Benedict XVI Is Being A Passive-Aggressive Crusader (Again)

And the Apocalypticists are having a Field Day!!

By Tom Heneghan, Religion Editor Reuters

PARIS: The Easter baptism of an Italian Muslim by Pope Benedict was a provocative act that raises questions about the Vatican's approach to Islam, a leading participant in Christian-Muslim dialogue said on Monday..."The whole spectacle... provokes genuine questions about the motives, intentions and plans of some of the pope's advisers on Islam," Nayed, who is director of the Royal Islamic Strategic Studies Centre in Amman, said in a statement.

There's something sinister behind those sunken eyes and wan smile. Yes, that's very disrespectful of me. But, like many people in the country, I'm a recovering Catholic. I had more than 12 years of very intense theology rammed down my throat - so much that my grandmother hoped I might beome a priest. Sorry grandmother, but the nuns of the Blessed Virgin Mary and the Dominican Priests encouraged me not to be hypocritical. So I turned away from Catholicism alogether.

I've lived under Pius XII, John XXIII, Paul VI, John-Paul I, John-Paul II and now Benedict XVI. Three of them tried to bring the church to some semblance of relevancy, while the other three longed for the old days of the Dark Ages. The "progressive" period was way too short.

In the wake of the Easter baptism of a Muslim journalist who has excoriated militant Islamists, maybe we should question the motives of Benedict: Mike Tippit, in an editorial to Wake Up America probably said it best:

The Pope has kicked off the modern Crusades.That's right, you read it right. The Pope has given his blessings for it, the Holy Church is behind it.God wills it.

NEWSMAX (a conservative monthly magazine) has featured Benedict on its April issue cover under the title: "The Great Crusader"


The word "crusade" means many things to many people, but to the people with long memories, it means a time when Christians launched a full-scale attack against Muslims.


For the first decade, the Crusaders pursed a policy of terror against Muslims and Jews that included mass executions, the throwing of severed heads over besieged cities walls, exhibition and mutilation of naked cadavers, and even cannibalism, as was recorded after the Siege of Maarat. (Wikipedia)


These are the words of Pope Urban II which ignited the First Crusade:

"[...] this land which you inhabit, shut in on all sides by the seas and surrounded by the mountain peaks, is too narrow for your large population; nor does it abound in wealth; and it furnishes scarcely food enough for its cultivators. Hence it is that you murder one another, that you wage war, and that frequently you perish by mutual wounds. Let therefore hatred depart from among you, let your quarrels end, let wars cease, and let all dissensions and controversies slumber. Enter upon the road to the Holy Sepulchre; wrest that land from the wicked race, and subject it to yourselves. [...] God has conferred upon you above all nations great glory in arms. Accordingly undertake this journey for the remission of your sins, with the assurance of the imperishable glory of the kingdom of heaven."


Or perhaps Benedict is more like Innoent III, who called for the fourth Crusade in order to enact the extermination of a Gnostic sect (who still considered itself Christian) as a result, setting off the first real genocide in Western civilization (100,000 dead)

Of course, if we want to be more to the point about Benedict XVI's character and motives we should keep in mind that he was the head of the Vatican's Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith. Why should that matter to us? Because:


(CDF) (Congregatio pro Doctrina Fidei), previously known as the Supreme Sacred Congregation of the Holy Office, is the oldest of the nine congregations of the Roman Curia. Among the most active of these major Curial departments, it oversees Catholic doctrine. The CDF is the modern name for what used to be the Holy Office of the Inquisition.

In other words, Benedict decided who was a heretic and (as theologian Hans Kung can tell you fro first-hand experience) who could teach what within the Catholic Church.

"Nobody Expects the Inquisition"

The Religious Right and its pundits are, of course, gleefull about the commotion the baptism has caused. Parsley, Robertson, Limbaugh, Coultergeist must be dancing in the streets with the notion that this overt action will hasten the Apacalypse. Hagee may even stop calling the Catholic Church "The Great Whore".


Here's what Michelle Malkin had to say:

"Allam’s conversion will set off the usual promptings of apostasy fatwas from the Religion of Perpetual Outrage."

Ah, Christianity! The "love 'em or hate 'em" religion.

Did it originate in Isreal or ...Texas?

