On the 10th anniversary of the Oklahoma City
Bombing, the Roman Catholic Church has elected a member of the Hitler Youth
and the German military during World War II to serve as Pope. Ladies and gentlemen,
I think it's safe to assume that we have just lost cabin pressure.
So Opus Dei has its Pope, and St Malachy of Armagh is either right again,
or just lucky. Like I've said before about the curse of living in interesting
times, at least they're interesting.
I wrote a little here about Opus Dei and why it deserves our distrust. If you don't yet, I suggest
familiarizing yourself with the content of the Opus
Dei Awareness Network. Opus Dei has been an organ of fascism (by the 1960s
Franco's cabinet was stacked with Opusdeistas, and they rose again under the Aznar government), and has
amassed for itself a Templar-worthy fortune, and an international network
of influence that rivals, or perhaps complements, that of Freemasonry.
("Many of its 85,000 worldwide members work in legal, medical, financial
and media professions," according to today's Los Angeles Times. In a
post last week I considered the Masonic cultivation of similar segments of
society.) Its ritualized mortification of the flesh and psychological self-battery,
as well as the inference of unspoken agendas, is highly suggestive of a mind
control cult. You don't need to believe The De Vinci Code to believe this
bunch deserve a close watch.
While Ratzinger is not a member of Opus Dei, he is its man. He has been
a longstanding champion of the Order, and the two Opus Dei cardinals, Julian
Herranz of Spain and Juan Luis Cipriani Thorne of Peru, are reported to have been enthusiastic supporters of his candidacy.
It's true, Ratzinger was a Hitler Youth, but I find better reasons to regard him as a discouraging
choice. Membership was compulsory after 1941, so his joining wasn't even a
"youthful indiscretion" on the order of Robert Byrd's flirtation
with the KKK, let alone an act worthy of Kurt Waldheim. The boy was
forced to join the Hitler Youth, but no one made the man support Opus Dei.
And it's not what is known about Opus Dei that is the most disturbing, but
as with many secret orders, it is what remains unknown, and surmised. Since
1982, it is the Pontiff's "personal prelature" - answerable not
to local bishops, but to the Pope alone - so its power and influence, and
potential for excess, are certain to increase. (And it's worth noting that
the 1982 measure was coincident with the exposure of the Masonic infiltration
of the Vatican.)
It's possible the infiltration of Freemasonry into the Vatican was stymied
by Pope John Paul II's patronage of Opus Dei. While the two organizations
may appear at odds, that may be largely for exoteric consumption. They may
be unlikely bedfellows, but bedfellows just the same, if it's possible to
speak of unlikely bedfellows and the priestly class without sniggering.
It's my observation that the worst abuses in the Church, even its Luciferian
excesses, have been perpetrated under the cloak of conservativism. John Paul
II and his "enforcer," Cardinal Ratzinger, targetted liberation
theology and the progressive strains of Catholicism, while their coddled "conservative"
clergy continued, largely unchecked, in the molestation, rape and ritual abuse
of young children. While Ratzinger has condemned gay relationships as "deviant
and evil," he has been an enabler of sexual abuse, by "accusing
the media of exaggerating the extent of paedophilia in the American Church."
That this man is now Pope, and the secret society Opus Dei his legionaires,
I wonder whether our already interesting times are about to become unbearably
fascinating.
I was curious as to the symbolic meaning of the term Benedict, and the following
is the result of my research. It would appear that the meaning of ‘Benedict'
is further consolidation and centralization of power in the office of the
Papacy, a continuation of the right wing extremism and authoritarianism characteristic
of the previous Pope, and perhaps even an implied threat against any more
Priests out there who might be involved in sexual scandals.
There really isn't much to be said for Pope's named ‘Benedict', the
majority of them being rapists, murderers, and drunks, in the tradition that
characterized the Papacy up until the time of reformation. Given the sordid
reputations of Pope's named Benedict, this leads one to conclude that the
inspiration for Cardinal Ratzinger's choice of a name could only have been
Benedict XIV, whose policies on Papal authority bear a notable similarity
to the policies of the previosu Pope, John Paul II. Certainly no one would
want to be associated with or named after any of the other Pope's called ‘Benedict',
as you can tell by considering the following short biography of a collection
of rascals.
www.nynewsday.com/news/nationworld/world/ny-wochar214226829apr21,0,2092802,print.story
NEWSDAY, Thursday, April 21, 2005
THE NEW POPE BENEDICT XVI Neil Bush, Ratzinger co-founders
President's younger brother served with then-cardinal on board of relatively
unknown ecumenical foundation
BY KNUT ROYCE AND TOM BRUNE
WASHINGTON BUREAU
April 21, 2005
Global Eye
Buried Treasure
By Chris Floyd
Published: April 29, 2005
It seemed, at first, like nothing more than a novelty item in the news briefs,
the kind of odd, meaningless side-fact thrown off by most major stories: "New
Pope, President's Brother Had Link in Swiss Group." But a look beneath
the surface of this innocuous connection reveals a vast web of sinister alliances
-- and moral corruption on a world-shaking scale.
The network links a bewildering line-up of players -- the Bushes, the Vatican,
bin Laden, Saddam Hussein and China's Communist overlords, among others --
in a staggering array of crime and turpitude: prostitution, pedophilia, mass
death and war profiteering. Yet this is not some grand "conspiracy theory,"
a serpent's egg hatched in Bilderberg or Bohemian Grove. It's simply the way
the Bush boys do business, trawling the globe for sweetheart deals and gushers
of blood money from the war and terror they foment.
At the center of this particular nexus is the unlikely figure of Neil Bush,
the feckless, fraudulent brother of the current president. Neilsy, as he's
known in the family, is most famous for costing American taxpayers $1 billion
to bail out a savings-and-loan he had ruined with secret insider loans to
his own business partners. For this massive fraud, he was fined -- by his
father's administration -- the princely sum of $50,000, which was actually
paid by one of his dad's political bagmen, of course.
You see, the Bushes are robber barons, not capitalists: They never risk
any of their own money in the competition of the marketplace. Nor do they
ever pay the price when their deals go belly-up. Just ask George W., whose
first business was jump-started with secret cash from the bin Ladens, laundered
through their U.S. frontman, James Bath -- who was also hired by W.'s dad,
then-CIA director George Bush Sr., to set up offshore companies for shifting
CIA money and aircraft between Texas and Saudi Arabia, the Texas Observer
reported.
Neilsy's latest business ventures include a partnership with one of China's
own influence-peddling oligarchs: Jiang Mianheng, son of former President
Jiang Zemin. He's paying Bush $2 million for "advice" in a field
– the semiconductor industry -- which Neilsy cheerfully confesses he
knows nothing about. Bush also trousered $1 million for "introductions
and advice" from the CP Group, a Bangkok conglomerate spreading bipartisan
gravy around Washington. In return for supplying his paymasters with a golden
conduit to the White House, Neilsy received a special perk: free prostitutes,
served up fresh to his hotel room during business trips to Asia.
But between his sessions of bouncy-bouncy with trafficked women, Neilsy
was also sitting down with hard-line cleric Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, the
former soldier for Nazi Germany now translated to glory as Pope Benedict XVI.
The two men were board members of an obscure Swiss institute ostensibly devoted
to "interfaith dialogue." Although the organization did have some
prominent ecumenical figures on the board, none of them could say exactly
why pimp-daddy Neilsy was invited to join, Newsday reported.
Perhaps there's a clue in the group's incorporation. Dunn & Bradstreet
lists the supposedly nonprofit foundation as a "management trust,"
designed for "purposes other than education, religion, charity or research."
The group's spokesman says this designation was a "mistake," and
anyway, the institute is hastily being "re-launched" with a "new
focus" on its religious mission. But a cynic -- i.e., anyone with the
slightest acquaintance of Bush business practices -- might think that a "management
trust" masquerading as a religious charity would be an excellent place
to launder money or park assets away from the taxman's prying eyes.
Meanwhile, Ratzinger spent his time on the Swiss board trying to bury the
Vatican's massive pedophilia scandal, the London Observer reported this week.
