the Pope has crossed over

the Pope has passed into the netherworld. Post your thoughts, ramblings, etc.

 

He should be in a Better place now.

I hope Folks keep this in Mind...

 

about time.

 

I will never forgive the papacy, ever.

 

I did. Catholics did a lot of wrong to eastern orthodox, but John Paul II washed all the sins of the past.

 

What's a matter Mui?
Still bitter about John Paul II's strong moral stance against Communism that ultimately helped to bring down the Iron Curtain across Europe without firing a single shot?


R.I.P. good man.

 

Lmao, no, you are quick to make ignorant judgements though... how about holy wars, raping of cultures, religious indoctrination in third world countries, stance against contraception, and hundreds of years of persecuting 'heretics' and atheists..

The catholic church proves ever more that christian churches exist to make money and establish themselves as emporers with reign over the world.

 

Why the fuck do you give a shit, what happened to the people youve never even known, or heard of a 100 or a thousand years ago, you never even knew anything of it till you were probably 14 or 15, and yet you let it bother you??

What makes you so goddamn self-righteous? think yourself high and mighty just because you think "Well they did all this bad shit so many many many long years before i was ever born, so they must be evil, so forget all the good and fuck em", i mean since your so smart tell me of all the evil things that Pope John Paul II did to deserve a disrespectful remark like yours.

id like to hear of his reign of terror from your point of view
as far as im concerned what has happened in the past cannot be forgotten, but people who refuse to let go of ancient history and let the future progress are only doing the world more harm

 

I hope you all know that you will never agree about religion.

just thought I'd jump in early

 

Only the holy wars were so far long ago... some of my issues against the church were of things that just came up recently... but still the past does mean a lot... why should i trust the papacy when theyve been so irrational in the past? it really wasnt that long ago when the church was condeming unchristian religions... and still today they spread their gospel in third world countries promising them that it will help them, which I think destroys the countries culture.

Its not Pope John Paul II I have anything much against, its the Papacy in general... he wasnt the worst pope, and there is no such thing as a good pope. being pope is just another position of power.

the catholic church is still to this day completely irrational, still fucking up cultures and misleading people to this day... what reason do i have to respect the catholic church?

 

i gotta agree with mui on this one. just another dictator...

 

+2

 

The Pope VS. Liberation Theology by Holger Henke
www.dc.indymedia.org



02 Apr 2005
In the late 1960s many Latin American clerics engaged in a more rigorous interpretation of the Bible. As they read it, it is a call to all Christians to concern themselves actively with the material depression and oppression of the large marginalised sectors of the population in their countries, who do not profit from any "trickle down" of a growing national product. The little crumbs falling from the tables of the rich did, for various reasons, did not lift them out of their state of material deprivation. (We may add that the currently advertised brand of "democratisation" in the region is not likely to achieve this either - see e.g., William I. Robinson, Promoting Polyarchy. Globalisation, US Intervention, and Hegemony Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996). This brand of Bible interpretation soon became known - and feared by the powers that be - as "liberation theology." Liberation theology bases its considerations on God's word in the Bible before he led the people out of Egypt: "I have heard the cry of my people." Consequently more priests involved themselves in politically organising the poor and speaking out against what they regarded as imperialist domination by international financial institutions, exploitation by multinationals and the collaboration of their domestic elites with them. It is not so much our concern here that some of the current Pope's predecessors used to celebrate sumptuous feasts while the wails of pain of the tortured "infidels" resounded through the corridors of the Vatican. It is far more important that today, in 1998 A.D., the Roman Catholic Church's exegesis and official policy still aim to muzzle the the world's poor. The US security policy in the Western Hemisphere has in the past actively supported, if not even caused, this attitude.

Let us make no mistake, the Pope is concerned about poverty and he says so too, sometimes. As former Jamaican Archbishop Samuel Carter related to me, he had personally heard the Pope voice his concern that the effects of unbridled capitalism may eventually weigh heavier on the common wealth than the past misdemeanours of atheist communism. He must know, for he grew up known as Karol Wojtyla in communist Poland.

