PRAXIS AND THEORY AND EMANCIPATION
No.
1102
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Published: Friday, April 22, 2005
Bylined to: Franz J.T. Lee
Crude, rude and nude ... masticated, ruminated, ideological strychnine!
University of Los Andes (ULA) professor Franz
J. T. Lee writes: Over
the years, we have constantly warned about the Orwellian Big Lies,
transmitted by the national and international mass media, owned,
controlled, sponsored and financed by the huge transnational
corporations and metropolitan press agencies.
Anybody that still dreams that the official educational systems, the predominant socialization processes and the powerful mass media are there to inform us, the slaving, toiling citizens, about real international events, about the true historic essence of the death of a pope, and the imperial coronation of the next one, has understood very little about this specific world in which we live, about labor, capital, consumer goods, profits, capitalism, imperialism, militarism and corporatism, but also very little about revolution, socialism dis-alienation and emancipation.
During the past Roman Imperial Parade, did CNN or Fox News inform us about how Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger aided George Bush in his fraudulent electoral campaign against John Kerry, by attacking the latter because he openly favored euthanasia and abortion in special cases?
In return, did they inform us about Bush's global aid in order that Benedict XVI could triumph?
The truth of the
matter is that the dominant,
international ideological superstructure ... as reflected in the "news"
and "information" of radio and TV stations, in best-sellers and
world-renowned newspapers, in the majority of propaganda web sites, in
commercial and mind control mechanisms ... with highly sophisticated
and technological methods and gadgets, is permanently disseminating,
defending and eternalizing ruling class ideas, ideology and interests.
Information & News serve the world order, affirm the exploitative,
dominating, discriminating, 
militarizing,
alienating world market.
About what is really happening on Earth, most of us probably do not have the foggiest notion ... not a clue about the real health of the planet, of nature, of life on Earth. In this context, the majority of the world population knows very little about Venezuela, thanks to the international free circulation of "information."
To hide the truth about the imperialist, fascist quintessence of "Globalization," a myriad of repetitive series of constant big lies and hoaxes has to be fabricated, drilled into the minds of the majority of readers, listeners or onlookers, who already have been bamboozled, indoctrinated and manipulated ever since their very cradles, who are social products of centuries of implanted ideology, dogmas, doctrines, rites, customs and behavior patterns, that the new, the original, the authentic cannot eradicate within a decade.
In its serious attempts of really and truly informing the world about current Venezuelan realities, the above describes and explains the basic, mammoth problem that the Bolivarian Revolution encounters nationally and internationally.
However, this is not an individual, isolated issue, it is a millennia-old social plague; for us, it is an immense revolutionary task of taking up theoretical and philosophical arms against a monstrous Intellectual Holocaust, that is already reaching global Orwellian Newspeak dimensions.
To be victorious, we have to create the trans-historic, global conditions, that germinate an objective, subjective and "transjective" path towards world emancipation. We have to transform radically ourselves, our modus vivendi et operandi, our modes of action and thought, of praxis and theory, our relation to Nature and Society, to Labor and Capital.
Only as such, we could live, enjoy, formulate a "New Socialism" for Venezuela and the world.
Anything that falls short of this tremendous task is just fishing for reformist ideology and practices in the globalized, imperialist, corporate quagmire in agony.
In this emancipatory sense, most of us, true comrades, in deed and word, in praxis and theory, women and men, battling in the Bolivarian Revolution, like Heinz Dieterich, Martha Harnecker or Alan Woods, have begun to create this genuine world outlook, this creative, "trans-volutionary" path towards a world completely "tri-fferent", constructing a still possible human, humane home worth living in, here on planet Earth, in our galaxy.
This time we are not looking at CNN, Fox News, The New York Times or The Washington Post, but at the FrontPageMagazine.com ... at Lt. Col. Gordon Cucullu who has been an Army Green Beret lieutenant colonel, as well as a writer, popular speaker, business executive and farmer.
The above is sufficient, we will not waste time to identify more precisely this obvious watch-dog of world fascism; anybody can visit the site and enjoy Bush's "War of Ideas."
In a philosophical sense ... even in an idealist Platonic sense ... what is being published there about Venezuela and her beloved President Hugo Chavez Frias, has absolutely nothing to do anymore with any "idea" ... it concerns pure, fascist, Orwellian fantasies of an imperialist, corporate "topos ouranios."