In a secret 2001 letter, he ordered Church officials to prevent police from
learning about abuse allegations -- a theological innovation more commonly
known in the United States as "obstructing justice." Given this
criminal high-wire act, perhaps the good cardinal thought it prudent to cultivate
some personal ties with a presidential sibling.
Whatever Neilsy and Das Panzerkardinal were up to in Switzerland, Ratzinger
repaid their camaraderie with a decisive intervention in brother George's
2004 election, issuing a fatwa that essentially condemned any Catholic voting
for John Kerry to eternal hellfire. With the Vatican's iron hand on the scales,
Bush reaped an extra six percent of the Catholic vote -- a huge boost in a
tight race.
But it's Neilsy's long-time partnership with Syrian-born businessman Jamal
Daniel that has provided the true mother lode: war profiteering. Daniel, also
a boardmate in the Swiss adventure with Ratzinger, is a principal in New Bridge
Strategies, a firm set up by top Bush insiders to steer corporate clients
to the fountains of blood money flowing from George W.'s conquest of Iraq.
The company makes frequent use of Neilsy's "introductions" and Middle
East connections, The Financial Times reported. It also operates a profitable
sideline in mercenaries.
Daniel brings his own unique connections to the regional porkfest: His family
was instrumental in the creation of the Baath Party in Syria and Iraq, The
Financial Times noted. And of course, the Bush Family's covert arm, the CIA
-- whose headquarters bears the name of George Sr. -- assisted not one, but
two, Baathist coups in Iraq, including the bloody upheaval that brought Saddam
Hussein's family faction to power, historian Roger Morris reported. Still
later, the CIA would supply Osama bin Laden and his fellow extremists with
weapons, money and terrorist training: a shrewd investment whose long-term
consequences -- the current "war on terror" -- are still paying
fat dividends for Bush coffers.
Sure, thousands die and millions suffer from these dirty deals -- but it's
not a "conspiracy." It's just business -- the Bush way.
Annotations
Neil Bush, Ratzinger Co-Founders of Ecumenical Group Newsday,
April 21, 2005
Pope 'Obstructed' Sex Abuse Inquiry The
Observer, April 24, 2005
New Bridge: New Strategy for GOP Insider's Iraq Development Company Congressional
Quarterly Weekly, Feb. 12, 2005 (subscription required)
Neil, Prince of Bush: Why his Latest Outrage Provoked So Little Outrage Harper's,
May 1, 2004
Pope 'obstructed' sex abuse inquiry
Confidential letter reveals Ratzinger ordered bishops to keep allegations secret
Jamie Doward, religious affairs correspondent
Sunday April 24, 2005
The Observer
The smoke was white, and so is the winner: Contrary to weeks of speculation,
the princes of the Catholic Church didn't pick an African or Latin American
to head their billion-plus congregants. Nor did they choose a moderate, as some
pope watchers had suggested. Instead, on only their second day of voting, the
cardinals selected Joseph Ratzinger to be the next pontiff.
Ratzinger apparently rallied the scarlet-robed voters with his sermon Monday,
before the first vote, in which he scorched the secular world. "Adult faith
is not one that follows tides of trends and the latest novelties," Ratzinger
said, according to the Daily News. He added: "Relativism, which is
letting oneself be tossed and swept along by every wind of teaching, looks like
the only attitude acceptable by today's standards."
Tough talk from a tough man. For years Ratzinger has been known as the "Enforcer"
for his crusade against Church dissidents, including those who flauted the Church's
rules on ordination of women. And as head of the Congregation for the Doctrine
of Faith, Ratzinger has enacted John Paul II's conservative interpretation of
Catholic doctrine for more than 20 years.
It's not a news flash that the Catholic Church is not a big fan of homos. But
as Sister Miriam at St. Francis of Assissi Middle School used to say, it's not
just what you say, but how you say it. And in his 1986 "Letter To The Bishops
Of The Catholic Church On The Pastoral Care Of Homosexual Persons," Ratzinger
said it like this:
Although the particular inclination of the homosexual person is not
a sin, it is a more or less strong tendency ordered toward an intrinsic moral
evil; and thus the inclination itself must be seen as an objective disorder.
Hey, they kill evils, don't they? No! That's bad. "It is deplorable
that homosexual persons have been and are the object of violent malice in speech
or in action. Such treatment deserves condemnation from the Church's pastors
wherever it occurs," Ratzinger wrote, sounding very reasonable. "But," he continued, "the proper reaction to crimes
committed against homosexual persons should not be to claim that the homosexual
condition is not disordered. When such a claim is made and when homosexual activity
is consequently condoned, or when civil legislation is introduced to protect
behavior to which no one has any conceivable right, neither the Church nor society
at large should be surprised when other distorted notions and practices gain
ground, and irrational and violent reactions increase." Yikes. But 1986 is ancient history, back when the Red Sox were losing
instead of winning World Series. Perhaps Ratzinger mellowed with age.
Uh, no. In a 2004 memo to clergy called "Worthiness to Receive Holy Communion,"
he wrote:
Regarding the grave sin of abortion or euthanasia, when a person's formal
cooperation becomes manifest—understood, in the case of a Catholic politician,
as his consistently campaigning and voting for permissive abortion and euthanasia
laws—his Pastor should meet with him, instructing him about the Church's
teaching, informing him that he is not to present himself for Holy Communion
until he brings to an end the objective situation of sin, and warning him that
he will otherwise be denied the Eucharist.
Well, that's harsh, but at least the Church is consistent on the killing thing:
It's bad, be it a fetus, a brain-damaged invalid, a convicted killer or an enemy
in war. Right?
Wrong. "Not all moral issues have the same moral weight as abortion
and euthanasia," Ratzinger wrote. "For example, if a Catholic
were to be at odds with the Holy Father on the application of capital punishment
or on the decision to wage war, he would not for that reason be considered unworthy
to present himself to receive Holy Communion."
He continued: "There may be a legitimate diversity of opinion even
among Catholics about waging war and applying the death penalty, but not however
with regard to abortion and euthanasia."
So there you have it: Homosexuality is an inherent evil, war is debatable,
and Joey "the Stinger" Ratzinger is the new pope. Alleluia, alleluia.
Posted by Murphy at 02:07 PM, April 19, 2005
Former Hitler Youth, Nicknamed "God's Rottweiler," Selected As Next
Pope, Future of Catholicism Among Members of the Next Generation Gravely in
Doubt
According to Conservative Newspaper, Radical Backward-Thinking Theologian
Once Called The Enlightenment "A Thorn in Our [The Church's] Side";
Also, Called Protestant Churches "Deficient," Homosexuality a "Disorder,"
and Said That Humans Have "No Conceivable Right" to Gay Sex Between
Consenting Adults; Of Hate Crimes Legislation, Said That "Neither the Church
Nor Society at Large Should Be Surprised" When Such Legislation Causes
"Violent Reactions [Against Gays to] Increase"
By ADVOCATE STAFF
In a move certain to further alienate and anger non-practicing, lapsed, and
semi-practicing Catholics the world over, the Catholic Church--whose pre-1970
history of anti-Semitism is matched in its audacity only by the Church's sorry
history of appeasing Hitler--has selected a former member of the World War
II-era Hitler Youth to be the next Pope.
Of new Pope Joseph Ratzinger's wartime membership in the fascist organization,
the man's biographer could only note that said participation was "brief,"
"unenthusiastic," and, according to the biography, mandatory. [Article].
This account of Ratzinger's early years is contradicted by at least one of
his acquaintances from that time, Elizabeth Lohner, 84, of Traunstein, who
told The Sunday Times recently that "[i]t was possible to resist [entering
the Hitler Youth], and those people set an example for others. The Ratzingers
were young and they had made a different choice." According to The Guardian,
the Sunday Times of London said prior to the conclave that "Ratzinger's
wartime past 'may return to haunt him.'" [Article].
[EDITOR'S NOTE I (4/19/05): Ratzinger also fought briefly for the Nazis as
part of an anti-aircraft unit charged with killing Allied pilots, leading
at least this observer to note that while wartime is always a time of confusion
and strange bedfellows, it is quite rarely the case that any one of these
bedfellows ends up as God's representative on Earth. As least not when all
of the said bedfellows are Nazis, and the papal candidate in question is occasionally
referred to by his peers (albeit behind his back) as "The Enforcer"
and "Panzerkardinal," a reference to the infamous Nazi-era tank].
