Category: Theology

Pope Francis vs. USA imperialism

~ susie

oscar romero

I think everyone knows or suspected that the CIA ran the assassination of Archbishop Oscar Romero, so this is a very interesting canonization:

Pope Francis is soon to beatify the late Monseñor Óscar Romero, the archbishop of El Salvador who was assassinated in 1980 by a right-wing, pro-capitalist death squad. Unlike others whom Francis has already consecrated, the Blessed (and, sooner than later, Saint) Romero will be a holy figure whose killers still walk the earth.

If a saint is a sanctified man of God, what do we call the killers of a saint? Is theirs an especial evil? I’m no theologian, but it seems that to kill a saint is in excess of mere man’s law. The Catholic Catechism exhaustively extols the sanctity of saints, saying that Christ’s “holiness shines in the saints.” How then do we describe a powerful organization that trains and gives sanction to the killers of saints? Even the Vatican says that Romero “was shot by a right-wing death squad,” which, as everyone who understands recent Salvadoran history knows, was trained in the United States.

During the Cold War, the Georgia-based School of the Americas (now called WHISC) trained tens of thousands of Central American soldiers for right-wing governments and insurgencies in order to neutralize leftist influence in countries like Nicaragua, Honduras, and Romero’s El Salvador, where civil wars in the 1970s and ’80s pitted U.S.-trained rightists against socialists and leftists who opposed their countries being used as a plantation in service of a Washington-backed elite.

A UN truth commission in 1993 would find that two-thirds of the right-wing soldiers in El Salvador’s horrific civil war were U.S.-trained, many of them to operate the “death squads” that became a feature of Central America while Washington played with a heavy hand to direct the region’s politics and economics.

Bishop Romero was a thorn in the side of Washington, preaching liberation theology in defense of the poor and becoming known as the “Voice of the Voiceless.” Increasingly worried about Washington’s meddling in El Salvador’s burgeoning war between rightists and leftists, Romero wrote a letter to President Jimmy Carter in 1980, calling out the United States’ support for the murderous right-wing forces who “repress the people and favor the interests of the Salvadoran oligarchy.”

He continued, condemning Washington’s major role in the creation of an armed, brutal capitalist elite:
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Bless their hearts

~ susie ~ 3 Comments

APTOPIX Italy Pope Epiphany

Boy, they really are worried about this pope’s influence. What if he actually got people to stop believing climate change was a hoax? What would happen to their paychecks? By the way, the Pope happens to have a masters degree in chemistry, so they’re going to have to argue with someone who actually understands science:

You’ll never guess what crazy shenanigans the folks at the climate denying Heartland Institute — I’m sorry, I meant to say “the world’s leading think tank promoting scientific skepticism about man-caused global warming” — are up to now.

According to their latest press release, the crew is heading to Rome, to “advise Pope Francis on climate policy.” Yes, that’s actually how they put it. It seems the Pope’s upcoming encyclical on climate action is rubbing the group the wrong way, probably because he’s expected to argue, at a Vatican summit next week, that reducing greenhouse gas emissions is a moral and religious imperative. It’s a statement that’s going to be hard for Christians to ignore, which is why it’s up to Heartland’s anti-science “real scientists” to show the Pope the error of his ways before it’s too late.

“The Holy Father is being misled by ‘experts’ at the United Nations who have proven unworthy of his trust,” Heartland Institute President Joseph Bast said in a statement. “Humans are not causing a climate crisis on God’s Green Earth — in fact, they are fulfilling their Biblical duty to protect and use it for the benefit of humanity.” Did you hear that, Your Holiness? The overwhelming majority of scientists are wrong about climate change, and you don’t understand the bible.

“Though Pope Francis’s heart is surely in the right place,” Bast continued, “he would do his flock and the world a disservice by putting his moral authority behind the United Nations’ unscientific agenda on the climate.”

That nice Jewish family down the street

~ susie ~ 3 Comments

jesus and mary

There have always been these “alternate” gospels, and frankly, we can’t really vouch for the veracity of any of them — including the originals. So what harm does it do?

Jesus was a devoted family man with two kids and Mary Magdalene for his wife, a new history book based on an ancient manuscript claims.

According to the 1,500-year-old text, there was a previously unknown plot on Jesus’s life 13 years prior to the crucifixion. The revelations were made by Professor of Religious Studies at Toronto’s York University, Barrie Wilson, and an Israeli-Canadian historical writer and filmmaker, Simcha Jacobovici.

One of the most astounding claims in the book is that Mary Magdalene was the same person as the Virgin Mary. The authors of The Lost Gospel assert that the manuscript features the names of the two children of Christ and Mary Magdalene – and even recites an assassination attempt against Mary and the children.

