a quick followup…Andrew Greeley has an interesting article that seems of relevance to this question…
“Why I’m Still A Catholic”
and besides you hijcked the thread. So:
Just like the RCC acting in such an unChristian manner to the The Cradle and PP was an act of beauty, huh Mr. Greeley?
thats FR. Greeley to you bub 
I’m not sure if he would have agreed with the Archdiocese on that call anyway…
beagledave said “Get real. The RCC does not consider Protestant churches or Jewish synagogs to be immoral”
Now I really don’t want to come across as a Catholic baiter, and I have a lot of respect and admiration for most of my Catholic friends, who include several nuns and priests. But I have zero respect for the RCC hierarchy, especially Wojtyla and the Opus Dei gangsters that he continually appoints as Cardinals.
In America the RCC hierarchy are handicapped, in their views, by the Constitution and by the fact that they don’t represent the majority of Xians. In the rest of the world, especially Latin America, they don’t behave the way they do in Chicago. I live in Mexico, and down here they not only do consider Protestant chrches to be immoral, they take violent measures to enforce their views. Here in Oaxaca there are at least 10,000 Protestant Indians, mostly Mixtecs and Zapotecs, who have been driven from their homes by priest-encited mobs that beat them up, loot their houses, burn their churches, and sometimes lynch them. This happens with the publicly repeated approval of the last-but-one papal nuncio, Girolamo Prigione, and without a word of protest from any of the Cardinals and Archbishops.
As for their respect for alternative points of view, I’ll give you one example that made all the newspapers a couple of weeks ago. A distinguished, widely respected Mexican artist/writer/publisher displayed some of his drawings in a wellknown gallery. One of the drawings showed an Indian holding a poncho with a picture of Marilyn Monroe. The reference (to the “miraculous” portrait of the Virgin of Guadelupe that appeared to Juan Diego in 1528) was obvious to any Mexican; the artist’s point was that the Spaniards had used their iconography to loot the country for some centuries and now the Gringos were doing more or less the same. To most of us that are used to American standards of public discourse, that would seem like a reasonable statement. Not to the Cardinal. The day after the exhibition opened, a couple of Opus Dei thugs broke into the gallery, tore the picture off the wall, shredded it, and videoed themselves trampling the fragments. They were arrested, and Cardinal Norberto Rivera immediately called a press conference. I quote (my translation, from La Jornada, October 11 2000) “The church agrees that the agressors must be punished. But the agressors in this case are the so-called artist, and the hypocrites who allowed this anti-Christian propaganda to be displayed.” He praised the grinning bullyboys as fine examples of dedicated Catholic youth and offered to pay any fines imposed out of his personal funds. I AM NOT MAKING THIS UP.
I could go on, and on, about the RCC’s fawning relationship with the most corrupt and greedy representatives of what is arguably the most corrupt and greedy political organization on Earth, (the PRI), and maybe in some other thread I will.
And don’t even get me started on Argentina, Cardinal Pio Laghi, the deathcamps and torture centers, and General Raul Videla, who billed himsef as “El Catoliquisimo” “The Most Caholic General.” If anyone wants to find out what happened there, and how Wojtyla was involved, just go to Alta Vista and search on these names: Pio Laghi, Raul Videla, Alberto Astiz, Dagmar Hagelin, and the Mothers of the Plaza de Mayo. For Mexico try Girolamo Prigioni, the Arrellano brothers, Carlos Hank Gonzalez, Norberto Rivera, and Raul Salinas. That’s just a start.
Again: I’m not bashing Catholics. I’m not a Protestant or any other kind ot theist, and I’ll repeat that some of the priests and nuns that I know, the ones that live and work with the poorest of the poor, are the best people I know.
And they’ll be the first to tell you they get NO support, and often active harrassment, from the Archbishops and Cardinals in their mansions and limosines.