While such a history presents little obstacle to minority outreach for a man
such as, say, former Klansman Senator Robert Byrd (D-WV)--because Byrd's politics
are now identifiably progressive and minority-friendly--the same cannot be
said for Ratzinger, who has taken the name Benedict XVI.
Indeed, Benedict, for his part, has a history of rhetoric, policy, and dogma
roughly consistent with the hard-line past which now haunts him as Pope, acting
as "the driving force behind crackdowns on liberation theology, religious
pluralism, challenges to traditional moral teachings on issues such as homosexuality,
and dissent on such issues as women's ordination." [See here for more].
Ratzinger angered Jews worldwide as recently as 1987, when he stated that
Jewish history and scripture reach fulfillment only in Christ, a statement
many Jews received as anti-Semitic. [Article].
In 2000, Ratzinger managed to insult several hundred million Protestants by
publicly calling their churches "deficient." [Article].
One of the new Pope's most bizarre obsessions is the (to his mind) dangerous
and disruptive notion of "relativism," a meaningless term which
is largely used, both in religious and secular walks, as a code for opposing
any and all human progress, whether it be moral, legal, scientific, ethical,
political, spiritual, biological, medical, or philosophical.
Said Ratzinger at the recent funeral of Pope John Paul II, "Relativism...is
letting oneself be tossed and 'swept along by every wind of teaching,' [and]
looks like the only attitude acceptable to today's standards....We are moving
toward a dictatorship of relativism which does not recognize anything as for
certain and which has as its highest goal one's own ego and one's own desires."
In fact, the sort of "relativism" now decried and derided by Benedict
XVI was the same Enlightenment-spurred, ever-questioning "wind of teaching"
which brought mankind Darwinism, the combustion engine, pasteurization, robotics,
space travel, penicillin, and potty-training, as well as an end to religious
witch-burnings, the Crusades, professional exorcists, and medical-care-by-leech.
But who's keeping track?
Should the world really be so concerned that the planet's most prominent Catholic
once called The Enlightenment--the dawn of science and reason among humans--"a
thorn in our [the Church's] side?"
In a word, "yes."
Like many ardent, unapologetic conservatives, Ratzinger "shifted to the
right after the student revolutions of 1968," one presumes because they
represented a legal positivist view of both morality and the law, as opposed
to a perverse form of natural law in which some persons (women, gays, those
needing stem-cell cures, and at various points in history blacks, Jews, and
all non-Christians) are irretrievably screwed.
In a recent speech at Monday's public mass, Ratzinger issued this thinly-veiled
middle finger to the forces of progressivism in the Church: "Having a
clear faith, based on the creed of the church, is often labeled today as a
fundamentalism."
The presumption that Catholics who (like, say, our born-again Protestant President)
oppose religious "fundamentalism" somehow do not have a "clear
faith" or a strong belief in the "creed of the church" is as
archaic, insulting, and downright backward as it is preposterous. Indeed,
the notion that the Catholic Church, via Benedict XVI, will now continue to
offer the women of the world nothing more than salvation at death, and disrespect
and disregard in life, bodes ill for the future of one of the world's greatest
and most-admired religions.
On the bright side, conservatives, finally recognizing one of their own in
the Vatican, may actually begin liberally quoting this new Pope in support
of their draconian foreign and domestic policies, with the obvious exception,
of course, of the death penalty, an issue on which the Right has been urinating
on the walls of the Vatican for almost eighty years now.
The selection of Ratzinger reifies the substantial disconnect, however, between
moderate Catholics (particularly in the U.S.) and the Vatican, suggesting
that the gathered cardinals who elevated Ratzinger had no earthly clue (no
pun intended) how to drive the Church forward, rather than into the ground,
when they made their impossibly wrong-headed decision. Unlike their hard-Right
superiors in Rome, American Catholics overwhelmingly supported the selection
of a Pope more progressive than John Paul II as opposed to one more conservative
(33% to 4%), and currently support the use of birth control (78%), allowing
priests to marry (63%), a progressive stance on stem-cell research (59%),
allowing women into the clergy (55%), the right of Catholics to divorce (by
a plurality of 49%), and did support--prior to the Vatican bombshell announced
today which rendered such support irrelevant--the idea that the next Holy
Father might come from Latin America (85%), Africa (80%), or Asia (78%).
Instead, it's a Rightist hard-liner from Germany, which undoubtedly puts most
Jews, women, gays, and moderate Catholics more in mind of the 20th Century
than the 21st Century, a fact which Ratzinger's dubious and poorly-explained
history--coupled with an adulthood of dogmatic radicalism--does absolutely
nothing to mitigate.
While The Nashua Advocate is not so unreasonable as to presume Benedict's
participation in the Hitler Youth was entirely due to any like-mindedness
between Benedict and the Nazis--nor that said participation is an automatic
disqualifier to being Pope--The Advocate must wonder, however, how the Church's
sordid history of anti-Semitism (recently, but only imperfectly remedied)
could possibly justify a finding that the best selection among scores of potential
papal candidates was an individual who not only joined Hitler's youth army
in his childhood and actually fought in the Nazi infantry but who has, since
that time, perpetrated a relentless and unyielding right-wing dogma upon his
followers and his Church, earning him Nazi-related epithets even within that
ecclesiastical cloister.
Was breaking with the past so difficult for the Conclave of Cardinals?
Was seeking a connection with the future--the hundreds of millions of Catholics
under thirty who are substantially more progressive than their parents--so
devastatingly complicated that the conclave charged with doing so should fail
in its task this miserably?
Religious Catholics may find the title of this article alarming, even inflammatory--what
they must realize, however, is that whatever the pragmatic reality of having
a new, hard-line, Rightist Pope in the Vatican, the sound which echoes today
in the ears of women, of Jews, of gays, of progressives, of non-practicing
Catholics, of lapsed Catholics, of progressive Catholics, of dissident theologians,
of semi-practicing Catholics, of married priests, of anyone who ever saw religion
as something more of a prescription for living than a proscription against
living (Ratzinger is also variously called "The Grand Inquisitor"
and "Cardinal No"), is precisely as alarmed as The Advocate has
implied with its bold, blunt, and unyielding tag-line above:
"Former Hitler Youth, Nicknamed 'God's Rottweiler,' Selected As Next
Pope, Future of Catholicism Among Members of the Next Generation Gravely in
Doubt."
[EDITOR'S NOTE II (4/19/05): How long before even moderate Catholics begin
referring to Benedict XVI as "the B-16 [bomber]" which levelled
the Church? Even staunch conservative Andrew Sullivan is predicting that Ratzinger's
elevation is the harbinger of "a coming civil war within Catholicism."
Says the widely-published Sullivan, "[t]he space for dissidence [in the
Church], previously tiny, is now extinct. And the attack on individual political
freedom is just beginning." Predictably, conservatives' cannabalistic,
vaguely homophobic assault on Sullivan has already begun].
posted by News Editor at 4/19/2005 07:09:00 AM
New pope intervened against Kerry in US 2004 election campaign
Tue Apr 19, 6:20 PM ET
German Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, the Vatican theologian who was elected Pope
Benedict XVI, intervened in the 2004 US election campaign ordering bishops to
deny communion to abortion rights supporters including presidential candidate
John Kerry.
In a June 2004 letter to US bishops enunciating principles of worthiness
for communion recipients, Ratzinger specified that strong and open supporters
of abortion should be denied the Catholic sacrament, for being guilty of a
"grave sin."
He specifically mentioned "the case of a Catholic politician consistently
campaigning and voting for permissive abortion and euthanasia laws,"
a reference widely understood to mean Democratic candidate Kerry, a Catholic
who has defended abortion rights.
The letter said a priest confronted with such a person seeking communion "must
refuse to distribute it."
A footnote to the letter also condemned any Catholic who votes specifically
for a candidate because the candidate holds a pro-abortion position. Such
a voter "would be guilty of formal cooperation in evil, and so unworthy
to present himself for holy communion," the letter read.
