obtained by CBS News, lays out a church policy that calls for absolute secrecy when it comes to sexual abuse by priests - anyone who speaks out could be thrown out of the church.