Bulls Eye

Pope's former diocese admits error over priest
By GEIR MOULSON and NICOLE WINFIELD (AP) – 1 hour ago

BERLIN — Pope Benedict XVI's former German diocese said Friday it made a mistake when the pontiff was archbishop in allowing a priest suspected to have abused a child to return to pastoral work. However, it said Benedict wasn't involved in the decision.

The details came hours after Germany's top bishop briefed Pope Benedict XVI on the spiraling cases of clerical sex abuse in the pontiff's native Germany and said the pope encouraged him to pursue the truth and assist the victims.

At the Vatican, Archbishop Robert Zollitsch said the pope was "greatly dismayed" and "deeply moved" as he was being briefed on the scandal during his 45-minute private audience in the Vatican. Zollitsch said he briefed the pope in particular on the measures being taken so far to confront the scandal. (I bet he was dismayed. Secrets coming out of his closet.)

"The Holy Father was very satisfied with our decisions," Zollitsch told a news conference after the meeting.

In Germany, the Munich archdiocese said the chaplain was sent to Munich in 1980 for therapy. The diocese says it was made aware of the "serious errors" by the Munich-based daily Sueddeutsche Zeitung which first reported on it for its Saturday edition.

The man, identified only as H., was allowed to stay in a vicarage while undergoing therapy — a decision in which then-Archbishop Joseph Ratzinger was involved, the statement said. It said officials believe it was known the therapy was related to suspected "sexual relations with boys."

However, it says a lower-ranking official — vicar general Gerhard Gruber — then allowed him to help in pastoral work in Munich, a decision for which he takes "full responsibility."

The Vatican press office noted in a brief statement Friday evening that Gruber was assuming "full responsibility" for the transfer of the priest, after therapy, to pastoral duties. Without further comment, the statement included a link to the Munich archdiocese's statement in German.

The archdiocese says there were no accusations against the chaplain relating to his February 1980 to August 1982 spell in Munich. He then moved to nearby Grafing, but was suspended in early 1985 following accusations of sexual abuse — which the archdiocese didn't detail. The following year, he was convicted of sexually abusing minors.

The conviction resulted in an 18-month suspended prison sentence and a fine of 4,000 marks, now worth nearly $2,800, the archdiocese said.

Ratzinger was archbishop of Munich and Freising from 1977 to early 1982.
Gruber told The Associated Press by telephone Friday that he was in sole charge of staffing decisions.

"Personnel matters were delegated," Gruber said. "I decided that on my own."
Gruber also said Benedict would not have been aware of his decision because the case load was too big.

"You have to know that we had some 1,000 priests in the diocese at the time," Gruber said. "The cardinal could not deal with everything, he had to rely on his vicar general." (It is traditional for the 'captain' to take responsibility for the actions of his officers. What's good for the bishops in Ireland should be good for the bishop in Rome.)

After his conviction, the chaplain was ordered to undergo psychotherapy, the archdiocese said. In 1986 and 1987, he was assigned to a home for seniors and was then a curate and an administrator until 2008. (I can't think of too many organizations which would keep an employee on the books and then promote him after being convicted of pedophelia. I am not over looking the fact this man was also allowed to function as a full priest in good sacramental standing. Too bad he didn't get married. What a crock.)

At least 170 former students from Catholic schools in Germany have come forward recently with claims of physical and sexual abuse, including at an all-boys choir once led by the pope's brother.
Zollitsch also said he briefed the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith on measures implemented in Germany, and that the Vatican is considering a set of universal norms to deal with cases of clerical sex abuse.

"I'm grateful for the encouragement he (Benedict) gave me to continue carrying out our measures in a decisive and courageous way," he said.

Benedict hasn't commented on the German scandal himself. But he decried the sexual abuse of children as a "heinous crime" after he summoned Irish bishops to Rome last month to discuss the even more widespread scandal in the Irish church.

Besides the cases in Germany and Ireland, three retired priests at a Catholic school in Austria were relieved of their clerical duties this week after allegations of physical and sexual abuse emerged. Two other priests in Austria have resigned amid similar allegations.

In the Netherlands, Catholic bishops announced an independent inquiry into more than 200 allegations of sexual abuse of children by priests at church schools and apologized to victims.
But of all the European scandals, the German abuse allegations are particularly sensitive because Germany is Benedict's homeland, and because the scandals involve the prestigious choir that was led by his brother, Georg Ratzinger, from 1964 until 1994.

Zollitsch said he and Benedict did not discuss the allegations surrounding the pontiff's brother.
Ratzinger has repeatedly said the sexual abuse allegations date from before his tenure as choir director and that he never heard of them, although he acknowledged slapping pupils as punishment.

According to a poll conducted by the Emnid institute for N24 television, a full 86 percent of Germans contend the Roman Catholic Church has failed to do enough to explain the allegations of abuse in church-run schools and institutions. Only 10 percent of the 1,000 people polled on March 10 felt the church was doing enough.

Also, 68 percent of those polled say the abuse scandal has raised their criticism of the church's educational abilities, while 28 percent still trust the church to teach their children. (Which means 72% don't trust the Church with their children.)

Bishop Stephan Ackermann, who has been appointed by the church to handle abuse allegations in Germany, said that he would also follow up on any charges against bishops. (Apparently this excludes the one now Bishop of Rome.)

"Bishops or parishes that are not cooperative will be asked for information," Ackermann said Thursday on ZDF television.

Winfield reported from Vatican City. Associated Press writers Verena Schmitt-Roschmann, Kirsten Grieshaber and Melissa Eddy in Berlin contributed to this report.

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If any of us wondered why Bernie Law and others found jobs in the Vatican, now we know. Someone wanted to set a precedent--just in case. This whole sordid mess we call a hierarchy needs to implode. I can't imagine the anger which will be unleashed if the Legion investigation is a white wash. Mea culpas without restitution are just so many empty Latin words.

A Reader Asks Why Do We Stay?

If the current climate in the Church says anything, it's that the gates of hell have prevailed for a long long time. It's time Catholics took Jesus out of the confines of the clerical tabernacle and reclaimed our baptismal rights by exercising our baptismal responsibilities----like adults.

One of the frequent questions asked by more conservative Catholics of progressives came up in the comments from the post before this one. Since it comes up so often, I took the time to answer it from my own perspective. I invite other readers to use the comments section to answer this question themselves for the anonymous reader who posed the question.

My answer was straight off the top of my head. I could have come up with something a little more cogent if I had taken more time. Sometimes though, one's first response is often their most truthful and best response.

Anonymous said...
I'm curious...if all of you are in such disagreement with the basics of Catholic Theology and Doctrine (and they are very clearly defined in the Catechism of the Catholic Church), why continue to call yourselves Catholic? Why set out to redefine a faith rather than simply join a church that more accurately represents your point of view - Episcopalian for example?

colkoch said...
I can't answer your question for any other commenter, but I will answer it for myself.

I'm not looking for another club to join or a 'bar' where I can fit in and 'everyone knows my name'. That's way too simplistic and childish a solution.

The spiritual path is supposed to be a challenge to one's enculturated ego. Religions too often want the spiritual path to be an affirmation of their enculturated God. Jesus fought his own tradition on just those lines by challenging the assumptions behind the rules of Pharisaic Judaism. Ultimately He taught it's not about the rules, it's about the spirit behind the rules.