To conclude this maybe annoying rant: be glad you live in the USA, where the worst that Wojtyla can do is encourage an occasional clinic bombing. In the rest of the world things aren’t quite the same.
I’m not familiar with the politics (religious or secular) or Mexico and other Latin American countries…However, while I’m not the biggest fan of the current pontiff, claiming that he encourages clinic bombings is stretching credulity a wee bit.
some thoughts on Mapache’s post:
First off, I"m not trying to defend the RCC here. Just trying to get the facts right:
-If this really is the situation in Latin America, it surprises me that the Pope has nothing to say about it (and according to you, seems to support it in some way). On the other hand, maybe he has said something only I’ve not paid attention because it ain’t my country. You hint at his involvement in promoting this situation, but don’t get specific. I’d like to hear more.
-Like beagledave said, I’m not aware of the RCC’s involvement in any clinic bombings. We have many other religious groups in the US capable of supplying sufficient fanaticism for that.
-Even if the situation is so in Latin America, your post seems to imply that the situation is like this everywhere but in the US. Not so sure of that.
What you’re describing seems to be a pattern of behavior pretty common to almost any group that wields any power in Mexico (the PRI, the police, etc.) The fact that religious organizations are in on the game is not all too surprising to me. I’d have to guess that the reason you pick out the RCC instead of Protestant or Jewish (or whatever other) religious organizations is because they have the most power of those groups. Or am I wrong? Tell me more.
You know, considering JP II is against the death penalty, I HIGHLY doubt he encourages clinic bombings…
Especially since it gives the church such a bad image.
Ren:
Well, OK. This will take a while, and is a blatant thread hijack. But you asked. I’m not an expert on Mexican history, but I’ve been visiting Mexico for fortyfive years, and have lived and worked in Latin America for the past twentytwo. I speak the language, read the newspapers, and know a lot of people. So:
Mexico was the first officially nontheist country in the world; broke relations with the Vatican in 1856, when the RCC owned almost half the country, and wrote a Constitution that prohibited the clergy’s involvement in education and politics. The priests got a lot of their power back during the Porfiriat dictatorship in the late 1800s, fought on the wrong side in the second Mexican revolution of 1910-1920, and were stripped again of most of their political power. Then Carlos Salinas, who had obviously cut a deal with the Vatican, became the PRI (the official government party, who had “won” every election from the Presidency to local dogcatcher since 1928) candidate for President in 1988. He blatantly, openly stole the election and the very first political entity in the world to congratulate him on his overwhelming victory was……the Vatican. Who didn’t even have diplomatic relations.
Anyway, Wojtyla immediately sent one of his close friends, Msgr. Girolamo Prigione, as Nuncio, well before Salinas rammed through an amendment to the Constitution reestablishing diplomacy. In his first press conference, Prigione was asked about the Church’s reaction to the expulsions, beatings, churchburnings and lynchings going on in the South. “Sects” he replied (sects is the Catholic word for any religion but theirs}“are like flies. You don’t try to reason with flies.” The next day another reporter asked him if that was what he had really meant; he said “Of course. Next question.”
Prigione , over the next couple of years, became the Salinas family’s close friend, while the Salinas were busy looting the country of everything they could steal. He also became very close to some of the most utterly corrupt narco-politicians in the country, so much so that most of the newspapers started referring to him as Msgr. Pri. He enjoyed an extremely luxurious lifestyle, was regularly photographed giving abrazos – a public hug, and a very strong signal in Mexico- to swine like Raul Salinas and Carlos Hank Gonzalez, and in general used all his power to help the Salinas gang keep their power. Then things got really bizarre.
For some time, rumors had been going around that Cardinal Posadas, one of Mrgr. Pri’s close associates, had some, aah, unusual friends regularly visiting his mansion in Guadalajara, and that the Cardinal had been raising large sums of money from sources unknown. One day in early 1988 Cardinal P got into his limousine to meet Msgr. Pri at the Guadalajara airport. Several witnesses testified as to what happened next: some welldressed gunmen met the Cardinal’s car, yanked him out, seized a black suitcase that he was carrying, and shot him 14 times. Then they calmly walked out to a scheduled airliner that had mysteriously been delayed for half an hour, and disappeared.