The letter, which was revealed in the Italian magazine L'Espresso last year,
was reportedly only sent to US Catholic bishops, who discussed it in their
convocation in Denver, Colorado, in mid-June.
Sharply divided on the issue, the bishops decided to leave the decision on
granting or denying communion to the individual priest. Kerry later received
communion several times from sympathetic priests.
Nevertheless, in the November election, a majority of Catholic voters, who
traditionally supported Democratic Party candidates, shifted their votes to
Republican and eventual winner George W. Bush.
The New Pope is a Disaster for the World and for the Jews
Since the days in which he served in the Nazi army in Germany, to his role
as the leader of the forces that suppressed the liberatory aspects of Vatican
II and purged the most creative leaders of the Catholic Church, Joseph Ratzinger
has distinguished himself as a man who disrespects other religions and sides
with the most repressive elements in the Catholic world.
Jewish Leader Denounces Selection of Cardinal Ratzinger as New Pope
Rabbi Michael Lerner, editor of the world's largest circulation progressive
Jewish magazine, TIKKUN, and rabbi of Beyt Tikkun Synagogue in San Francisco,
took the unusual step of criticizing the choice made by the Catholic Church
for its new Pope, Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger. Lerner was careful to make clear
that he was NOT speaking as leader of The Tikkun Community, the interfaith organization
whch he co-chairs, which has NOT taken a stand on these issues, but only as
editor of TIKKUN magazine.
"Since the days in which he served in the Nazi army in Germany to his
role as the leader of the forces that suppressed the liberatory aspects of
Vatican II and purged or silenced the Church of its most creative leadership
(including German Catholic theologians Eugene Drewermann and Hans Kung, Brazilian
theologian Leonardo Boff, and several prominent American Catholic thinkers),
to the present moment in which he is recognized as the leader most identified
with the forces of reaction and suppression of dissent within the Church,
Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger has distinguished himself as a man who can be counted
on to side with the most anti-humane and repressive forces, in opposition
to those who seek to give primacy to a world of peace and justice, "
said Rabbi Lerner.
"Although normally Jews would welcome any choice of leadership by our
sister religion, we have particular reason to comment on this choice.
"Jews have a powerful stake and commitment in ending global poverty
and oppression. We fully well understand that in a world filled with pain
and cruelty, the resulting anger is often channeled in racist, sexist and
homophobic directions. Both as a matter of principle, based on our commitment
to a prophetic vision, and as a matter of self-interest, Jews have disproportionately
supported liberal and progressive social change movements seeking to end war
and poverty.
"So it was with great distress that we watched as Cardinal Ratzinger
led the Vatican in the past twenty-five years on a path that opposed providing
birth control information to the poor of the world, thereby ensuring that
AIDS would spread and kill millions in Africa."
And we watched with even greater distress as this Cardinal supported efforts
to involve the Church in distancing itself from political candidates or leaders
who did not agree with the Church's teachings on abortion and gay rights,
prioritizing these issues over whether that candidate agreed with the Church
on issues of peace and social justice. As a result, Cardinal Ratzinger has
led the Church away from its natural alliance with Jews in fighting for peace
and social justice and toward a stance which in effect allies the Church with
the most reactionary politicians whose policies are militaristic and offer
a preferential option for the rich.
"We can't help but notice that under Cardinal Ratzinger's tutelage,
the Church began moves to elevate the infamous Pope Pius XII to the status
of saint. Instead of repenting for the failure of the Church to give unequivocal
messages telling all Catholics that they would be prevented from receiving
communion for collaborating or cooperating in any way with Nazi rule, or for
failing to hide and protect Jews who were marked for extermination, Ratzinger
has sought to whitewash this disgraceful moment in Church history. Many Jews
are outraged at a Church that denies communion to those who have remarried
or those who oppose making abortion illegal but that did not similarly deny
communion to those who participate in crimes against humanity."
In fact, Cardinal Ratzinger publicly praised the fascist movement in the
Church known as Opes Dei and supported canonization of Josemaria Escriva,
the founder of Opus Dei, an open fascist who served in the government of Spain's
dictator Franco, and who publicly praised Hitler."While many of us agree
with Ratzinger's critique of moral relativism, he extends that critique in
illegitimate and dangerous ways, equating secularism with moral relativism
and suggesting that secularism is now repressing religion. Ratzinger also
publicly critiques all those inside the Church who are tolerant enough to
think that other religions may have equal validity as a path to God. This
is a slippery slope toward anti-Semitism and a return to the chauvinistic
and triumphalist views that led the Church, when it had the power to do so,
to develop its infamous crusades and inquisitions. In 1997 Ratzinger called
Buddhism an "autoerotic spirituality" that offers "transcendence
without imposing concrete religious obligations." Hindusim, he said,
offers "false hope," in that it guarantees "purification"
based on a "morally cruel" concept of reincarnation resembling "a
continuous circle of hell." At the time, Cardinal Ratzinger predicted
that Buddhism would replace Marxism as the Catholic church's main enemy.
"Ratzinger is being falsely described as a conservative, when in fact
he, despite his publicly genteel manner, is a raging reactionary. Unlike many
American conservatives who oppose gay sexual practices but not their legal
rights, Ratzinger in 1992 argued against human rights for gays, stressing
that their civil liberties could be "legitimately limited."
"Those of us in the Jewish world who have enormous respect for Christianity
and for the wisdom and beauty of the Catholic tradition are in mourning today
that the Church has confirmed for itself a destructive direction that will
hurt not only Catholics but all those who seek peace and justice in the world."
"We remain hopeful that the new Pope may return to his original more
progressive positions (pre-1968) and realize that the world needs a church
that can respond compassionately and wisely to what is needed rather than
remain wedded to dogma that is so destructive. In a statement that Ratzinger
made a few years ago, he seemed deeply aligned with TIKKUN's critique of the
selfishness and materialism of the contemporary world. We hope that he stops
blaming that on secularists and comes to understand that secularists too,
as well as people from other faiths, can be allies in the struggle for a new
ethos of love and generosity. We pray that he may find a way to bring a better,
kinder, more loving and compassionate agenda to the Catholic Church. It is
precisely because we continue to feel allied with the Church.
Meanwhile, we reaffirm our solidarity with the many millions of Catholics
who had hoped for a very different kind of Pope who would make the Church
more open to women's leadership, to prioritizing social justice, and to returning
to the hopeful spirit of Vatican II. We can say publicly what many of you
can only say privately-that this new Pope does not represent what is most
beautiful and sacred in the teachings of Jesus."
Rabbi Michael Lerner is editor of TIKKUN and author of ten books, including
Healing Israel/Palestine (North Atlantic Books, 2003) and Jewish Renewal (Harper
Perennial, 1995).
SELECTING A NEW POPE
Controversial Opus Dei Has Stake in Papal Vote
By Larry B. Stammer and Tracy Wilkinson, Times Staff Writers
ROME — When Pope John Paul II arrived at Opus Dei headquarters one
March day 11 years ago, even members of the ultraconservative lay religious
movement long accustomed to Vatican favor saw the visit as a singular moment
in the group's ascendancy within the Roman Catholic Church.
The pope had come to pay his respects to Bishop Alvaro del Portillo, the prelate
of Opus Dei, who had died that day.
"He came over to pray before the body of Don Alvaro, which is a very
unusual thing, to have a pope come over to your house to pray," said
Father John Wauck, a professor at the Pontifical University of the Holy Cross,
an Opus Dei institution in Rome.
Now with its papal benefactor gone, Opus Dei's influence under the next pope
— and its role in choosing the new pontiff — have become hot topics
in a city awash in speculation as the world's cardinals meet behind the closed
doors of the Sistine Chapel to elect John Paul's successor.
Opus Dei, or "Work of God," was founded in Spain in 1928. It is
based on the idea that Catholics, male and female, can live a sanctified life
without being priests or nuns. Many of its 85,000 worldwide members work in
legal, medical, financial and media professions and profess unquestioning
fidelity to the church's teachings and loyalty to the pope. But critics have
called the group elitist, and it was depicted as a villainous secret society
in Dan Brown's bestselling novel, "The Da Vinci Code."
