Category Archives: Christianity

UPDATE III: Will The ‘Pussy Riot’ Sisterhood Storm The Sistine Chapel? (Opus Dei Smears)

Christianity, Conservatism, Democracy, Gender, Pop-Culture, Religion, Socialism

The following is from the current column, “Will The ‘Pussy Riot’ Sisterhood Storm The Sistine Chapel?”, now on LRC.COM:

“NO TO A ‘SUPERPOWER POPE.’ Mercifully, the new pope is not the Archbishop of New York, Cardinal Timothy Dolan. Shortly after Cardinal Jorge Mario Bergoglio was elected as the 266th pope, Cardinal Dolan demonstrated why my prayers had been answered. The American had been bypassed.

Out of the papal conclave and into the limelight charged the vainglorious Dolan (who, it has to be said, harbored hopes of becoming pope). He then suctioned himself to the television cameras, American style. No other cardinal elector granted interviews on emerging from the Sistine Chapel; they were enjoined to secrecy.

Not the American cardinals. According to the Associated Press, these prolix self-promoters held daily press briefings near the Vatican to a room packed with reporters and television crews.

This was vulgarity, not transparency.

Not for nothing was the vow of silence once considered a test of character and spirituality in Christianity and in other faiths. This universal value has been inverted by American pop culture and pop religion. In the US, a deeply private person is considered defective; a blabbermouth who does and says anything on camera is canonized. …

… American public life is such that even our pick for pope (Dolan) struts his stuff like a “Jersey Shore” reality star.

MORE on why “THE CATHOLIC CHURCH IS ON THE RACK,” in “Will The ‘Pussy Riot’ Sisterhood Storm The Sistine Chapel?”, now on WND.

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UPDATE I: “The Pope and the Injustice of Social Justice” by Jack Kerwick:

…some initial reports of his views on “social justice” most definitely do not sound fine and good. …Whether used by so-called secular “progressives” or Catholic clerics, the call for social justice is the call for a larger, more powerful, more intrusive government. That is, it is the demand for a government that is capable of and willing to confiscate the legally owned resources of some citizens so as to “redistribute” them to others. When social justice is the order of the day, anything other than a robust, activist government is not an option.
It is crucial for everyone, Catholic and non-Catholic alike, to grasp this: social justice and liberty are mutually antithetical.

UPDATE II (15/3): Father Bob Kind of Agrees.

UPDATE III (3/16): Via a LewRockwell reader of “Spared the Sins of a ‘Superpower Pope’” comes this link to a smear of Pope Ratzinger, for opposing the “Injustice of on Social Justice” (see Update I above, for Jack Kerwick’s critique).

The new pope Francis I, it would appear, champions the evils of social justice theory and liberation theology.

He and Barack Obama’s pastor, Rev. Jeremiah Wright.

What the Obamas imbibed from the pulpit of Trinity United Church of Christ for the past 20 years was Black Liberation Theology. “We are an African people, and remain ‘true to our native land,’ the mother continent, the cradle of civilization,” reads a statement of “doxology” on the Church’s site. The church is proud of its separatist “Black Value System.”
Only just retired, Pastor Wright is as central to the Church as is Africa. His “Talking Points” are prominently plastered on Trinity United’s website. There, Wright states that this diverse “doxology” is of a piece with “Hispanic theology, Native American theology, Asian theology and Womanist theology.” (Spot the blanked-out Americans.) A black person in America, moreover, is deemed outside his traditional homeland.

UPDATE II: ‘We Have a Pope’ (Thankful That He is Not The American)

America, Christianity, Natural Law, Religion

Such is the power and majesty of the Catholic Church that the excitement over the election of the new Vicar of Christ is sweeping the world.

All I can say, as an admirer of the Church, is this: I hope the new Pope is not The American (@ 11:08 am.)

More to come.

UPDATE I: Thankful That He is Not The American.

Argentine Italian Jorge Bergoglio, the new Pontiff, is Right on Church doctrine; Left on “social- justice” issues.

UPDATE II: Via Srdja Trifkovic:

Many of us non-RC traditionalist all over the world had awaited the news from Rome with some trepidation. In the end it turned out to be rather good. Pope Francis, the first non-European Bishop of Rome since Gregory III (d. 741), is universally described as “modest” and “moderate”—which is much preferred to the dreaded “bold” or “courageous,” in the sense that those words are used by the global media.
“He lives like a monk in a small apartment, travels by bus, and detests all vanity,” Metropolitan Amfilohije of Montenegro told me when he heard the news. His Grace has visited Buenos Aires repeatedly in recent years as the Orthodox Diocesan Administrator, but he has not met Cardinal Jorge Bergoglio, who was mostly in Rome on those occasions. “I’ve heard from many local people, however, both lay and clergy, that he radiates a burning faith,” says the Metropolitan and adds that his simplicity and compassion for the poor go hand in hand with doctrinal firmness.