It is written in the spirit of desperate attempts to fabricate pretexts to invade Venezuela, in tune with other plans, ranging from accusations of human trafficking, of selling her "Miss Venezuelans" to the Arab harems, to drug trafficking, to supporting "world terrorism," the guerrilla in Colombia, to possessing "conventional" weapons, even now buying "arms", that probably were made during the Cold War, in Communist Russia, and the latest one of them all, according to Lt. Col. Gordon Cucullu, we now are becoming an "emerging rogue regime", that nurtures friendly relations with North Korea, and it looks like "an extension of the Axis of Evil into the Western Hemisphere."
Below are a few samples of this latest "Big Story", of ideological chimeras, that could also appear in any of the big, global, ruling class mass media across the globe:
"... Venezuela dictator wannabe Hugo Chavez is cozying up to North Korean representatives. Chavez, long time admirer of Fidel Castro is rapidly dragging his country into the throes of a modern Marxist dictatorship."
Very
precisely the internationally indoctrinated trigger gadgets are
embedded into this diatribe: "dictator", "dictatorship", "Chavez",
"Fidel Castro" and "Marxist". What do we want more, we are now
well-informed!
As we said, we will not refute anything of this rotting, stinking humbug ... any reader of VHeadline.com ... or of other serious independent information media ... could note the deliberate distortion, the shameless reversal, the cold-blooded blotting out of Venezuelan reality. Logically, the already classical Orwellian, Fascist Big Lie must follow:
"Chavez, elected in a contentious time, deliberately dismantled democratic institutions, cemented his authority, and then began systematically to eliminate the opposition."
Of course ... already here, Chavez is being confounded with Bush, with North American fraudulent, electoral reality. Worse even, as in the case of the Indonesia Massacre of probably a million communists ... he is being equated with Pedro Carmona Estanga, who was aided and recognized by Bush, whose CIA-directed abortive coup (in typical "death squad" style) also had in mind to "eliminate" the communist "hordes of chavistas."
The ideological, fascist mechanism to turn Truth around, to fabricate virtual realities ... of "liberating Iraq" ... of desires to install a "global democratic revolution" (Bush) ... in the spirit of "Tyranny is Freedom" ... of "War is Peace" ... is carefully integrated into this article:
And now, the CIA organ lets the cat out of the Pandora Box:
"There is a good chance that American and Organization of American States support for such a move might have changed Venezuela back into a legitimate democracy. But the opposition -- stunned by Carter’s irrational pronouncement -- fell into disarray. It was a tragedy for the people of Venezuela but also for America and other countries in the hemisphere. With Carter’s imprimatur in his back pocket, Chavez then cracked down even harder on the democratic opposition, plunging Venezuela deeper into authoritarian rule."
Again, replacing Chavez' revolutionary social objectives with Bush's imperial dreams, thus astutely applying the megalomaniac, Hitlerite or Stalinist "personality cult" attributes, that is, the typical ad hominem character-assassination slander-effects, it states:
"Chavez has delusions of grandeur that go hand in glove with dictatorship. He envisions himself as ruler of a ‘super-state’ that traverses Latin America from Atlantic to Pacific."
What a putrefied corruption of authentic journalism!
Finally, reversing the truth, veiling the counter-revolutionary failures of the "opposition" and of Washington D.C. itself, Lt. Col. Gordon Cucullu openly threatens Venezuela:
"As petty tyrants are wont to do, Chavez has ‘misunderestimated’ America and President Bush. The US and our hemispheric allies have too much at stake to permit this cancer to grow unchecked. Watch for a new front to open in the war on terror."
What such fascist diatribes nurture is that what George Orwell poignantly described more than fifty years ago:
"A world of fear and treachery and torment, a world of trampling and being trampled upon, a world which will grow not less but MORE merciless, as it refines itself. Progress in our world will be progress towards more pain. ... In our world, there will be no emotions except fear, rage, triumph and self-abasement. Everything else we shall destroy."
Franz J. T. Lee
franzjutta@cantv.net
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Franz John Tennyson Lee, Ph. D (University of Frankfurt), Author, Professor Titular & Chairholder of Philosophy and Political Science, University of The Andes, Merida (Venezuela) -- http://www.franzjutta.com ; http://www.franz-lee.org ; http://www.geocities.com/juttafranz/publications00001.html |
More VHeadline.com commentaries by Franz J.T. Lee
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Published: Thursday, April 21, 2005
Bylined to: Franz J.T. Lee
Franz J. T. Lee: For whom did the church bells of St. Peter's Square really toll?
