(Above: Pope Joan, celebrating the triumph of feminism in the Catholic church).
Is it just the wild paranoid imaginings of the fevered mind, or is The Australian busy transforming itself into the Catholic Daily? (Because The Catholic Weekly is inclined to the odd bit of soft core social justice nonsense?)
The display of anti-papal prejudice is not only conformist. Worse, it is the kind of conformism that is usually seen among children under peer pressure, who compete to see who can come up with the meanest phrase to castigate the playground scapegoat.
Goosey Goosey Gander, whither shall I wander?
Upstairs and downstairs and in my Lady's chamber.
There I met an old man who wouldn't say his prayers,
So I took him by his left leg and threw him down the stairs.
Intolerance has always been fuelled by an irrational and visceral sense of existential disgust, leading to moral disorientation.
If all the extravagant accusations thrown at the Pope are true, then it seems he is responsible for virtually every evil afflicting the modern world. When he is not covering up the deeds of child molesters, he is sabotaging the work of embryonic stem cell researchers. He is apparently totalitarian, a manipulative homophobe, and an enemy of women.
These frivolous and lying men say that all priests, be they popes, archbishops, or simple priests are possessed of equal authority and equal jurisdiction, by the institution of Christ; that whatever one possesses beyond another is a concession of the Emperor, who can moreover revoke what he has granted,-which assertions are certainly contrary to sacred teaching and savour of heresy; 5) these blasphemers say that the universal Church may not inflict a coactive penalty on any person unless with the emperor's permission." All the pontifical propositions opposed to the declarations of Marsilius of Padua and Jean de Jandun are proved at length from the Scriptures, traditions, and history. These declarations are condemned as being contrary to the Holy Scripture, dangerous to the Catholic faith, heretical, and erroneous and their authors Marsilius and Jean as being undoubtedly heretics and even heresiarchs (Denzinger, "Enchiridion", 423, ed. Bannwart, 495; Noel Valois, "Histoire littéraire de la France", XXXIII, 592).
As this condemnation was falling on the head of Marsilius, the culprit was coming to Italy in the emperor's train and he saw his revolutionary ideas being put into practice. Louis of Bavaria had himself crowned by Colonna syndic of the Roman people; he dethroned John XXII, replacing him by the Friar Minor, Peter of Corbara, whom he invested with temporal power. At the same time he bestowed the title of imperial vicar on Marsilius and permitted him to persecute the Roman clergy. The pope of Avignon protested twice against the sacrilegious conduct of both. The triumph of Marsilius was, however, of short duration. Abandoned by the emperor in October, 1336, he died towards the end of 1342.
Political positions espoused by Archbishop Lefebvre included the following:
Condemnation of the 1789 French Revolution, and what he called its "Masonic and anti-Catholic principles".
Support for the "Catholic order" of the authoritarian French Vichy régime (1940–1944), which collaborated with Nazi Germany and whose leader, Philippe Pétain, was later sentenced to death as a collaborator.
Support for authoritarian governments. In 1976, Lefebvre praised the regimes of Jorge Videla in Argentina and Augusto Pinochet in Chile, and in 1985 he spoke approvingly of the governments of Francisco Franco of Spain and Antonio Salazar of Portugal, noting that their neutrality in World War II had spared their peoples, including their Jewish populations, the suffering of the War.
Support for the French far-right leader Jean-Marie le Pen. In 1985, the French periodical Présent quoted Lefebvre as endorsing Le Pen, on the grounds that he was the only leading French politician who was clearly opposed to abortion. (here for footnotes)
Not content with letting loose George Pell on the pill, the Oz finds room for Frank Furedi's Give PC purists someone they can hate, which proposes that anti-papists need anger management.
Furedi is an interesting case study - try his wiki for a taste - because he started out in life as a student radical and chairman of the Revolutionary Communist Party, and was much agitated by issues of free speech.
Furedi's current concept of free speech is to berate those who happen to exercise it:
THE Pope's recent visit to Britain provided much of the British cultural elite with a prominent figure it is OK to hate. Indeed, anti-Catholic prejudice is one of the main themes of today's increasingly conformist imagination. It has reached a level where anyone who doesn't possess a strong feeling of animosity towards the Pope and his visit is viewed as a hopeless apologist for the abusive authority of theocratic despots.