The book also chronicles Jesus’s connections to Emperor Tiberius and his best friend, the soldier Sejanus.

The manuscript, known as “The Ecclesiastical History of Zacharias Rhetor (of Mytilene)” has been with the British Museum and then the British Library for nearly 170 years, according to The Sunday Times. It was purchased by the British Museum in 1847 before being transferred to the British Library some 20 years ago.

The Lost Gospel, which has been translated from Aramaic, is set to come out later this month; details of the manuscript are expected to be revealed at a press conference at the British Library on Wednesday.

Some religious scholars are not enthusiastic about the upcoming release. “We’re basically looking at a sensationalist money-making scheme here,” Professor of New Testament at Lancaster Theological Seminary Greg Carey told the Huffington Post.

Arguing that the text has not been “uncovered” by Jacobovici and Wilson, as they claim, the professor says “over three hundred scholarly books and articles devoted to this text” can be found online, with over twenty manuscripts of the story. The ancient novel needs no “decoding,” Carey says, as it simply has no secret meaning.

Pope Frank calls for action on climate change, capitalism on a planet “exploited by human greed”

~ susie ~ 2 Comments

I love Pope Frank. In a world where so few people speak out in favor of the right thing, he doesn’t disappoint:

AMY GOODMAN: This is Democracy Now!, democracynow.org, The War and Peace Report. I’m Amy Goodman, for our last report of 2014.

Pope Francis is set to make history by issuing the first-ever comprehensive Vatican teachings on climate change. In an effort to urge Catholics worldwide to take climate action, the pope will issue a rare papal letter, or encyclical, on climate change and human ecology, following a visit in March to Tacloban, the Philippine city devastated in 2012 by Typhoon Haiyan. The document then will be sent to the world’s 5,000 Catholic bishops and 400,000 priests, who will distribute it to their parishioners.

Given the sheer number of people who identify as Catholics worldwide, the pope’s clarion call to tackle climate change could reach far more people than even the largest environmental groups. Globally, there are 1.2 billion Catholics, of which around 75 million live here in the United States. The pope also plans to address the United Nations General Assembly and convene a summit of the world’s main religions in hopes of bolstering next year’s crucial U.N. climate summit in Paris.
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Wingnut cardinals undermine Pope Frank

~ susie ~ 3 Comments

Pope Francis in St. Peter's Square-1
Photo by Gabriel Sozzi via Wikimedia Commons

As a fallen-away “cradle Catholic,” one who used to love arguing with my religion teachers about things like reincarnation, or women priests (“But if only men can be priests because Jesus only picked male apostles, shouldn’t priests have to be Jewish, too?”), I get a kick out of Pope Francis. He reminds me of that all-too-brief reign of Pope John XXIII, the last “people’s Pope.” He is a compassionate man who radiates the best qualities of the Church — namely, a strong foundation in social justice and mercy.

He hasn’t gone as far in liberalizing the Church as I’d like, but he shows signs that he’s getting there.

But the same Catholic conservatives who were so eager to snuggle under the covers with the worst elements of the right wing have learned a thing or two from U.S. politics — basically, how to undercut and erode the authority of a duly-elected leader. This is actually serious, and I’m only slightly kidding when I say I fervently hope this pope avoids small planes.

Matters came to a head last week when Pope Francis removed the extremely conservative U.S. Cardinal Raymond Burke from his influential post as head of the church’s highest court, the Supreme Tribunal of the Apostolic Signatura. (Think of him as Tony Scalia, making distorted pronouncements about “original intent.”) Burke proclaims his version of what the Pope can or can’t do, and Pope Francis is supposed to fall into a worshipful crouch in front of Burke’s embroidered slippers.

It’s not working out that way. Pope Francis has his own ideas, and when a recent report indicated that an upcoming church synod might loosen church policies on divorce and gay marriage, conservatives led by Cardinal Burke went on the attack. German Cardinal Walter Kasper hit back:

In an interview this week, Kasper expressed confidence that bishops at the back-to-back synods would ultimately back some change, and he hit back at critics like Burke, saying they are engaged in political maneuverings. He said they are afraid that any changes would lead to a “domino effect.”

“This is all linked to ideology, an ideological understanding of the gospel that the gospel is like a penal code,” Kasper, who is retired from a curial job but lives in Rome, told America magazine.

Heh. See what I mean? Scalia!

Burke is, to me, the worst kind of Church prelate, known not only for his rigid views on abortion and gays and his willingness to aid the Republican right wing, but for his love of the kind of gaudier ceremonial frippery most cardinals had the taste to leave behind a half-century ago. (All for the greater glory of God, I’m sure.)

