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I can’t help laughing at that “Bible Ministries” site. What maroons.
The circle with the cross on top is the Earth with the saving cross of Jesus on top. (Hint guys, the female symbol is the reverse.)
The “P” on a “leaning cross” is actually the Greek letter Rho superimposed on the Greek letter Chi–the first two letters (in Greek) of Christ and a common abbreviation dating to around the third century.
The Letters IHS are Latin for Iesus Hominum Salvator (Jesus Savior of Men) (although they were originally simply the first three letters of the name Jesus in Greek–Iota, Eta, Sigma–and the Latin-speaking people saw the similar-looking letters and made a Latin acronym by erroneously confusing the Greek characters for Latin).
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tomndebb, I stand corrected. That was the only site I could find with a search, so I hoped it was right - maybe I should have searched more. Sorry for the confusion everyone.
I basically believed it to be right because a quote from it was read on one of the news channels not too long ago - I remembered hearing it. But who actually trusts the media these days???
tomndebb is quite right about the significance of IHS. I used to think it was derived from In Hoc Signo (Vinces), the legend that Constantine used after his vision of the cross, but was soon set right about its Greek origin. Iesus Hominen Salvator is, I confess, a new one to me, but the “explanation” that it stands for “Isis, Horus, Seb” is thoroughly off the wall.
Just for the record, the letters represented on the cross are INRI, which stand for Iesu Nazoreorum Rex Iudeorum (Jesus of Nazareth, King of the Jews), just as the Gospels relate. This is one of those things they never tell you about in Catholic School. I had to find it out on my own. This apparent reluctance of the Church to explain its symbols to its own members leads to things like the above idiocy about Egyptian gods, and to a somewhat irreverent joke a Catholic neighbor told me – that is stands for “I’m Nailed Right In.”
Assuming that the link that tomndebb has provided is any more accurate or truthful than the one provided earlier, I too stand corrected. Nothing chilling about the link he/she supplied.
I’m still waiting to see how many church buildings in the greater Boston area equal $ 30 million…
IANAL, so my comments here should not be taken as fact, or as anything else but speculation.
I gather that, up to now, U.S. secular authorities have not treated the Catholic Church as one, worldwide entity, but rather have regarded the various dioceses as a collection of independent organizations. However, I can imagine situations in which that might change quickly.
Example: Cleveland’s Bishop James Quinn was recorded in 1990 telling clergy that any and all potentially incriminating evidence should be shipped to the Vatican embassy, which has the protection of diplomatic immunity, and would not have to release what they had to U.S. criminal authorities.
I have no knowledge that this suggestion was followed, in Cleveland or anywhere else, but for the sake of argument, suppose it could be proven that this same advice was being given by bishops in dioceses across the country.
If THAT were the case, we’d be looking at a massive conspiracy to obstruct justice… and I’d be willing to bet that prosecutors could even invoke RICO to go after the American Church in toto.
A common misconception, but a misconception nevertheless. Once a bishop has been appointed, it is extremely difficult to remove him against his will. The Pope cannot simply dismiss him; legal proceedings before church courts are required.
The media are fond of presenting the Catholic church as a monolith wholly controlled by the Pope and his Curia. The Church cetainly has a much more hierarchical authority structure than other churches and the pope is extremely powerful, but the basic unit of administration and authority is the individual diocese. The curia tries very hard to ensure that they all follow similar policies, but as tomndebb says they do this firstly by appointing the “right” people as bishops and secondly by persuading them or appealing to their sense of loyalty or community, and only to a very limited and not very effective extent by the direct exercise of authority. This may, of course, still be sufficient from a legal point of view to try to make the Pope liable; I don’t know
There’s also the problem that in this case what might be regarded as “the top” is (a) outside the jurisdiction of the US couts, and (b) has sovereign immunity. Whatever the US courts can do stops at the boundaries of the US, so any attempt to take this beyound the archiocese of Boston means pursuing the assets of other US dioceses. And, of course, whatever legal or de facto authority the Pope or the curia might have had over Boston, the other dioceses had none at all. It doesn’t seem quite right that the people of (say) Boise, Idaho should lose their churches and schools because of wrongdoing in Boston which neither they nor their Bishop could do anything about.
Does the Vatican have sole authority to appoint bishops and above?
Not sure how much weight this actually has. I have a very vague memory (which is probably inaccurate) of the U.S. encouraging family members of some terrorist attack or other to pursue legal action against the Sovereign State of Libya once it was determined (or claimed, at least) that the country’s government had to some degree participated in the action.
That’s a bit like asking “who runs the US federal courts?” Church courts are established under canon law, which is a legal system like US law, or any other national legal system. They are run on a day-to-day basis, I would guess, by judges and court officials, who themselves are appointed either by the Pope or (more probably) by senior officials of the Curia.
In most cases, yes. There would still be a few cases where the civil government of a particular country has a right to be consulted, or a right of veto. And there would be cases of specific dioceses where the Pope is expected always to appoint the candidate nominated by the Cathedral Chapter. But in most cases the Pope makes whatever appointment he wants. Of course he consults and takes advice locally, and in most cases, if he has any sense, he will attach considerable weight to that advice, but in the end the decision is his.
My point is that, having once appointed a bishop, it is hard for the Pope to fire him. He certainly does not have a right of dismissal, as taggert’s original post suggested.
Well, it’s my impression that sovereign immunity carries quite a lot of weight. As a rule, you can’t sue a sovereign in the US courts; the cases where you can are exceptional.
I don’t think you can make an exception simply because the sovereign is in effective control of his agents. All sovereigns are in effective control of their agents most of the time. If that created an exception to the rule of sovereign immunity, there wouldn’t really be a rule of sovereign immunity. Hence even if it could be shown that, if the Pope had said “jump” Cardinal Law would have jumped, that would not get you past the sovereign immunity rule. What you say about the Libyan case suggests that, at a minimum, you would have to show that the Pope had instructed Cardinal Law to behave in the way complained of.
And, in any event, the fact that the assets of the Vatican are outside the US is an entirely separate problem. If somebody did sue the Pope, and if the court found an exception to the sovereign immunity rule and gave a judgment against the Pope, it could only be enforced against the assets of the Pope in the US, and I doubt if these are extensive.