Borgias and Nazis and Queers, Oh my!

Lucretia Borgia

Or, Why Benedict's Baggage Couldn't Fit on the Plane

As a "recovering Catholic" many things about Catholicism are difficult for me to write about: blogging about my childhood religion brings on a guilty pleasure, the same way I felt while seeing Monty Python's Life of Brian. But the one thing I can't laugh off is the feeling I get when Pope Benedict XVI appears: to me, his benign smile is more like the grin of the Grim Reaper. His image chills me.

With him, we can see all the staid ritual and pomp the Papacy stands for. Behind him, however, is a long line of abuses of power stretching some 1600 years. The later popes, for example, would rather forget one Pope Alexander VI who kept mistresses, held orgies in the Vatican and was the father of Lucretia and Cesare Borgia. In the role of doting father, he married his daughter off to three dukes (in succession - they were politically expedient) and made Cesare a cardinal before he was twenty-five.

Closer in time was Pius IX who wrested a Jewish boy from his parents (he had been secretly baptized by a servant when he was will), declared the papacy infallible, and while becoming increasingly anti-Semitic re-established Rome's Jewish Ghetto. (Hmmm... a bit more like Benedict - one pope you won't see shedding tears at Jerusalem's Wailing Wall)

And besides the papacy, Benedict comes with additional, if not curious, baggage. Joseph Ratzinger has been many things during his 81 years: devout Catholic, Hitler Youth, seminarian, German soldier in the Infantry for two years during WWII, cardinal, and, most importantly, Prefect of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith, formerly known as The Inquisition. I

n a strange sense, I guess you could have called him the "censor" of the Catholic Church: his narrow theology banned professors from teaching anything but traditional theology. He could also ban books. His pronouncements crushed careers. He forbid liberal theologian Hans Kung to teach and very nearly excommunicated him.

Benedict also seems to dislike everything established after Vatican II (in which Hans Kung was considered a young, but prime influence on John XXIII). His rhetoric is classic but beneath it is a longing for the Church to repeat its days of glory - at any cost.

From Wikipedia:

The Congregation also has jurisdiction over other matters, including cases involving the seal of the confessional, clerical sexual misconduct and other matters, in its function as what amounts to a court. ... [and in a letter to the clergy, Benedict] clarified the confidentiality of internal Church investigations into accusations made against priests of certain crimes, including sexual abuse, [and he became] a target of controversy during the sex abuse scandal. While bishops hold the secrecy pertained only internally, and did not preclude investigation by civil law enforcement, the letter was often seen as promoting a coverup.

In office, Ratzinger fulfilled his institutional role, defending and reaffirming Catholic doctrine, including teaching on topics such as birth control, homosexuality, and inter-religious dialogue. During his period in office, the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith took disciplinary measures.

His statements as pope have even been incendiary:

"Show me just what Muhammad brought that was new and there you will find things only evil and inhuman, such as his command to spread by the sword the faith he preached."

In regards to the sex abuse scandals:

“It is a great suffering for the church in the United States, for the church in general, and for me personally that this could happen,’’ he said on the plane, dubbed Shepherd One. “If I read the histories of these victims, it’s difficult for me to understand how it was possible that priests betrayed in this way their mission to give healing and to give the love of God to these children.

We are deeply ashamed, and we will do all that is possible that this cannot happen in the future.’’

And some anti-immigrant people are gonna be mad:

(Houston Chronicle)

"I want to encourage you and your communities to continue to welcome the immigrants who join your ranks today, to share their joys and hopes, to support them in their sorrows and trials and to help them flourish in their new home." (In other words, "if they can pay, they can stay")

Associated Press:

The American church has paid more than $2 billion in costs related to the scandal since 1950 — the majority of that in just the last six years.

"I am deeply ashamed and we will do what is possible so this cannot happen again in the future," the pope said on the flight from Rome to Washington, speaking in English as he responded to questions submitted by reporters ahead of time.

Another cause for alarm, especially to ministers like John Hagee, is his call for every Catholic to be a missionary for their faith. In his address to Catholic University, he said that the 200 Catholic universities have become too lax (and too secular).

We will hear similar pronouncements within the week. But will American Catholics go so far backwards as to sell all that they have, give to the Vatican and wear sack cloth and ashes?

Like his cohort, Urban II*, Benedict will probably cause a war.

Try as hard as I can to trust this man - I can't

Cesare - rather cute, for a Borgia Papa - Lucretia was a useful tool

*Urban II called for The Crusades - probably the root of all Middle Eastern animosity towards the West.

