More Musings On Medjugorge

Interesting photo of a spear of light piercing the chest of one of the Medjugorge visionaries.
Click here for more interesting photos. I love the word interesting. It's so...non judgmental!

Studying Medjugorge has been a true odyssey. If I've learned one thing from my research it's that you can't delve into this without being personally effected. I have watched videos of the sun moving, the visionaries in states of ecstasy, and read medical reports and psychological assessments. I've wandered into stories of other apparitions, such as the one in Eastern Oregon, of which I had no knowledge, but also found myself re introduced to the controversy surrounding Christina Gallagher in Ireland. It seems that wherever Mary goes, controversy is sure to follow.

I did find some things very useful in my own analysis and questions about the site. My first question is why hasn't the Vatican stated it's opinion on Medjugorge one way or the other. The reason for this seems to be the same reason they have been reluctant to deal with Padre Pio. The Vatican Commission for Causes of the Saints only deals in medical miracles. They don't get into issues of personal mysticism or paranormal behavior. Padre Pio's personal talents are of no concern to the commission, only recognizable medical miracles which have happened after his death. He may have been a saint on earth, but they don't care. Their job is to prove he's operating from heaven--now. The same sort of reasoning is happening with the visionaries of Medjugorge. They happen to still be alive and some of them are still having visions. This still having visions thing doesn't fit with officially approved Marian shrines.

The Vatican is essentially caught between a rock and hard place. Yes, there is tons of fraud surrounding the phenomenon of Medjugorge, but there are also tons of personal conversions and reported healings. As one Bosnian bishop stated early on in the phenomenon, there have been more conversions in one year at Medjugorge than in the past forty years of all our sermonizing.

I suspect for some clerical types, this is more truth than they want to admit. For me it's the only truth that really counts. In some respects I can see Benedict's recent trip to Lourdes as bowing the this truth. Exposure to Marian sites convert more people than exposure to Papal encyclicals---especially some Papal encyclicals.

The Mary of Medjugorge speaks of conversion in Catholic terms and stresses prayer, fasting, penance, and the Eucharist. These are all Catholic rituals and prayer systems which foster and enhance her main message which is one of personal conversion to the Love taught by her son. In other traditions one gets the same message, but expressed in different terms regarding ritual.

The Roman Catholic's trip to the confessional, is somewhat the same as the Native American's trip to the sweat lodge. In both cases the idea is to face your deficiencies in your spiritual path. Personally, I prefer the sweat lodge because it's both personal and communal, fully recognizing that my own Church would say, "that's nice, but your sins weren't forgiven." I don't repeat them either, and that's basically the whole idea of conversion.

One of the things I find interesting about Marian apparitions, is that Mary seems to appear mostly to teenage women. I've often wondered if that's not a connection she makes because her first intersection with beings of light happened as a young teen age woman. I've also wondered if she ever made the mistake of talking about Gabriel's visit with temple authorities, because it seems to me the purity of her messages start to get diverted when the visionaries are subjected to the foibles of clerical spiritual advisers.

Medjugorge is exhibit A for the phenomenon. It is most likely for this reason that the Vatican has come down with a vengeance on the Franciscan priests who were the original mentors for the six visionaries. Too often it seems the message gets lost amongst all the interpreters and all of their personal agendas. This is not to imply the individual Franciscans the Vatican has censured didn't deserve it. So did Fr. Maciel even if the Legionaires can't admit it.

I've written in a previous post (now lost in cyberspace) that when I first started hearing from a light being I call Michael, one of the first things I was asked to do was to research and learn as much about quantum physics as I could. The reason for this is that the messages I was getting about his/her reality made no sense to me. I had enough of a biological and scientific vocabulary to have useful words, but no useful knowledge behind the words. The fact was I hadn't studied any physics or genetics for thirty years and my understanding of the words Michael was using was almost useless.

Bringing myself up to date meant letting go of spiritual metaphors which were too locked in to the Catholic piety of my youth. Believe me it was hard to let go of childish understandings of the myths surrounding guardian angels. It was hard because part and parcel with the myths surrounding guardian angels were the equally ingrained myths about demons and the devil.

These childhood metaphors for the battle between good and evil might make sense in a religious context but they were hugely detrimental to my understanding of the science behind the myths. More than that however, they were hugely detrimental to my understanding of the power of free choice and what it means in terms of the observer effect spoken of in quantum physics. In other words, the religious metaphor encourages a sort of victimized dependence, while the scientific understanding encourages empowered self responsibility.

Over the years I have come to understand that this notion of conversion to love and empowered self responsibility is crucial to the understanding of who we are as individuals and what our effect is on our environment.

In Medjugorge, one is exposed to a huge energy matrix which fosters conversion and so people experience profound conversions. The matrix which was laid in place by Mary is now self supporting and getting larger. I suspect if we had the ability, we would find that the actual physics of the site has changed. It's now some sort of higher energy portal. I hate to keep using New Age terminology, but it seems they've almost cornered the market on the quantum physics vocabulary. Just because it's New Age doesn't mean it's wrong.

The energy of Medjugorge is a very good thing, just as is Fatima, and Lourdes, and all the other places in which this Marian energy has appeared. It's also not surprising that narcissistic manipulators are taking advantage of the phenomenon. There is always the process of seeking a balance while new energy is stabilized. Eventually the fraud and commercialization will reach a zenith and then recede. In the meantime the fruits of conversion and healing will continue.

A last personal note. As I was reading the personal experiences of assorted visionaries with their sudden new found fame, I was sincerely glad that neither I nor the other assorted psychics and spiritual people I am closely associated with were tempted to seek explanations or validation outside of our group. This is probably why most of us actually practice different religions while combining for specific requests or tasks. In this way we stay under the radar, and while the people who have experienced healing may belong to a particular religion, they can't claim what happens as a product of their own particular religious bent. On the other hand neither can any of us.

I was kind of chuckling as I wrote that last sentence because in the interests of self disclosure, I have to admit I was kind of taken aback when I realized I was working side by side with a Mormon, and a pentecostal. Native American healers are just as baffled by the fact that their own energy beings are truly seen to be working with white Christians. As Mary emphatically states in some of the Medjugorge messages, the Divine Love embodied in her son is truly non denominational, and so apparently are a lot of the other disembodied forces working with other spiritualities.

From where I write, it looks like we're all being driven to the same understanding. This understanding seems to be that none of us has a real clue, except the certain knowledge everything really meaningful has to do with a conversion to practicing unconditional love. This is the unconditional love as Jesus taught it, and just as He and His mother lived it. Once you've done that, the rules of Newtonian physics no longer control all aspects of your existence. The quantum door opens, 'miracles' happen, and your old world view can no longer contain your experiences.

That's why I find the Marian appearances so wonderful, the Vatican can claim they aren't relevant to believers because they are private revelations, but in so doing they are missing out on some very important universal facts. One of them is that we are not alone in this universe.

What Would Mary Do?