However, the Pope's occasional utterings do not yet amount to the official policy line of the Vatican and this is precisely the source of the Roman Catholic hypocrisy. Let us look at some background facts. In the late 1960s many Latin American clerics engaged in a more rigorous interpretation of the Bible. As they read it, it is a call to all Christians to concern themselves actively with the material depression and oppression of the large marginalised sectors of the population in their countries, who do not profit from any "trickle down" of a growing national product. The little crumbs falling from the tables of the rich did, for various reasons, did not lift them out of their state of material deprivation. (We may add that the currently advertised brand of "democratisation" in the region is not likely to achieve this either - see e.g., William I. Robinson, Promoting Polyarchy. Globalisation, US Intervention, and Hegemony Cambridge: Cambridge University Press, 1996). This brand of Bible interpretation soon became known - and feared by the powers that be - as "liberation theology." Liberation theology bases its considerations on God's word in the Bible before he led the people out of Egypt: "I have heard the cry of my people." Consequently more priests involved themselves in politically organising the poor and speaking out against what they regarded as imperialist domination by international financial institutions, exploitation by multinationals and the collaboration of their domestic elites with them. The German theologian Dorothee Soelle summarised the underlying rationale of liberation theology the following way: "I think by growing deaf for the cry of the poor we also make ourselves dumb. If we allow the dream that all hungry be fed - an age-old dream, a dream of mankind common to all religions - to be ruled out, we break with God. And I think that our era is aiming precisely at prohibiting the dream that all hungry will be fed."

Soon after the Latin American Catholics started to promote this line of reasoning and exegesis, the Vatican began to counter this new trend which it found far too political. Thus, it installed more conservative clerics, like Cardinal Lopez Trujillo, in influential positions within the Latin American Catholic Church. These clerics re-interpreted the social message in the Bible and the task of their Church as primarily of a pastoral nature concentrating on spiritual and religious welfare. This strategy gained full momentum when the current Pope, John Paul II, assumed office and appointed the arch-conservative Cardinal Josef Ratzinger to the post of chief interpreter of the Vatican's official policy. Since liberation theology's Biblical foundations are too strong to be renounced, Ratzinger did the "second-best" thing. His re-interpretation claimed that liberation theology is good as long as it confines itself to the "genuinely ecclesiastical task, i.e., the pastoral practice, touching on secular, social questions only secondarily. Consequently, liberation theology was tamed by confining God to the spiritual realm, but not involving Him with the structural limits of political economy. On December 21, 1984 John Paul II expressed concern that liberation theology misused the suffering of the poor "as pretext for a new and sometimes even more burdensome oppression." Up to now these are the deplorable cornerstones of the Roman Catholic Church's official attitude to the material, everyday, real life tribulation of the world's poor. Rejoice, in Heaven the last will be the first. On this basis the Catholic Church started a multi-million dollar media-blitz in Latin America. With the support of state of the art communication systems, it launched an evangelical crusade built on the two major projects "Evangelization 2000" and "Lumen 2000". As the general secretary of the Conference of Latin American Bishops (CELAM), Mons. Oscar Rodriguez, explained in an interview published in "30 Giorni" of the neo-conservative "Comunion Liberation" movement, this campaign tried "to fight the general mis-information on the global level." Among other things, CELAM's new data bank in Bogota started to monitor the movements and statements of liberation theologists and Catholic priests in Latin America.

The United States security policy in the Western hemisphere fastened on the Vatican's interpretation of liberation theology which they perceived as a subversive Marxist strategy aiming at her strong economic and political influence in this region. The infamous "Santa Fe Paper" which was presented in 1980 to the new Reagan Administration as a strategic guideline for US policy in Latin America clearly stated: "American foreign policy must begin to fight and not just react to liberation theology as it is practiced in Latin America by a part of the liberation theology clergy. (...) Unfortunately, marxist-leninist forces have transformed the Church into a political weapon against private property and productive capitalism by infiltrating the religious community with ideas which are more communist than Christian."

The secret documents of the "Conference of the Security Services of the American Armies" for the XVII. Conference of the American Armies (CEA) held in Mar de Plata/Argentina in November 1987 which were leaked to the Church and recently published (Ulrich Duchrow, Gert Eisenburger, and Jochen Hippler [eds.], Totaler Krieg gegen die Armen Chr. Kaiser Publishers, Munich 1989), attempted to give analytical depth to the paranoid fears of the US and Latin American militaries and policy-makers. Thus, they welcomed the Vatican's resolve to "reject and condemn the adulteration of Marxism which subtly indicated the Gramscian stamp on the formation of a new proletarian consciousness and thereby deepened the antagonisms and deviations. (p.146)