So I ask myself this question: What energy really benefits from the current Institutional absolutist emphasis on rules and doctrine? Who benefits from the current push to make those absolutist rules the law of the secular land? Who benefits from the political gay bashing and the cover up of clerical sexual abuse? Who benefits from forcing birth on poor women incapable of raising another child? Who benefits from denying birth control to over populated Catholic areas? Who really benefits?

The answer is the dark side of the energy equation. All of these absolutist doctrines, which seek to take choice away from people, foment human misery, exploitation, poverty, and greed. The spirit from which they operate is about control, domination, and fear of 'others'.

With baptism comes rights, but also responsibilities. My responsibility is not obedience to rules, but to freely live the Spirit and that Spirit is about loving like an adult, not obeying like a fearful child.

To follow Jesus means to slay the demons with in ourselves, but this also applies to His Church. To maintain obedient silence is to enable evil. What do you think the abuse crisis is all about? I would rather stand against the evil in my own Church than transfer to what you think is just another more congenial 'religious' club.

Perhaps that is how you wish Catholicism to be, or how you see religious observance, a club of sorts in which you feel comfortable and want others to be just like you. Unfortunately we are called to be just like Jesus, not like me, and not like you.

Archbishop Chaput Takes The Mound To Explain Why It's OK To Deny Education To The Children Of Gays.

Archbishop Chaput throws a curve ball at the children of a lesbian couple. Is the Legion going to get the same pitch or will they get an intentional walk?

The following is in the words of the Archbishop himself. It's his explanation of why it was very Catholic to kick two preschoolers out of a Catholic parish school because they had two mommies, and why it's also very Catholic to leave the children of divorced, single, or non Catholic children in Catholic schools. It's quite the pitch.


Catholic schools: Partners in faith with parents
Archbishop Charles Chaput - Denver Catholic Register - 3/10/2010

Denver news media have reported in recent days on the case of two children of a lesbian couple in Boulder. The couple was informed by Sacred Heart of Jesus parish school that the older child, whom they were enrolling in kindergarten for next year, would be allowed to attend kindergarten but would not be able to continue into first grade the year after. Their younger child would be welcome to finish preschool, but not continue into kindergarten. Many have wondered why. Sacred Heart of Jesus parish has borne the difficult publicity surrounding this issue, but archdiocesan policy was followed faithfully in this matter, and the policy applies to all Archdiocese of Denver schools. (It's really the Archbishop's policy. It's his sovereign Archdiocese.)

Some background is important. Then we’ll turn to the human realities involved.
Catholic schools began in this country in the early 19th century. Catholics started them as an alternative to the public schools of the day, which taught a curriculum often hostile to Catholic belief. In many ways times have changed, but the mission of Catholic schools has not. The main purpose of Catholic schools is religious; in other words, to form students in Catholic faith, Catholic morality and Catholic social values.

We take great pride in the academic excellence of our schools as well. The reason is simple. A strong, well-rounded academic education helps to create mature citizens who contribute to the wider community. It’s also true that some of our schools exist as a service outreach in largely non-Catholic communities. Many of our schools also accept students of other faiths and no faith, and from single parent and divorced parent families. These students are always welcome so long as their parents support the Catholic mission of the school and do not offer a serious counter-witness to that mission in their actions. (Wow, how does attending a non Catholic church not offer a counter witness? How does divorce not offer a counter witness?)

Our schools, however, exist primarily to serve Catholic families with an education shaped by Catholic faith and moral formation. This is common sense. Other religious traditions do the same according to their beliefs, and at a heavy sacrifice. We need to remember that Catholic families pay twice for a Catholic education: through their taxes, they fund public education; then they pay again to send their children to a Catholic school. The idea that Catholic schools should require support for Catholic teaching for admission, and a serious effort from school families to live their Catholic identity faithfully, is reasonable and just. (Unless you are of another faith, divorced, or cohabitation with an opposite sexed partner.)

That’s the background. Now to the human side of a painful situation. The Church never looks for reasons to turn anyone away from a Catholic education. But the Church can’t change her moral beliefs without undermining her mission and failing to serve the many families who believe in that mission. If Catholics take their faith seriously, they naturally follow the teachings of the Church in matters of faith and morals; otherwise they take themselves outside the believing community. (The moral of the story is heterosexual sex, no matter how sinful or how much it destroys families, is more Catholic than gay sex....period.)

The Church does not claim that people with a homosexual orientation are “bad,” or that their children are less loved by God. Quite the opposite. But what the Church does teach is that sexual intimacy by anyone outside marriage is wrong; that marriage is a sacramental covenant; and that marriage can only occur between a man and a woman. These beliefs are central to a Catholic understanding of human nature, family and happiness, and the organization of society. The Church cannot change these teachings because, in the faith of Catholics, they are the teachings of Jesus Christ. (They may not be less loved, but they do make better political footballs and/or targets for curve ball theology.)

The policies of our Catholic school system exist to protect all parties involved, including the children of homosexual couples and the couples themselves. Our schools are meant to be “partners in faith” with parents. If parents don’t respect the beliefs of the Church, or live in a manner that openly rejects those beliefs, then partnering with those parents becomes very difficult, if not impossible. It also places unfair stress on the children, who find themselves caught in the middle, and on their teachers, who have an obligation to teach the authentic faith of the Church. (Ostracising the children is for their own good in order to protect them from Church teaching and Church teachers. He may have a point here--at least in his Archdiocese.)

Most parents who send their children to Catholic schools want an environment where the Catholic faith is fully taught and practiced. That simply can’t be done if teachers need to worry about wounding the feelings of their students or about alienating students from their parents. That isn’t fair to anyone—including the wider school community. Persons who have an understanding of marriage and family life sharply different from Catholic belief are often people of sincerity and good will. They have other, excellent options for education and should see in them the better course for their children. (The mission of Catholic schools is children. Only in the case of gays does the mission become the parents.)


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I'm struck by the fact that this is happening in Boulder Colorado, not downtown Denver. One wonders if this would have been such an issue for a parish school in a less affluent neighborhood.

Archbishop Chaput comes very close to stating there are different rules for different schools in his third paragraph. Less affluent neighborhoods are given more slack because they are an 'outreach' to non Catholics and divorced or single parents. I'm still not quite sure why that 'outreach' justifies victimizing the children of lesbians in Boulder.

Chaput is with in his rights to do whatever he sees fit. I don't have any problem with that. I have a problem with statements like this: "The Church does not claim that people with a homosexual orientation are “bad,” or that their children are less loved by God. Quite the opposite." If this is true then why does this policy not apply to other families and other children whose parents are not living the totality of Catholic marriage teaching? It sure looks like in Chaput's Catholic world God will just have to equally love children of gay parents outside of His church. Which leads me to ask 'why bother with the church'?

I sure hope that the parents of these two children didn't operate under the mistaken assumption that in a Catholic Christian school their children would be subject to less harassment and less discrimination, because if they did, they were way wrong. Chaput is most definitely operating under the maxim that the sins of the parents will be visited on the children--at least one particular sin. Thank God it's only being done for the good of the children and their teachers, to protect them from stress and conflict or actually living like Jesus. Otherwise one would be tempted to see this action as less than pastoral.