University of Los Andes (ULA) professor
Franz J. T. Lee writes:
A
while ago, we saw who all bid farewell to Pope John II, who all brought
his beloved, favorite successor, Benedict XVI, into power.
The international mass media ... like during the two US military invasions of Iraq ... day and night, gave full coverage, disseminated precise, concrete details, about the global, pharisaic fraternity of attending, mourning guests ... especially of the bewailing presidents and great statesmen, spearheaded by the family Bush.
In reality, they rehearsed and orchestrated a religious Roman Imperial carnival, highlighted with racist, electoral, melodramatic bull-fighting in the Vatican, behind closed doors.
Obviously, it was planned, how by means of papal "infallibility" to throw any staunch, sincere "Third World" Christians into the epicenter of the coming global Apartheid arena, to be devoured by the violent imperialist, corporate lions, should they ever again dream about a "liberation theology."
In honor of the original communist Christians, of the first Pope, Peter, of the "terrorists" of yore ... who fought for communal property of the means of production, for co-operative solidarity and human dignity, who were seeking the Truth, to liberate themselves, who were searching for divine scientific "fire", for Jesus' emancipatory "sword" ... we have to revive their "oppressed sighs", their "broken hearts", their "tortured souls" by Roman feudalist imperialism, we have to tell the Truth about the historical realities of the Papacy and the Vatican. We have to enter the forbidden library of the Vatican, to see, to read, to study, how over the ages we were bamboozled, blind-folded, dehumanized.
We have to know why popes blessed the European warships of Conquest, stating that they are looking for Christians, slaves and spices!
It is the sacred emancipatory duty of the Bolivarian Revolution: to teach the Sovereign, the Citizen the "gospel truth".
If not, ideological Big Lies will devour all our emancipatory efforts.
Spiritually, mentally and intellectually, we cannot eternally feed millions of oppressed peoples with the same lies, fantasies, chimeras and phantasmagorias, with which our slave-masters, the Inquisition, the Conquest, had quartered their very souls for centuries.
In the same way, that Plato suggested deliberate lies, that is ideology, to control the toiling masses, Stalin, Hitler, Goering and Goebbels did the same, the latter even used the pope, religion and the mass media, psychologically to control the education of the German masses, and thus, they saw nothing, heard nothing, felt nothing, while Auschwitz and Dachau were devouring millions of Jews, communists, gypsies and blacks.
In fact, for centuries, European capital accumulation, to be profitable, needed subservient, pacified, genuflecting, toiling slaves, serfs and wage-workers. This was perfectly achieved by means of the invention of a fool proof educational and socialization superstructure, ingeniously embedded in monotheistic, patriarchal, religious rites, morals, values and beliefs. This Global Mental Holocaust was exported to the "colonial world", to control and canalize the conquered peoples into the imperialist Labor Moloch. From the medieval Papacy to the contemporary Vatican we can follow the horrible, torturing, spiritual trail of these cardinal, capital crimes against humanity ... where the poor slaving creatures feared the second death more than their painful, murderous exorcism on earth.
Over the last weeks, any still thinking person easily could have noticed how this religious panacea is operating, could have observed that nothing supernatural, divine or holy was taking place in Rome. On the contrary, we witnessed a bombastic, concrete, materialist rehearsal of 21st Century massive Mind and Thought Control, a violent psychological world war, vindicating transhistoric ruling class beliefs and ideology.
To understand the above, we have to catch the Vatican Bull by its wealthy, imperialist horns, by scientifically asking who and what is a pope?
What and who is an anti-pope?
Furthermore, we should ask ourselves, why do most of us not know that of the 265 past and present popes already three of African descent have ruled in Rome: Saint Victor 1 (189-199), Saint Miliades 1 (311-314) and Saint Gelasius 1 (492-496)?
Married men with children became popes, and, in two cases, researched by the British philosopher, Betrand Russell, there is a high probability that we even had female popes.
Unfortunately, this cannot be verified with scientific data.
For married popes, check the lives of St. Peter, St. Siricius, St. Felix III (II), St. Hormisdas, St. Silverius, St. Agatho, Hadrian II, Boniface IX, Clement IV and Felix V.
There were times when two or three contending popes were battling for political power, not to mention the hundreds of anti-popes that pave European Dark Age history.