Officially, Opus Dei has stressed that it is above the fray. Its prelate,
Bishop Javier Echevarria, has called for prayer, not politicking. He has also
pledged the group's loyalty to whomever the cardinals elect.
"We already love with our whole soul the successor of John Paul II, whoever
he may be," Echevarria wrote to the organization's members. "Let
us renew our desire to serve the pope, for it was only to serve the church
that God wanted Opus Dei."
Others note that for the first time, two of the 115 voting cardinals —
Julian Herranz of Spain and Juan Luis Cipriani Thorne of Peru — are
members of Opus Dei, giving the group the ability to work inside the conclave.
"They have a chance to lobby the other cardinals from an inside position,"
said an official with a lay organization that has close ties to the Vatican.
"Opus Dei has international connections, they know many cardinals, are
appreciated by some. They are entitled to talk to cardinals, to invite them
to dinner, all with authority."
Several European cardinals are sympathetic to Opus Dei, among them Cardinal
Camillo Ruini, the Italian prelate who runs the Diocese of Rome on behalf
of the pope, and a contender to succeed John Paul. Ruini last year opened
proceedings to declare Opus Dei's Del Portillo a saint.
But recently, several Italian newspapers breathlessly reported that the two
Opus Dei cardinals were throwing their support behind the candidacy of Cardinal
Joseph Ratzinger, a German-born traditionalist who has served as chief enforcer
of church doctrine for two decades.
Opus Dei flourished during John Paul's pontificate. In 1982, he took the unprecedented
step of making Opus Dei a personal prelature of the church, answerable not
to local bishops in the dioceses where it operated, but to the pope alone.
In another sign of the group's influence, the pope placed Opus Dei's founder,
the Spanish priest Josemaria Escriva de Balaguer, on the fast track to sainthood
in 1992, leapfrogging over Pope John XXIII. In 2002, Escriva was canonized
before a crowd of 300,000 in St. Peter's Square, becoming St. Josemaria a
mere 27 years after he died.
Father James Martin, a Jesuit priest and associate editor of his religious
order's magazine, America, says it is undeniable that Opus Dei has a stake
in the election of the new pope.
"They would not have grown so quickly and have gained the influence they
have were it not for John Paul," he said. "Given that they're …
responsible only to the pope, that is a sword that cuts both ways. If you
have a pope who is favorable to you, that's terrific. If you have a pope who
does not see things the way Opus Dei does, that's more problematic."
Opus Dei officials have greeted the speculation about its role in choosing
a new pope with a mixture of political realism and amusement.
"Opus Dei has no candidate," Wauck said in an interview in the subdued
light of an anteroom at the group's headquarters here. He said that he thought
the interest had been due in no small part to "The Da Vinci Code,"
whose depiction of Opus Dei is disputed by the group as inaccurate and misleading.
In an interview before the pope's death, Herranz, one of the Opus Dei cardinals,
was asked whether an Opus Dei member could become pope, given its negative
reputation in some quarters. Herranz said the organization had been subjected
to bad publicity, but that such attacks are attacks on Christianity as a whole,
not just Opus Dei.
"Opus Dei has become a victim of Christian-phobia," Herranz said.
But in fact, he said, "more people today love Opus Dei than don't. And
we have a saint now, our founder Escriva, so more people understand the good
works and spiritual doctrine of Opus Dei."
Critics of the movement have said the church's decision to make Escriva a
saint was disturbing in view of his friendship with Spain's late fascist dictator,
Francisco Franco. Opus Dei spokesman Brian Finnerty said that members of Opus
Dei included both backers and opponents of Franco.
Escriva hewed to the theologically conservative stance shared by John Paul
II, including strict adherence to the church's teaching on sexual and moral
issues. He also spoke out against "godless" communism.
Seventy percent of Opus Dei members are married men and women. Known as supernumeraries,
they commit to be guided by spiritual disciplines such as prayer, reciting
the rosary, and attending Mass.
Single members are known as numeraries. Most live in gender-segregated Opus
Dei residences. They practice celibacy, but do not take a vow.
Some members wear a cilice, which can range from a belt of prickly cloth to
a band with dull spikes, around their thighs as a reminder of Christ's sufferings,
just as saints and monks often did in the past. They contribute all their
income to Opus Dei beyond what they need for their immediate living expenses.
The group has 1,875 priests, according to a Vatican report this year. Nineteen
of its priests have been ordained as bishops.
About 3,000 of the group's 85,000 members live in the U.S. It has 1,875 priests
worldwide, according to a Vatican report this year. One of its bishops, Jose
H. Gomez, now heads the Diocese of San Antonio. Opus Dei has opened a $42-million,
17-story headquarters in Manhattan, and operates student outreach centers
throughout the country, including one near UCLA.
In 1998, John Paul granted the title "university" to Opus Dei's
athenaeum in Rome, making it the Pontifical University of the Holy Cross,
one of six such institutions in the city.
As for the future, Opus Dei officials said they were not worried. Their status
in the church as a personal prelature is cast in canon law. To alter Opus
Dei's status, a new pope would have to change the canon law, and that is not
expected.
"From the pope's vantage point, what's not to like?" Martin, the
Jesuit priest, asked. "First, you have all these dedicated lay Catholics.
Secondly, you have Opus Dei's affluent members donating money to the Vatican.
And you have Opus Dei members adhering to the magisterium [official church
teachings] as strictly as possible."
HUGO YOUNG, GUARDIAN
The disasters John Paul II has inflicted on the Catholic church over 20 years
in the Vatican would be hard to exaggerate. His record is such an offence against
elementary tenets of liberal decency that even a Catholic who has not entirely
lost his ability to submit to the church's teaching finds certain particulars
intolerable. This papacy has devoted itself to undoing much of the work of the
Second Vatican Council, held in the 1960s, and reclaiming for the iron authority
of Rome what the council, initiated by a much wiser pope, had begun to yield
to wider discourse and less centralized decision.
The repudiations have been numerous. High on my list of them is the church's
treatment of women. In his compelling new book, Hans Kung summarizes the story:
"This pope has waged an almost spooky battle against modern women who seek
a contemporary form of life, prohibiting birth control and abortion (even in
the case of incest or rape), divorce, the ordination of women and the modernization
of women's religious orders." As a result, writes Kung, countless women
have tacitly turned their backs on a church that no longer understands them.This
has happened simultaneously with a fearsome crusade against free speech. Vatican
II opened up the possibility of discussion, which the Roman curia, encouraged
by the Pope, now ruthlessly suppresses. Liberal theologians, Kung among them,
have had their teaching faculties withdrawn.
North America and Europe, Latin America and Asia, are littered with priests
and thinkers terrorized by secret process into remaining silent under pain of
excommunication. Such is the secrecy that nobody is permitted to know who exactly
these are or what is their offence. . .
This performance is as unsuccessful as it has been, in the wider liberal world,
aberrant. It has not done the church much good. Not merely is church attendance
falling and the priesthood shrinking in Europe and North America, but Rome's
former authority is being quietly rejected. Even 23 years of John Paul II have
not been enough to install in every diocese in every country bishops who are
prepared to be Rome's mouthpiece. The doctrine of papal infallibility, as propounded
by Ratzinger, is widely rejected.
In some places, including Britain and the US, only the political cunning of
key bishops has preserved the local church from Rome's imperious edicts and
thereby retained a core of the faithful.
So the balance-sheet on John Paul's era will, I think, be as red as a cardinal's
hat. It looks, functionally and philosophically, doomed. It proposes a degree
of absolutism that even Catholics of impeccable loyalty and goodwill cannot
reconcile with the modern world. Hans Kung is very likely right when he ends
his book by calling for Vatican III, a new council, to lead the church back
towards a simpler, more generous, more authentic Christianity, away from the
deadly power-hunger of the Roman bureaucracy, whose control mechanisms put those
of all other political organisations to shame.
http://www.guardian.co.uk/comment/story/0,3604,473936,00.html
Arch-Conservative German Elected Pope
By Philip Pullella and Crispian Balmer
Reuters
Tuesday 19 April 2005
Vatican City - Arch-conservative German cardinal Joseph
Ratzinger was elected Pope on Tuesday in a surprise choice that delighted traditionalist
Roman Catholics but stunned moderates hoping for a more liberal papacy.