The Catholic Church Is On The Rack

Christianity, Criminal Injustice, Pseudoscience, Psychology & Pop-Psychology, Sex

The breakdown of boundaries in society may be one of the main sources of all the rot we see around us, but the Catholic Church will not be permitted to survive in the way it was intended to function: as a hierarchical organization.

The Pontiff likely quit because, brilliant prescient man that Pope Emeritus Benedict XVI is, he knows that the Church is no longer a haven from the toxic tides of populism and liberalism. And he is powerless to stop the avalanche.

The clamoring masses believe that they are every bit as smart as men like Benedict. The faithful, moreover, no longer see themselves as members of a community of believers, but as members of gay, lesbian, feminist, black, brown and plain angry clans. Unless the Church recognizes their brand of identity politics—they will bring it down.

Benedict also knows that the Church is on the rack. The victim community has found a way to bleed the Church dry and rob it of its moral authority. Sexual abuse litigation is big business, a racket facilitated by courts that are conduits to this theft.

After “asbestos, tobacco, guns, lead paint,” the next jackpot for tort lawyers was … sex, wrote Daniel Lyons of Forbes Magazine. In 2003, Lyons hashed out all there is to say about the sexual-abuse shakedown to which the Catholic Church has been subjected.

In “Sex, God & Greed,” Lyons pointed out how many of these class-action claims are, if not bogus, backed by the discredited excavation of false memories. (See my “Repressed Memory Ruse.”)

“… The focal point of this tort battle is the Catholic Church. The Church’s legal problems are worse even than most people realize: $1 billion in damages already paid out for the victims of pedophile priests, indications that the total will approach $5 billion before the crisis is over… The lawyers are lobbying states to lift the statute of limitations on sex abuse cases, letting them dredge up complaints that date back decades. Last year California, responding to the outcry over the rash of priest cases, suspended its statute of limitations on child sex abuse crimes for one year, opening the way for a deluge of new claims. A dozen other states are being pushed to loosen their laws. … But this wave of litigation does not end here. Is there any reason to think that the priesthood has a monopoly on child molestation? The lawyers who are winning settlements from Catholic dioceses are already casting about for the next targets: schools, government agencies, day care centers, police departments, Indian reservations, Hollywood. Plaintiff lawyer Roderick MacLeish Jr. and other litigators have parlayed the priest crisis into a billion-dollar money machine, fueled by lethal legal tactics, shrewd use of the media and public outrage so fierce that almost any claim, no matter how bizarre or dated, offers a shot at a windfall.”

UPDATED: Benedict XVI: The Whole Holy Package

Christianity, Intellectualism, Intelligence, Reason

Compared to Pope Benedict XVI, Pope John Paul II was the Lady Diana of the papacy; a well-meaning populist, bereft of Pope Benedict’s intellectual gravitas.

With his brilliant mind and beatific smile, Benedict XVI was “the whole holy package.”

Via The Vatican Today:

Dismay, surprise, amazement and emotion at the words of Benedict XVI who announced his decision to “renounce the ministry of Bishop of Rome”. These sentiments were etched on the faces of the cardinals, bishops and prelates – assembled for the Ordinary Public Concistory on Monday morning, 11 February, in the Concistory Hall of the Apostolic Palace – who heard the unexpected announcement in the Pope’s own voice.
Everyone’s eyes met, a light murmur swelled in the hall and astonishment faded into sorrow. Yet, after the first few moments of confusion, the unanimous recognition that the Pope’s act was a very lofty act of humility made headway among those present – who included the papal masters of ceremony, representatives of the postulations, choristers of the Sistine Chapel Choir, papal chair bearers and technicians.

In a 2005 column, “Unlearned Rabbi Rages at Ratzinger,” I defended my favorite Pope, Benedict XVI, from the insufferable sanctimony of an unlearned Rabbi called Michael Lerner. And in “Benedict The Brave” I chronicled his courage.

UPDATE: “Text And Video Of Pope Benedict XVI’s Resignation Announcement.”