According to research work of some experts, even the contemporary 'puntofijista' evils of the counter-revolution in Venezuela ... "sins", like sex, crime and corruption, marked the murky, dark history of some past popes.
They burned heretics, philosophers, like Giordano Bruno, on the stake, while they themselves, against all holy scriptures and teachings, introduced a series of heretic dogmas. They were brilliant in inventing salvation doctrines for all mankind. Among them were: Salvation Only Through Mary, Salvation Only Through The Catholic Church, and finally, of course, Salvation Only Through Popes.
Who knows what Pope Benedict XVI will invent!
What did Jesus Christ say about harming little children?
What would it be better for him to do?
The world is radicalizing itself, the time-bomb Latin America is ticking dangerously in Bolivia; today much louder in Ecuador; really, there is no road back anymore. However, if we do not have true, solidaric militant leaders, a revolutionary class consciousness, a revolutionary party ... with a constant, consequent socialist praxis and theory, wiping out forever reactionary religious and ideological illusions ... the impoverished masses, the brave Bolivarian peoples will again and again be betrayed by one stooge after the after, who continually will shout freedom, with Yankee honey on his slippery tongue, astutely usurping all the liberating efforts of the peoples. In such cases, we will have to begin all over again; until when?
Currently, on a global scale, the metropolitan rulers are marching toward the extreme right, toward fascism, so does Bush, and long before becoming the Pope, Joseph Ratzinger has already followed the conservative path towards a dark future for mankind.
Franz J. T. Lee
franzjutta@cantv.net
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Franz John Tennyson Lee, Ph. D (University of Frankfurt), Author, Professor Titular & Chairholder of Philosophy and Political Science, University of The Andes, Merida (Venezuela) -- http://www.franzjutta.com ; http://www.franz-lee.org ; http://www.geocities.com/juttafranz/publications00001.html |
More VHeadline.com commentaries by
Franz J.T. Lee
http://www.vheadline.com/readnews.asp?id=31244
The Pope is the Catholic Bishop and patriarch of Rome, and head of the Roman Catholic Church and the Eastern Catholic Churches. The office of the Pope is informally called the Papacy and formally called the Pontificate; his ecclesiastical jurisdiction is called the Holy See (Sancta Sedes). Catholics worldwide consider each pope to be successor of Saint Peter who was, according to tradition, first bishop of Rome and thus first pope. Early bishops of Rome were designated "vicar (representative) of Peter"; later Popes were designated "vicar of Christ", a telling change.
In addition to this spiritual role, the Pope also serves as head of state of the independent, sovereign State of the Vatican City, a city-state entirely surrounded by the city of Rome. Prior to 1870, the Pope's temporal authority extended over a large area of central Italy, a territory more familiar as the Papal States that was formally known as the "Patrimony of St Peter". Though the document on which the territorial powers of the Pontificate were based—the so-called Donation of Constantine—was proved a forgery in the 15th century, the Pope retained sovereign authority over the Papal States until the Italian Unification of 1870, and a final political settlement between the Italian government and the Pope was not reached until the Lateran Treaties of 1929.
The current pope is Benedict XVI (born Joseph Ratzinger), who was elected at the age of 78 on 19 April 2005. He succeeds the late John Paul II, who was elected at the age of 58 in 1978.
Pope Benedict XVI is the second non-Italian to be elected to the pontificate since Adrian VI, who was briefly pope in 1522-23, (John Paul II (pope 1978-2005) was the first), and is also the first German to take the seat since the 11th century. In some quarters, it is felt that Benedict's election as pope is further evidence that the papacy is moving away from being an Italian-dominated institution.
http://www.google.com/url?sa=X&start=1&oi=answers&q=http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/PopeAn antipope is one whose claim to being Pope is the result of a disputed or contested election. These antipopes were usually in opposition to a specific person chosen by the papal electors (since the Middle Ages, the college of cardinals). Some self-appointed leaders of smaller churches are also called "antipopes."
During certain periods of turbulence in the Roman Catholic Church, controversial Papal elections were conducted. Some such elections were considered invalid, either because a large majority of papal electors claimed the election was invalid (such as the election of Felix V), or because they have subsequently been declared invalid (such as Clement VII).
The earliest antipope, Hippolytus, was elected in protest against Pope Callixtus I by a schismatic group in the city of Rome in the 3rd century. Hippolytus was exiled to the mines on the island of Sardinia in the company of Callixtus' successor Pope Pontian, and was reconciled to the Catholic Church before his death.