Ratzinger, 78, the Church's 265th pontiff, will take
the name of Benedict XVI. He is expected to defend Pope John Paul's strict orthodox
legacy and reject changes in Catholic doctrine. He is the oldest man to be elected
pope for three centuries and the first German pontiff for a millennium.
The speed of the election, on only the second day of
a secret cardinals conclave, and its result were both a surprise.
Many Vatican experts had said Ratzinger, John Paul's
tough doctrinal watchdog for 23 years, was too divisive and too old to become
pope.
They had predicted he would have to cede to a more conciliatory
compromise figure during the conclave, although John Paul had appointed all
but two of the cardinal electors and one of those two was Ratzinger himself.
The white-haired new Pope appeared on the balcony of
St Peter's Basilica soon after his election, smiling broadly and greeting tens
of thousands of cheering faithful.
"I entrust myself to your prayers," he said
as the crowd chanted "Papa! Papa! Papa!" and waved umbrellas and flags.
Some climbed lamp posts and fountains in the cobblestone square for a better
view.
Benedict was showered with congratulations from foreign
and religious leaders but the election was greeted with consternation by those
hoping for a relaxation in John Paul's strict rule over the world's 1.1 billion
Catholics.
"We consider the election of Ratzinger is a catastrophe
... We can expect no reform from him in coming years ... I think even more people
will turn their back on the Church," said Bernd Goehring, of the German
ecumenical group Kirche von Unten.
Even in St Peter's Square, some of the celebrations
were tempered by fear of widening divisions in the Church.
"It's a historic moment, but a very sad one. He
is even more conservative than John Paul II. All he knows to do is condemn,
condemn, condemn," said Agusti Capdevila from Barcelona.
Benedict's election by a conclave meeting in the Vatican's
frescoed Sistine Chapel was signaled by white smoke from the chapel chimney
and the tolling of the bells of St. Peter's.
New Pope Dominated Vatican after John Paul's Death
The election indicated both that the cardinals wanted
to maintain John Paul's strict Church orthodoxy and also to have a short, transitional
papacy after the Polish pope's 26-year reign -- the third longest in Church
history.
"I was surprised for a couple of reasons. One is
his age ... The second is that I thought he might have been too much of a polarising
person. But that may not be the perception that was shared by the cardinals,"
said Lawrence Cunningham, theology professor at the University of Notre Dame
in Indiana.
Ratzinger, dean of the cardinals, had dominated the
Vatican since the death of Pope John Paul on April 2. He presided over the funeral
Mass and daily meetings of cardinals since then.
He used a homily at a Mass before the conclave to issue
a stern warning that godless modern trends must be rejected. The address was
widely seen as promoting his candidacy.
He was expected to take a tough line against reformist
trends in Europe and North America. In a Good Friday Mass this year he said:
"How much filth there is in the Church, even among those who, in the priesthood,
should belong entirely to Him."
Ratzinger's stern leadership of the Congregation of
the Doctrine of the Faith, the modern successor to the Inquisition, delighted
conservative Catholics but upset moderates and other Christians whose churches
he described as deficient.
Before St. Peter's bells confirmed Benedict's election,
there were 10 minutes of confusion over the color of the smoke, which initially
seemed grey.
But even before the bells pealed, thousands of faithful
in the square cheered and applauded, yelling "A pope, a pope!"
It was only the third time in a century that a pope
had been chosen on the second day of a conclave. The new Pope had to win a two-thirds
majority of the 115 red-robed cardinals.
New Pope Tough Disciplinarian
In Germany, church bells rang out and Catholics streamed
into churches to celebrate Benedict's election.
The choice of Ratzinger dashed hopes of a pope from
the developing world, where two thirds of Catholics now live. He is expected
to pay particular attention to the decline of faith and spread of secularism
in Europe.
As John Paul's doctrinal overseer, Ratzinger disciplined
Latin American "liberation theology" theologians, denounced homosexuality
and gay marriage and pressured Asian priests who saw non-Christian religions
as part of God's plan for humanity.
Matt Foreman, of the U.S. National Gay and Lesbian Task
Force said: "Today the princes of the Roman Catholic Church elected as
Pope a man whose record has been one of unrelenting, venomous hatred for gay
people."
In a document in 2000, Ratzinger branded other Christian
churches as deficient -- shocking Anglicans, Lutherans and other Protestants
in ecumenical dialogue with Rome for years.
Ratzinger was the oldest cardinal to be named pope since
Clement XII, who was also 78 when he became pope in 1730. He is the first German
pope since Victor II (1055-1057).
Before the conclave door shut on Monday, Ratzinger made
a final appeal to his fellow electors to protect traditional teachings and to
shun modern trends.
He made no mention of the challenges that other cardinals
and ordinary Catholics say should top the agenda such as poverty, Islam, science,
sexual morality and Church reform.
Born in Bavaria on April 16, 1927, the son of a police
chief, he served in the Hitler Youth during World War II when membership was
compulsory, according to his autobiography.
But he was never a member of the Nazi party and his
family opposed Adolf Hitler's regime, biographers have said.
Ratzinger later became a leading theology professor
and then archbishop of Munich before taking over the Congregation for the Doctrine
of the Faith in 1981.
546 Mystical Peak Oil forecasts
Brian Regan takes a look at the etymological origins of oil, drawing attention
to religious hints of Peak
Oil and the ensuing Apocalypse. Perhaps the Holy Grail, when finally located,
will prove to be a Hubbert
Curve.
The word "oil" (Öl/huile/oleo, etc.) derives
originally from the early Greek root "elaiw-," meaning "olive
tree,
olive" - a root itself borrowed from an unknown Aegean language, perhaps
Cretan. A feminine (nominative singular
-a) or neuter (-on) ending added to this stem specified whether, respectively,
the olive tree (or "berry" - our "olive"),
or its oily juice ("olive oil") was meant. In the most prominent
dialects, the "w" (Greek letter "F," called
"digamma") slowly disappeared from the root.
With some modifications, this feminine-neuter doublet was borrowed into Latin
twice, once early and once
late: feminine "elaí(w)a" ("olive") became, depending
on the time of the borrowing, either Latin "oliva" or "olea,"
while the neuter "élai(w)on" ("oil") turned into
"olivum" or "oleum." (The Latin "v" - semi-vocalic
"u" - was
originally pronounced like English "w" and hence reflects the time
of the borrowings by its presence or absence.) In
the classical world, "oil" normally meant olive oil, so this etymological
development was quite natural. As for the
word forms, eventually only "oliva" and "oleum" survived
into later Latin, and thence into modern Western
languages. "Petr-oleum" (i.e., oleum from rock, Greek-Latin "petra,"
whence also the name "Peter") had to wait a
long time yet before acquiring a distinct and scientific name.
Connected with this linguistic history is a quasi-religious curiosity. It
appears in an old list of papal labels
called the "Prophecies of Saint Malachy" (Prophetiae Sancti Malachiae),
a catalogue of slogans in Latin which
purport to allude to the reigns of Popes from 1143 until "the end of
time." According to this list, the new Pope,
Benedict XVI, elected on 2005 April 19, is the penultimate pontiff, after
whom will come the last Pope,
coincidentally named "Peter," a Roman (Petrus Romanus), in a time
of persecution and a dreadful apocalypse of
some undefined sort which will include the destruction of the "seven-hilled
city" (usually thought of as Rome, but
perhaps, with "Romanus," a metaphor for the West generally as opposed
to the Greek East).
The "Prophecies" assign to Benedict XVI the quizzical label "Gloria
olivae," normally translated literally
as "Glory of the olive." If one were to interpret the Latin in an
updated manner appropriate for today, however, one
might go back to the ancient root of "oliva" and understand the
word as a metaphor for oil - specifically, petroleum.