The Mexican government AND THE VATICAN immediately- apparently, in the Vatican’s case, before they were supposed to have been notified of the shooting - issued separate press releases claiming that the unfortunate Cardinal had been “caught in a crossfire” between rival gangs; then they announced that he had been shot on purpose because he had been mistaken for one of the gangsters, “El Chapo” Guzman, since he was riding in the same kind of limo. It was pointed out the “El Chapo” (“Shorty”) was a five-foot-four Indian and Cardinal P was six feet tall, blue eyed, and dressed in full Cardinal regalia, and that most of the bullets were fired from a distance of less than a foot; but the official story stayed the same. Then it got even weirder.
The blame was put on the Arrellano Felix brothers, who run the Tijuana dope smuggling cartel. Msgr. Pri went back to his mansion. A few days later, another limo arrived at the Msgr’s door, stayed several hours, and while the occupants were leaving, a hidden reporter recognized…the Arrellano Felix’s themselves. The most wanted criminals in Mexico drove up to the Nuncio’s house, walked in, stayed for the afternoon, and drove away.
Then the Nuncio jumped into his limo, rushed off to the Presidential Palace, demanded an immediate private interview with Carlos Salinas, and got it. NOBODY walks in on the Mexican President without an appointment, but Msgr. Pri did.
The next day, of course, all Hell broke loose. At first the Nuncio calmly lied; he was shocked! that anyone could imagine that he would consort with such unsavory types; the reporter was obviously in the pay of Freemasons or whathaveyou. Then the Arrellano’s themselves put out a press release (I told you this is impossibly strange) saying yes they had been to visit. So then Msgr. Pri said , well, yes, but just to pass the time of day and anyway all conversations were under the seal of the Confessional….I AM NOT MAKING THIS UP!!! Then Carlos Salinas ordered his own party’s candidate, handpicked by Salinas, murdered in broad daylight in front of thirty thousand people , his brother Raul set up the murder of his own brother-in-law and the PRI party chairman……
Look, this is getting too long. And nobody who hasn’t been living down here is going to believe it anyway. If I haven’t bored you all to tears, let me know, otherwise I’ll shut up.
By the way, I got some of the names wrong in my last post, The Most Catholic General is Jorge Videla, and it’s Alfredo Astiz. And DON’T get me started on Argentina.
I think Greeley summed up my disillusionment…
Worship God, NOT the Church itself!
Sure puts my whining about the Church in Chicago in perspective, doesn’t it?
Guinastasia, this brings up the logical question: If you’re just “worshipping God”, why call yourself a Catholic? You’re just “religious”, or maybe at most a “Christian”, but certainly nothing more specific. If you’re going to call yourself Catholic you have to accept the doctrine…at least the larger part of it. And since the doctrine comes from a group of people whose behavior itself is obviously questionable…how can we trust them about the doctrine?
Just confirms my earlier experience that many of us call ourselves “Catholic” or “Protestant” or “Jewish” based on our own private definitions, which may not have much to do with doctrine when all is said and done.
My personal feeling is that whatever God I may choose to worship (or not), I’m not calling myself a Catholic or Protestant or anything else, because those labels are increasingly meaningless, and only serve to give people a false impression of a more complicated truth.
Don’t stop, it was just getting interesting…
Because I believe in a LOT of the things the CAtholic doctrine teaches, about the saints, the angels, the prayers, etc etc etc…it’s the parts about the church itself and the hierarchy anbd such…
Read some of Greeley’s articles…there’s one on the difference between conservative Catholics (Church Uber Alles) and the Pluralists, which are sort of Reform Catholics, who want change.