The T Squad: Cheney, Rice, Rumsfeld, Ashcroft, Torquemada

“Why are we talking about this in theWhite House?
History will not judge this kindly.”*

*John Ashcroft over some beers and a pizza with the White House's official TS (Torture Squad)

One week ago, the folks at ABC News let loose with a potential bombshell of a story:

(ABC News) In dozens of top-secret talks and meetings in the White House, the most senior Bush administration officials discussed and approved specific details of how high-value al Qaeda suspects would be interrogated by the Central Intelligence Agency, sources tell ABC News.

On the right: an appropriate George W. Bush portrait - composite of pictures of the soldiers killed in Iraq

Enhanced Interrogation Techniques, Rough Interrogation and Alternative Set of Procedures are terms that the Bush Administration uses to describe methodsof aggressively extracting information from which is purportedly necessary in the War on Terror despite the alternate name, the United Nations, the Commissioner for Human Rights, Human Rights First (HRF) and Physicians for Human Rights (PFH) Elizabeth de la Vega, and many other experts consider this to be torture, and also consider the techniques ineffective. For its use on Canadian citizen Omar Khadr Canada listed the U.S. prison at Guantanamo Bay, Cuba, on a watch list for torture.

But that's kind of a tradition in Washington isn't ? Keeping things secret so that the American people won't find out about them? What I hate most about American politics: it's making a conspiracy theorist out of me! And what's even worse: I don't care! I'll grab onto any 'ole conspiracy you give me and I'll believe it just to spite any Washington politician. (Well maybe not just any politician, but some Democrats and a great deal of Republicans.) So Rumsfeld, Rice, Ashcroft, Cheney and Powell decided how to torture, how many times to use the same torture and who to torture. And they knew that if their secret meetings and the subject matter ever got out, careers - not heads - would roll.

Torquemada to the rescue!

But they did have those meetings and they did approve torture methods. And where was Torquemada during all of this? Certainly not in their brains. How prescient was Ashcroft when he made the remark about history? Did they think that no one would find out before they could cash in on those post-administration lecture tours?

While reading about our beloved administration, I happened across information about MKULTRA. Never heard of it? Now THERE'S a conspiracy! It was the CIA's attempted research into - mind control. The only problem with their research lay in the fact that most of the time, THEY DIDNT TELL ANYONE - NOT EVEN THE SUBJECTS OF THE EXPERIMENTS:

Frank Olson, a United States Army biochemist and biological weapons researcher, was given LSD without his knowledge or consent in 1953 as part of a CIA experiment, and mysteriously committed suicide a week later following a severe psychotic episode. A CIA doctor assigned to monitor Olson's recovery claimed to be asleep in another bed in a New York City hotel room when Olson jumped through the window to fall ten stories to his death.

Olson's son disputes this version of events, and maintains that his father was murdered due to his knowledge of the often-lethal interrogation techniques employed by the CIA in Europe, used on Cold War prisoners. Frank Olson's body was exhumed in 1994, and cranial injuries indicated Olson had been knocked unconscious before exiting the window.

Just how extensive was the CIA's research? It encompassed:

44 American colleges or universities, 15 research foundations or chemical or pharmaceutical companies and the like, 12 hospitals or clinics (in addition to those associated with universities), and 3 prisons are known to have participated in MKULTRA.

And I'll leave you with this conspiracy: John Wilkes Booth was not acting alone when he shot Abraham Lincoln. On that same day, Secretary of State Seward, along with his family were attacked in their home./ Several people were hanged for conspiracy. One such person was Lewis Thornton Powell:

April 18th: Intelligent Design Hits Theaters!

...And Theatergoers Above The Bible Belt!

Yes, this blog will be commenting on a film I have not yet seen. I will not be so hypocritical as to agree with the following critics and say they are spot on. Instead, I'll say that until the time that I saw an ad for this movie, I respected Ben Stein. Yes, even though he started his career by writing speeches for Nixon. Even though he debased himself with the whole "Win Ben Stein's Money" bit ($5000 top prize? Proof that higher education and swift mental abilities get you squat in this world). By becoming sooo Right Wing Judeo-Christian-Anything-But-Evilution, he's become a reactionary who couldn't possibly be taken seriously. That, to me, is incredibly disappointing. Maybe he needs the money.

Some reviews of Ben Stein's Expelled - Intelligence Not Allowed

(Josh Timonem - Richard Dawkins.net): [note: this one is to be expected, but I threw it in because it was so exceptionally vitriolic.]

Expelled is said to be opening in 1,000 theaters nationwide on April 18th. Please don't give them any of your money to see it. If it tanks in the theaters, and you have the stomach for such garbage, I'm sure you'll be able to see it soon by other means that don't involve supporting Creationists.

It really was an unprofessional showing, and a terribly unprofessional film, aside from the content. "The Wall" The film opens with scenes of the Berlin wall being built, brick by brick. The footage and title cards are affected to look old, like a 50's educational film. The effect doesn't look professional, and by this point I was already starting to question the technical quality of the film. They're really trying to push this in national theatres? Don't they have someone sympathetic to this nonsense that knows how to make a film?