"We will avenge our God!"
This is based on the human tendency to attach spiritual meaning to world events and the use of religious rhetoric to justify violence. In March 2003 American forces attacked Iraq triggering one of the bloodiest wars of the modern age. Both sides of the war ascribe to opposing religious dogma and the situation is reminiscent of the Crusades that took place between the 11th and 13th centuries. The year also saw the planet Mars make its closest approach to earth in 60,000 years. Mars has long been associated as the god of war. (Shane Crotty's Fotostream, posted on Flikr)

Just a Quick Few Lines

TO ALL THE NEW READERS WE'VE HAD IN THE LAST THREE DAYS - THANK YOU!!

Please feel free to tell me what drove you to the site!

After all, Statfinder can't tell me everything.

Was it Obama?

Was it Michelle Malkin?

Was it Mel Gibson?

Was it the Easter Photo?

Thanks again! Remember: you CAN put us on your homepage for regular feed. We'll give you the VERY BEST posts involving religion and politics.

Dan Vojir

Happy Easter! Barack Obama's in St. Thomas & Michelle Malkin is Barbequing at Manzanar

... or at Mel Gibson's new "church"

While on the net for some research on the Japanese Internment Camps, I happened upon the site/blog of the nation’s official Japanese Internment Supporter, Michelle Malkin. She, like Ann Coultergeist, is a professional hater. She unequivocally adheres to racial profiling. She is the darling of Obama-bashers. So, this was the heading of her Mar. 22 post:

Where Will Obama Be For Easter?

There then followed an article that implied Obama was physically distancing himself from Rev. Jeremiah Wright, by planning to spend 3-4 days with his family in St Thomas, US Virgin Islands.

“Wonder if there are any black liberation theologians holding services on the islands this weekend?"


And since M is an equal opportunity professional hater, she hates everyone in the City of San Francisco:

“Maybe he can make a little room on his plane for those San Francisco America-haters. They need one-way tickets.” This was accompanied by an African-American woman holding a sign that said “Wright is Right!”

More SF bashing:

[On San Francisco’s stance opposing military recruitment] “Good job to the Navy, I say Go Navy Go. Don't stop and, ahh, I think that this should really be the first step in sending a strong message to San Francisco—that if you are going to dishonor the military—the military will not grace your hate filled city with its presence." (The O’Reilly Factor, Dec. 7, 2006)

Ms. M (definitely NOT the “Divine” one) is probably the only person to imply that that Sen. John Kerry’s Viet Nam wounds were self-inflicted:

Another guest on the program (O’Reilly Factor), former San Francisco mayor Willie Brown, noted the absurdity of questioning Kerry's service. "He volunteered twice in Vietnam. He literally got shot. There's no question about any of those things. So what else is there to discuss? How much he got shot, how deep, how much shrapnel?"


"Well, yes," Malkin replied. Her inflection implied that this was not so much a "Well, yes," as a "Well, DUH!" She continued. "Why don't people ask him more specific questions about the shrapnel in his leg? There are legitimate questions about whether or not it was a self-inflicted wound."


Malkin’s idea of a great Easter might be a barbeque at Manzanar, the most infamous of the Japanese internment camps.

So where is the illustrious Malkin spending Easter? As a Catholic, is she a sedevacanist?* Is she spending Easter with Mel Gibson at his Malibu church? Will she get to see altar boys suffering through recitations in Latin they don’t understand?

M loves to see people suffer.

Some people have all the fun.



*Against the spirit of Vatican II, sedevacantists do not believe in the validity of succeeding popes and practice the Latin mass only. So, M might go so far as to hate Pope Ratzinger.


Below are some photos in memory of Manzanar and evidence that San Francisco has something that Malkin seems to lack: heart.

From top left: A Japanese family prepares to enter Manzanar, site of the old morgue, a memorial garland made up of hundreds of paper origami cranes festooning a fence, the gravesite of Sgt. Leonard Matlovich (who successfully sued the US Army for his discharge) and three of the dozens of "hearts" left in San Francisco.

This Easter Christ (and Hypocrits) Will Rise Again - CINO Style!

I will be taking some time off to devote a post to that darling of the poison pen, Michelle Malkin. Stay tuned for a very bumpy ride...

Conspiracy! Conspiracy! Conspiracy! (Yawn)

But By WHO?

And For WHOM?
We Already Know WHY

When it rains, it POURS! At least in the world of racial disrimination. Yesterday was the 156th anniversary of the publiation of Uncle Tom's Cabin. The day before, we listened to Barak Obama's "To Form a More Perfect Union" speech tackling racism and his connecton with a firebrand minister. And before that, was the anniversary of the march from Selma to Montgomery. Today (last night actually), we've learned about government contract employees peeking illegally at Barack Obama's passport.

....And today (ta da!) is the International Day for the Elimination of Racial Disrimination (United Nations).