Catholic voters must ‘limit evil’ with their vote, Kansas City bishops say

The bishops of Kansas City have issued a joint pastoral letter on the voting responsibilities of Catholics, explaining the need to weigh candidates based on their support or opposition to policies that would enable “intrinsic evils.”Calling the dissent of Catholics in public life concerning these evils “particularly disturbing,” the bishops exhorted all Catholic voters to form their consciences properly and vote in the upcoming election to “limit evil” when it cannot be eradicated.

Writing in a pastoral letter dated September 9, Archbishop of Kansas City in Kansas John Naumann and Bishop of Kansas City-St. Joseph Robert Finn explained that the Catholic bishops’ practice of never endorsing political candidates. This practice was not instituted to escape regulations for tax-exempt organization, but rather, is traced back to Archbishop of Baltimore John Carroll, the first bishop in the United States.

“The Church in the United States realized early on that it must not tether the credibility of the Church to the uncertain future actions or statements of a particular politician or party,” the bishops wrote. They then referenced the teachings of the Second Vatican Council that the Church is “not identified with any political community nor bound by its ties to any political system.”

However, the bishops insisted, the Church in the United States has insisted on its right “to speak to the moral issues confronting our nation,” acting with the understanding that her role is to form properly the consciences of the citizens of a democratic society. (This is interesting. Who gave Roman Catholicism the mandate to properly form the consciences of the citizens of a pluralisitic democratic society? Jesus talked about conversion amongst His followers, not Roman society. Must be a hold over from feudal society when the Church did have the homogenous Catholic culture in which they did rule the individual conscience, and mostly through the sole control of all the information.)

Archbishop Naumann and Bishop Finn wrote that Catholics should care about policies that “promote a just and lasting peace,” welcome and defend immigrants, enable accessible and affordable health care, and show a “special concern” for the poor. Continuing their list, the bishops praised policies that protect the rights of parents to educate their children, create business and employment opportunities, and foster stewardship of the earth.

They also urged support for policies that reform the justice system through helping crime victims, rehabilitating inmates, and eliminating the death penalty.

Legitimate disagreement is possible on such issues, the bishops wrote, saying they are the objects of “prudential judgments.” Such judgments, the bishops explained, are circumstances in which people can ethically reach different conclusions.

While Catholics can disagree about the best policies and the most effective candidates related to such issues, the bishops insisted:
“Catholics have an obligation to study, reflect and pray over the relative merits of the different policy approaches proposed by candidates. Catholics have a special responsibility to be well informed regarding the guidance given by the Church pertaining to the moral dimensions of these matters.”

Archbishop Naumann and Bishop Finn then noted what issues can never be justified, which they said included: “legalized abortion, the promotion of same-sex unions and ‘marriages,’ repression of religious liberty, as well as public policies permitting euthanasia, racial discrimination or destructive human embryonic stem cell research.” (I suspect in a democratic society with a plurality of religious convictions, there would be some legitimate difference of opinion on some of these issues. Some religious communities might add 'gender' discrimination along with racial discrimination. Not Catholics though. Not guaranteeing equal rights to women is not considered an intrinsic evil. Sometimes I wonder if it's not considered an intrinsic evil to gaurantee them.)

“To vote for a candidate who supports these intrinsic evils because he or she supports these evils is to participate in a grave moral evil. It can never be justified.”

The bishops wrote that any Catholic who deliberately votes for a candidate “precisely because of the candidate’s permissive stand on abortion and/or euthanasia” would be guilty of “formal cooperation” in evil and should not present himself or herself for communion.

When it comes to issues of intrinsic evil, a properly-formed conscience “must give such issues priority even over other matters with important moral dimensions,” they explained.
In an ideal situation, there would be a choice between two candidates who both fully oppose policies that involve intrinsic evils.

However, when both candidates advocate policies that support intrinsic evils, the bishops wrote, “the appropriate judgment would be to select the candidate whose policies regarding this grave evil will do less harm. We have a responsibility to limit evil if it is not possible at the moment to eradicate it completely. ” (Since the number of abortions drop under the democrats, even though they espouse keeping abortion decriminalized, does that mean voting for democrats would be voting to do less harm?)

According to the bishops, a voter would have “insufficient moral justification” voting for a more permissive candidate, but could justifiably vote for a write-in candidate or abstain from voting at all in such a case because of a “conscientious objection.”

Explaining that “remote material cooperation” by voting for a candidate who supports intrinsic evils is permissible for “proportionate reasons,” Archbishop Naumann and Bishop Finn questioned whether consideration for a candidate’s position on prudential issues could outweigh considerations regarding the candidate’s support for intrinsic evils.

“What could possibly be a proportionate reason for the more than 45 million children killed by abortion in the past 35 years?” they asked. “Personally, we cannot conceive of such a proportionate reason.”Claiming that Catholic influence has “never been greater” in U.S. politics, the bishops cautioned: “It would be wrong for us to use our numbers and influence to try to compel others to accept our religious and theological beliefs.” (Does this sentence directly contradict this sentence: "acting with the understanding that her role is to form properly the consciences of the citizens of a democratic society." I'm beginning to feel victimized by double speak.)

However, they add, “it would be equally wrong for us to fail to be engaged in the greatest human rights struggle of our time, namely the need to protect the right to life of the weakest and most vulnerable.”

Lamenting Catholic dissent in public life, they wrote: “It is particularly disturbing to witness the spectacle of Catholics in public life vocally upset with the Church for teaching what it has always taught on these moral issues for 2,000 years, but silent in objecting to the embrace, by either political party, of the cultural trends of the past few decades that are totally inconsistent with our nation’s history of defending the weakest and most vulnerable.” (Aren't we the same country that devastated Indigenous populations through 'Manifest Destiny', maintained slaves for hundreds of years, made individual families wealthy through the exploitation of child labor and wave after wave of impoverished immigrants? Don't we at this very day have an embarrassing level of infant mortality?)

Concluding their statement, the bishops called for committed Catholics in both major political parties to insist upon respect for human life, support for the institution of marriage between a man and a woman, and religious liberty.

*******************************************************************

I must be getting overwhelmed with articles on Mary, because it suddenly dawned on me that when it comes to protecting the innocent, we might be better off asking What would Mary do, rather than What would Jesus do. Mary, after all actually had a child, which is something her Son never did.

I suspect Mary might have a great deal of compassion for a young mother out of wedlock, who suddenly found herself without any family support. After all, Mary made a free choice to put herself in that same unwed pregnant state, but Mary was fortunate enough to keep all her family support. She wasn't left pregnant, scared and alone. Her betrothed didn't ditch her. Her immediate family rejoiced in her pregnancy.

Mary might determine the real issue isn't abortion, but being left pregnant, scared, and alone. Mary might come to the conclusion that rather than try to change the secular legal status of the abortion procedure, followers of her son might do far more good by dealing with the issues which leave young pregnant women feeling scared and alone, without resources, without access to medical attention, without any real support at all. Criminalizing abortion changes none of these circumstances. Criminalizing abortion does not stop abortion.

What stops abortion is changing the circumstances of the mother to be. In this battle, the wrong party has the right record.