The late 14th and early 15th century saw a series of rival popes elected, one line of which is counted by the Roman Catholic Church as popes and the other as antipopes. The scandal of multiple claimants added to the demands for reform that produced the Protestant Reformation at the turn of the 16th century. (See Western Schism, Antipope Benedict XIII.)
It would not necessarily have been evident, during periods when two (or three) rival claimants existed, which was the antipope, and which was the pope, and the clear-cut distinctions made between them in retrospect can give a false sense that certainty existed among their contemporaries. Supporters might offer assistance to a given candidate, but could not know which would be determined to have been an antipope, and which the pope, until events had run their course.
There has not been an antipope since 1449, unless sedevacantist antipopes are counted (see below). Other schisms like the Church of England are controlled by lay sovereigns who do not want to have an ecclesiastical rival or begin like the Old Catholic Church and the Chinese Patriotic Catholic Association in a rejection of a primary dogma of the papacy.
Today the act of becoming an Antipope is considered a schismatic act by the Roman Catholic Church. This would result in automatic excommunication for the person who became Antipope.
Some breakaway Catholics today, called sedevacantists, claim the current Popes are heretics for replacing the Tridentine Latin Mass with the Novus Ordo Missae; many of them also object to the celebration of the Mass in the vernacular. Since the opinion of many Catholic theologians is that a heretical Pope would cease to be Catholic and therefore cease to be Pope, sedevacantists believe the current Bishops of Rome are not actually popes. Some sedevacantist groups have their own popes to replace the popes they reject. They are sometimes called antipopes, although it should be noted that in contrast to historical antipopes, the number of their followers is minuscule.
Sedevacantist antipopes frequently refer to the conventional successors of Pope Pius XII - Popes John XXIII, Paul VI, John Paul I, John Paul II and Benedict XVI - as a series of antipapacies.
.Who were the three officially accepted
Black Popes of African Descent?
Pope Saint Victor 1 (189-199 CE) A North African, Victor was the fifteenth pope. He is buried near the body of the apostle Peter, the first pope, in St. Peter's Basilica in Vatican City. His feast day is July 28th.
Pope Saint Miliades 1 (311-314 CE) Not much is known of Miliades, who was born in Africa but died in Rome. He is buried on the famous Appian Way. His feast day is December 10th.
Pope Saint Gelasius 1
(492-496 CE) Born in Rome of African
parents, Gelasius was a member of the Roman clergy from youth.
Reportedly the most active of African popes, working to exile the
Manicheans and pagans, and is author of a famous letter to the
Byzantine emperor, Anastasias. His feast day is November 21st.
http://archive.blackvoices.com/articles/daily/bw20031118pope.asp
Actually, there have been (at least) three popes of African descent, all of whom lived, pontificated and died before "blackness" was a societally recognized and accepted social construction.
So, why am I so nitpicky on this subject? Because "blackness" as a socio-political identity is a relatively new construction -- along with "race" itself (versus nationality or ethnicity). So, these three popes of African descent were essentially pre-Black. And therefore, Jesus wasn't "white": 1) because he pre-dated what would centuries later be deemed "white" and 2) he was much more likely resembled a modern-day Ethiopian or Somalian than Jim Caviezel or Willem Dafoe.
Here are five other related musing in no particular order:
1. What is "black" in the United States is often deemed something else pretty much everywhere else on the face of the earth. The one-drop rule isn't exactly spreading globally like Coca-Cola, McDonald's and hip hop.
Go to South Africa, Haiti, Brazil or France, and see how many black people they call something else. Better yet, count how many times citizens of those countries call some of our most celebrated Blackfolk white (besides Michael Jackson). I lived in the capital of Bahia, Brazil for six months many moons ago. Its capital, Salvador, was the biggest slave port in the New World, and thus, had a population that remains to this day overwhelmingly of African descent.
When I asked a friend there if there had ever been a Black governor of Bahia, he said no. However, when I looked at the portraits of a great many of them, I, 99% of Black Americans and most non-Black Americans would classify many of them as Black. Additionally, along with their color-based racial classification system, Brazilians have an expression, “o dinheiro embranquece”, or "money whitens", adding a class dimension to their assignment of "race" as well.
2.
What is "black" today is not necessarily what
"black" was
yesterday. Just like culture and language evolve, so too does racial
terminology. Nonato, like most of countrymen and -women (regardless of
race) defined black as a very dark-skinned (non-millionaire) individual
with West African facial features and hair. I meant someone -- anyone
with any discernible trace of African blood. Same word,
different worlds, and lost in socio-political and cultural translation.