About the passport-peeking:

"This is a serious matter that merits a complete investigation, and we demand to know who looked at Senator Obama's passport file, for what purpose, and why it took so long for them to reveal this security breach." (Obama campaign spokesman)

Admit it: the timing is too bizarre. Either these last four days have been someone's idea of a joke or there really is something going on with race being the prime mover.

And the professional conspiracy theorists will be out in full force. Pat Robertson will publishing a book about it very soon (in print-on-demand paperback).

Is George Bush hiding something from us AGAIN? Is this George's OBAMAGATE?

Is this a VAST RIGHT-BUT-YET-A-LITTLE-MORE-TO-THE-LEFT WING CONSPIRACY?

Is Obama really an ALIEN?

Politics, like the church, never ceases to entertain the proletariat. And whoever is caught up in this melee will no doubt prove to be an idiot.

The REAL Obama!!

Obama, Wright and ...Uncle Tom

THE SPEECH! and Uncle Tom

"The rhetoric is convincing, but it's just coming too late"

"We can tackle race only as spectacle," he said, or "we can come together and say, 'Not this time.'

Yes, I know that I'm jumping into the blogosphere along with hundreds of thousands of other blogs covering the same subject, but the beauty and wonder of blogging is that maybe someone out there will read it and think "well that's a bit different!"

I find it ironic that Obama's speech fell on the eve of the 156th anniversary of the publication of Harriet Beecher Stowe's Uncle Tom's Cabin. I looked up the synopsis (hey, it's been about 45 years!) and I realized that my copy of The Complete Idiot's Guide to American Literature made a valid yet thought-provoking point: one of the book's main messages is that "The slavery crisis can only be resolved by Christian love."

The same could be said about discrimination and other social ills: the racial-ethnic-gender-sexual orientation-healthcare-economic-immigration crisis can only be resolved by love - Christian or otherwise. But what has America embraced instead of love? The answer may be a form of Righteous Hatred.

It spewed forth from the pulpit of Rev. Wright. It was sanctioned by his pulpit. Just as righteous hatred against Jews (e.g. radio superstar Father Coughlin in the 30s and 40s), hatred against homosexuals (McCain's televangelist mentor Rod Parsley) and hatred against Muslims (Pastor John Hagee) have all been presented as the inspired words of God by "men of God." In effect, hatred has been given a kind of Star Trek force-field shield in both churches and media across the country.

Getting back to Harriet Beecher Stowe's classic, I came across an interesting reaction from a contemporary British critic as to the reason why it sold oer 200,000 copies in England: "The evil passions which 'Uncle Tom' gratified in England were not hatred or vengeance [of slavery], but national jealousy and national vanity. We have long been smarting under the conceit of America—we are tired of hearing her boast that she is the freest and the most enlightened country that the world has ever seen." (emphasis my own).

Doesn't this sound a bit ....contemporary? No wonder Bush Buzz-Bombs ("Freedom!" "Democracy!") don't work in foreign diplomacy.

OK, I'll get off that soapbox (for now).

Let's look at some of the speech and some of the reactions (mine in red):

It’s a story [his heritage and upbringing] that hasn’t made me the most conventional candidate. But it is a story that has seared into my genetic makeup the idea that this nation is more than the sum of its parts – that out of many, we are truly one. That may be true, but try telling that to some big-time discriminaters: the Southern Baptist Convention, Bob Jones University, the up-and-coming Jesse Helms and Jerry Falwells of our country.

[on Rev. Wright] But the truth is, that isn’t all that I know of the man. The man I met more than twenty years ago is a man who helped introduce me to my Christian faith, a man who spoke to me about our obligations to love one another; to care for the sick and lift up the poor. He is a man who served his country as a U.S. Marine; who has studied and lectured at some of the finest universities and seminaries in the country, and who for over thirty years led a church that serves the community by doing God’s work here on Earth – by housing the homeless, ministering to the needy, providing day care services and scholarships and prison ministries, and reaching out to those suffering from HIV/AIDS. In other words, he's a walking contradiction: a "progressive" Christian who makes use of the bully pulpit when he's angry about something. Isn't he being just a bit hypocritical about "our obligations to love one another" when he says "God damn America"?

... anger in some of Reverend Wright’s sermons simply reminds us of the old truism that the most segregated hour in American life occurs on Sunday morning. (True) That anger is not always productive; indeed, all too often it distracts attention from solving real problems; it keeps us from squarely facing our own complicity in our condition, and prevents the African-American community from forging the alliances it needs to bring about real change. But the anger is real; it is powerful; and to simply wish it away, to condemn it without understanding its roots, only serves to widen the chasm of misunderstanding that exists between the races." Possibly, but to give vent to it means you're not following the Golden Rule. And if you give vent to it at all, it should be outside the pulpit.