We see Ben Stein preparing to speak in a college auditorium. It really felt like they were trying to emulate Al Gore's An Inconvenient Truth. USA #1! Ben Stein is the narrator, and is as terrible as you can imagine. He gives a monologue about how freedom is what makes America great, over images of flags around the Washington Monument, the Lincoln Memorial, Stein walking by the mirror pond, and so on.

(Dan Whipple - Colorado Confidential): "...the film is so intellectually garbled it's hard to summarize. "Ferris Bueller's Day Off" is Summa Theologica compared to "Expelled."

Roger Moore (Orlando Sentinel): I lost track of the number of times Stalin's image hit the screen, and in the ways the movie equated science with Darwinism with atheism with Hitler or Stalin. Subtle, it's not.

Stein (he co-wrote it) builds his movie on classic Big Tobacco Tactics. Create just a sliver of doubt about evolution by pitching this argument in terms of academic freedom. "Legitimate" learned scientists are being silenced by the Darwinian cabal of thought police. Says Stein. (Emphasis my own)

(Jeffrey Kluger, TIME) It's in the film's final third that it runs entirely off the rails as Stein argues that there is a clear line from Darwinism to euthanasia, abortion, eugenics and--wait for it--Nazism. Theories of natural selection, it's claimed, were a necessary if not sufficient condition for Hitler's killing machine to get started. The truth, of course, is that the only necessary and sufficient condition for human beings to murder one another is the simple fact of being human. We've always been a lustily fratricidal species, one that needed no Charles Darwin to goad us into millenniums of self-slaughter. (Emphasis my own)

(Robert McHenry - Britannica Blog) You laughed at his affectless droning high school economics teacher in Ferris Bueller’s Day Off ; you may have enjoyed his repartee with Jimmy Kimmel or his command of trivial knowledge on “Win Ben Stein’s Money”; you may even have run out and bought some eyedrops on his recommendation. But don’t ask him about evolution, Charles Darwin, science, or any related topic, for on those Ben Stein is an ignoramus. Since he is demonstrably intelligent, it must be concluded that he is a willful ignoramus. (Emphasis my own)

Evolution of a Republican

Evolution of a Republican
Originally uploaded by DiscoWeasel

OK This is a little meanspirited, but it points to how the Republian Party is perceived to be controlled by Right Wing Religionists. Note that decline starts with militarism (NRA take note!)

Are Christians Being Persecuted?

Or Just Whining a Lot?

A blog question on ChristianNet.com got some curious responses:

Do you believe that at some time in the near future there will be persecution in America for being a Christian and why?


It is already happening. The slow process of taking God and prayer out of schools and public places and the push to remove his name from money, courts, constitution and the removing of crosses from public places along with christmas nativity scenes from parks are all beginnings of persecution. One model Federal prison has removed Bibles from the facility and if prisoners speak the name Jesus, the spend time in the hole. This will spread to all prisons. We may be unable to buy Bibles someday.



In North Korea they are forced to worship their leader, Kim Jong 'Ill.' Anyone possessing a Bible is shot, I believe that is persecution.In America the future persecution will come from those who are intolerant of those who believe different than themselves. Look for those who write, publish attacks on other religions, en masse. The rhetorical attack today will turn into the real physical attacks, tomorrow.


This second place I worked. A 18 yr old girl came to apply for a job. She told the owner up front that she did'nt wear pants. He told her that it was ok. At the second interview he told her he could'nt hire her unless she wore pants.It was a hostess job. She left. I was proud of this young person for standing up for what she believed. Many just give in to the pressure.


Man could I already write a book on this. The few of us whom God has chosen into a close relationship with Him oh my goodness does the Devil hate us. And unbelievers are so silly they do not know when Satan is using them against God's people. We as true believers are suppose to have compassion for the lost, and I do. +++


Real Christians in America are already being persecuted, and we have been for many years. We are used and abused, have our familes taken away, our lives destoyed, forced to pay extortion, lose jobs, etc. only because we are Christian.


Yes, these are real responses. Yes, some of them don't make sense ("forced to pay extortion"?). And persecution will come "from those who are intolerant of those who believe different than themselves". Huh? Does this one actually believe that his religion is tolerant? Of other religions? Let's take a free history course in Western Civilization shall we?