"Gloria" (literally, "glory," "fame") might
then be viewed as the "height of popularity" - connoting, essentially,
the
cresting of oil's use by mankind. In other words, the phrase "Gloria
olivae" could be interpreted as a reference to
the Pope of the time of Peak Oil: the Pope who is here, now.
excerpt ... According to journalists close to the Vatican, the Pope and
his closest advisers are also concerned that the ultimate acts of evil
- the September 11 terrorist attacks on the World Trade Center and Pentagon
- were known in advance by senior Bush administration officials. By
permitting the attacks to take their course, there is a perception within
the Roman Catholic Church hierarchy that a coup d'etat was implemented,
one that gave Bush and his leadership near-dictatorial powers to carry
out their agenda.
The Pope worked tirelessly to convince leaders of nations on the UN
Security Council to oppose Bush's war resolution on Iraq. Vatican sources
claim they had not seen the Pope more animated and determined since
he fell ill to Parkinson's Disease. In the end, the Pope did convince
the leaders of Mexico, Chile, Cameroon, and Guinea to oppose the U.S.
resolution. If one were to believe in the Book of Revelations, as the
Pope fervently does, he can seek solace in scoring a symbolic victory
against the Bush administration. Whether Bush represents a dangerous
right-wing ideologue who couples his political fanaticism with a neo-Christian
blood cult (as I believe) or he is either the anti-Christ or heralds
one, the Pope should know he has fought the good battle and has gained
the respect and admiration of many non-Catholics around the world.
Wayne Madsen is a Washington, DC-based investigative
journalist and columnist. He wrote the introduction to Forbidden Truth.
"The choice between Peace and War in the context
of the current international situation is also the choice between Good
and Evil which calls all Christians, now in the Lent Season, to reject
Satan's temptations, the same way Jesus rejected them in the desert."
- V.I.S., Città del Vaticano - 9 March 2003 www.repubblica.it/news/ired/ultimora/rep_nazionale_n_344708.html
The October 2004 lunar eclipse over North America was the night that
the Boston Red Sox won the World Series in Busch Stadium. For those who have
read about rigging of "sports" events, it seemed like an inside joke
- Boston beating Bush under the full moon eclipse. While Kerry did win the real
contest (not baseball), he wasn't allowed to become President by the secret,
actual government. Hopefully, future historians (if we survive) will be able
to fully describe all of the behind-the-scenes discussions, negotiations and
threats that kept the Kerry campaign from protesting about vote fraud that flipped
the election from Kerry to Bush.
www.news24.com/News24/Technology/News/0,,2-13-1443_1685635,00.html
Eclipse on pope's funeral
06/04/2005 07:53 - (SA)
Paris - Those who say eclipses herald history-shaping events will find support
for their superstition when, on Friday, the sun will be briefly plunged into
darkness on the day of Pope John Paul II's funeral.
Astronomers, though, say the eclipse, while of a rare and intriguing type,
was calculated long ago and is simply part of a ballet in celestial physics
between the sun, earth and moon.
It will be visible on Friday along an arc ranging from the southwestern Pacific
to South America, at a time it will already be night in Rome.
The event will be a rare type called a "hybrid eclipse", expert
Fred Espenak says on his website sunearth.gsfc.nasa.gov.
Along the central part of its path, some sections will have a total eclipse,
in which the moon will completely obscure the sun.
On other sections of the track, though, it will be an annular eclipse - the
moon will appear to have a brilliant, blazing ring around it.
Curvature of the earth
Total eclipses occur when the moon comes between the earth and the sun, completely
obscuring the solar disk for a few minutes and illuminating the landscape
in an eerie light. The eclipse follows a West-to-East track that lasts several
hours until the alignment ends.
Hybrid eclipses occur because of the curvature of the earth, says Espenak.
Sometimes the moon's shadow touches the earth's surface, while at others it
falls just short, thus providing the "ring" effect.
Friday's event will last three hours and 24 minutes, according to Espenak's
calculations.
It begins at 18:54 GMT southeast of New Zealand, then races eastwards on a
line north of the Galapagos Islands, Costa Rica, Panama, Colombia and finally
Venezuela, where there will be a 33-second annular eclipse at sunset at 22:18.
People living in New Zealand and to the north and south of this central line,
including most of the southern US, will see a partial eclipse - the sun will
appear to have had a "bite" taken out of it.
Astronomical proof
Total eclipses were often seen as the harbingers of great events, from droughts
and floods to failed harvests and the downfall of kings.
In ancient China, the belief was that an eclipse was caused when the gods
dispatched a dragon to eat the sun. The monster then had to be chased away
with dances, incantations, the clashing of cymbals and the unleashing of arrows
and fireworks.
Even the word "eclipse" comes from a Greek word, "ekleipsis",
which means to fail or be abandoned.
"The sun has perished out of heaven and an evil mist hovers over all,"
was Homer's horrified account of an eclipse in The Odyssey.
Two eclipses occurred near Palestine in AD29 and AD33 - events that, for some
Christians, give astronomical proof to the biblical account that the sky darkened
at Jesus' death on the cross.
Total solar eclipses happen about once every 18 months or so, although two
partial eclipses occur somewhere on earth each year. The next hybrid eclipse
will take place on April 20 2023.
Yallop, David A. In God's Name: An Investigation into the Murder
of Pope John Paul I. New York: Bantam Books, 1985. 388 pages.
David Yallop, a British author with four previous crime investigations
to his credit, came to the attention of "highly-placed, secret sources
within the Vatican" who convinced him to look into the September 1978
death of John Paul I. During his 33 days as pope, Albino Luciani's leadership
and incorruptibility threatened certain interests in the Vatican. These interests
were connected with Licio Gelli's P2 network, Michele Sindona, Roberto Calvi
and the emerging Banco Ambrosiano scandal, the Mafia, Italian intelligence,
and Freemasonry. It was becoming clear to Luciani that a major housecleaning
was in order.
Yallop believes there was a plot, but after three years of investigation his
evidence is still circumstantial. Security was minimal, access to the pope
or to his food or medicine would not have been difficult, and it was a good
bet that there would be no autopsy. The cause of death was reported as acute
myocardial infarction, but Luciani's medical history makes this difficult
to accept. Death was so sudden that the pope didn't even have time to press
the alarm button a few inches from his hand, which seems unlikely. When Karol
Wojtyla was elected pope the Vatican returned to business as usual. With John
Paul II in control, even the Italian government was unable to get the Vatican
to come clean on its role in the Banco Ambrosiano scandal.
ISBN 0-553-24855-3
The streets are filled with vipers who've lost all ray of hope
You know it ain't even safe no more in the palace of the Pope
- Bob Dylan
Is everything a conspiracy? No. Just the important stuff.
Since there's a lot of speculation these days about who will
succeed Pope John Paul II, it seems a good time to recall the circumstances
of the last papal succession. Because Luciani Albini, Pope John Paul I, was
almost certainly murdered, by an international network of fascists and money
launderers, with ties to far-right elements within military and intelligence
agencies. (And isn't it just amazing, how often we find that convergence?)
He only served 33 days; what could he have done in that short
time to deserve death? What kind of Pope was he becoming?
To the second question, there's the suggestion of an answer in
this passage from David Yallop's In God's Name:On August 28, the beginning of
his papal revolution was announced. It took the form of a Vatican statement
that there was to be no coronation, that the new pope refused to be crowned.
There would be no sedia gestatoria, the chair used to carry the pope, no tiara
encrusted with emeralds, rubies, sapphires, and diamonds. No ostrich feathers,
no six-hour ceremony.... Luciani, who never once used the royal "we,"
was determined that the royal papacy with its appurtenances of worldly grandeur
should be replaced by a Church that resembled the concepts of its founder. The
"coronation" became a simple Mass. The spectacle of a pontiff carried
in a chair...was supplanted by the sight of a supreme pastor quietly walking
up the steps of the altar. With that gesture Luciani abolished a thousand years
of history.... The era of the poor Church had officially begun.That right there
would have been enough to make the Vatican's power elite nervous, but surely
not enough to seek the Pope's death. Not even his expressed interest in reconsidering
the Church's position on birth control would have been enough for that. What
was enough, was his intent to overturn the tables of the corrupt Vatican Bank,
and purge the Vatican of the P2 Lodge.