Yep, if you say you think the Pope is a git, and in charge of a theocratic empire, you're showing a conformist imagination. What happens if you think that Iran is also a wretched theocratic state? I guess it's just another sign of a conformist imagination ...
What happens if you think North Korea is a stuffed dictatorship? More conformist imagination.
What happens if you think the Pope is a jolly fine chap and you're at one with the Catholics of the world? Signs of a stultifying conformist imagination? No, no, no, wide ranging libertarian thinking at its finest.
And beware that conformism:
The display of anti-papal prejudice is not only conformist. Worse, it is the kind of conformism that is usually seen among children under peer pressure, who compete to see who can come up with the meanest phrase to castigate the playground scapegoat.
The pope a hapless weed or nerd subject to playground bullying by mean phrases? What you mean like
Goosey Goosey Gander, whither shall I wander?
Upstairs and downstairs and in my Lady's chamber.
There I met an old man who wouldn't say his prayers,
So I took him by his left leg and threw him down the stairs.
Say your prayers in English old man, not Latin, or we'll take you by the right leg and throw you right back up again (here).
As usual, the piece by Furedi is about the "new" atheists, which is to say the militant or aggressive ones. In his plaintive plea for anger management, Furedi shows how a calm moderate discussion is managed, by employing many adjectives and adverbs, and paying them overtime in the proper Humpty Dumpty way.
As usual, the piece by Furedi is about the "new" atheists, which is to say the militant or aggressive ones. In his plaintive plea for anger management, Furedi shows how a calm moderate discussion is managed, by employing many adjectives and adverbs, and paying them overtime in the proper Humpty Dumpty way.
Infantile exchanges, anti-papal zealots, Grant Inquisitor, extravagant accusations, tendentious television program, secular moraliser, unabashed intolerance, opportunistic atheists, stigmatising, pathologising the religious imagination, passionate hatred, insatiable inner appetite for a secular antichrist, venomous rhetoric ...
Let's stop at venomous rhetoric of intolerance and conspiratorial thinking, because by now you get the drift ...
Yep, and Furedi shows it in spades as he lashes out at the pope's enemies with a snickering thwick and thwack, despatching them to all corners of the field, and perhaps to an eternity smouldering in their infamy amongst the hell fires for their wickedness.
But what gets Furedi so upset?
If all the extravagant accusations thrown at the Pope are true, then it seems he is responsible for virtually every evil afflicting the modern world. When he is not covering up the deeds of child molesters, he is sabotaging the work of embryonic stem cell researchers. He is apparently totalitarian, a manipulative homophobe, and an enemy of women.
Uh huh. But he has covered up the deeds of child molesters, and the church has been sabotaging stem cell research. He is an elective monarch, running his city state in a totalitarian way. The church is relentless in its manipulative homophobia, and it refuses to acknowledge the equality of women in the church (a female pope? Are you thinking of Pope Joan? Dream on).
Yet if you take the time to point out some of the problems and difficulties you might have with this present pope, and the direction in which he has steered the church - towards the conservative side of the pew - it's an exercise in conformism.
It is almost as if the anti-Pope crusade represents an unconscious mimicking of the Catholic Church's inquisition. Inquisitors are not interested in rational argument or a free debate. And the vitriolic invective hurled at the "second most evil religion", as Dawkins describes Catholicism, is similar to the passions of the old fanatical inquisitors.
Yes, yes, exactly like the Inquisition. Especially the Spanish one. Why the parallels with the strappado, the toca (waterboarding to you) and the potro (ah yes, the rack) and public burnings are exactly so and thus.
Which leads you to wonder if Furedi has the first clue about history, or about stupid rhetorical exaggerations to make a point. The very crime he lays on any secularist or militant atheist hanging about in the media. Culminating when he dresses up a remark by Claire Rayner about getting rid of the pope as some kind of prelude to an assassination attempt ...
Well he doesn't use such a crude word, but you know what we mean getting rid of means. No, it doesn't mean becoming an apostate, or denying the pope or refuting him or campaigning for his removal. It means getting rid of him ...