This seems to be the new management strategy for the 'twenty first century bishop' as John Allen calls them. The idea is to deny everything possible to Catholics who don't toe the line. Now they've figured out a very twenty first century sort of 'collateral damage' policy. This is why Chaput can come up with this 'rationale' in Denver which denies innocent children, and Wuerl can deny heterosexual couples spousal benefits in Washington. The abortion and gay issues provide perfect opportunities to practice management by denial in new ways--by denying Catholic rights and services to innocent people. I wish one of them would point out just exactly which verse of Jesus's in the Good News justifies punishing the innocent to coerce the guilty. Seems to me this is a blatantly SECULAR/POLITICAL strategy.

Personally I hope Archbishop Chaput stays consistent. If the sins of the parents can be visited on the children he had better visit the sins of Father Maciel on the Legion and remove their canonical status. Otherwise he will force the rest of us to live with even more stress, confusion, and hypocrisy.

The Arrows Of The Abuse Scandal Hit Closer To The Vatican Center

A drawing from J. Gill illustrating the third part of the secret of Fatima, taken from the book of Sister Lucia of Fatima, “Calls from the Message of Fatima”.

Pope knew about Church abuse all along?

Clerical Whispers - 3/9/2010

While German authorities are seeking to break the Catholic Church's “wall of silence” on child molestation, Catholic reformers turn to Pope Benedict XVI for answers. (Not answers, accountability. We have a pretty good idea about the answers.)

Sexual abuse of child pupils at several German Catholic schools, including a monastic boarding school in Bavaria, have sparked a nationwide scandal with more than 150 ex-students coming forward with allegations of suffering abuse during the 1970s and 80s.

In a German radio interview on Monday, Justice Minister Sabine Leutheusser-Schnarrenberger criticized a 2001 Vatican directive requiring even the most serious abuse cases to be first investigated internally, saying it had erected a "wall of silence," around the issue.

Recent media revelation about the sexual and physical abuse of former choirboys of the famous Regensburger Domspatzen choir, which was once headed by the Pope's brother Georg Ratzinger, has turned the spotlight to Rome.

The sexual abuse dates back to the 1960s. Ratzinger, who led the choir from mid-60s to mid-90s, has denied any knowledge of the abuse, and has promised to testify, should a case be built around the abuses.

The choir's director and composer has unveiled terrible details of how as a choirboy, he saw the boarding school's director at the time "come into the dormitory at night and pick out two, three of us boys to take back to his apartment."

A spokesman for the "We are the Church" movement, Christian Weisner, urged the Pope to publicly state what he knew about the abuse by clerics in the Bavarian city of Regensburg during his 1977-1982 term as bishop there.

"From 1977 to 1981 Joseph Ratzinger was the bishop of Munich and Freising, so he must answer the question about what he knew then and what he did about it," Weisner told DAPD news agency.

He said that the senior officials in the church leadership could not have been unaware of the abuse, calling on authorities to take action.

The Pandora's box opened in January, when the student's complaints of abuse at a prestigious Berlin college in the 70s-80s were made public for the first time.

Decades of silence have rendered most of the cases untouchable due to a lapsed statute of limitations. A majority of individuals involved in the scandal can no longer be prosecuted.


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I can't help but reflect that in the third secret of Fatima it is reported that a cleric, dressed in white and climbing a hill, is hit by arrows as he leaves a trail of slain attendants in his wake. Some Fatima followers insist that the cleric dressed in white was JPII and the arrow was the bullet of Ali Agca. If one prefers a literal interpretation, I suppose this incident could certainly fit.
Most visions however, are metaphorical visual stories which point more towards attitudes and consequences than one time literal temporal events. It seems more likely, to me anyway, that the third vision of Fatima refers to the clerical scandal of child sexual abuse and it's gutless cover up. Nothing has impacted the moral authority of Mary's Church with any where near the same damage as clerical sexual abuse. Certainly not the assassination attempt on JPII. It may be that JPII was saved precisely so the third secret would not be misinterpreted and it's warning missed.

The arrows are getting very close to Benedict. That should come as no surprise because Benedict is in many ways a focal point for the Vatican strategies of stone walling, priest shuffling, silence, and re victimizing victims. There have been a lot of clerical attendants left on the long hill of clerical abuse as the procession of accountability keeps winding towards the top. In the meantime, Mary weeps for her children.

Here is a translation of the third part of the secret revealed at the Cova da Iria-Fatima on July 13, 1917, as written by Sister Lucia:

I write in obedience to you, my God, who commands me to do so through his Excellency the Bishop of Leiria and through your Most Holy Mother and mine.

After the two parts which I have already explained, at the left of Our Lady and a little above, we saw an Angel with a flaming sword in his left hand. Flashing, it gave out flames that looked as though they would set the world on fire, but they died out when they came in contact with the splendour that Our Lady radiated towards him from Her right hand. Pointing to the earth with his right hand, the Angel cried out in a loud voice: “Penance, Penance, Penance!”

And we saw, in an immense light that is God, “something similar to how people appear in a mirror when they pass in front of it,” a Bishop dressed in white. “We had the impression that it was the Holy Father.”

Other Bishops, priests, men and women religious went up a steep mountain, at the top of which there was a big cross of rough-hewn trunks as of a cork tree with the bark. Before reaching there, the Holy Father passed through a big city half in ruins, and half trembling with halting steps, afflicted with pain and sorrow, he prayed for the souls of the corpses he met on his way. Having reached the top of the mountain, on his knees at the foot of the big cross, he was killed by a group of soldiers who fired bullets and arrows at him, and in the same way there died, one after another, the other Bishops, priests, men and women religious, and various lay people of different ranks and positions. Beneath the two arms of the cross, there were two Angels, each with a crystal water can in his hand in which they gathered up the blood of the martyrs, and with it sprinkled the souls that were making their way to God.

The Only Charism The Legion Has Is 'Access"

The Legion visitators: Bishop Ricardo Blázquez, Bishop Giuseppe Versaldi, Archbishop Ricardo Ezzatti, Archbishop Charles Chaput and Bishop Ricardo Watti (top to bottom, left to right) Are these gentleman conducting a real visitation or an exorcism?

Below is an excerpt from a Time Magazine article. I skipped the first part which is basically a rehash of the current facts in the scandal. The rest of the article makes some pertinent points about Vatican motivation and spin strategies designed to leave the Legion more or less intact.

Maciel Scandal Puts Focus on a Secretive Church Order
By Tim Padgett - TIME - Monday, Mar. 08, 2010

.....This month Benedict is expected to receive the first report of a five-bishop team he sent out last year to investigate the Legion around the world. Sources familiar with the probe say it's meant in part to determine if others in the order besides Maciel have committed sexual abuse, and whether the order's current leadership was aware of Maciel's behavior but covered it up via payoffs to mistresses and abuse victims. Fair said the Legion had no comment in that regard. But Maciel victims like Vaca say Legion bosses such as its general director, the Rev. Alvaro Corcuera, and the Rev. John Devlin, Maciel's private secretary, should step forward with what they knew. (I don't believe we will ever get to the bottom of this story until all the sources of Legion revenue are uncovered. It does not look like that is in the mandate of this investigation.)

Still, victims are keeping their expectations low: the ultra-secretive order that Maciel built, like some shadowy fraternity from a Dan Brown novel, may be simply too powerful to cudgel.