Would the Queen of Peace actually see gay marriage as a more intrinsic evil, therefor a bigger threat to global peace, than the proliferation of weapons of mass destruction? That's a hard one for me to swallow, but the Pope has told us this is so, that gays threaten world peace.

What about protecting religious freedom? Would she find it more acceptable to fight hate filled religious intolerance that masquerades under the guise of religious freedom, or worry about questionable claims on it's infringement? Maybe she would just say that sometimes the price one pays for the convictions of one's religion is the price one pays. Look at my Son. Pick up your cross, stop your whining. Can't stand the heat, get out of my kitchen.

Mary might look at these issues of 'intrinsic evil' a little differently. She might say "In our family we take care of our own, and we love them in spite of differences, and we don't throw them out, and we don't ask society to make criminals of the very least of us---especially if making criminals of the least of us is the solution to our refusing to take care of the least of us. Since my family includes everyone on this planet, we don't exclude anyone, we don't refuse to serve anyone, and if we run out of something, I'll find someone to step up and fix it, not tell the host it's his own fault for not having enough wine vats."

I'd like to think this is what Mary would do, after all, it's only what her son asks of His followers. She had to have some influence on His thinking.

More On Medjugorge

This has been an almost overwhelming task to delve into Medjugorge. From the politics of the region, the internecine strife, the commercialization, the debunkers and defenders, the visionaries, the Franciscans, and the Church itself have all contributed to the avalanche of available information. For a good overview read this article.

Because I had no intention of doing a scholarly dissertation, I'm going to concentrate on the few articles of the dozens and dozens I read, which struck me as highly pertinent to the various view points which swirl around Medjugorge.

The first article I found useful was a scientific review of some of the testing the visionaries have collectively or individually undergone. This testing has been on going from the beginning of the apparitions--1981--and have been conducted as recently as spring of this year. Whatever the visionaries are seeing, their brains process it as a three dimensional vision, although it is not being produced by the usual optical pathways. In essence this means, that the apparition, or the energy around the apparition, is bypassing normal visual channels and directly effecting the brain in order to produce the effects of three dimensional sight. This is in keeping with information I've read about other visionaries, and the behavior associated with these inner dimensional visions.

Although science can rule out deception, psychosis, or hallucinogenic drugs, it needs to be kept in mind that science can not rule on the validity of the interpretation of the visionaries. In other words, while these six Catholic Croatians are apparently given a Catholic interpretation of the apparition, an Indigenous spiritual practitioner may see the same apparition and be given an entirely different interpretation. Both groups of visionaries might see very much the same person, but their interpretations of that vision will be colored by their own personal and cultural contexts. I'm not saying that the Medjugorge visionaries are not in fact seeing the Mother of God, but I am saying that the identity Catholics rightly call Mary, may also be the same inner dimensional identity that the Assiniboine call Traveling Day Woman. If Mary is truly the Queen of Peace and Queen of the World it would make sense that she be seen within different cultural and spiritual contexts.

Another facet of Medjugorge apparitions that I found intriguing is the fact they took place in Medjugorge. This is an area of brutal and vicious attempts at genocide. Here's a synchronistic fact. Five months after the Marian visions began at Medjugorge, similar visions started for a group of similar aged girls in Rawanda. In both cases the Marian apparition predicted an ugly brutal war in which various factions would attempt to liquidate the other. In both cases this came horrifically true in the nineties. Mary seems to be appearing in geographical areas which are both historically dripping in blood, and bent on producing more of the same. It's as if she's targeting specific geographical areas.

Over the years, I too have gotten many messages from beings of light. Like the vast majority of Marian messages from Medjugorge these messages have repeatedly stated the ontological importance of love, and the necessity for total conversion, purification of ego, self denial, and a consistent prayer life. As I am a Catholic, they have repeatedly stressed Mass attendance and reception of the Eucharist. I have never been given the impression that anything I've been asked to do as a practitioner of Catholic spirituality is more 'truthful' than any other spirituality. It is for me though, as it's the spiritual 'matrix' in which I have had my spirituality grounded.

Interestingly enough, the messages coming from Medjugorge also emphasize that the love of Jesus is for all people and that faithfully practicing a spirituality different from Catholicism does not preclude one from life with Jesus. The issues are LOVE, LOVE, LOVE, seeing one's brother in the other, the inner connectedness love brings to all things, and the need for conversion to that understanding. It goes without saying, but I'll say it anyway, that the kind of conversion Mary asks for is the kind that tames the ego and subordinates it to the Spirit. This is after all, the core message of Jesus Christ. It also appears though, that her message of universal salvation is one of the reasons the Church has so far failed to approve the site as an official Marian shrine. Tell that one to the millions of people who have experienced it's power.

And then of course, there were the Medjugorge inter net sites which seem to be political in nature and making fortunes for their founders. In some cases individual Medjugorge visionaries are associated with these organizations. One such organization is Caritas of Birmingham, an American organization based in Birmingham, Alabama and led by Terri Colafrancesco. Caritas seems to attract rabid devotees and equally rabid enemies. There is no question that Caritas makes a great deal of money off pilgrimages and planned events in Alabama which occasionally feature one of the visionaries, Marja who is the last of the visionaries to claim almost daily visions.

Reading the Caritas site, and the writings of Colafrancesco makes one wonder just how much his 'conversion' has effected his understanding and living of Mary's core messages. He writes under the pseudonym A Friend Of Medjugorge and his editorializing of the message seems to come right from the worst of right wing political advocates. One day he is writing about the 'feminization' of American culture and how satanic it is, and two days later he writes a glowing piece about Sarah Palin and how the hand of God is in her selection just as it was when God singled out Joan of Arc to save France. It was jarring to read Mary's universal messages of peace and brotherhood and then Colafrancesco's interpretations.

To end this installment, I guess what I've found is that the truth of Mary's appearances and messages are being sadly exploited by any faction which thinks their particular axe can be sharpened on the fact she's appearing--excluding the people who have experienced real conversion. Medjugorge represents human nature at it's most enlightened best, and it's unenlightened worst. On well, the truth is, in the final analysis it's about choice. It always come down to choice, and the balance necessary in which to make informed choice.

Tomorrow I'll grind my own axe, because I happen to think what's happening in Medjugorge is important, that it's real, and that I've been given the same messages, but in a slightly different caste. If I've learned anything working with dozens of different psychics and spiritual practitioner's it's that the message is tailored to the messenger but the core message never changes. To paraphrase a political pundit, "It's about the love, dummy."

Benedict Goes To Lourdes, I Delve Into Medjugorje

It's funny how things can lead to other things and lead to even more other things. I had intended to commemorate Benedict XVI's trip to Lourdes with an update on what's happening with Medjugorje. The Vatican has recently censured one of the Franciscan's who was instrumental in mentoring the visionaries, and is still in the process of determining it's official stance on the site itself. But, what I found is that Medjugorje is about far more than Marian visions and the subsequent life of the visionaries.