3.
People of color shouldn't mindlessly demand, expect or even find solace
in lofty symbols when those symbols have inextricable links to a
substance and/or system not entirely or consistently sensitive to
and/or actively supportive of their communities' uplift. Don't get me
wrong, I applaud the Church's anti-death penalty and anti-war stances,
among other positions. But don't get me started on their absence in
HIV/AIDS prevention and leadership in Rwanda,
the most Catholic country in Africa.
4. As a people, we need to learn to embrace a more textured understanding of the history and politics of race, ethnicity, culture, their interrelations and development over the millenia. Otherwise we will be applying very ethnocentric, untranslatable 21st century standards to cogent and complex world history that merits much deeper study and discussion than what our shallow mainstream framework allows us.
5. By erroneously identifying these past popes as black, we then facilitate the even greater flow of assumptions that, until spelled out, analyzed and discussed, can actually limit meaningful thought and discourse instead of broadening it for the benefit of all people, regardless of race, nationality or creed.
This is a world issue, and the Catholic church -- despite its global flock's declining church attendance and decreasing deference and adherence to Papal admonitions -- it is nonetheless the oldest of the remaining superpowers (i.e., the United States and the Internet). Therefore, it will serve us well to acknowledge and respect the origins and implications of the lexicon we (Americans in particular) seem to use so thoughtlessly.
Perhaps, as the popular American expression goes, it is easier to "call a spade a spade." But by so doing, the unintended consequences of erring on the side of habit or complacency can be something as innocuous as being handed a gardening implement or as hazardous as being handed your head.
Posted on Monday, April 11, 2005 in aN
Blog | Permalink
http://afronetizen.blogs.com/afronetizen/2005/04/will_archibisho.html
There's not much detailed information about the early popes. For many years of the Church's history, celibacy was considered optional.
Based on the customs of the times, it is assumed by many that like Peter, most of the Apostles were married and had families. Author Richard O'Brien writes in Lives of the Popes that "from Paul's reference to the fact that Peter and the other apostles took their wives along on their apostolic journeys, (1 Corin 9:5) the apostles did not 'put away' their wives."
In the Vatican document, Priestly celibacy in patristics and in the history of the Church, Roman Cholij writes, "It is clear from the New Testament (Mk 1:29-31; Mt 8:14-15; Lk 4:38-39; 1 Tim 3:2, 12; Tit 1:6) that at least the Apostle Peter had been married, and that bishops, presbyters and deacons of the Primitive Church were often family men."
"It is also clear from epigraphy, the testimony of the Fathers, synodal legislation, papal decretals and other sources that in the following centuries, a married clergy, in greater or lesser numbers was a normal feature of the life of the Church. Even married popes are known to us."
Mandatory celibacy was enforced because there was so much political and economic power attached to the papacy especially during the fifteenth and sixteenth centuries. The Church has adopted celibacy as a matter of discipline, not as a matter of doctrine.
On September 13, 1376 when good- natured Pope Gregory XI reached the door of his Avignon palace, he found his father stretched there. The count de Beaufort was determined to keep his son from moving the papacy back to Rome. Gregory XI, who knew he had hesitated too long already, stepped over his father. The papal court had moved. The French government, which borrowed heavily from the Popes to finance its Hundred Year's War against England, was loath to see the pontiff depart. If the financial rewards of controlling the papacy had been great, the political leverage had been greater. Eighty four percent of all cardinals nominated during the Avignon years were Frenchmen.
John XXIII.Gregory died in 1378. While the people raged outside, demanding an Italian Pope, an overwhelmingly French conclave elected Bartolomeo Prignano. He called himself Urban VI. Almost immediately he tongue-lashed the bishops and cardinals in a humiliating manner. He would reform the church, he said, and end its French dominance. Embittered many of the cardinals and bishops left, announcing to a surprised world that the election, which just six months before they had declared free, actually came under duress. They declared it invalid and elected a second pope. Robert of Geneva became Clement VII and took up residence, as expected, in Avignon.
There were now two popes. The Papal Schism had begun. France, Naples, Scotland and Spain held Clement VII to be the true pope. Bohemia, England, Flanders, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Poland, and Portugal continued with Urban VI. Each side anathematized the other. The weddings, baptisms, penance of their rivals each side declared null and void.