Established in 22 countries, it operates nine universities, 125 religious houses and more than 160 schools. In the U.S. alone it runs 21 élite Catholic prep schools, a university in Sacramento, Calif., and some of the only seminaries for teenage boys in the U.S. at a time when the American priesthood's ranks are thinning exponentially.

In Mexico, the children of telecom billionaire Carlos Slim, one of the world's richest people, have attended its academies. In fact, like its rival conservative organization, Opus Dei, the Legion counts some of the world's wealthiest Catholics among its followers — its lay membership, known as the Regnum Christi, or Kingdom of Christ, has some 70,000 members worldwide — and it is one of the Church's top fundraisers.

Just as important, however, is the thorny issue of John Paul II, who died in 2005 and was succeeded by Benedict. The Vatican had investigated Maciel's personal life as early as the 1950s; but John Paul, whose papacy began in 1978, showered praise on the Legion's founder, calling him "an efficacious guide to youth."

Vaca says that remark is what compelled Maciel victims to tell their stories for the book Vows of Silence, published in 2004. They eventually got the Vatican, even under John Paul, to take their allegations seriously, but Church watchers say Benedict's current mission to canonize his predecessor is another reason Rome won't want to punish the Legion too harshly. "The Legionaries of Christ are going to withstand this [latest] blow," says Elio Masferrer, an expert on the Catholic Church in Latin America at the National Autonomous University of Mexico (UNAM).

Rome, he predicts, "will not take any meaningful action" — just as it hasn't, he argues, in widespread clerical sex abuse cases in Ireland and the U.S., despite Benedict's vow to remove the "filth" of sex abusers from the priesthood.

Analysts like Masferrer do believe, however, that the Maciel scandal, especially in the wake of last week's revelations, is having "a devastating impact" on the Catholic Church in Mexico. The Church is already hemorrhaging congregants to Protestant evangelical sects, and it has seen its clout diminish in areas like the capital, Mexico City, where secular leftists recently passed a law permitting gay marriage. "The politicians can say that the Church officials are in no position to give moral lectures," says Masferrer. (Some members in the Mexican government are calling for an investigation into the Legion, similar to the efforts in Ireland.)

While the Legion's website message last week was sympathetic to Lara and her sons, the order made a point of exposing José Raúl González's private demand earlier this year that the Legion pay him $26 million to keep quiet about his father's sexual abuse. The order insists it did not pay, suggesting that as the motive for the tell-all radio interview. Masferrer says the Legion has also circulated reports that Maciel was surrounded by exorcists in his final days, suggesting that his immoral acts were the work of demons and not the priest. That's a Hail Mary ploy at best. And it does little to obscure the fact that it's up to Benedict now to decide whether Padre Maciel's Legion is itself possessed of enough demons to warrant more severe penance. (Surprise, suprise, surprise.)

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It's amazing how when the going gets tough and the deck looks stacked it's time to pull the Devil card. I don't think it really matters whether Maciel was possessed, drug addicted, suffered from multiple personality disorder, or whatever current excuse the Legion has dreamed up. The bottom line is not any of that, it's the Vatican's support for a man they knew was perverted.

It's not about Maciel. It's about the money, favors and gifts Maciel brought with him to the Vatican. It's about every single corrupt official, including cardinals and perhaps a pope, who enabled Maciel in order to keep their access to Maciel's influential donors. It's about some of those donors as well. I doubt very much all those rich folk were completely taken in by a hypocritical narcissistic pedophile. They wanted Maciel's access to the Vatican and were willing to pay for it. At bottom you could say Maciel was not about the devil, he was all about access. Any decent psychologist will state that in pedophilia it's not so much about gender as it is about access. Maciel had the access thing down really really well in all parts of his 'multiple personalities'.

It's not surprising the Legion is publicly spinning away in order to protect their 'access'. I doubt Legion brass really give a fig about any other aspect of Maciel's legacy except his access. That they will protect because that is the Legion's only real charism. And certain Cardinals and bishop visitators will help them keep their charism because they like their access to expensive hams or something.

This whole situation really angers me in case you couldn't tell. I stack this sordid mess up against the LCWR investigation and I get angrier. The message here seems to be you can be as perverted and heretical as you want as long as you provide access to Mammon. Oh, did I just mention the name of a devil?

Barney Frank Has A Great Idea

That blue section is a piece of pie which is very hard to swallow.

Unlike Health Care, When It Comes To Nukes, Cost Is No Object
Ryan Grim - Huffington Post - 3/6/10

The lead story in Saturday's Washington Post, about the nuclear weapons decisions facing President Obama, runs longer than 1,300 words, but five a reader won't find are "cost," "dollars," "money," "debt," or "deficit." A reader would also search in vain for any talk of a "fiscal crisis" or a need to balance nuclear weapons priorities with available revenues. (That's held pretty much true since the Reagan years, which is why we now have 8000+ war heads.)

That same reader, of course, rarely has to venture past the first sentence of a health care reform story to find that the subject is a "trillion dollar overhaul." Occasionally, it's noted that the trillion dollars is spread over ten years. (Under GW, New Mexico alone received an average of 1.125 trillion per year in DOD contracts. Not all of that was for nukes and a lot of it was spread out over multiple years well into the future. (Corporate Security) A hefty part of it was for other experimental (some now operational) weapons systems.)

One particular decision that Obama faces is whether to continue what's known as the "triad" - three independent ways the United States developed to annihilate the Soviet Union. Warheads can be delivered with bombers, from submarines or with intercontinental ballistic missiles.

The military developed ICBMs in the '50s and '60s, recognizing that bombers would soon be obsolete and too easy to defend against. But the bomber squadrons have their own internal and industry defenders and have never been phased out. Each leg of the triad costs tens of billions of dollars per year to maintain.

House Financial Services Committee Chairman Barney Frank (D-Mass.) has proposed what he refers to as a "radical" notion. "My point is that now that there is no longer a Soviet Union, and there is instead a country called Russia, which is much smaller and in fact much weaker militarily, it is clear that we do not need to maintain all three weapons systems for dropping thermo-nuclear weapons on this now nonexistent empire," Frank told HuffPost. "My radical proposal is that we say to the Pentagon that they can pick two of the three, and let us abolish one." (Let's just keep the submarines and dump the other two systems. You know, the two systems that encourage targeting on fixed locations with in the US.)

The Post reports that Obama's aides will recommend to him that all three ways to destroy the old Soviet Union be kept in place. The amount that could be saved by cutting any of the three is likely much higher than the two largest ways Obama has identified to pay for health care reform: an excise tax on high-cost premiums that unions and the middle class loathes and cuts to Medicare Advantage, which have seniors frightened.

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Barney Frank is making way too much sense which means Washington will be flooded with special interest money--except for him. It does really amaze me that when it comes to policy discussion about nuclear weapons the mainstream press never mentions the money angle. Maybe they don't want to give up valuable advertising space to insert all those zeroes.

Health care is a drop in the bucket compared to defense spending. The entirety of all our social welfare programs is outmatched by our yearly spending on defense, and I'm not including the expenses of Afghanistan and Iraq. If one adds in the cost of servicing the debt incurred for defense spending this takes defense spending to 54% of the total federal budget.

