The Pope's plainsong of self-righteousness

[emad]

Good to see that Reasoned Thought still prevails when assessing JP2's pontificate:

Writing in the UK's Times, Simon Jenkins:


<snip>

The Vatican may, as Stalin said, have no divisions, but the Pope’s customary riposte is forceful: that he has no need of them. He exerts power over states that acknowledge his authority, from Ireland to the Philippines, and over a billion proclaimed adherents. He has power. This power may, according to papal theology, be accountable in the world hereafter. But it is exerted in the here and now. Here and now should it be judged......

Hundreds of millions of people find comfort and security in the Roman Catholic faith. Nothing can detract from that. To many the Pope’s homilies may seem unctuous, indeed vacuous, and his encyclicals and “decisions” reactionary. But solace can be found even in platitude, as Tony Blair’s audiences attest. ..........Having just returned from the sites of the Albigensian crusade with a biography of Hitler’s Pope in my bag, I might have imagined the modern papacy to be guarding its authority in a measure of humility and tolerance.......

Not so. John Paul II remains aggressively conservative.......The Pope’s homilies may uplift the spirit, but where he proclaims dogma his precepts become archaic and cruel. Some are none of my business. It is not my business when the Pope tells Catholic women that they may never become priests. A male priesthood is apparently “irrevocable, irreformable, infallible”, as well as probably illegal. It is not my business that the Pope regards homosexuality as an abomination. I grant him the right of free speech. When he insists on clerical celibacy I merely hope he can find enough applicants. When he turns a blind eye to the scandal of clerical paedophilia I put it down to professional hypocrisy. But when the Pope tells a billion people that contraception is “intrinsically evil”, I am more inclined to join the battle. Catholicism’s denial of one of humanity’s greatest liberations, the fearless enjoyment of sex, seems the mere asceticism of a sect. It is disregarded by the majority of Catholics. The thesis that sexual pleasure exists solely to encourage procreation and that procreation must be unrestricted defies all modern experience. Yet, in countries where Catholic doctrine holds politics in a vice, it forces poor women to endure unlimited pregnancy and confines abortion (like divorce) to those who can pay to go abroad. This is what I call intrinsically evil........

The Pope’s opinions are drawn, like most doctrine, selectively from Holy Writ over time. They affect the life and prosperity of millions. Yet he is subject to no accountability and permits no debate or argument. Medical, social and pastoral judgments are cloaked in “infallibility”, a concept that was accepted by the Church as absolute only at the Vatican Council of 1870. The Pope is a fierce opponent of “reform theology”, doubtless for fear that such free thinking might stray from theology into the day-to-day conduct of human affairs......The intellectual achievement of the 20th century was to move public debate out of this anti-rationalist rut. Suppose I were to regard the Pope as confused? Suppose his binding moral truths are different from mine? What of those who regard his view of homosexuality, contraception and Aids deeply, even “bindingly”, immoral? There is an answer to this question, embedded in the Western rationalist tradition. It is open debate in a climate of mutual respect. Historically it bypasses the Catholic Church and goes back to Socratic Athens. It exhorts us to acknowledge the complexity of human society and the evolution of its rules and customs, without branding those with whom we disagree as evil or abominable or morally disordered. The Pope tolerates no such debate.

<snip>
http://www.timesonline.co.uk/article/0,,482-857289,00.html

[dofus]

1. Every time I hear the notion expressed

that sexual pleasure is only for the purpose of procreation, I wonder if couples who cannot procreate (let alone those who willingly won't) ought to divorce, or never marry in the first place.

In other words, how idiotic! This is one of the many reasons I long ago left the Catholic Church, and have never joined any other. I prefer to think for myself, thank you very much.

[ablbodyed]

2. I won't go into my usual diatribe against ORGANIZED religion,...

except to point out that NO MATTER WMAT, the perpetration of the organization is paramount. Even tha best of those IN the orgs. have to protect the investment. Some good does get done (often by p caths whom the pope opposes) but it is by chance or is a VERY secondary goal. EMBRACE SPIRITUALITY; REJECT RELIGION.

[emad]

3. Absolutely nothing wrong with 'usual diatribes'

just love the ones that follow the trail of organised religion = organised crime, hehe!....................

[sandlapper]

4. Not your usual diatribe?

Sounds very much to me as though the only complaint you have with "organized religion" is that not EVERYONE has chosen yours!

[Skittles]

6. see

where the f*** did you get THAT from? Not even CLOSE.

[sandlapper]

5. The Church does have an answer!

The Catholic Church, in common with all Christian churches, believes in Virgin Birth. Fertility is not required for conception, therefore any sexual union of a man and a woman may produce conception if it is God's Will.

[mmonk]

7. Actually,

I detest religious hatred. I guess many of you have never had a cross burned in your yard before. Having grown up Catholic and first told I was going to hell when I was a child by an adult Protestant, you might say I got an early taste of it. By the way, Hitler persecuted Catholics, said Martin Luther was the father of Germany, and the Church slipped more Jewish Germans out of the country than western relief agencies.

Also, anti-Catholic laws remained on the books of many states even after the Emancipation Proclamation. Anti-Catholic books still are found in "Christian" bookstores as well as local secular bookstores. Its the last acceptable prejudice in American society (and British) shared by both the fundamentalist right and the American left.

While I don't agree with all the Church's teachings, I'm still sensitive to the hatred towards the church. I'm also sensitive to the hypocrisy. I'm not even religious. It's just when bigotry makes itself present, I don't stay silent.

[Liberator_Rev]

8. Catholics & the Holocaust

MMonk, You claim: "By the way, Hitler persecuted Catholics, said Martin Luther was the father of Germany, and the Church slipped more Jewish Germans out of the country than western relief agencies."

Let's have a dose of reality, shall we?

1)Adolf Hitler was raised as a devout Catholic, grew away from the Church AS MANY CATHOLICS DO, but considered it NECESSARY to his cause to be perceived as a Catholic in good standing, and the Church NEVER excommunicated Hitler, nor any of Hitler's most important assistants and allies. While Mein Kampf was competing with the Bible as Germany's best seller, the Catholic Church never used the tool it had always used to direct the faithful not to read dangerous literature. It never put it on the "Index of Forbidden Books".

2) Where do you think Hitler got all the millions of "associates" as Wal-Mart would call them? From Mars? From "western relief agencies". Not from the Jewish or the Jehovah Witness communities. No! Hitler recruited them from the Christian citizens of his country, something like 50% of them Lutherans and 40% Catholics. Far from warning Catholics NOT to help Hitler, they were told that it was their duty as Catholics to obey their civil leaders, to the point where a total of only 7 individuals refused to serve in Hitler's armed services and several of these were denied the sacraments for doing so.

For MUCH, MUCH more, see
http://www.LiberalsLikeChrist.Org/RCscandal