Clement and Urban both died and were replaced by successors. The French successor, Benedict XIII, was renounced by France and fled to Spain. Many cardinals called for a church council. Although Popes had often denied that councils had authority over them, it was clear to all that only a fully representative council could end the current impasse. On March 25, 1409 the Council met in Pisa. It deposed the rival popes and elected a third, who called himself Alexander V. Since neither of the other two accepted the council's authority, there were now three popes instead of two. Alexander V died almost at once and the council elected a pope who called himself John XXIII. A man of dubious character for a leadership position in the church, he still managed to justify the council of Pisa by finally taking a step which brought about a resolution of sorts.
He called the Council of Constance. Approximately 5,000 churchmen attended. They deposed all the rival claimants, including John himself (among the many allegations was that he had seduced over 200 women), and elected Pope Martin V. All Christendom accepted the new Pope and the Papal Schism was at an end. The council of Pisa is not recognized by the church.
These events were among those that would fuel demands for Reformation a century later.If you're going to say something, say it. Prior to Pope John Paul's Easter pilgrimage to Jerusalem, Catholic leaders made the grandstanding announcement that he planned to express "regret" for the Crusades, the Inquisition and other "faults of the past." However, the "past" does not have faults. People do. Churches, institutions, inquisitions, crusades, papacies, policies, and theologies do not hate, do evil or commit atrocities. People do.
When John Paul finally offered his "apology," it defined vagueness. He might just as well have shrugged his shoulders and said, "Shit happens." He failed to mention the Inquisition, Crusades or Holocaust by name; he made no reference to the centuries when the Catholic liturgy included asking for protection from "the perfidious Jews;" he said nothing of the church's intense bigotry against gays; and nothing about why women are considered too unworthy to be priests. Calling that a landmark proclamation is preposterous.
But the press covered this non-occurring apology as though John Paul had martyred himself or something. He did not even address the Jewish community directly. He spoke only to God. (Isn't he special?) Speaking to God about the Jews he said, "We are deeply saddened by the behavior of those who in the course of history have caused these children of yours to suffer and, asking your forgiveness, we wish to commit ourselves to genuine brotherhood with the people of the Covenant." Who is "those?" What did he mean by "course of history?" History didn't murder any Jews. Catholics did. And how could he use the word "saddened?" I for one am horrified. Such a euphemistic reference to some of the world's most heinous crimes against humanity is outrageous and insulting.
Now here are some real quotes. (Remember these, your Holiness?): Concerning the accusation of "deicide"---killing God---St. Justin Martyr (2nd century) stated that the Jews should "rightly suffer," for they had "slain the Just One." (If the Church believes that the Jews in fact killed God, wouldn't that mean that God is dead?)
Pope Innocent III (13th century) decreed: "The Jews, against whom the blood of Jesus Christ calls out, although they ought not to be killed, lest the Christian people forget the Divine Law, yet as wanderers ought they remain upon the earth, until their countenance be filled with shame." [Emphasis mine.] Isn't that big of the guy? The Jews are the scum of the earth, he says, but let's not actually kill them. Of course later on they did actually kill them. But Innocent III was all heart, huh?
You know, this constant haranguing about how the Jews killed Christ has always baffled me. Follow me on this. God decides his human creations are so rotten they need a Savior to atone for their sins. He sends his "son" Jesus as that Savior. Jesus arrives on earth for the sole purpose of dying for human sins. And he does. He dies. After his resurrection he ascends into heaven where he will greet all those who follow his teachings. Now. How the hell is this plan going to work if he doesn't die?! Disregarding the fact that, even if you believe the Bible, the Jews did not kill Jesus---the Romans did---does it not stand to reason that someone had to kill him? How is the plan of salvation going to work without a sacrificial death of some kind? Would the plan have been set in motion if Jesus had quietly died in his sleep, from, say, a stroke, at the ripe old age of 81? The whole Christ-Killer-Jew thing is not only ugly bigotry. It is stupid as hell. But I digress.
St. John Chrysostom (5th century): "They are become worse than the wild beasts….they murder their offspring….They know only one thing, to satisfy their gullets, get drunk, to kill and maim one another…The Jews are the most worthless of all men. They are lecherous, greedy, rapacious. They are perfidious murderers of Christ. The Jews are the odious assassins of Christ and for killing God [See? God is dead!] there is no expiation possible, no indulgence or pardon. Christians may never cease vengeance, and the Jews must live in servitude forever. God always hated the Jews. It is incumbent upon all Christians to hate the Jews."
