Man and Nature? Who is this man, the erstwhile Bishop of Rome, surrounded by billions of dollars of Art and Gold Bullion, King of his own Oligarchy, who is he to talk of Greed? The History of Europe is so intertwined with the debauchery and material greed and lust for political power of the Roman Catholic Church that this Prelate’s comments are not only the height of popish hypocrisy but are One Thousand Seven Hundred Years late.
It would be so much more Christian if he were to tackle human problems such as the misogyny of the Roman Catholic Church. It is obvious the Bishop and his priests hate, or fear, women so much they won’t even have sex with them – and why should they with so many little boys dressed in frocks running around altars every Sunday. And why not concern themselves with family issues, oh, that’s right, they not only eschew sex, they despise the family, or is it that they aren’t manly enough to fulfill the most basic of all “natural” male roles, being a real “Father” and faithful husband. And how about social issues such as birth control, or abortion. I am told the VP of the United States, an admitted proponent of “pro-choice” policies is given the Sacrament of The Holy Eucharist each Sunday, by a parish priest whose temporal master and employer is none other than the Bishop of Rome! In point of fact, the Roman Catholic Church is so poor of Spirit and Grace that a majority of Catholics in the Unite States describe themselves as ‘pro-choice,” or as having no opinion as to the venality of the act of aborting human life, seeing abortion as mere happenstance, as narcissistic fulfillment and not as an act of violence and murder that easily transcends the stupidity of craven acts of self-destruction perpetrated by the industrialized first world powers.
If this South American promulgator of “Liberation Theology” had acted, in his youth, on his own conscience, he, like Pope Pius XII during WWII, would not have to explain to history why he allowed his native government to arrest, detain, rape and impregnate thousands of young Argentinian women whose political views reflected a desire for democracy and equal rights, and then murder those women and steal those children. The Church did nothing but survive; no martyrs, no Bishops blocking Government doors, all the while tens of thousands of young men and women, students, dissenters, “rebels” disappeared into the years’ long night of terror and were never seen again.
Oh, but the future Bishop of Rome was on his knees praying for those children, just as was the Pope on his knees praying for Jews, even as he signed a compact with the Nazi’s to protect the Church’s property and personages, as Jews were being murdered in the ovens of extermination camps. For the Roman Catholic Church, that was nothing new, they have persecuted God’s chosen people for two millennium, confiscating their wealth and using Jews as scapegoats for social and political failures of a human, not theological, nature.
Now the Argentinian “Cardinal”… did any of the Apostles call themselves by such distinguished and pompous terms… now the “pope” speaks and demands justice for all those who have yet to learn to work for common good, or failed to overthrow governments that, oddly enough, are as autocratic as the Vatican, or are as unwilling to give up their pollution, their craven lust for power and material goods.
The pope should get an apartment in Rome, get married, have sex with his wife, father children, and go to work every day like those he purports to champion. Then maybe, by God’s grace, he will possess some moral authority beyond a white robe, oh, he’s so so pure, and a palace filled with art treasures dating as far back as the days the Church sold itself to the Prince of the Power of the Air; that is, when Constantine, a pagan Roman Emperor, bought the rights to Christianity and used the blood of Christ and the sweat of the clergy to grease the wheels of Imperial Power and Earthy Majesty.
I am a Protestant, schooled, when young, in the Roman Catholic Tradition, but never one to accept dogma without question, although at one time, in grammar school, I did call myself a “Southern Catholic.” I have never believed that such an autocratic Ruler as is the Pope had any Divine right to exist, or possessed Scriptural provenance, or could possibly be the the sole vessel of the Holy Spirit on Earth. History proves me correct. The very nature of the Office implies that God can’t inspire love and goodness in this His own creation, that He needs, yes, that God needs another “King” on Earth. Really? Ask yourselves, how did that work out for Juda and Israel?
I dearly wish that millions of my brothers and sisters, raised as Roman Catholics, would receive the Grace of God and uncouple themselves, their Churches and Institutions from the Church of Rome, and declare themselves American Catholics, electing their Priests, and Bishops; marrying them off, and all the while, their hearts emboldened by the Holy Spirit, reading daily the Holy Bible and following the Way of Jesus, honoring the Patriarchs, and casting off the mantle of EuroAmerican philosophy and subservience to corrupt and antiquated notions of salvation through obedience to the teachings of men “acting in place of God.”
Doing so, eschewing pomp, power and earthly wealth, catholic parishes would prosper while their communicants tithed the Biblical amount, thereby funding Schools and Clinics and Hospitals and other such good works as to fully expose Government provided Welfare, State Sponsored Education, Political Correctness and Collectivism, and Corporate Materialism and Greed for what they are, the deft hand of Lucifer weakening the will of man, and seizing the souls of sinners.
Lastly, let me avoid the hypocrisy of the Romans, and freely admit that we Protestant ministers and our congregants are in sore need of revival, that we fail to tithe, fail to hold ministers accountable when they fly in their own private jets and drive luxury SUV’s to preach only part of the Gospel that suits them to crowds in vast auditoriums hungering for earthly hope and eternal life; most knowing their congregants only by their tithe card numbers, and sending them, not selling them… tokens and relics and DVD’s and tapes, for “donations” only, all the while proclaiming the Way of Christ “to” them, while seldom walking that path “with” them. Is Pope Francis, which is not even his real name, concerned with salvation? Did the Roman ecclesiastical calendar recently have the same Sunday reading of the Gospel that our Anglican calendar had, Luke 15:11? Are we here to preach God’s word or glorify or criticize the works of man? The Prodigal Son’s return is in what we rejoice, the soul that was lost, and now is found. And if we Christians worked really diligently at praising and glorifying God, we likely would have in this world far less pollution, both physical, mental and spiritual, than now exists.
For my part, I address my Father in Heaven, as they say in those Romish prayers, with a simple Mea culpa! And I will try to do better, to follow his Way better, to preach His word better. How about you, Francis? + + +