In 2008 the US spent 711 billion dollars on defense. That's a lot of CAT scans. It's also 701 billion more than the Obama administration wants to spend on health care per year. Does this make any sense. And here all along I thought we won the cold war. Russia must too because they only spend 70 billion per year--one tenth of what we do. Why we outspend the next 15 countries combined and twelve of those are our allies. Who or what is all this spending defending against?

Barney Frank is onto something big. The question is does any other congressman have the courage to act? My other question is will the USCCB back Barney Frank? Or do they only back straight congressmen named Bart Stupak?

Or do they really only see abortion and gay sex as the moral issues of the twenty first century? Isn't all this defense (offense) spending all about a culture of death? Last I checked B1 bombers didn't exist to spread peace, love, and joy and they aren't my definition of a defensive weapons system.

Speaking of Satan And His Legions Entering The Vatican......

Father Marcial Maciel in his 'CIA' persona.

More abuse allegations against Maciel surface
Mar. 04, 2010 By David Agren, Catholic News Service

MEXICO CITY -- Many in Mexico -- and beyond -- know Father Marcial Maciel as the founder of the Legionaries of Christ, an influential Catholic order famed for its elite schools and well-heeled followers.

Blanca Estela Lara Gutierrez came to know him in Tijuana by the alias "Raul Rivas," who, she said, "wanted to have a family" and, at various times, masqueraded as either a private detective or a CIA agent.

Her three sons, Jose Raul, Omar and Cristian, came to know Father Maciel as "Dad."
On March 3, the family went public with unflattering details of their life with Father Maciel. Lara told Mexico City radio host Carmen Aristegui of MVS Radio that she and Father Maciel were a couple for some 25 years and raised three sons -- one of whom, Cristian, was not his biological child. Jose Raul and Omar, meanwhile, tearfully said they had been sexually abused by their dad, Father Maciel.

The allegations threaten to further cloud the legacy of Father Maciel, who founded one of the most successful Catholic orders of the 20th century and gained enormous respect among Catholics worldwide, but lived a double life in violation of church teaching. (And a whole bunch of international criminal statutes.)

After an investigation into allegations of sexual abuse against Father Maciel, the Vatican in May 2006 ordered him to stop practicing his ministry in public and live a life of prayer and penitence. Father Maciel died in January 2008 at age 87. Barely a year later, the Legionaries acknowledged its founder had fathered a daughter. (The Vatican investigations of Maciel started in the fifties. It only took Vatican authorities sixty years to accept the truth.)

The latest revelations of impropriety come as a five-member apostolic visitation team investigates the Legionaries of Christ. (White wash,)

Jose Raul Gonzalez Lara -- he and his brothers were not given Father Maciel's family name -- dismissed a recent public apology by Father Evaristo Sada, general secretary of the Legionaries, as "very embarrassing."

On Feb. 22, Father Sada asked for forgiveness "from the persons that our founder has affected because of immoral acts in his personal life." He also called on Legionaries to become more "humble" in their behavior and attitudes.

The Legionaries in Mexico responded March 4 by releasing a Jan. 12 letter from Father Carlos Skertchly, the order's general procurator, to Jose Raul. The order said releasing the letter was done "with absolute respect for the person of Raul Gonzalez Lara, bearing in mind that he himself published it on March 3."

The letter recapped a meeting and a phone call in January between Jose Raul and Father Skertchly in which he asked the order for $26 million.

The two met for an hour Jan. 6, according to the letter, and discussed the request, which included $6 million "in fulfillment of what you say was your father's will, expressed orally to you in a conversation." The letter also said Jose Raul asked for "another $20 million as compensation for your sufferings."

Father Skertchly said in the letter that Jose Raul called him Jan. 8, repeating his financial requests and "affirming that 'if you give me the money, I will keep quiet about the truth.'" The letter said that Jose Raul wanted a response from the order by Jan. 13.

"However in no way can we accede to your request for money in exchange for silence," Father Skertchly wrote. "While we value all of the pain and suffering that you have shared with us, and we deplore the evil of scandal that may follow, we will never accept petitions of this sort, which are also illicit. We prefer to seek and face the truth, no matter how painful it may be." (Hey, money in exchange for silence was how the official game was played. Facing painful truth is now much cheaper than paying for silence.)

Father Skertchly also told Jose Raul in the letter that the order was willing to "accompany" him and offer "the pastoral support you are willing to receive, since you told me, the deepest solution to your difficulties is not economic." (This is a diabolically clever move to deflect any monetary compensation---using Jose Raul's truth against him.)

Father Skertchly also wrote that the order remained committed to "uncover the truth" about Father Maciel's life. (I'm far more interested in uncovering the truth about the Legion and it's complicity in Maciel's multiple lives, it's penchant for abusive techniques, and it's other cult practices. There are lots of Maciel and Legion abuse victims, not all of them were sexually raped. Most of them were spiritually raped.)

Lara said her relationship with Father Maciel began in Tijuana toward the end of the 1970s, when she was 19 and he was 56. Father Maciel, she said, told her he wanted a family, but didn't want to get married. He also told her he worked as a private detective, but at other times said he worked for the CIA. (I wonder why in his fifties Maciel seems to have suddenly begun to desire to father his own children. The objective and gender may have changed, but the age bracket remains the same.)

Jose Raul was born two years later. He said beginning at age 7 he was sexually abused when his father "tried to rape me" while they were visiting Colombia. Omar said he suffered sexual abuse at the hands of Father Maciel, beginning at age 8. Cristian said he was not sexually abused. (He was not Maciel's 'child'.)

The three young men spoke glowingly at times of their father, however. They described him as "very loving" and "the patriarch" of the family. Neighbors would say, "He should be a saint," a reflection, they said, of his easy manner with people.

Lara also spoke glowingly of Father Maciel.

"I idolized him," she said. "One time I told him, 'You're my god.'"

He traveled frequently, but would call daily and send letters, Lara said.

Lara said she had no idea of his double life. She raised few questions about Father Maciel's line of work or questioned suspicious happenings, such as Father Maciel registering Jose Raul with the surname "Gonzalez" even though the priest had used the alias "Rivas." Even people -- described as the "elites" of Mexico -- greeting him as "Father," failed to raise red flags.

"When we were eating breakfast, there were some that would say, 'Good morning, Padre,' and we had orders to withdraw ourselves," Omar said.

"We never asked ourselves why they called him 'Padre.' We supposed it was because he had many children."

The charade was exposed in 1997, when the family saw Father Maciel's image on the cover of the Mexican magazine Contenido, which ran a story on allegations of sexual abuse against him. He denied the contents of the story and Jose Raul said the family was sent money to buy all the copies in Cuernavaca, the city near Mexico City where they resided.

Lara believed him.

"I was totally blind," she said. Previous to the story, she said, "I never suspected a thing. I didn't know who I was living with."

She said she stopped believing him in 1999, when Jose Raul told her that he was sexually abused. "I didn't ever not believe my sons," she said.

Jose Raul and Omar were sent to Spain by their father to receive psychological treatment.
Before he died, the Gonzalez Lara family said Father Maciel promised them an inheritance that had been deposited in a trust fund, but that money has not been located. Legionaries' officials have not been of assistance, Jose Raul said. (How utterly shocking that the Legion can't find it. Their existence depends on Sgt. Schultz's favorite defense. "I know nothing.")