It seems that one can't look into anything in the Balkans and not find oneself in a morass of politics, tribalism, sectarian violence, and economic exploitation of one group by another. Medjugorje is no exception. Whatever the kids experienced, and multiple scientific testing says they did experience something which was not a lie, not a form of drug psychosis, and not a form of hallucination, they also inadvertently help set off all kinds of other very unpleasant historical conflicts.

These historical conflicts encompass the Church itself, since the Franciscans operate the parishes in the immediate area and have historically been at odds with the official Church in the diocese in which Medjugorje exists. These conflicts between the Archdiocese and the Franciscans continue.

The Archdiocese is not a supporter of the pilgrimage site, and the Franciscans are one of the major driving forces behind all the pilgrimages, and one of the main beneficiaries of all the money the pilgrims bring. One of the Franciscan sites which is deriving a great deal of benefit from Medjugorje is the University of St Francis in Steubenville, Ohio.

Researching Medjugorje is going to take me a lot more time. There are so many threads enter twined with so many other threads, and the picture which emerges is very murky. Unlike Lourdes, and Fatima, none of the visionaries followed through with religious vocations, and the since the visions happened within the jurisdiction of a Franciscan parish, the official diocesan representatives held no sway until the whole phenomenon became a threat to the Milosevic government. Not surprisingly the Serbian government saw the site as a front for Croatian Independence and the re emergence of the Ustasha. So while the official church was immersed in it's own jurisdictional issues, the politics of the area also intruded into the whole development of Medjugorje.

To add even more mayhem to the mess, during the Yugoslavian war of the 90's, just as in WWII major atrocities were committed in the area under the fog of war, old injustices were acted on, and suddenly wealthy criminal families wreaked vengeance on each other. No wonder the Queen of Peace was frequently seen by the visionaries to be crying.

I'm beginning to see why the Vatican has been sitting on the fence on Medjugorje, and while even though John Paul II seemed to be supportive in private, in public it was and is a different story. It is a mess, and the Church has zero control of either the site or the visionaries. This is a situation which has not been in play in any other officially recognized Marian Shrine. In the cases of Lourdes, Fatima and Guadalupe, the official church was the main player. In this situation they have been the weakest player. This must be an uncomfortable place for the Vatican to find itself as millions of pilgrims visit the area every year.

In my own personal opinion something most certainly happened to the visionaries. The real question is what was that something? Tomorrow I'll go into the speculation about just what that something is. It ranges all the way from Mary actually being present, to mind control experiments run by the KGB, to the devil, to the visionaries themselves in some cases not understanding what's happened to them and what they've really been experiencing.

A Penny's Worth Of Thoughts On 9/11

This day 9/11 brings back memories for me with the clarity of other world changing days. Days like the assassinations of Jack and Bobby Kennedy and Marin Luther King. Days like when Neil Armstrong took man's first steps on the moon, or when I pulled my car over in order to listen to Richard Nixon resign. The day my daughter was born, or the day we found out she was diabetic.

The day the Berlin wall came down was a biggy too, because on that day I thought I had seen the end of the nuclear nightmare, and then came 9/11/2001.

I remember hearing from coworkers that the twin towers had been attacked. They were breathless and wide eyed. I unplugged myself from my headset and got to the break room just in time to see the first tower collapse. I almost puked. My first thought went right to the EMS personnel, wondering how many of them went down with that tower. I remember thinking what an incredibly heroic sacrifice they had made, a really heroic sacrifice in that they made a choice to enter hell in order to help others. That kept going over and over in my mind. They chose to go in there knowing..........

When the second tower came down I was too numb by then to really compute the compounding of an already incomprehensible scene. Surreal I thought. This can't be really happening. Denial and yet certainty intertwined with each other in my brain. I seemed stuck, or more accurately, thrown so far off track I couldn't find the tracks. I wandered back to my desk, I guess looking for some sense of normalcy, and I took a phone call from a client.

I worked in the state's call center for Child Support Enforcement, and it was my job to straighten out child support issues. The caller was a young woman who was complaining about the fact the state had shorted her support check. This was not an infrequent occurrence and depended largely on whether the state had received the correct amount from the payer's employer. I asked her how much her check was short. She said one penny. I was put right back off track. I didn't say anything until she finally asked me if I was still there. I asked her if she had heard any of the new this morning. She said yeah, I'm watching it now. Too bad for all those people, but what about my check?

OK, I admit I came unglued. A penny. You are calling over a penny. She got her penny's worth of my thoughts alright as I was suddenly tracking with a vengeance. Not surprisingly she hung up. None of my supervisors dared mention a word about professionalism. I don't remember much about the rest of the day, except I know we were all allowed to go home if we wanted. I wanted.

I saw them carrying Fr. Mychal Judge out of the towers. I knew he was dead. I could tell by the tears on the faces of the Fire fighters. And suddenly my tears mingled with theirs and thoughts started to coalesce. Terror and fear drive people to do stupid things, things that terrorized, frighten, and yes, disgust other people, and yet there are other people who react compassionately, responsibly, and selflessly. Like people who wear the uniforms of the EMS services, and even some who wear Roman collars or Franciscan habits, and occasionally they wear both---servants to the servants.

I cannot remember 9/11 without remembering both Fr. Judge and my penny caller. It's so easy for me to see Christ shining through Fr. Judge, and so damn hard to see Christ in the penny caller. That"s what makes Christ's command to follow him so hard. Sometimes it's damn difficult.

Had my penny caller had the fortune to call on some other day I would have had the professional insight to understand her motivation. It wasn't the penny, it was the principle. If she didn't make a stink this time, next time it might not be a penny, it might be the whole check. Using the call center was her way of letting her ex husband know she needed his support, every last penny.

Mychal Judge didn't need to be reminded his firefighters needed his support. He gave it all, every last penny. It's what Christ calls all of us to do. Sometimes He even gives us reminders, even on the very last day we would want such reminders, and even in ways which are so starkly different.

Today when I'm spaced out and someone says "Penney for your thoughts" it starts those wheels rolling on those same tracks of 9/11. Now, however, I can grin a little and look them in the eye and tell them maybe they don't really want to spend that penny because I'll give the thoughts for free.

Here's to Mychal Judge and my penny caller, and all those others whose lives were so changed by 9/11. May God look at all of us with compassion and walk our walk with us.

Catholic Democrats vs Catholic Democrats

How divisive is the abortion debate? We now have Catholic democrats attacking Catholic democrats:

Speaker's war with the Catholic Church has now spilled over to the Congress.

Speaker Nancy Pelosi, D-Calif., has challenged when life begins. The Roman Catholic Church says life begins at conception. The Speaker, who claims she is an ardent Catholic, says down through the years the Catholic Church has not been able to agree when life begins. Church authorities have hotly disputed her view. Now a group of Mrs. Pelosi's fellow House members has weighed in with a sharply worded letter, organized by U.S. Rep. Thaddeus McCotter, of Michigan.

Mr. McCotter is part-theologian, part street-fighter. Clearly he is one of the most articulate members who have graced the floor of the House of Representatives. Mr. McCotter's letter begins by pointing out that Mrs. Pelosi claimed she had studied the abortion issue "for a long time. "The letter says, "As fellow Catholics and legislators we wish you would have made a more honest effort to lay out the authentic position of the Church on this core moral issue before attempting to address it with authority.