Persecution: A program or campaign to subjugate or eliminate a specific group of people. That includes:


Romans against Christians (60 CE sporadically until @305CE)
Christians against Jews (325 CE until...)
Christians against pagans (325 CE until...)
Christians against Muslims and Jews (9 Crusades)
Christians against Christians (esp. 30 Years War)
Christians against Meso and Native Americans ("heathens")
Christians against Chinese-Americans ("The Yellow Peril")
Christians against Japanese-Americans (WWII)
Christians against Gays and Lesbians
Christians against Harry Potter
Christians against Muslims (again)


That's quite a track record. And there's all those groups Christians dislike: feminists, atheists, agnostics, Freemasons as well as the 29,999 other denominations who "don't think like them."

Persecution? Some people have forgotten the meaning of the word.

An auto de fe or mass burning of witches

Einstein and Religion

Originally uploaded by James W Bell

Einstein published a paper in Nature in 1940 entitled "Science and Religion" which gave his views on the subject.: " Accordingly a religious person is devout in the sense that he has no doubt of the significance of those super-personal objects and goals which neither require nor are capable of rational foundation … In this sense religion is the age-old endeavour of mankind to become clearly and completely conscious of these values and goals, and constantly to strengthen their effects." Also: He argued that conflicts between science and religion "have all sprung from fatal errors." "Even though the realms of religion and science in themselves are clearly marked off from each other" there are "strong reciprocal relationships and dependencies … science without religion is lame, religion without science is blind … a legitimate conflict between science and religion cannot exist."

Fundamentalist Women: Lower than...

Just About Everybody Else

As an observer of religion I can honestly say that I wasn't as shocked about the Eldorado situation* as many people were. The size of it did make me angry, though: it was a way of saying that religious people will always give some leeway to anything that has the name of Jesus Christ in its title. Let's face it, a lot of people must have known what was happening. And not just "regular" Mormons. And while this blog alludes to the mental inadequacies of the Religious Right, they can't all be complete morons (yes, you read that right...ssshhh!). To be sure, there will be articles and speeches given about the heinousness of the Eldorado compound, but it will be difficult to separate the righteous from the self-righteous. The latter will be oozing out of the woodwork for a long time.


So I still have to ask: why was it a 16 year-old escapee who had to blow the whistle? Couldn't some upstanding adult "Christian" have done it long ago? Carolyn Jessop did, but why wasn't her book given a more substantial readership? Of course, now it will soar to the top of the bestseller lists - the secular ones - and make Carolyn Jessop look like either a martyr or an opportunist (I don't think she would want either role).


"I was outraged to find that child abuse and child marriage is allowed to go largely unpunished in the US and Canada. The communities claim that polygamy is a religious matter, whereas escapees have a different story - tales of institutionalzed child abuse, rape, incest, beatings, lack of education and brainwashing. Women, once married (most likely to a man considerably older who they have not chosen), are expected to bear one child a year. The husbands rarely earn enough to support their large families, so they depend on welfare because the mothers are not legally married, and therefore qualify as "single mothers." They believe that using the government's funds - or "bleeding the beast" as they call it - is a divine duty of theirs.Needless to say, I jumped for joy when Warren Jeffs was arrested! Also, I recently saw a documentary called "Banking On Heaven", that said the Mormon Church's official law firm was the same used by the Fundamentalist Latter Day Saints, who practice the child marriage and polygamy the Mormon hierarchy claim they oppose." Note: Jessop obviously knows that opposing something and looking the other way are two very different things - but their lawyers pretend not to know that. (Ephasis and red lettering my own)



"Bleeding the Beast" sounds strangely sexual. I wonder what Tony Perkins is going to say about it? Family Research Council will have to do some amazing tightrope work: "Freedom of religion and bilking taxpayers - hurry! we have to sew them together somehow!"


And everywhere the plight of women will be questioned.

Yes, we should question it, but wasn't that already done - some 30-40 years ago? Essentially fundamentalist groups like the Southern Baptist Convention are still in the process of coming out from beneath their rocks and allowing women to have a (small) voice within their societies. Not one of the have a "too little too late" attitude either. Instead, they wait for groups like the Fundamentalist Church of Jesus Christ of Latter Day Saints (or FLDS) to insult what little progress has been made by and for women. "But look how wonderful we are, ah, in comparison to them!!" It doesn't dawn on them that the words they will use - "small sect" and "cult"- might be traced back to them because every one of them could be subjectively called a sect since it is primarily is tangental: it goes off on its own because of some doctrinal discrepancy. Taken as a whole, all 30,000 denominations make Christianity look quite stupid: a sect's chief feature being that everyone within the sect must feel that they and they alone possess the Truth. Righteous arrogance abounds. Belief is NOT relative in any way. This stance puts their (especially American) noses so far up into the air that they are in danger of colliding with satellites.


And the plight of women will be buried in the details.


Thirty thousand denominations. OMG! With that many groups do you think one just might have it right? Nah, because according to each one, the other 29,999 are wrong.

So how are the women in these pictures different?

*I call it a "situation" because there is no apt way of describing it.