Reactions:

"The speech drew praise across the political spectrum, though some on the right questioned Obama's assertion that his liberal agenda could unite different races. But many who heard the speech wondered whether it would be enough to calm the anger generated by the Wright videos. Gerald Shuster, a political scientist at the University of Pittsburgh, found the speech "stylistically persuasve" but thought Obama should have moved aggressively to distance himself from Wright months ago, when reports of his harsher sermons first surfaced. "The rhetoric is convincing, but it's just coming too late," he said.

"He didn't shirk any of the issues -- he attacked them head-on," he said. The speech "will shore up what we can do to help him and say to people, 'This guy is for real.'

J. Alfred Smith, the senior pastor at Allen Temple Baptist Church in Oakland, Calif., and a friend of Wright's, clapped in his living room as Obama lauded Wright for "housing the homeless, ministering to the needy, providing day-care services and scholarships and prison ministries.""There's a lot of anger, but Reverend Wright is a human being, and Obama finally showed that," he said. "All of us from that generation had to go around through the back door, had to ride in the segregated portion of the train. That anger can keep us marred down in the mud, or it can be creatively used. Brother Obama has called for our higher selves to rule over our animalistic selves."

-"As a long-standing and firm conservative, and admittedly an old white guy, I have to say that I’m for divisiveness, because that’s what wins elections for us. America is about winners and losers. WSJ readers should ignore Obama’s speech precisely because he’s a black Democrat. I’m making a lot of money in this economy, and I’m not going to let the Dems take away my advantages."

"My forefathers were peasants, persecuted by Franco, emigrated to the U.S., worked their butts off at menial jobs, every generation after has done better. That’s America. Barack’s part of that picture, not a descendant of slaves. He’s right about black fear and prejudice, just like white fear and prejudice. The elders in my family had their prejudices too…as do I but he’s right. We have to stand together…or fall apart."

Hopefully, that's what Obama is really means beyond his uplifting rhetoric. And, hopefully, he can be up to the monumental task of uniting us.

"God's will would be followed if each person sincerely examined his principles

and acted on them."*

*Bellin, Joshua D. "Up to Heaven's Gate, down in Earth's Dust: the Politics of Judgment in Uncle Tom's Cabin" American Literature 1993 65(2): 275–295. Issn: 0002-9831 Fulltext online at Jstor and Ebsco.

The Last 100 Days - Oh For a Napoleon!!

The Emperor NEVER Had Any Clothes!

Oct 12th - Columbus Day - will kick off the last 100 days of the Bush Presidency until another person takes office in Jan 20th 2009. We all know that George is rushing about frantically to secure a "legacy" - a better presence in history. So what will this lamest of lame ducks do? What will happen until he can bask in his "100 days" of glory?

Let's look at what Napoleon did in order to GET those last hundred days before Waterloo: (From wikipedia)

In France, the royalists had taken over and restored Louis XVIII to power. Meanwhile Napoleon, separated from his wife and son (who had come under Austrian control), cut off from the allowance guaranteed to him by the Treaty of Fontainebleau, and aware of rumours that he was about to be banished to a remote island in the Atlantic, escaped from Elba on 26 February 1815 and returned to the French mainland on 1 March 1815. Louis XVIII sent the 5th Regiment of the Line, led by Marshal Ney who had formerly served under Napoleon in Russia, to meet him at Grenoble on 7 March 1815. Napoleon approached the regiment alone, dismounted his horse and, when he was within earshot of Ney's forces, shouted, "Soldiers of the Fifth, you recognize me. If any man would shoot his emperor, he may do so now." Following a brief silence, the soldiers shouted, "Vive L'Empereur!" With that, they marched with Napoleon to Paris. He arrived on 20 March, quickly raising a regular army of 140,000 and a volunteer force of around 200,000, and governed for a period now called the Hundred Days.

From now until Oct. 12th Bush has to muster enough faith in the Iraq War, the War on Terror, The Economy and ...whatever, to be able to march out onto the White House Rose Garden, approach a battery of media and say: "Are you with me?" In other words, prove he can bounce back to an approval rating of at least 60%.

I hope not. Because if he does, this country has no self-respect and it will have deserved the last bloodsoaked, hypocritical and diplomatically disasterous 71/2 years.

Goya's "Execution in Spain"