Posted on 06/05/2010 5:20:03 PM PDT by grand wazoo
You say that there is "no evidence" only because you ignore eye-witness accounts (the only evidence there is for most family incidents) and archived papers and documents (the sources for historians like Pinchas Lapide). Thus a large counterweight of evidence seems to slide off of you without making any discernable impression; however the up-side is that many other people get the opportunity to read, to judge, to evaluate.
Here at Free Republic, there are always more "views" than there are "replies". And those for whom evidence is not entirely irrelevant, get the benefit of a richer fare partly because of your persistence.
See? There's grace everywhere.
For instance, you have given me the welcome opportunity to refute the libel that Joseph Ratzinger's father was an SS officer. In fact, Joseph Ratzinger, Sr., was a rural Bavarian police officer who served in both the Bavarian State Police (Landespolizei) and the German national Regular Police (Ordnungspolizei) before retiring in 1937. He was an open opponent of the SS.
The Sunday Times (UK)--- not, incidentally, "Catholic propagandists" ---- described the older Ratzinger as "an anti-Nazi whose attempts to rein in Hitler’s Brown Shirts forced the family to move several times." He opposed the Reich's reorganization and absorption of legitimate local police, and according to the New York Times --- also not "Catholic propagandists" --- the family's frequent relocations were directly related to Joseph Ratzinger, Sr.'s continued resistance to Nazism, which resulted in demotions and transfers. The pope's brother Georg said: "Our father was a bitter enemy of Nazism because he believed it was in conflict with our faith".
On a different topic: some FReepers may be interested in gaining a better understanding of what the Catholic Church teaches about "subsidiarity." It's the opposite and antidote to "socialism," and it is at the core of a real Catholic understanding of a just society. Many Catholics don't understand this because of the garbled and fragmentary level of teaching, especially in the US, but here's a good reference, supplied by FReeper Salvation:
http://www.freerepublic.com/focus/news/2288331/posts
This is all relevant to Pope Benedict, since the editorial board for the Catechism was chaired by none other than Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger.
Thank you again.
My own view is that evidence and reasonable inferences from evidence, can only be effectively countered by other, better evidence and other, more reasonable inferences.
Repeated assertion does not count as proof. And "Naa naa, I can't hear you" with fingers in ears does not count as a factual refutation.
I do not demand that others accord my opinions the assent of faith. I make mistakes, I get thud-headed, and I myself am not an appropriate object for faith. I do demand attention to evidence. I also assume of others, and expect others to assume of me, a level of good will.
I thank you again, RegulatorCountry. I appreciate your attention to these things.
The blockade wasn’t on the forefront before the pope talked about it? Really.
I want to thank you for once again posting an intelligent and respectful post.
I admire your presence here.
I also appreciate all the facts you presented for others who read but may not post.
God bless.
ROE
Again, a thoughtful and respectful post.
My Sunday greetings to both you and RegulatorCountry.
Forgot to ping you
That doesn’t explain why the same politicians get elected over and over. The voters can’t plead ignorance the second time around.
That was my point. The "evidence" you provided was propaganda. The facts speak against that propaganda.
The facts are that this ex-Hitler Youth befriends terrorists, takes the side of the Gaza Palestinians over the Jews, was in charge of the RCC's efforts to protect pederast priests, and wrote a "global authority" encyclical which was pure communism.
Those are the facts. To ignore those facts is dangerous because today, more than ever before, it's a dangerous world.
Thank you. This brightened my day!
You could not refute what I posted before, to P-Marlowe, about how the Pope refused to let his visit to Jerusalem and Vad Yashem last year be used to project an anti-Israel message -----you'll find that at #29 and #30.
Here's a take-out quote from a news article one year ago headlined, Taliban Threatens Pope with "Serious Consequences" if Christianity is Spread in Afghanistan:
| Zaki Bani Rusheid, head of the Islamic Action Front, the political arm of the international organisation the Muslim Brotherhood, told Reuters, "The present Vatican pope is the one who issued severe insults to Islam and did not offer any apology to the Muslims." The Islamic Action Front is the Jordan's largest mainstream Islamist party.
|
And here's just the most recent of many similar reports of Pope Benedict's pro-Israel posted 8 hours ago on IsraelNews: Pope: Extreme Islam Threatens Everyone.
That's evidence.
And yours?
Anyone who wants to view the evidence provided by hundreds of threads concerning each of these travesties committed by the papacy needs only use the FR search engine.
Propaganda is not truth, no matter who speaks it.
Rome wants everything both ways. Thus Rome is duplicitous and dangerous.
The popes have always sided with the terrorists...
The pope nor anyone else is suckered in to anything...They know the truth just as we do...
They have only chosen the other side to support...They can't stand the Jews...
It must be tough on the popes, the vicars of Jesus Christ, to be stuck in Rome when everyone knows the Holy City is Jerusalem...
AMEN...
!INDEED!
AGREED!
THX!
LIKEWISE!
Actually, I tend to see you as you described yourself.
Thx.
You’ve never been anything but gracious to me, even though we don’t agree upon all matters pertaining to our shared Christianity. Just trying to be as fair as possible.
In that spirit, I’d like you to consider the Marxist liberation theology clearly present, in my perception at least, with your new Archbishop Gomez, soon to replace Mahony as Cardinal in Los Angeles, as I understand.
Surely such a prominent diocese received the personal attention of Pope Benedict. That throws his opposition to such ideological belief into question.
Amen.
It is painfully apparent that even though you were posting on this two months ago, you still have not read the actual document which you call the "global authority" encyclical. You have evidently relied on some skewed press summary, possibly Phillip Pullella's Reuters article, if I may hazard a guess, since he's the guy who stupidly headlined "global authority" within hours of the 100-page document's publication (in Latin!). Any fair-minded person would say "screw Reuters" and read it for themselves in English.
