No offense, but isn't it about time for the Catholic Church to put up or shut up?

[wcepler]

No offense, but isn’t it about time for the Catholic Church put up or shut up?

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Wait and see! After this piece comes out some folks will say, well gee, the Popes (this one and the last one) haven't been big supporters of the moral atrocities and sadisms of the Bush/Republican Presidency.

Aarugh! How do you talk to people like that? Let's look very closely at what has NOT happened.

The Catholic Church (Popes, Cardinals, Bishops, etc.) have been playing it INFINITELY safe. Dear God (see, we can talk about God too), the silence has been deafening. Sure a few candyass denunciations here and there about the horror show in Iraq. And even a few murmurs about the Israeli/Palestinian "conflict". Yeah, conflict is the word since that insane asylum of mutually righteous blood letting is the core cancer that has metastasized to the entire planet. But do you hear Rome making any comments about even pouring oil on troubled waters. Silentio.

We all know it’s tricky for institutionalized (VERY institutionalized) religions such as the Catholic Church to speak to desperately immoral political realities, but, duh, aren't religions supposed to say or do SOMETHING about tsunamis of world wide evil?

Here's the thing. The more you watch allegedly "religious people" (e.g., the Catholic hierarchy) walk with averted eyes around, say, a rape and murder in the streets, is the less you think of them as being religious AT ALL.

And that's what the Catholic Church has been doing about the murder of Mother Nature, the destruction of America's middle class, the unbridled greed of America's Dictatorship of the Rich, the contempt for science and education, the theft of America's retirement and health care programs and about 43 other things. The cassock folk just keep walking by and walking by, having conversations about who knows what, but doing essentially NOTHING to even acknowledge, much less condemn, behaviors and policies which would have made Jesus weep.

But, who cares about Jesus? The Baptist Big Bang folks (Armeggdonites) expect the world to go boom in the next week or two, and are flatly indifferent to the compassionate and loving teachings of Jesus Christ. And the Catholic Church? Well, it's basically doing the same thing it did to St. Francis centuries ago: speak no evil, see no evil, and hear no evil.

And yes, there are some significant exceptions. Very, VERY rarely the Church makes some statement that genocide is naughty and the Middle East isn't a cartoon movie of good guys and bad guys. Hint: the bad guys are murderers and the good guys are retaliators against the bad guys.

What about the following possibility? What about the realistic possibility that if the Catholic Church had made some encyclicalesque denunciation of the anti-humanity, Middle Eastern policies of the Bush/Republican Administration, thousands, perhaps tens of thousands of children, would now be alive?

Seriously, VERY seriously, what about this possibility? Perhaps such a judgment from the Catholic Church would have very significantly weakened the moral legitimacy of these greed/oil obsessed "Crusaders".

By now, even barnyard animals know the Iraq War (and the Iran War to come?) is chiefly about oil and the obscene construction of dipstick religious fanatics.

So, what's the deal here? We all know Jesus wouldn't have walked by the Bush/Republican Heart of Darkness with his eyes averted. And neither would St. Francis or Buddha or Mohamed or the Hebrew Prophets.

So why has the Catholic Church been on its tippy toes for the last six years? The horror of the last six years hasn't been some political "game". It's been mass murder, killing the planet, robbing disadvantaged citizens to make pig rich people, pig, pig richer, regressing science back into the dark ages, under funding schools out of existence, pouring GASOLINE on Middle Eastern troubled waters when it could have long sense mediated a Middle Eastern peace that the entire region (and world) would have accepted.

An image that fits is a city which has been utterly taken over by criminals and murderers. Daughters are raped, sons are cannon fodder, homes are destroyed (bulldozed maybe?), "legal" theft is the name of the city administration game, other cities are bombed, and EVERYTHING is under the control of the very, very rich.

And the Catholic Church? Maybe a few sermonettes and pamphlets about how religion should never speak about social evil.

And here we thought the ESSENCE of the teachings of Jesus Christ was all about compassion and love and that our core responsibility as a Child of God was to acknowledge and deal with our abandoned, wounded, and dying brothers and sisters.

Apparently the cassock people have a "politically correct" version of Jesus Christ in which wounded bodies (and countries) are things to be stepped over while chatting about social pap.

I vote for the first Jesus.
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W. Christopher Epler (Bill)

more from Bill at <http://theliberationofrealism.blogspot.com/>

[MichiganVote]

1. Aw come on....they just GAVE you a whole new set of commandments

and they didn't even use Moses this time. They took George Bush off our hands for a few days, and they sorta, kinda, almost, not quite but making progress, took care of the perverts they protected for decades. Its hard work keeping women in their place, screwing with the embryo's is still a no-no even if you do grab a few of the female congregants for practice.

They been busy. They'll get to that stuff in the next century silly.

[ShortnFiery]

2. No worries, us liberal Catholics have encouraged The Pope to instead

focus on being the best Traffic Cop that The Vatican has ever known.

He's good. He's pure. He'll flag ya down ye sinful speeders! He's The Holy Father and he's coming to a Catholic School near you! :P

The picture below is but one depiction of His Holiness teaching Nuns the hand signal to stop traffic. :wow:

[crim son]

4. I can't see the pic - it's a box with a red X,

but I appreciate the sentiment!

[ShortnFiery]

6. Oh, you're not missing much, I even have the wrong Pope.

It's just a picture of Pope John Paul (our last Pope) surrounded by Nuns in the traditional black and white habits. Pope John Paul has his hand out like that of a traffic cop stopping ongoing traffic. :shrug: I may have to endure an extra eon in Purgatory for that irreverence. :blush:

[crim son]

9. I thought the Church recently got rid of Purgatory.

Maybe I read wrong :7

[NOLALady]

7. Did

you right click the picture? And click "view"

[crim son]

10. Yes.

For some reason that's never worked on DU. I think I'm able to see 99% of the pics anyway. Thank you for the suggestion.

[crim son]

3. Hear! Hear!

Although Catholics are free to believe what they like about our foreign policy whether or not the Church speaks out against it, I believe a stronger official stance would have a more pronounced effect. I've spoken to very traditional Catholics of my parents' generation who believe like the most outspoken american evangelicals, that Muslims are sinners and must be converted or destroyed. Surely it is the responsibility of the Church, which gives rise to such opinions, to debunk them. The Church does not, not loudly, not with enough force, and not repetetively.

[ShortnFiery]

5. That's the problem with "official stances" - they are not inclusive.

I know it's simple but I live by ONLY Two Commandments (encompasses all 10 if applied to da max).

1) I love God; and 2) I love my neighbor. Add: I do my best to do the foregoing with all my heart and soul.

DONE! Practice the foregoing through and through (higher power or my respect if you don't have a first one - Humanitarian), and you will rarely fail to live a better, more giving and full life.

[crim son]

8. Inclusive or not, neither are they meaningless.

I'm an agnostic who chooses to live by largely Christian principles. I do agree that your numbers one and two above should cover all bases if you follow them in the fullness of your heart and mind. Alas, even with ten stringent guidelines most of us are still confused.

[madrchsod]

11. one word---Rwanda

[GeorgeGist]

12. what is it about religion ...

that makes it better than the soul?