Meanwhile, having got agitated about the new militant atheists who dare to be conformist, Furedi then embarks on some further historical analysis, and suggests a third way to fight against papal authority in the interests of freedom and liberty, be evoking the thoughts of Marsilius of Padua.
In his Defensor Pacis (1324), he questioned the idea of the papal fullness of power, and argued that the Pope was not the source of secular power. And he claimed that the authority of the Catholic Church, which was principally concerned with doctrinal authority, was not the provenance of the Pope but of the church's council. The conciliar movement argued that the authority of the council of the church took precedence over the authority of the Pope. This questioning of the church hierarchy can be seen as an early attempt to curb the power of despotic authority. The fundamental idea behind the conciliar movement was that authority should be based on the principle of consent.
Uh huh. Well Marsilius of Padua went down well with the Reformation, but how did he fare with the Church? For that, what better reference that the Catholic Encyclopedia, here:
These frivolous and lying men say that all priests, be they popes, archbishops, or simple priests are possessed of equal authority and equal jurisdiction, by the institution of Christ; that whatever one possesses beyond another is a concession of the Emperor, who can moreover revoke what he has granted,-which assertions are certainly contrary to sacred teaching and savour of heresy; 5) these blasphemers say that the universal Church may not inflict a coactive penalty on any person unless with the emperor's permission." All the pontifical propositions opposed to the declarations of Marsilius of Padua and Jean de Jandun are proved at length from the Scriptures, traditions, and history. These declarations are condemned as being contrary to the Holy Scripture, dangerous to the Catholic faith, heretical, and erroneous and their authors Marsilius and Jean as being undoubtedly heretics and even heresiarchs (Denzinger, "Enchiridion", 423, ed. Bannwart, 495; Noel Valois, "Histoire littéraire de la France", XXXIII, 592).
Heresiarchs! Off to an eternity of hellfire with the lot of 'em. Vile evil heretics. Splitters ...
Why it seems Furedi is favourably quoting from the founder or leader of an heretical doctrine or movement, and so must himself be immediately consigned to hell. Let's see how jolly it is to celebrate the death of heretics:
As this condemnation was falling on the head of Marsilius, the culprit was coming to Italy in the emperor's train and he saw his revolutionary ideas being put into practice. Louis of Bavaria had himself crowned by Colonna syndic of the Roman people; he dethroned John XXII, replacing him by the Friar Minor, Peter of Corbara, whom he invested with temporal power. At the same time he bestowed the title of imperial vicar on Marsilius and permitted him to persecute the Roman clergy. The pope of Avignon protested twice against the sacrilegious conduct of both. The triumph of Marsilius was, however, of short duration. Abandoned by the emperor in October, 1336, he died towards the end of 1342.
Dead, and serve him bloody well right. Off to hell with him, and all his bloody followers can go with him too.
It is important to note the fundamental difference between the progressive demand for the institutionalisation of consent and the infantile gestures made by today's anti-Pope crusaders, who are actually demanding conformism. Conformism? Is that the new word for wanting the pope and the Catholic church to bugger off out of secular lives and secular government?
It is perfectly legitimate to criticise church doctrine on a variety of social and moral issues; no institution or individual should claim immunity from questioning and criticism. But adopting the ideology of "evil" to dehumanise an individual and pathologise their religion represents a form of inquisition-in-reverse.
Uh huh. Well maybe it's time secularists did it in a proper Catholic way. Instead of words, how about some sticks and stones, or maybe the rack ...
It took many centuries for Locke's idea of religious tolerance to gain influence, and to assume a genuinely liberal and open-minded form. Tolerance is too precious an idea to squander through childish displays of anger.
So then Mr. Furedi, where did your childish display of anger, poor choice of words, and historical analogies come from?
So long as people state their dislike of the pope in words, rather than dragging him off to an actual inquisition, where's the problem?
And what's the point of dissembling and prevaricating and equivocating and distorting, so you can bash the secularists and atheists, while posing as a friend of of free thinking, and meanwhile let the pope off the hook?