This is one of those things that make being a "conspiracy
theorist" seem entirely superfluous. Just try imagining P2: an elite, ultra-secretive,
neo-fascist, Masonic cabal, involved in money laundering, assassination and
false-flag terrorism. (The "Strategy of Tension," to discredit Italy's
Communist Party. For instance, the engineering of Aldo Moro's kidnapping and
murder, and the Bologna train bombing.) P2 counted among its members the future
Italian President Silvio Berlusconi, and reputedly boasted honourary members
like Henry Kissinger, George HW Bush and arch-neocon, Michael Ledeen.
I mentioned P2 last August, with regard to Ledeen's long history
with the Italian far right and the linchpin of Italian military intelligence
to the Niger "Yellow Cake" forgery. [For more on the significance
of P2 to US intelligence and the "Octopus," refer to David Guyatt's
excellent articles "Operation Gladio", "Holy Smoke and Mirrors"
and "The Money Fountain."]
http://rigorousintuition.blogspot.com/2004/08/yellow-cake-and-black-shirts.html
http://www.deepblacklies.co.uk/operation_gladio.htm
Licio Gelli was P2's Grandmaster, and can't even be called a neo-fascist.
He was Old School: a member of the Italian Black Shirt Brigade which fought
for Franco in the Spanish Civil War. During World War II, he spied on partisans
in his native Italy for the Nazis, and obtained the SS rank of Oberleutenant.
This same Gelli was a honoured guest of George HW Bush after the 1980 inauguration,
and there is evidence that Gelli and P2 played a role in the October Surprise;
even that Swedish Prime Minister Olof Palme was murdered on Gelli's orders because
he'd refused to provide Swedish cover for the covert transfer of money and arms.
In her October Surprise, Barbara Honegger writes that a P2 informant claimed
to her that before Palme's death, Gelli sent a message to former Republican
National Committee advisor (and also alleged "honourary" P2 member)
Philip Guarino, assuring him that "the Swedish tree will be felled,"
and to "tell our good friend Bush."
Your head exploding yet? There's more. GHW Bush's reputed code
name for October Surprise was "The White Rose," which was also the
name of a far-right Cuban exile group with which the CIA's Bush was reportedly
engaged during the ramp-up to the Bay of Pigs. Honneger reports that when Italian
police uncovered the P2 control cell responsible for terrorism in Italy, they
learned that its code name was "The Rose of Twenty." Gelli seems to
have had a weakness for the flower.
And this may mean nothing, or I know what you did: in 1988, on
the 25th anniversary of John F Kennedy's murder, Ted Kennedy marked the occasion
in Runnymede England by placing, at the foot of his brother's memorial, a single
white rose.
Gelli's network financed itself in part by purchasing and plundering
banks, thanks to the likes of P2 brothers Michele Sindona and "God's Banker,"
Roberto Calvi. Mafioso Sindona, in 1968, had become a financial advisor to Pope
Paul VI; Calvi was running Banco Ambrosiano; and another P2 member, American
Bishop Paul "You can't run the Church on Hail Marys" Marcinkus, who
bore the nickname "the Gorilla," was heading the Vatican Bank. For
a while, it was a sweet operation.
As cardinal of Venice, Albini had butted heads with the bankers.
As Pope, he could finally do something more. Most revelatory, he became privy
to the secret list of Freemasons in the Vatican. For the first time, he learned
of P2's penetration of the Church.
Yallop again:If the information was authentic, then it meant
Luciani was virtually surrounded by Masons.... The secretary of state, Cardinal
Villot, Masonic name Jeanni, lodge number 041/3, enrolled in a Zurich lodge
on August 6, 1966. The foreign minister, Monsignor Agnostino Casaroli. The cardinal
vicar of Rome, Ugo Poletti. Cardinal Baggio. Bishop Paul Marcinkus and Monsignor
Donato de Bonis of the Vatican Bank. The disconcerted pope read a list that
seemed like a Who's Who of Vatican City.
Here's a good summation of what happened next:
With his bright intelligence and naive fearlessness, John Paul I penetrated
to the heart of this maze of corruption within weeks of his coronation. On
the evening of September 28, 1978, he called Cardinal Villot, the leader of
the powerful Curia, to his private study to discuss certain changes that the
Pope proposed to make public the next day.... Among those whose "resignations"
would be accepted by the Pontiff the following day were the head of the Vatican
Bank, and several members of the Curia who were implicated in the activities
of Sindona and P2, and Villot himself. Moreover, Villot was told that John
Paul I would also announce plans for a meeting on October 24 with an American
delegation to discuss a reconsideration of the Church's position on birth
control.
When Pope John Paul I retired to his bedroom on the evening of September 28,
clutching the paperwork that would expose the Vatican's financial dealings
with the Mafia and purge the Curia of those responsible, a number of very
ruthless individuals had a great interest in seeing to it that he would never
awaken to issue these directives.
When the Pope's housekeeper knocked at his door at 4:30 a.m., she heard no
response. Leaving a cup of coffee, she returned fifteen minutes later to find
the Pope still not stirring. She entered the bed chamber and gasped when she
saw the Pope propped up in bed, still holding papers from the night before,
his face contorted in a grimace. On the night table beside him lay an opened
bottle of Effortil, a medication for his low blood pressure. The housekeeper
immediately notified Cardinal Villot, whose first response to the news was
to summon the papal morticians even before verifying the death himself or
calling the Vatican physician to examine the body. Villot arrived in the Pope's
room at 5:00 a.m. and gathered the crucial papers, the Effortil bottle, and
several personal items which were soiled with vomit. None of these articles
were ever seen again.
Although the Vatican claimed that its house physician had determined myocardial
infarction as the cause of death, to this day no death certificate for Pope
John Paul I has been made public. Although Italian law requires a waiting
period of at least 24 hours before a body may be embalmed, Cardinal Villot
had the body of Albino Luciani prepared for within 12 hours of his death.
Although the Vatican refused to allow an autopsy on the basis of an alleged
prohibition against it in canon law, the Italian press verified that an autopsy
had in fact been performed on one of the Pope's predecessors, Pius VIII. Although
the conventional procedure for embalming a body requires that the blood first
be drained and certain internal organs removed, neither blood nor tissue was
removed from the corpse; hence, none was available to assay for the presence
of poison.
There's an old Kris Kristofferson song, entitled "They Killed Him."
I learned it from a Dylan cover, on almost certainly his weakest album, Knocked
Out Loaded. To be honest, it's pretty lousy. (If you haven't heard it, all you
need to know is it has a children's chorus.) And yet, it chills me.
A verse:
Another man from Atlanta, Georgia
By name of Martin Luther King
He shook the land like the rolling thunder
And made the bells of freedom ring today
With a dream of beauty that they could not burn away
Just another holy man who dared to make a stand:
My God, they killed him!
My point here hasn't been to rehash the case for assassination. My point, I
suppose, is simply my exasperation: that My God - they killed him, too!
This material can lead to despair. If they can whack the Pope, and get away
with it, what hope do we have? I don't find it consoling to know of what they're
capable; that they are, as Dylan sang in another song, "bound and determined
to destroy all the gentle." That's not about justice. That's about being
forewarned, and forearmed. And these days, that's almost as important as justice.
But it is a consolation of sorts to remember that these people are flesh,
just as we are. Gelli is still alive, but since his extradition from France
in 1998, he has been serving a 12-year sentence for his role in the Banco Ambrosiano
affair. Marcinkus received Vatican immunity from Pope John Paul II, when it
became apparent Italian authorities intended to prosecute him for his criminal
stewardship of the Vatican Bank, and eventually left Rome for Sun City, Arizona.
(A fascinating glimpse of Marcinkus today, here. http://www.phoenixnewtimes.com/issues/2003-02-13/news/nelson.html
) Sindona died in prison drinking poison coffee, possibly the same administered
to the Pope. Calvi, after his string played out, met a peculiarly Masonic fate,
hanging from a rope beneath London's Blackfriar's Bridge, his hands tied behind
his back and 12 pounds of bricks stuffed in his pockets. (Naturally, originally
deemed a "suicide.")
Our advantage is that there are more of us than there are of them.
Our greatest disadvantage: most of us still can't admit there is a
them.