"The letter cites Mrs. Pelosi's interview with Tom Brokaw, which the letter said mangled Catholic Church doctrine regarding the inherent sanctity and dignity of human life. The legislators stated that they are compelled to refute her error. The legislators said that Tom Brokaw reminded you that the Catechism of the Catholic Church professes the sanctity of human life from conception to natural death. The Catechism says the embryo must be defended in its integrity, cared for and healed, as far as possible, like any other human being.

To this Mrs. Pelosi responded, "I understand. And this is like maybe 50 years or something like that. So again, over the history of the church, this is an issue in controversy." (Maybe I'm misunderstanding Nancy Pelosi, but I understand her to be referring to the teaching about life beginning at conception. In this case she is correct. While abortion has been condemned, there most certainly has been dispute as to when life begins, or when it is fully human.)

The members told Mrs. Pelosi that her statement demonstrates a lack of understanding of Catholic teaching and belief regarding abortion. They told Mrs. Pelosi, "From the apostles of the First Century to Pope John Paul the Great, the Church has reaffirmed the moral evil of every procured abortion. The teaching has not changed and remains unchangeable. Direct abortion, that is to say abortion willed either as an end or a means, is gravely contrary to the moral law."

They cite the Catholic catechism, Item 2271, as their source. They went on to say that the speaker's erroneous claim about the Church's opposition to abortion is false and denigrates "our common faith. ...For example, during the reign of Pope Innocent XI in 1679, the Church unequivocally stated it is an error for Catholics to believe fetuses do not have a soul..." confirming the teaching that abortion constitutes an unjustified taking of innocent human life.

Members of Congress concluded by telling Mrs. Pelosi, "To reduce the scandal and consternation caused amongst the faithful by your remarks, we necessarily write you to correct the public record and affirm the church's actual and historical teaching that defends the sanctity of human life.

"The congressmen told Mrs. Pelosi that they hope she will rectify her errant claims and apologize for misrepresenting the Church's doctrine and misleading fellow Catholics. Among the 18, Mr. McCotter colleagues who signed the letter are House Minority Leader John Boehner, of Ohio; veterans such as Peter King, of New York; Steve King, of Iowa; Dan Lungren, of California; and Phil English, of Pennsylvania.

They were joined by newcomers, such as Jeff Fortenberry, of Nebraska; David Nunes, of California; and Michael McCaul, of Texas. While partisan differences are typical of doing business in the House, it is highly unusual for members to deliver such a pointed attack on another member's version of her religion. Inasmuch as Speaker Pelosi has insisted upon standing by her original statement, it is highly likely that this matter will continue to be an issue as we move into the autumn campaign.

******************************************************************

I noticed this same confusing of two distinct issues--that of when life begins, with abortion--in Cardinal George's response to what Nancy Pelosi said. There's no question that the Church has consistently historically condemned abortion, but it is also indisputable that there has been much discussion and much theology written around the question of when life begins, or when it is fully human. This is why Thomas Aquinas talked about quickening as the time he felt that a fetus attained fully human status and when it was fully ensouled. The standard pastoral practice was not to baptize miscarried fetuses because they weren't fully human.

This is an important distinction to keep in mind when pro lifers want to criminalize abortion. It's also a distinction they don't even address because it's highly unlikely society is going to agree to criminal sanctions for abortion as if it were equivalent to the taking of a viable born human life.

This is sort of the elephant in the living room in the whole pro life debate. Even places like Ecuador and the Philippines have a sliding sentencing code based on when a fetus is aborted.

Pelosi is insisting on keeping this distinction in the forefront. I suspect the bishops have come unglued about her remarks, addressing it strictly in abortion terms, because they have no real defense regarding the point she actually is making.

Bill Lyndsey, in his blog Bilgrimage , deals with the deception our bishops are engaged in today when they refuse separate the abortion act from the concept of when life begins. Is is only RECENTLY that they have defined the equivalence of life from conception to natural death, exactly as Pelosi implied in her response to Tom Brokaw.

It is only as the abortion issue became important political fodder that the term "baby killer" was used to describe pro choice folks. Should the pro life folk succeed in criminalizing abortion I am curious to see if they will be pushing for equivalent sentences for first trimester abortions and other types of murder. Will a first trimester abortion be grounds for capital punishment in say, Texas? I seriously doubt it.

In the meantime we now have Catholic democrats attacking Catholic democrats, not over policy issues, but over religious interpretation. Abortion really has become the ultimate wedge issue, used cynically to divide and conquer, and used to wedge the pro life arguments, by extrapolation, into all kinds of other social issues.

If we're learning anything in this political season, it's not the truth of an issue that matters, it's whether the lies can be told forcefully and frequently enough that people don't care if they're true. The treatment of Nancy Pelosi by her Catholic democratic brethren is another such case.

I really do hope her fellow democrats realize they now have themselves out on a plank that taken to it's LOGICAL conclusion mandates capital punishment for abortion in many US states.

If that's not where they really want to go they ought to shut up.

Back To The Real Campaign Issues

Campaign 2008: Jaw, Jaw, War, War

by GEORGE WEIGEL

Winston Churchill, master of eloquent bellicosity, is also remembered for saying that "'Jaw, jaw' is better than 'war, war.'"

Winston Churchill, master of eloquent bellicosity, is also remembered for saying that "'Jaw, jaw' is better than 'war, war.'" As a general matter, who could disagree? If conflicts can be settled by the arts of politics and diplomacy, they should be. But are there situations when "jaw, jaw" makes things more dangerous than the plausible threat of "war, war"? Can the soft power of "jaw, jaw" change minds bent on wickedness, absent the mind-concentrating possibility of the use of hard power ?

The classic cautionary tale here involves Neville Chamberlain and Adolf Hitler. Prime Minister Chamberlain's "jaw, jaw" with Hitler at the 1938 Munich conference wrote a death sentence for independent Czechoslovakia; when Chamberlain returned to London to proclaim "peace with honor" to the cheering throng, Sir Orme Sargent, a senior Foreign Office official, observed acidly, "You might think that we had won a major victory instead of betraying a minor country." That betrayal -- which was rooted in Chamberlain's vane conviction that he could talk Hitler into reason and moderation -- helped unleash the dogs of war, on very unfavorable terms for the defenders of civilization.

The Kennedy-Khrushchev summit of 1961 was another example of "jaw, jaw" making things worse. By Kennedy's own (off-the-record) testimony, the Soviet dictator ran roughshod over him. Coming shortly after the Bay of Pigs fiasco in Cuba, the Vienna summit left Kennedy worried that Khrushchev judged him a weakling -- a premonition that proved warranted a year later when the Soviet Union began installing nuclear-armed ballistic missiles in Cuba, dramatically escalating the Cold War. The net result of a failed "jaw, jaw" between JFK and "Mr. K"? The Cuban Missile Crisis, and a world teetering on the brink of "one minute to midnight"(as Michael Dobbs' new book on the drama of October 1962 puts it.)