Here's a link to the encyclical: Veritas in Caritate
Reuters has its own reasons for cutting out short quotes with an x-acto knife and slicing away pages and pages which define the meaning of the quotes. Pages like this:
"A particular manifestation of charity and a guiding criterion for fraternal cooperation between believers and non-believers is undoubtedly the principle of subsidiarity, an expression of inalienable human freedom. Subsidiarity is first and foremost a form of assistance to the human person via the autonomy of intermediate bodies. Such assistance is offered when individuals or groups are unable to accomplish something on their own, and it is always designed to achieve their emancipation, because it fosters freedom and participation through assumption of responsibility.
"Subsidiarity respects personal dignity by recognizing in the person a subject who is always capable of giving something to others. By considering reciprocity as the heart of what it is to be a human being, subsidiarity is the most effective antidote against any form of all-encompassing welfare state. It is able to take account both of the manifold articulation of plans — and therefore of the plurality of subjects — as well as the coordination of those plans.
"Hence the principle of subsidiarity is particularly well-suited to managing globalization and directing it towards authentic human development. In order not to produce a dangerous universal power of a tyrannical nature, the governance of globalization must be marked by subsidiarity, articulated into several layers and involving different levels that can work together.
"Globalization certainly requires authority, insofar as it poses the problem of a global common good that needs to be pursued. This authority, however, must [must again!] be organized in a subsidiary and stratified way, if it is not to infringe upon freedom and if it is to yield effective results in practice."
Reuters ignores the very texts which define the way the Pope used the word "globalization", a definition which excludes any "dangerous universal power" and insists on the moral obligation of responsibility being assumed as the smallest and most local level. Starting with the individual, the family, the parish, the business sector, the city, the nonprofits, the professional organizations, etc. etc--- these are the "several layers and different levels" he is talking about.
Reuters has its own reasons of rash judgment, ignorance, manipulation or malice for forcing its own definitions upon papal documents. Others choose to believe Reuters for their own reasons: I wouldn't dare to guess why.
Let's move on to your reference to: "his [Benedict's] 2001 letter to the bishops which reaffirmed Crimen Sollicitationis and threatened excommunication to anyone, including the victim and his family, who would speak publicly about being sexually assaulted by priests..."
Again, you don't know what you're talking about. You don't even understand the title of this document, let alone what it's about. "Crimen Sollicitationis" is about the "crime of Soliciting," namely, the sacrilege of a priest soliciting sexual contact in the Confessional.
In other words, this is focused on the specific canonical delict of abusing a Sacrament (Confession). The media have often misreported this as being about sexual abuse itself (which it is not) and have also misreported the oath of secrecy about the conduct of a canonical trial (not a criminal trial, not a civil trial, but a canonical trial) as if it were an oath of secrecy about the abuse itself, contrary to what the instruction itself explicitly stated.
In short, there is nothing in canon law which calls for secrecy about charges of sexual abuse itself, or which in any way restrains any person, layman or cleric, from blowing the whistle, calling the cops, or bringing criminal or civil charges.
Am I making myself perfectly clear? "Crimen Sollicitationis" requires a person who has been sexually solicited by a priest in Confession, to denounce that priest within one month; requires other priests to inform penitents of this obligation (to denounce the abuser), and requires the abuser-priest to be subjected to serious ecclesiastical punishment.
But I'm sure you didn't read this document, either. Here's a direct quote for you:
"Canon 904. In accordance with the apostolic constitutions, in particular the constitution Sacramentum Poenitentiae of Benedict XIV of 1 June 1741, a penitent must within one month denounce to the local Ordinary or the Sacred Congregation of the Holy Office a priest guilty of the crime of solicitation in confession; and a confessor must, under a grave obligation of conscience, inform a penitent of this duty.
"Canon 2368 §1. Anyone who has committed the crime of solicitation dealt with in canon 904 is to be suspended from celebrating Mass and hearing sacramental confessions and, if the gravity of the crime calls for it, he is to be declared unfit for hearing them; he is to be deprived of all benefices and ranks, of the right to vote or be voted for, and is to be declared unfit for all of them, and in more serious cases he is to be reduced to the lay state."
It has nothing to do with the criminal or civil prosecution of abuse per se. It is exclusively focused on the canonical investigation of, and penalties for, the abuse of Confession.
You evidently didn't know that, and you can be forgiven for not knowing that. But I wish you would quit running on and on for months about things you don't know anything about. Who do you get your information from? The eminent canon lawyer Christopher Hitchens?
Finally, Dr., E, the Pope has by no means come to the defense of Hamas terrorists. The Instrumentum Laboris for the Middle Eastern Bishops conference hasn’t even been published yet (it was embargoed for release until Monday --- tomorrow) . But perhaps you’re referring to the way he has focused (as almost nobody seems to notice) on the conditions of the Middle East Christians--- those luckless, landless, forgotten people --- which have been made more difficult both by Islamic extremism and by Israeli occupation. This is undeniable. Or maybe you’re referring to the Pope expressing anguish over the bloodshed (didn’t specify whose bloodshed) and appealing to international leaders to try to reduce the tensions.
If you think that amounts to supporting Hamas terrorism, you are wrong, and you don’t understand his pastoral heart.
Finally, here’s a Fox News video of a Hamas cartoon which portrays Pope Benedict as a Nazi, draped in a Danish and an American flag and protecting the USA and Denmark under his robes. I don’t know about you, but in my eyes, anyone Hamas blasts as “criminal, arrogant, ignorant, and stupid” has received an honor worth coveting.
I think, Dr. E., you should pay a little more attention to the enemy of your enemies. He may not be "your pope" but will certainly prove to be your ally.
As am I, believe it or not.
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