As an authoritarian, of course, he was not so quick to address the sexual abuse scandal. As the National Catholic Reporter noted last month:

Cardinal Burke would do us all a favor to examine the second component of the clergy sex abuse scandal, that component that deals with his episcopal colleagues. He might ask why canon law has not come to the aid of the children in a forthright and active manner. He might ask how church law has allowed his fellow bishops to cover up the scandal rather than bringing to public. He might examine how church law has played a role in driving many Catholics, disaffected by the scandal, from the church.

And since he got demoted, he’s doing his best to damn Francis with faint praise:

American Cardinal Raymond Burke, the feisty former archbishop of St. Louis who has emerged as the face of the opposition to Pope Francis’ reformist agenda, likened the Roman Catholic Church to “a ship without a rudder” in a fresh attack on the pope’s leadership.

In an interview with the Spanish Catholic weekly Vida Nueva, published Thursday (Oct. 30), Burke insisted he was not speaking out against the pope personally but raising concern about his leadership.

“Many have expressed their concerns to me. At this very critical moment, there is a strong sense that the church is like a ship without a rudder,” Burke said.

Hey, we’ve seen “The Borgias,” Cardinal Burke. We know what you’re doing! (We’ve also seen Mitch McConnell, Karl Rove, and Fox News in action.)

Conservatives have privately labeled Francis “the anti-Christ” and illegitimate, just as Obama was “the Kenyan” who couldn’t legally be president. In the National Catholic Reporter, Michael Sean Winters calls them “Tea Party Catholics” and writes:

Regrettably, I suspect those who disapprove of Pope Francis constitute a larger share of the clergy and the episcopate than the laity. When bishops temporize in public, as we have seen for example in Bishop Robert Morlino’s ill-advised interviews, or in comments from Cardinal Raymond Burke, you can bet that those same prelates, in private, are hearing, or saying, the kinds of things Fr. Longenecker records in this remarkable piece. And, before he got booted off the Congregation for Bishops, Cardinal Burke was able to place many like-minded prelates in some prominent sees.

Longenecker writes:

Some have given up on Pope Francis. Others say he is “the false prophet” who will accompany the anti Christ in the end times. Others don’t like his dress sense, grumble about his media gaffes and some think they are all intentional and that he is a very shrewd Jesuit who wants to undermine the Catholic faith.

Clearly, Father is not speaking to the same Catholics I speak with, although I did hear a bishop speculate on the fact that “we can’t dismiss the possibility that there could be another anti-pope.” I like the way Fr. Longenecker, following a model set forth previously by Archbishop Chaput, and by the Wizard of Oz before that, places these concerns in the mouths of others, nonetheless giving them oxygen by reporting them. The idea that Pope Francis “is a very shrewd Jesuit who wants to undermine the Catholic faith” really did not need to be reported in order to continue with the article, did it? And, the observation reads like something you would find in an early eighteenth century Jansenist tract, an analogy that bears further reflection because of the Jansenist tendencies of the anti-Francis brigade.

It sounds so familiar, doesn’t it? The sly words, the implication of weakness, the veiled accusations of undermining the very foundations of the institution?

I remember enough of my twelve years of Bible study to know that Jesus, asked about the greatest commandment, reportedly replied: “‘Love the Lord your God with all your heart and with all your soul and with all your mind.’ This is the first and greatest commandment. And the second is like it: ‘Love your neighbor as yourself.’ All the Law and the Prophets hang on these two commandments.”

I could be wrong, but I think Pope Francis comes a lot closer to that spirit than Cardinal Burke. Your mileage, of course, may vary.

H/t Karin Riley Porter Attorney at Law.

Cleaning up?

~ susie ~ 1 Comment

Happy to see this happening:

The Vatican said on Tuesday that it had placed under house arrest and opened criminal proceedings against one of its former ambassadors, Archbishop Jozef Wesolowski, who has been accused of sexually abusing boys he met on the street while serving in the Dominican Republic.

It is the first time the Vatican will hold a criminal trial on charges of child sexual abuse, and it comes as Pope Francis has been trying to set a new tone of rigorous attention in the long-running abuse scandal.

The case has received widespread attention in the Dominican Republic and in Mr. Wesolowski’s native Poland, and officials in both nations have sought to have him tried in their courts.

Mr. Wesolowski is being held “in a location within the Vatican City State,” according to a statement issued by the Rev. Federico Lombardi, the Vatican spokesman. He added that Mr. Wesolowski had presented documentation attesting to a medical condition, and was confined to house arrest after a preliminary hearing on Tuesday.