Both the US security apparatus and the Roman Catholic Church were therefore engaged in an attempt to marginalise and incriminate the more pro-active, mundane and politically aware interpretation of the scriptures. The Church was obviously afraid to be drawn into worldly political debates which would more clearly and loudly against economic injustice and social oppression. It therefore exhibits today a similar inertia toward burning political problems as under the Nazi regime when the Catholic Church witnessing blatant abuses of fundamental human rights (and, yes, food, clothing and shelter are such!), did not rally any significant resistance. The US suffered (and still does so) from the delusion that speaking out in favour of the poor automatically amounts to a promotion of communism, expropriation or anti-Americanism.

All those, however, who suffer from such political delusions would do good to let themselves be reminded of the words of the (non-liberation) theologist Eugen Drewermann: "... whether in the battle against apartheid in South Africa, whether in the battle against racism amongst influential circles in the US south, ... whether against the absolutely unfair trade conditions on the world market in exchange relations of raw materials and manufactured goods to the permanently aggravating disadvantage of Third and Fourth World countries ... every little 'success' in the fight against injustice, inhumanity and violence, is undoubtedly a little more 'nearness' to the kingdom of heaven which Jesus wanted to bring us. But the paradox exists therefore that there can be no linear, but only a dialectical, relation between the religious message of Jesus and the objectives of political action."

POSTSCRIPT: I was watching a part of the Pope's Sunday (Jan. 25) mass on the popular US news station MSNBC and had to marvel at a comment of one of their reporters who found it prudent to point out that the spectators chose all the pertinent passages in the Pope's address to give their applause. What is hidden behind such a seemingly innocent comment is a widespread ethnocentric attitude which apparently believes that (in this case) Cubans are a bunch of semi-educated and half-witted morons who are not necessarily to be expected to understand what the Pope has to tell them. So much for the objectivity of news in the US media. See also:
http://www.vatican.va
http://pw1.netcom.com/~hhenke/index.htm

 

You're right that we shouldn't spend unnecessary time thinking about ancient history, but that doens't mean we should FORGET or IGNORE it either...I'm sure you've heard the phrase, "those who forget the past are doomed to repeat it".

That's not even the point. The Pope, even though I don't exactly think he was "evil", sustained all of the basic rightwing tenets of the Catholic church: women STILL can only become nuns, priests STILL can't have sex or get married and have a family, gays STILL are not recognized by the Catholic church, there are plenty more "stills" I can say, and I'm sure there are things he's done that I'm not even aware of, but what matters is that the Pope and his clergy did little to nothing to create true progressive social change for the poorest and weakest in the world. He's had his say, now it's time for some new blood. Hopefully the new Pope will help unite all religions together.

May Pope John Paul, the 2nd, rest in peace.

 

That's not true, he helped bring an end to the USSR and therefore brought true progressive social change to millions.

 

Protestant fundamentalists, and I felt some through the posts here, like every religious fanatic, just suck! This is the only comment they deserve, as long they forget the old Latin dicton "about the dead, only the good should be said"! Some good sense people if you're blind enough to not see what this man did and compensate things we might not agree with him, like priest's marriages, usage of countercetives, abortion and divorce!

And for those who are angry about the Pope's contribution to the fall of communism, I saw yesterday a very nice phrase: "Communism killed 100 million people. Let's give it another chance!"

 

If I hear anymore about the crazy bastard dying I'm gonna cross over for Christ sake!

Jesus Christ, thats all I hear and see on television. Tried to find an episode of the Goddamned Flintstones last night to no avail.

Many priests and nuns have slithered in and out of my life over the years and not a one I remember fondly.

My sisters husband had a brother and sister/priest nun duo in his family and never have I come across a more degenerate pair of perverts in my life.

Father Gene had a statue of Saint Peter with his hands clasp together in prayer yet when it was turned around it became an erect penis.

 

Only good should be said about the dead, sandu? Ok then, go extol the virtues of Hitler while youre at it.

I must agree with the poster immediately above. Nothing but endless drivel about another dead figurehead to fuel the cult of celebrity and avoid any obligation for true investigative journalism on issues of ongoing importance to our future (such as the continuing connivance, misdeeds and abuses of power of those who remain very much alive).

Fourth Estate, hah!

 

Bravo Giovani! Well said!

 

Wow, what a bunch of nice, callous people we have here!