"We're totally forsaken," Jose Raul said. (Believe me the Legion feels bad about this, but they Know Nothing and Can't Find Anything.)

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It's pretty obvious the Legion strategy in defending themselves is to maintain they are the primary victim. They sound pretty much like any mother or elder sibling who becomes aware of the fact that daddy has been taking favors from younger siblings and children. Really accomplished narcissistic pedophiles rely on the willful ignorance of other primary care givers. Operative word is 'willful' because there are usually all kinds of signals the enablers only let themselves see in hind sight---when the game is up and the only thing left to protect is themselves.

That Maciel was able to go for sixty some years is a testament to tons and tons of willful ignorance supported by tons and tons of willful and purposeful enabling behavior. The exact same strategies are being played out in the so called investigation of the Legion. Archbishop Chaput and his fellow investigators are willful Legion enablers. I wrote it before, I'll write it again: If the Vatican was serious about getting to the bottom of the Legion they would have used independent professional investigators and stocked the group with forensic accountants. Apparently the Vatican didn't feel neither they nor the Legion could 'afford' to this.

I actually agree with Fr. Amorth about Satan getting into the Vatican and his minions including Cardinals, and undoubtedly some popes. I don't necessarily use the same mythical structure to explain this network of very dark energy. Like many networks of dark energy it is generational and gets darker and darker.

Maciel was allowed to function through six different popes. He got most out of control and brazen under John Paul the not so great. Under this Vatican pontificate Maciel actually began begetting his own victims on victims. This escalation in his behavior coincided with Maciel's ascendancy in the Vatican. Yes, there is definite linkage, because the more notoriety he got as the 'sainted' founder of the Legion, the more this served to both cover and fuel expression for his narcissistic ideation. Using the cover of a CIA agent or private detective was hugely symbolic, except in his case it was the priesthood which was the cover. He was Satan's perfect mole.

The Legion, founded on the energy of a psychopathic narcissist, wreaks with the very dark energy of a narcissism fueled by predation on the innocent. Is this not the definition of Satanic evil? Does this not describe the typical Catholic the Legion runs on? Well meaning, innocent Catholics from sheltered family structures?

The real problem with Vatican II is it used the language of lay empowerment. That did truly represent a discontinuity with the past because Catholicism ran, and is now desperately attempting to recover, the power of abuse dynamics. The uncovering of global clerical sexual abuse, but most especially that of Maciel and the Legion, are direct signs pointing at the generational dysfunction and outright evil in the Catholic structure. How much more of a direct sign do we need before we Catholics take up the sword of our empowerment and deal with the evil? Jesus wonders.

What If Catholic Progessives Went In For Spiritual Warfare?

Just think what a highly trained squad of progressive spiritual warriors could do if this was filled with Holy Water.

Perhaps it's time for spiritual progressives to get in this Spiritual Warfare Battle. It seems the conservatives can't even figure out who is under the influence of the evil side.

Spanish exorcist addresses claims of Satanic influence in Vatican
Rome, Italy, Mar 3, 2010 / 04:20 pm (CNA).-

A renowned exorcist in Rome recently released a book of memoirs in which he declares to know of the existence of Satanic sects in the Vatican where participation reaches all the way to the College of Cardinals.

A second demonologist, also residing in Rome, entered the debate this week, clarifying the origins of the information and defending the Vatican's clergy as an "edifying and virtuous" collection of prelates. (Michael the AA seems to have some difference of opinion in his ranks of exorcists.)

In a book of memoirs released in February, the noted Italian exorcist Fr. Gabriele Amorth affirmed that "Yes, also in the Vatican there are members of Satanic sects."

When asked if members of the clergy are involved or if this is within the lay community, he responded, "There are priests, monsignors and also cardinals!"

The book, "Father Amorth. Memoirs of an Exorcist. My life fighting against Satan." was written by Marco Tosatti, who compiled it from interviews with the priest.

Fr. Amorth was asked by Tosatti how he knows Vatican clergy are involved. He answered, "I know from those who have been able to relate it to me because they had a way of knowing directly. And it's something 'confessed' most times by the very demon under obedience during the exorcisms."

The famous Italian exorcist was also asked if the Pope was aware of Satanic sects in the Vatican, to which Fr. Amorth replied, "Of course, he was informed. But he does what he can. It's a horrifying thing."

Benedict XVI, being German, comes from a place "decidedly averse to these things," argued Fr. Amorth, saying that in Germany "there practically aren't any exorcists." However, he clarified, "the Pope believes (in them)." (Yes indeed, Benedict is creating his own army of exorcists.)

The Italian priest also warned of the existence of bishops and priests who do not believe in Satan in the interview. "And yet, in the Gospel, Jesus speaks extensively about it, so it should be said, either they've never read the Gospel or they just don't believe it!"

Fr. Jose Antonio Fortea Cucurull, a Spanish priest and theologian who specializes in demonology and is now studying for his doctorate of theology in Rome, responded to Fr. Amorth's assertions on March 1.

After reading reports of Fr. Amorth's accusations pointing a finger at members of the clergy, including cardinals, Fr. Fortea declared that it is a "duty of justice" to speak out in their defense.
Noting that some prelates "are more spiritual and others more earthly, some more virtuous and others more human," he wrote on his blog, "from there to affirm that some cardinals are members of Satanic sects is an unacceptable distance." (Not for progressives. For us the Vatican would be a prime strategic target.)

The Spanish priest then explained the sources of information used by Fr. Amorth to say that Satanic sects are operating in the Vatican.

In addition to the people that seek help for demonic possession, said Fr. Fortea, "innumerable persons come to us who claim to have visions, revelations and messages from Our Lord." Among these, "a certain number offer apocalyptic messages and revelations about the infiltration of Satanism and the Masons within the dome of the Church."

Fr. Fortea added that the only acceptable stance is to suspend judgment of the messages while they are subjected to time-intensive discernment, "sometimes months for each one of the cases." (It might also be acceptable to consider the influence of the 'demon' schizophrenia.)

The other source Fr. Amorth refers to, according to Fr. Fortea, is the demons who are being exorcised. Of this, the Spanish priest wrote that knowing whether or not the demon is telling the truth "is in many cases impossible." (That's the problem with delusions.)

"We can know with great confidence when a demon tells the truth in the subject directly related with the exorcism. That is, the number of demons, their name and similar things. But we cannot be confident in what regards concrete news relating to people."

"Father Amorth does not have other sources of knowledge than the two that I just cited," indicated the Spanish exorcist, "I refer to his own words for this affirmation."

Fr. Fortea observed that the existence of similar messages from the same sources is "something known by me just as (it has been) by many other colleagues for many years."

"Among exorcists, some have come to similar conclusions as those of Fr. Amorth. Others have not."

Fr. Fortea also defended those implicated in Fr. Amorth's statements, stating, "Our College of Cardinals, if we compare it with past centuries is the most edifying and virtuous that history has ever known. One would have to go back to the epoch of the Roman Empire to find a body of electors so distanced from all earthly pretension as the current one is. (Did I previously mention the world delusion?)

"Cardinals might be better or worse," he reflected, "but all have upright intentions and seek the glory of God."

He concluded by emphasizing, "Statements must be proven, especially when they are about such grave accusations that affect the honorability of those who form part of the Head of the Church as far as they help the Supreme Pastor."