Here's how to do it, as when discussing Peter Tatchell's "tendentious" television program:
Oh, and Benedict also refuses to take a stand against the legacy of Nazism. "I am shocked he has embraced Catholics accused of being soft on Nazism,"says Tatchell. Getting carried away with his melodrama, he warns: "This is a Pope to fear."
Well the Latin mass is hardly something to fear, but the pope stretching out the hand of friendship to the right wing SSPX and the followers of its founder Marcel Lefebvre, if not a cause for fear, should at least be a cause for extreme concern.
Well the Latin mass is hardly something to fear, but the pope stretching out the hand of friendship to the right wing SSPX and the followers of its founder Marcel Lefebvre, if not a cause for fear, should at least be a cause for extreme concern.
Condemnation of the 1789 French Revolution, and what he called its "Masonic and anti-Catholic principles".
Support for the "Catholic order" of the authoritarian French Vichy régime (1940–1944), which collaborated with Nazi Germany and whose leader, Philippe Pétain, was later sentenced to death as a collaborator.
Support for authoritarian governments. In 1976, Lefebvre praised the regimes of Jorge Videla in Argentina and Augusto Pinochet in Chile, and in 1985 he spoke approvingly of the governments of Francisco Franco of Spain and Antonio Salazar of Portugal, noting that their neutrality in World War II had spared their peoples, including their Jewish populations, the suffering of the War.
Support for the French far-right leader Jean-Marie le Pen. In 1985, the French periodical Présent quoted Lefebvre as endorsing Le Pen, on the grounds that he was the only leading French politician who was clearly opposed to abortion. (here for footnotes)
Blather all you want about Locke, and Furedi blathers a lot, but that's a pretty broad church. Broad enough for loon pond, but is Furedi a contented member of the pond?
You can call Tetchell melodramatic, but Benedict's a hell of a long way from student activist causes ...
That's the way it is with the Spiked mob. More conservative than the conservatives ... since one kind of radical fundamentalism is as good as the next when it all comes down to the wire.
But if that's Furedi's idea of religious tolerance in today's Catholic church, give me an aggressive, loudmouth, assertive, confrontational, militant, outrageous atheist any day of the week ...
Finally, a memo to the editors of The Australian. Instead of a stream of columns defending the pope and/or bashing militant atheists, can we get back to pieces bashing the NBN and explaining that global warming is a myth. There's only so much a body and a vulnerable mind can take ...
(Below: evil militant atheists giving the current pope a good going over, inquisition style).
Oh Dorothy, Dorothy, I lament for you: there's no doubting your condign fate when the Inquisition comes back to town. You'd definitely be in Cardinal Pell's 'little black book'.
ReplyDeleteHowever as a wannabe evil Gnu Atheist, it does raise a question in my mind: who (and when and where) was the last person executed by the Catholic Church as a heretic, or even a heresiac ? I wonder if the Catholic Encyclopaedia has an article on that ? Or maybe even a list of all those who have gathered the wages of sin over the lifetime of the Church.
Maybe the Jensenists would know off hand ? On the grounds that you're always much better informed about the evils committed by your enemies than your own.
I was thinking that maybe we could have an annual celebration of Roman Church executions and hold it on the date of the lucky last ... maybe call it Ratzinger Day ?
How disappointing that the papal sanctified attire is so scantly covered in precious stones. And is that a Vacheron Constantin watch on his wrist?
ReplyDeletehttp://www.independent.co.uk/multimedia/archive/00106/pg-06-Pope-AFP-Gett_106606t.jpg
I think the pope has forgotten the Catechism of the Catholic Church 2445:
Love for the poor is incompatible with immoderate love of riches or their selfish use:
Come now, you rich, weep and howl for the miseries that are coming upon you. Your riches have rotted and your garments are moth-eaten. Your gold and silver have rusted, and their rust will be evidence against you and will eat your flesh like fire. You have laid up treasure for the last days. Behold, the wages of the labourers who mowed your fields, which you kept back by fraud, cry out; and the cries of the harvesters have reached the ears of the Lord of hosts. You have lived on the earth in luxury and in pleasure; you have fattened your hearts in a day of slaughter. You have condemned, you have killed the righteous man; he does not resist you.