"Jaw, jaw" was unavailing in the 1990s as Yugoslavia came apart at the seams; "jaw, jaw" has arguably made matters worse with North Korea (now a nuclear power), Zimbabwe, Sudan, and Burma. On the other hand, "jaw, jaw" prevented a bloody little war between Argentina and Chile in the late 1970s; "jaw, jaw" broke the political-military logjam between Egypt and Israel and led to the first Arab-Israeli peace treaty; and "jaw, jaw" may just have taken hold in the embryonic political institutions of Iraq, making something approaching responsible and responsive government possible there.

In the presidential campaign, the question of whether "jaw, jaw" is always better than "war, war" will likely focus on Iran.

For six years, the world has known about Iran's secret nuclear programs. American and European diplomacy has failed to get Iran to come clean on what it's really up. The U.N. has proven less-than-useless; the organizations's chief nuclear inspector, Mohamed El Baradei, is usually dismissive of western security concerns about Iran's nuclear program. Last December's U.S. National Intelligence Estimate, which claimed that Iran had stopped pursuing the weaponization of nuclear technology shortly after Saddam Hussein fell, is of cold comfort when you realize that building the bomb itself is relatively easy; what the Iranians have been concentrating on in recent years is hard part -- creating sufficient quantities of weapons-grade plutonium.

Iran's President Mahmoud Ahmadinejad calls Israel a "stinking corpse" and pledges to wipe it off the map; he's made similar threats against the U.S. and Great Britain. Ahmadinejad's political fevers, and those of the mullahs who hold ultimate authority in Iran, involve apocalyptic speculations: as they understand Shi'a eschatology, vaporizing Jerusalem will hasten the messianic age. Is Ahmadinejad a man to whom one can talk reason? Are the mullahs?
If the Iranian nuclear program is not halted, the next president of the United States will almost certainly face the prospect of a nuclear-capable Iran that can wreak havoc in the Middle East, transfer nuclear weapons to terrorists, or, in its more subtle moments, conduct nuclear blackmail. How is "jaw, jaw" to prevent this, if Iran's leaders imagine the West to be feckless?
That is a question of the gravest moral and strategic import. It must be discussed seriously in the weeks ahead.

*******************************************************************

This is a clever little ditty that Mr. Weigel has written. What he fails to mention is that we have already tried the pre emptive war strategy in Iraq, choosing war war over blah blah. He also fails to mention that the UN's chief weapons investigator Mohamed Al Baradei was correct in his assessment of the nuclear capabiliy of Iraq, and that neocons like Mr. Weigel, disparaged his assessment then, as Weigel is doing now, with regards to Iran. Actually, the failure to mention the Iraq war in this piece is very telling. Apparently Mr. Weigel thinks Americans have short term memory issues. I don't have short term memory issues. I encourage Mr. Weigel to view this video before he writes his next piece. Actually I would encourage all Americans to view that video because it is a sobering reminder about our potential future under McCain.

Sarah Palin has had her moment in the political spotlight. It's time to forget her and get back to the real issues. It's not McCain's Vice President, as incredulous a pick as she is, it's McCain that's the real issue.

I took a closer look at the photo of the cover I used for this post and found this article by Pat Buchanan. It contains the quote of his used in the video. It too is worth reading.

The Way: Another Dose of Spanish Religious Fascism

Today I'd like to call attention to a very disturbing article about the Neocatechumenal Way.  This is a long article, and although I will be taking excerpts from it in the rest of this thread, I encourage you to read the full article.  

I have to admit I knew a whole lot more about Opus Dei and the Legionaires.  Somewhere in the background of Catholic neocon movements I had heard of  "The Way", and knew that in June of this year it had received Canonical status from the Vatican, after CDF approval of it's statutes.  I had also heard vague rumblings about some of it's liturgical abuses and that the Vatican had insisted those be cleaned up before it would grant Canonical status. In all honesty I tended to see "The Way" as progressive because of it's use of creative liturgies and emphasis on communities.  I couldn't have been farther from the truth.  

The lay leader of the movement is Kiko Arguello, a self proclaimed mystic and visionary, hence the shorthand name for followers of the movement are 'Kikos'. It has a world wide membership of 1.5 million with it's own seminaries, parishes, and colleges.  It's received unbelievable support from John Paul II.  Like the other high profile right wing groups it's the brain child of a Spaniard and enjoys immense support amongst the Cardinals of Spain.  It's as right wing fanatical as these things come, and not adverse to 'community organizing':

And above all, Kiko will provide Rouco (Cardinal Rouco of Madrid) with political influence. At a meeting in Rome in October 2007, during the beatification of 468 Religious assassinated in the Civil War, Arguello will propose to the Cardinal organising a great demonstration in Madrid ‘in defense of the Christian family’. There are barely three months left before the general elections. The polls predict a technical draw between the PSOE (Socialist Party of Spanish Workers) and the (right wing) Popular Party. Rouco is doubtful. It seems precipitate. Arguello reassures him, ‘Don Antonio, I will put 300,000 kikos in Columbus Place’. Rouco agrees. The demonstration takes place on October 30. Various Cardinals and 42 Bishops attend.

This supposed religious demonstration turns into a political rally against the Government of Rodriguez Zapatero and his initiatives like homosexual marriage and the school subject, Education for Citizenship. The dais rises above an icon painted by Arguello. Organisers accuse Zapatero of ‘breaking up the family’. Cardinal Garcia-Gasco goes further. ‘Radical laicism can bring about the dissolution of democracy and does not respect the constitution,’ he roars. Kiko closes the rally with his guitar. And sounds an alarm, ‘These atheistic and lay Governments want to make us believe that our life goes nowhere. But it is going to Heaven.’  (Garcia-Gasco's words could be just as easily leveled at the Neocats, but we all know in the conservative mind their thinking can only go in one direction.  That's why none of them understand "HYPOCRISY".)

Arguello really means we're all going to heaven if we do it his way.  His way involves all the usual cultic trappings:  the turning over of wealth from members, secrecy, coercive instruction in the statutes by catechetical 'overseers' and secrecy, the insistence on obedience to superiors as the prime indicator of the strength of one's faith, the practice of ostracism and secrecy, the perception that the leader is a living saint and that he stands in direct contrast to the workings of Satan and his assertions that this is true, aggressive evangelising, the subverting of clergy, the takeover of parishes, and the grooming, educating and infantilizing of it's own seminarians.

The kiko's are also heavily recognized for having large families.  Arguello has repeatedly emphasized the woman's Christian duty is to have as many babies as possible.  Kiko's have a ritual, seemingly taken directly from AA, where members identify themselves only by first name and then give the number of children they have.  The most applause goes to the person with the most children. Procreative sobriety is not the kind of sobriety Kiko's are looking for.  Neocats have the largest birthrate of any subgroup in Europe and this birthrate is one reason they are exploding in numbers.  Since The Way is in it's 45th year, we're talking generations of baby making.