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What a delightful little dispute this is. A sort of my delusions are truer than your delusions kind of dispute. Or else it's a case of conservative spiritual practioners turning on each other over the Vatican carcass. Kind of like jackals. I'm sure the devil is making them do this.

However, I did run across a progressive blog whose author lays out an appropriate military course of action in which progressives, who think broad thoughts, could lead the way in this Catholic version of spiritual warfare:

Personally, I believe in demonic possession, and that it is indeed widespread. How else to account for all of the evil we see in the world today? I believe that the Pope is on the right track here, but is naive if he thinks that mere squads will suffice when it is obvious that at least two armies are needed for an overwhelming "shock and awe"campaign.

If those possessed can be identified their evil acts, then it is clear to me that massive well- organized armies must be quickly mobilized and equipped, and must carry out coordinated attacks to drive the demons out of their unwitting victims all at once, or else the demons are likely to find other vulnerable hosts to take over without even having to leave the room.. The devil and his minions will not be easily dismissed. (Only a progressive could come up with the kind of battle strategy that acknowledges Satan's true power,)

There are areas in our country where demonic activity is concentrated. These "nests of evil" must be attacked and cleared out simultaneously, and then the armies can be split into squads or platoons to fan out and clear the smaller nests which abound.

The two main infestations are large enough to pose logistical issues, and may well require small water purification plants to ensure a sufficient supply of holy water, and tank sprayers for the exorcists to use both offensively in group situations and as a defensive weapon against the inevitable vicious counter-attacks. (Here is the beginning of the Spiritual Warfare Industrial Complex. Where can I buy stock?)

Once every branch of government has been "dis-possessed"(starting with the Executive), and the financial centers in New York brought back into the light, the squads can go to work on the World Bank, the International Monetary Fund, and fan out to corporate boardrooms across the country, stopping at several conservative "Christian" churches and organizations on the way. (Oh, I like this part of the strategy.)

You can see that this is a massive undertaking, and the Vatican will surely need all the help it can get. Finally, we progressives are presented with a golden opportunity to quit bitching and actually do something to set our country aright. (Amen brother, amen.)

I'm sure that the Pope will appreciate your help, so get ready--you'll need a heavy-duty crucifix, a dependable tank sprayer, holy oil (Valvoline will do in a pinch), and either this or this prayer--and join the fight! (also a reliable cell phone with Fr. Amorth on speed dial and VZ Navigator)

Godspeed!


It's way past time to drop a bomb of Holy Water on the Vatican. Fr. Amorth says so.

The Battles Over Language Go Well Beyond Literal Latin Translations Of The Mass

'Hermeneutics of discontinuity' is all about what size truck one can drive through the language of Vatican II documents. Reformers prefer the background truck, reform of the reformers prefer the foreground truck.

This is a short excerpt from an article posted yesterday on the NCR: The New Spin on Vatican II. I don't think it's exactly new, it's been a long time in the making. The new is in the language used in the talking points. It's no longer enough to silence the messengers. Now it's about respinning the language and message.

When it comes to Vatican II, however, the term has come to mean how one interprets that event and it is usually modified by phrases that have become a sound-bite way of separating Catholics into two general camps:

- Hermeneutic of discontinuity (sometimes referred to as the hermeneutic of rupture) is used to refer to those who think the council represented a distinct change from the past, and is used often to disparage those who speak of a pre-Vatican II and post-Vatican II church.

- Hermeneutic of continuity or renewal refers to those who would hold that very little actually changed at Vatican II, that it was a “reaffirmation” of all that went before only cast in new language so as to be understandable to the modern era.

Dividing people into hermeneutic camps has become a favorite tactic of conservative commentators and some bishops, especially those who most want to downplay the idea that the council altered the teaching or attitude of the church in any significant way. Others, however, see the categories as artificial and overstated, attempts at marginalizing as extreme anyone convinced that Vatican II ushered in important changes.

Talking points

Whatever one’s point of view, “hermeneutics” has taken on a life equivalent to campaign talking points. The categories provide a coherent, easy-to-understand critique of what has become a standard perception of the council. Hermeneutics is echoing around the Catholic landscape and is being used to package ideas ranging from the investigation of religious orders to alterations in the liturgy.

The term played large at a meeting in September of last year at Stonehill College in Easton, Mass., a gathering said to have been influential in the decision of Cardinal Franc Rodé to initiate an investigation of women religious in the United States. At that gathering, Bishop Robert C. Morlino of Madison, Wis., spoke of the “discontinuity hermeneutic” and “the language of rupture.” He was responding to a talk by Rodé about religious formation and education.

“The language that many people have learned -- it is clear from today that most of you resisted learning it, and I resisted learning it -- but the language that many people have learned is the language of the discontinuity hermeneutic, the language of the rupture, between pre-Vatican II and post-Vatican II,” Morlino said.

“Many if not most of our people have learned the language of the discontinuity hermeneutic. And in order to learn the language that Pope John Paul the Great and Pope Benedict are trying to teach us they have to unlearn the language that they learned.”

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Bishop Morlino's message goes right to the heart of every issue which emanated from Vatican II. While John Paul 'the Great' did his best to restore the Church to pre Vatican II clerical and dogmatic control, it falls to Benedict and his successors to stamp out the language and 'attitude' of Vatican II. It is the language of the documents and the attitudes they convey that was the real legacy of Vatican II. If your goal is to return Catholicism to clerical control and dogmatic obedience, you must not only silence the messengers, but the language used by the messengers.

Language is so very powerful. Especially for minds enculturated in the West. I suppose this is why so many battles during the Council were not over dogma per se, but in the words used to convey the teachings. It 's not surprising the canon lawyers like Morlino would object to phrasing in which it was possible to drive a truck through. It is not surprising that Benedict is obsessed with literal translations of Latin for the Mass--translations in which it is not possible to drive a Tonka Truck through. Many or our current battles are all about the language of Vatican II and the attitude it attempted to convey.

JPII did his best to stack our hierarchy with literalists and canon lawyers in order to change the attitude associated with Vatican II because his own logic necessitated the documents stay in place. Otherwise he himself would invalidate the whole notion of Papal infallibility. Vatican II then becomes a council which affirmed all of the past but used terrible language that allowed reformers to get out of control. The teachings were all correct, but the language fostered incorrect attitudes. Somehow we learned the 'language of rupture' and need to unlearn it as fast as possible.

When caught in actual violations of both canon law and it's spirit, the hierarchy has resorted to the language of silence, disinformation, and outright lies. This is the language of politics, not Jesus Christ. This is the language of ego survival, not service to others. This is the language of control, not the freedom offered by the words of Jesus.

The ironic thing is the New Testament is full of the 'language of rupture'. So much so the powers that be killed the Messenger. In that sense Vatican II truly did go back to the source and summit of our Faith.

Getting Over The Sin Of Religion Is Like Getting Over Notions Of Traditional Winter Sports

Why is it the Chinese excell at free style skiing and the Russians don't? Could it be a failure to think outside the box of what constitutes a 'traditional' winter sport--or valid expressions of gymnastic movement?

The following is an excerpt from an interview by Religion Dispatches with Sarah Miles, the author of "Jesus Freak: Feeding, Healing, Raising the Dead." The entire interview can be read here. Sara Miles makes some very interesting points about religion and culture. She also makes a whole slew of other important points. The entire interview is well worth reading.