St. Jerome (5th century) described a synagogue thusly: "If you call it a brothel, a den of vice, the Devil's refuge, Satan's fortress, a place to deprave the soul, an abyss of every conceivable disaster or whatever you will, you are still saying less than it deserves."
Or how about Peter the Venerable, Abbot of Cluny (12th century): "Truly I doubt whether a Jew can be really human... I lead out from its den a monstrous animal and show it as a laughing stock in the amphitheatre of the world. I bring thee forward, thou Jew, thou brute beast, in the sight of all men."
As recently as 1941, Archbishop Grober, in a pastoral letter filled with antisemitic utterances, blamed the Jews for the death of Jesus, saying that the Holocaust was "the self-imposed curse of the Jews---'His [Jesus'] blood be upon us and our children'---has come true... today." So the Jews killed themselves in Auschwitz. Is this unbelievable?
There is so much more of this filth, but let's move on. For centuries these vile words of hateful bigotry were uttered by venerated, sometimes "sainted" church fathers. The Holy See saw some disgusting malevolence in its fanatic, narrow-minded history. Hitler was no surprising monster, self-created out of a vacuum. He was simply carrying on a centuries-old tradition, initiated by the Holy Mother Church.
(And by the way, does anyone know whether Hitler has yet been excommunicated from the Roman Catholic Church? Posthumous excommunications have taken place; but last I heard Hitler is still a Catholic in good standing. Of course I may be wrong. I stand ready to stand corrected.)
All that fuss about John Paul apologizing for past wrongs was nothing more than a publicity stunt to try to soften the considerable resistance to his being allowed in Jerusalem at all. With just cause, the pope was not welcomed by a great many Israelis. For starters, the Vatican did not even recognize Israel as a country until six years ago. Who says Catholic antisemitism is ancient history?! In addition, Rome has agreed to support Palestinian statehood and believes Jerusalem should be made an international city.
During this potentially explosive publicity stunt, I mean papal visit, Jerusalem's mufti, Ikrema Sabri, requested that John Paul join with him in demanding an end to Israeli occupation of Jerusalem. The pope's response was another cornucopia of euphemisms and noncommittal platitudes. "Jerusalem has always been revered by Jews, Christians and Muslims," he said, and is "part of the common patrimony of our religions and of the whole of humanity." Oh really? I didn't realize Hindus, Buddhists, and Confucianists felt that way. With a flick of the wrist, the pope eliminated over half the world's population from "the whole of humanity." What arrogance.
Of course I don't think that anyone should have to apologize for the actions of others in the first place. What sense does that make? I have mixed feelings about offering reparations to descendants of people who were slaughtered or otherwise horribly treated, whether Jews, Native Americans or African Americans. Something doesn't seem right about asking today's taxpayers to pay reparations for something done by their great-great-grandparents. I am not at all excusing the ghastly treatment of these groups, but you cannot undo past injustices. All we can do is see to it that such things never happen again.
However, if you announce that you, as leader of the mighty Roman Catholic Church, are going to publicly ask for forgiveness for the centuries of persecution and murder, then do it. Don't namby-pamby around and act like you're asking forgiveness for some little social faux pas. The whole farce was offensive.
If you're wondering why I always come down so hard on popes, it's very simple. They have always had such overwhelming power, and it has almost always been used to the detriment of human happiness. The birth control ban alone, which the current, sanctimonious pope enshrined into Canon Law, has, all by itself, caused an appalling amount of human misery. The Catholic babies who cry themselves to sleep with hunger can thank the holy papacy.
On February 28, 2000, MSNBC
ran an online poll. The question
was, "Should Jerusalem be made an international city?"
I say no. I think it should be safely evacuated and then blown
to smithereens. That city represents all that is abhorrent in
religions. Muslims worship at one shrine, Catholics and Jews at
others, and all three groups have a long, long history of murdering
each other---because of their religions. The tense atmosphere
of this papal visit was palpable. Palestinians chanted, "Long
live Palestine!" and orthodox Jews didn't think the pope
should even be in Jerusalem, and so on. Religions are divisive?
No. It's much worse than just that. Religions spawn hatred and
bigotry, and Jerusalem is a seething cauldron for all that malevolence.
I say get rid of it altogether. Maybe it would make a nice theme
park.
© 2000 Judith Hayes