Kiko Arguello is not married, and as far as anyone knows has no children, but he does have an interesting relationship with a woman name Carmen Hernandez:

In the shanties of Vallecas he was going to meet, in those first stages of his career, the woman who has been his companion, his alter ego and co-founder of the Neocatechumenal Way, through four decades, Carmen Hernandez, a nun of her generation, of a wealthy family, a Licentiate in theology, who from her girlhood had wanted to be a missionary, but had never submitted to the discipline of the religious orders. ‘We were two misfits; that everything would go well is a miracle,’ says Arguello. Kiko would bring to The Way his charisma, his interpretive gifts, his restlessness. Carmen Hernandez the doctrinal base that Arguello lacked. They would unite forces. The relationship between them is one of the great mysteries (one of the favourite terms of The Way) of the kikos. Their followers explain immediately that they are not a couple. It is certain he is the leader. But she is not disposed to remain without her moment of glory. She is the voice of his conscience. In public and in private. And she presses him conscientiously.  (Perhaps their relationship is the foundation on which JPII's notions of sexual complimentarity had their genesis.)

There are descriptions of their public ceremonial interchanges in which she sits on the altar with him and corrects his thinking or uses sarcasm to get him to rethink what he says, or just ridicules him.  It's a strange relationship, but this repartee has been part and parcel of what makes their leadership of the movement so powerful.  Functioning as Arguello's alter ego she seems to humanize and humble him.  Seems to, is probably the operative word.  This couple had a very very close relationship with JPII:

 When Karol Woytila arrived at the Vatican in 1978 the churches and the seminaries were empty, the traditional orders (Jesuits, Dominicans, Franciscans) flirting with the Theology of Liberation and the diocesan clergy old and in confusion. Woytila was the result of the Cold War; he conceived of a church of resistance to Communism. ‘And from the first moment, his idea is to re-evangelize Europe. He sees that he can not count on the old orders’ explains a Spanish priest. ‘He finds himself alone. There is a spiritual vacuum and providentially the new neocon groups appear (Opus Dei, Focolares, Communion and Liberation, Saint Egidio, and the kikos) formed by lay people with a conception of the Church similar to his own, and he draws on them. They not only fill stadiums for him, but they are an antidote to the Theology of Liberation and the proliferation of evangelical sects in Latin America. They are ready to preach in the old Communist countries. And they profess a dog-like fidelity to him.

Kiko and Woytila are twin souls. They both want to re-evangelize Christianity. And they are two old enthusiasts of the theatre. They know the importance of image. As one monsignor relates, Carmen and Kiko cultivate John Paul conscientiously. They are masters in the art of flattery. As often as the Pope opens his window, rain or snow, there is a group of kikos with guitars, singing in honour of him. Kikos will sing for Woytila in every mass celebration at which he’s present in any corner of the world. Every Sunday Carmen Hernandez is with the Pope while he visits the parishes of Rome as bishop of his diocese. She becomes a habitual presence. Kiko and Carmen eventually penetrate the intimacy of the Pope and share private meals with him. They will talk with him with their habitual harshness of the state of the Church. They will give him reports about the fidelity of the bishops. Previously, the pair had won over to their cause the powerful secretary of the Pope, the Polish priest, Stanislaw Dziwisz. When he is made cardinal in 2006, they will be in the front rank, and the new cardinal will fraternally put his arm round Carmen’s shoulders. She confirms that they are still good friends: ‘He has invited us to Cracow, and he treats me like a queen. He invites me to seafood.’

In 1990, against the judgment of certain bishops who are suspicious of the practices of The Way, Woytila publishes a letter of recognition which conveys his good regard for the kikos. In the document he exhorts bishops to value and to support the work of The Way. In other words he orders them to open the doors of their parishes. One follower suspects that the letter was drawn up by Arguello, who gave it to the Pope to sign. It was the great recognition.

Although it appears that Benedict is not nearly so personally taken with Arguello and Hernandez, he never the less did approve the Canonical status of The Way.  When I think about it, it's amazing how right wing Spanish fascism has infiltrated the Vatican and the Hierarchy.  Opus Dei, the Legionaires, and Neocatechumenal Way are all products of ego driven Spanish fascists.  They are groups which have evolved around personality cults and embody the same slavish devotion as the fascist dictatorships from whose ashes they have risen.  It looks as if they are using the Roman Catholic Church to reach political ascendancy in concert with Biblical Envangelicals in the United States.  I'm sure Arguello and Hernandez would list GW Bush as one of their favorite politicians.  Scary stuff.

In light of all this, I know with a sinking certainty that this US election season will degenerate into the same kinds of Madrid pro family political rhetoric which the Neo Cats engaged in previous to the Spanish election.  The attack semantics of the last two days of the Republican convention seemed to be designed to pander to the American version of Neo Catechumenates. Sarah Palin would fit right in with this group and I know we'll continue to hear the same kinds of attack rhetoric she engaged in from the RNC podium--or should I say RNC pulpit.

Speaking of palin:  The Greek word for "again" or "backward" is palin.  Frequent readers of this blog will remember that I've been told to pay attention to the irony in names.  It doesn't get any better than this.  I also take great hope from the election results in Spain.  It looks to me like the majority of us have no desire to go "backwards" or try Fascism "again".  

Sexuality And The Christian Devil

I've had a busy weekend and it's only going to get busier, so this might not be the world's longest post. It won't really take a long post to discuss sexuality and negative plane energy. It only takes books and books and reams and reams of words to justify historical Christianity's take on sexuality.

First off readers need to understand that I don't sexuality as divorced from the totality of a person. Secondly, readers need to understand that I see sexuality as the epitome of the gift of material reality which is touch. Touch is God's way of exploring this reality. He does this through our hands, our hearts, our bodies, our sexuality. In this sense I see sexuality as a spiritual endeavor, not strictly a procreative endeavor.

When sexual morality is divorced from heart and spirit, relegated to a series of do's and dont's based in procreation, the door is wide open for negative plane energy to exploit our sexuality. Negative plane energy is not embodied. Therefor, they, like God use our ability to touch to explore the material plane along side of us. They are not interested in exploring sexuality as a function of love, joy, peace, sharing. They are interested in exploring it through exploitation, dominance, pain, violence, guilt, shame, fear, power. Historical Christianity has made this effort much easier by making sexuality a guilt driven enterprise reducing women's role in sexuality to passive receptors of male seed and birthing of children. Historical Christianity has taken male seed and made it an idol around whose proper planting all sexuality must conform. Essentially historical Christianity has taken the multi faceted world of sexuality and reduced it to a form of farming. Unfortunately the farm feeds a whole host of negative plane energies, through a whole host of exploitative sexual behaviors.

Sarah Palin's shot gun wedding for her daughter amply illustrates how this dynamic works. She has a pregnant seventeen year old daughter who will dutifully marry the father of her child. This is the same 'father' whose face book biography specifically stated he didn't want any f***ing children, amongst a whole host of other redneck self descriptors all most all of them beginning with f***in'. In spite of ample evidence that he demonstrates a stunning lack of parental and husbandly maturity, he will marry and become a father in direct contradiction to his own self understanding. Apparently this is what Jesus would do.