In Jesus Freak you write about going around the country, to talk about your work with food pantries, and change in churches, and meeting many people who say something like, “Oh, it’s wonderful what you do, but we could never do that here...!”

It’s this weird thing. Before I became one, I didn’t understand there’s this whole industry of church professionals whose job it is to be inspirational.

So here’s what I think—and this is not an original thought, St. Paul had this thought—people want to change and people don’t want to change. People profoundly want to be made new, and people profoundly want to be clothed in Christ, to be born again. And they profoundly want to cling to everything old—about the world, and about themselves. The thing is, that church, as it’s set up, is not usually a way to change; it’s a way to cling to the way things are. (Which is why the most successful religions are bastions of support for the status quo of whatever power dynamic rules culture.)

I just read an article about a set of emerging renewed churches, two churches, actually, and one synagogue. And it was all about how we’re making churches that aren’t like those old-fashioned ones, they’re places where we can feel comfortable.

But of course that’s the impulse shared by members of the most conservative old-school parish, where you just mumble your way through the mass. Church is a place where you’re comfortable. And it’s a place that certainly replicates class structures and racial structures.

You go where you feel you belong (the phrase “our church home” is telling). Of course I understand that people want to feel at home. You live in capitalism, to be crude about it; you live in a hard place, and you want a place that feels authentic and real and where you can be yourself. But what I see over and over again is this inability to tell the difference between tradition and nostalgia. (or between real truth and plain old safety.)

And so, whereas I think there’s incredible power in trying to recuperate tradition and reflect on it and consciously appropriate it, there’s also this individual and social psychology of clinging to tradition, and “if we just keep doing the same things over and over again we’ll be okay.” Which is, of course, idolatry.

It was interesting to me that you make very clear distinctions among “religion,” the church, theology, and practice. You say, for example, that religion is “a set of ideas about God.” You don’t talk much about sin, but when you do it’s this surprising reading of the story of the Canaanite woman (from Matthew) in which Jesus has to be “healed of the sin of religion.”

As someone who is not a scholar of religion, there are a couple of things that struck me when I became a believer. One is, of course, that every religion claims that it has the inherent path to truth, when in fact it is a catalog and piling on of heresies. You pile the heresies on top of each other and the ones that last become orthodoxy. There’s a constant re-making of religion. (Religions, because they are products of culture, are formed and passed on exactly like cultures, which is why we currently have all the angst about the 'traditional' family and Catholic 'identity.' Neither one is really about the Good News, but about preserving one culturally supporting notion of God.)

So, there’s this desire for “pure” religion, and then there’s actually how it’s made. And how it’s made is how all cultural stuff is made: people pile stuff on. And they sometimes fight over it, and they win by violence, and they win by persuasion. It’s a cultural artifact that’s made by people. Religion can also very easily become a way to manage God; this is why people say they lose their religion when bad things happen to them.

The idea that you're appeasing God by performing ritual actions is really profound. And people long for it—I long for it. I like the idea that if I simply light the candles at a certain time and say the prayers at a certain time and cross myself in the right way, I will be safe. And I’ll be good. And I’ll be right with God. But that reduces God to an object that can be manipulated by my technology—my words, thoughts, gestures. Or I create an even more complex system in which my priest tells me how to be right with God, and all I have to do is obey the human authority. I start to imagine I can control God. (We are taught that all of this is designed to help us control ourselves, but it's really about teaching us to conform ourselves to our current culture by using the notion of pleasing God with our culturally approved actions. The real God here is culture.)

Why I think that’s sinful is that it takes you out of relationship, and I think sin is what breaks relationship. You’re divorced from having to have a real relationship with God—including one that is unsatisfying, frustrating, painful, confusing, mysterious.

It’s hard. But people want it. They want to be protected from relationship with God and with other people but they yearn for it. They yearn for it so much, because it’s great and scary. It’s like falling in love; it’s a powerful, real thing. (and then controlling the relationship becomes more important and less scary than living in/out the relationship.)

And this transcends politics. It’s not as if liberals are any better at serving the poor than conservatives. You talk about these very progressive congregations using “charity” or of “doing good” to distance themselves from those they’re serving.

I think the desire to be good gets expressed in different ways. I have a friend, a volunteer at our food pantry, who sleeps in the street under a bridge and is here at 7:30 in the morning because he wants to do something for people. He’s got a passionate desire to give something, because he’s realized that the experience of giving changes him.

But there’s also this alienated idea that you can please God by doing good deeds. Crossing yourself, saying the prayers, refusing to eat meat, are like being nice to a poor person. In other words, instead of having relationships with the people you’re giving to, the act of charity becomes a magical ritual that will save you, or protect you, or make God like you better.

And I don’t think God's interested in people being good. (me either.)

I think the personalizing of God as a parent who wants you to behave is not helpful. I think the continual conversion and change of yourself to more and more reflect God’s love: that process, of coming closer to God, is God’s desire. Our patron saint Gregory of Nyssa says that we’re most like God in our desire. That God’s desire for us and our desire for God’s love is a desire that is never satisfied, never reached. The more love there is the more love is created. (And that takes the guts to engage in real relationships, not categories of 'others'.)

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I love that notion that the Canaanite woman cured Jesus of the sin of religion. None of us can get very far on any spiritual path if we aren't cured of the sin of religion. We can't get very far if we can't get past the enculturation (brain entrainment) of our youth--all the notions of safety, security, and 'correct behavior' that are supposed to bring us closer to God but actually serve to allow us to fit into our birth culture. We sacrifice mystery and meaning for certitude and safety.

Secular culture is not really as relative as Pope Benedict would have us believe, it's just changing too fast. The traditional methods of passing on culture no longer work. Religion and the family structure culture has relied on to pass itself on and reinforce it's values, can't work well because the culture which succeeding generations live in has different demands, is in a state of flux.

Here's kind of an off the wall example. The Russians did not have a very successful Winter Olympics and President Medvedev is stroking out because the next Olympics are in Russia. He's angry about the inclusion of 'non traditional' sports in which Russians have no cultural interest, like snow boarding and short track speed skating. He wants to fire all his slacker Olympic managers.

On the other hand, China and other oriental cultures who are not burdened by 'tradition' did exceedingly well in non traditional winter sports. They sent people who were essentially gymnasts and divers to do gymnastics and diving moves on skis. Once the Russians make the same leap in thinking, the Russians will do OK. Gymnastic movement is about as traditional as it gets. Aerial skiing takes gymnastic movement outside the box of floor mats and diving boards and puts it on skis. It's also really visual and really cool and whether Medvedev wants to admit it, it's also culturally relevant--just not to his historic culture.

Catholicism is pretty much in the same place and some of us really want to fire all the slacker managers. I suspect the folks who are going to show the way out are not the folks burdened by our historical cultural prejudices. I don't think it's too surprising that the best theology is coming from the Orient.

Like gymnastics, there are spiritual movements if you will, universal in human nature, and different ways of both putting those movements together and avenues to display them. The human truth is in the universality of those movements, not in the way they are displayed. One of those truths is the pursuit of relationship and the mystery of love. For our religious institutions to insist love relationships fit into only certain boxes is just as futile as President Medvedev whining about aerial skiing. It's an attitude which doesn't fly for our younger generations and a lesson our religious institutions have yet to learn.