Who benefits from this shotgun wedding other than Sara Palin and John McCain. Undoubtedly a whole host of negative plane energy will, that's for sure. I'm not talking about demonic possession here. I'm talking about energies that just hang around to bathe in the kinds of emotional energy which is generated when immature morally undeveloped youth engage in sexuality and then are forced to into marriage. I've seen how difficult and emotionally charged these young marriages can be, and I can't begin to imagine what it's going to be like for these two teenagers in the face of all the media exposure their relationship will endure. They may have proven they were biologically ready for procreative sex, but that doesn't mean they are spiritually and emotionally ready to become parents.

There is a huge difference between making babies and raising children. This difference is not acknowledged by historical Christianity in it's sexual morality. It leads to really interesting thinking which morally charges women to have the babies of their rapists, and makes sexual rape more moral than masturbation. Makes no sense at all in a spiritual definition of sexuality but absolute sense in a morality which is based strictly in biological procreation. This thinking is what we are being asked to vote for. I'm sure some of Palin's biggest supporters are not of this world, and not of the Angelic world.

The negative energy swirling around human sexuality will not leave until humanity takes the high road with regards to sexuality and understands that it is indeed one of our highest Divine expressions. If it's true humanity is God's way of understanding Himself through touch, than we need to rethink our traditional view of sexuality in this context. This won't happen through the auspices of a 'celibate' all male clergy. Sorry you true believers.

Satan And Negative Plane Energy

I guess I'm a day late with this post on Satan and his minions. Although, depending on one's point of view, maybe yesterday's post actually did deal with the same topic. The republicans must be having second thoughts about their pitbull because according to an article on Huffington Post, Sarah won't be giving interviews and will be restricted to canned speeches. Somehow I seriously doubt this will stop the media from doing their job. I feel compelled to point out that if you feel the need to keep your vice presidential candidate on a leash, perhaps you should find another candidate. The devil made me write that. :)

The topic of negative plane energy is as complicated as any other topic that deals with the quantum universe. A person needs to dump issues of either/or dualism and take on the previously discussed 'both/and" mentality. Free choice cannot exist in a vacuum of one side of the energy spectrum. In this case what we experience as negative has it's place in God's kingdom. It needs to be honored and respected for the part it plays in our ability to choose. It needs to be honored and respected for the part it plays in the lessons we learn and the development we make.

When a person truly understands this "both/and" proposition, evil or the negative, loses some of it's power over us, especially the emotional component. Jesus never demonstrated any fear of personified evil. In fact He demonstrated exactly the opposite. Demons weren't much of an issue to Him. They held nothing over Him. That's why He was an effortless exorcist and in the stories of His exorcisms, the demons recognized Him right away. Jesus's energy and the demonic energies were completely incompatible. Demonic energy could not sustain itself in His presence. He knew that and they knew that. I love the story of how He sent the legion of devils into the pigs. The allegorical nature of this story is brilliant.

The best way I've come across to understand the effective component of what we call evil, is to understand it in terms of energy wave lengths. Like the angelic realm, the realm of negative plane energy is attracted to certain wave lengths of energy. In this case it's emotional energy. Emotion has it's own discrete wave length and we are getting to the point where we can measure it not only in it's physical manifestations--lie detectors for instance--but also in it's effect on the quantum signature of our bodies--auras. Negative plane energy is attracted to the lower frequency bands in the emotional spectrum. Emotions like fear, anger, hate, victimization, despair and hopelessness are energy bands which literally feed these negative energies.

Here's a true story. I did a healing journey for a young man who demonstrated aspects of Dissociative Personality Disorder. In most cases DPD is a product of a splintered personality, usually brought on by early childhood abuse, but in other cases it's really a case of an attachment disorder. Classic Catholicism would call it obsession or possession. In this young man's case it seemed to be mostly attachments of dead relatives, especially the dead uncle who originally abused him.

As the journey progressed, I came face to face with this energy. Although one part of me felt it's presence, it manifested in my mind as the classic demonic being. I've done this enough to know that this is my mind's way of giving me a visual representation of what is really an energy being. It no longer startles me to see these presentations. Anyway I was asked by this being if I thought I was really going to remove it without resorting to the power of Michael. I knew Michael was hanging around, but he wouldn't act unless I requested it. In a sense this being was testing my own self confidence in my own energy.

I reacted to all of this really strangely. Instead of engaging in a confrontation, I asked this demon why his kind didn't learn how to feed themselves, to find a self sustaining method, instead of attaching themselves like blood suckers to human energy. The image was taken aback, Michael started laughing. It was like this energy had never even conceived of such a notion. So the demon asked me if I thought it was possible. I literally had no idea, so I said something to the effect that if anyone could teach them how to do it it would be Michael's kind. Michael said it could be done, but it would take time, and the negative plane would have to listen to what they were told. As this particular vision ended, the negative entity was in deep conversation with Michael.

The young man is doing remarkably well by the way, and was released the very next day from the state mental institution. The attachments are apparently gone or in remission and he is beginning the process of evolving a personality of his own. He's got a long ways to go, but he finally has the freedom to do so.

As the days have gone on since this encounter, Michael told me what was really important about my encounter with the negative was not the solution itself, but the introduction of choice to a level of consciousness that had never conceived of it for themselves. Because they had never conceived of it for themselves, they had no understanding, much less respect, for the concept in humans.

This idea that negative plane energies made a choice to rebel is one of the most damaging of all the myths. Free choice is man's gift from God, and is necessary for the progression of the material universe. The negative plane energies are lower in consciousness than mankind and never did have a concept of free choice. They are now, and always have been, single minded parasites. This doesn't make them powerless by any means, but it does make them less terrifying. Highly evolved spiritual humans are by their very quantum nature a major threat to this low level energy precisely because their light shines too bright. Darkness is incompatible with light.

Having said darkness is incompatible with light, it then becomes logical that secrecy and stonewalling are the tools of negative plane energy. Negative plane energy can manifest in many ways. It's not limited to the entities of attachment disorders, it can be more pervasive, more global, more diffused---like in the clergy pedophile crisis. Once this matrix of secrecy, shame, and stonewalling is set up, it becomes a source of food for all kinds of other negative plane energies. It becomes a self sustaining factory for the very evil it's trying to conceal.

The trick to overcoming evil is to get the lessons involved and move on. This is why the Church absolutely needs to effectively deal with the pedophile crisis. The doors on this particular factory must be closed. That it isn't happening is testimony to the power of evil to cloak itself behind worthless verbal statements. The pope can apologize all he wants, but until the system which foisted this evil on the church is cleaned up, the clerical system itself, the apologies only serve the purpose of the energy which feeds on the crisis. Roman Catholicism will continue to slowly die as these energies suck the life right out of it.

Tomorrow, assuming I'm not side tracked again, I'll get into the whole notion of why sex is such a door to negative plane exploitation. Bishop Robinson has it right. As far as the Church goes it's all about sex and power.