Which Road will the Pope Take?

ferozek:30
The reference is to hamidm2`s spelling doberman as `dobermann` ( with two `n`). Only non-jewish germans have two `n` names.

That French Cardinal, Lasinger, who was a jew & could have been the new-pope is not the reference here.

Re: Echoboom # 29

Echo, are you sure about the Jewish identity?

My understanding was that it was a French cardinal, who was Jewish and converted to Catholic faith to escape the Nazis.

Ciao

hamidm:28
....dobermanns and rottweillers are benign beings compared to rabid humans of the religious persuasion .........

Amendment: The DNA tests reveal that rottweiller & dobermann (one with chopped off `n` is a clear giveaway of the breed being jewish) he was before he saw the Holy See.

He is a German Shepherd now, the rabid Han-umans of the ridiculous persuasion please note.

---

As Blondie of the good, the bad and the ugly would say:

`` There are only two kind of people in this world: the Mullah and the Tullah``
(Tullahs, for the uninformed, are all the Naapaak uniformed ones & their cantonement & civil-line cousins.)

from now on CHOWK would be divided between the Tullahs or the Mullahs. You`re either with us or with them. There is no ``No-Man`s land`` here except of course for the Famenists (famished-for-men).

But!

A Tullah may also be a Mullah, when he shows up, he would be called Rehmatullah. Maybe he is just around the corner.

---

Re: # 27

akapower,

.... i agree with you when you say, ``There is no connection to Islamic extremism in this article``......... however, on this forum everything ends up in a urinal contest between the horrible hindoos and the pathetic pakis - everyone gets wet in the process, but we like it ........ there is nothing like the smell of urea on a nice spring day .......

.......... as for this new clown in robes, the title ``god`s rottweiller`` is quite appropriate even though, as a dog lover , i must protest ......... dobermanns and rottweillers are benign beings compared to rabid humans of the religious persuasion .........

Re: # 13

Bringing in the history or present situation of either India or Pakistan into this article, which has no connection to it whatsoever, is lame. Only people who can offer no useful argument to this discussion would come up with something like this.

Re: #18

There is no connection to Islamic extremism in this article. Its kind of sad, that I just wrote an article about the new Pope and whatever little I have heard of him but people turned to something else. What you say or feel about Pakistanis is just how YOU feel. You would like to think that Pakistanis have no credibility. The scenario is totally different actually, but you would disagree with that for obvious reasons.

In any case, it is irrelevant if I am Pakistani or Indian or Arab or Persian. Its what I said matters, and nothing else. Period

Most people here are unable to get out of their narrow-mindedness to discuss something that is very legitimate and something that is also being debated in many other places; and guess what, alot of those places are non-Muslim.

I am surprised at the majority of the membership here at chowk. I am new here and on first look chowk has some very good articles on its website. Too bad the members don`t quite understand the quality of writing here. They can`t get themselves out of the religious and racial hatred/intolarence that surrounds their thought process. Its a pity.

Re: # 23

thanatos,

......... i am flattered - take my hand, stop being a tithe payer (although the tax advantages are significant) and together we shall rule the world ............. i think you will make a fine disciple if you can get rid of all those funny ideas that you have picked up from the mind-benders ............ and you can bring along your brother hypnos (aka urstruly) when he returns from his annual trip to the festival of fools in raiwind ...........

...persephone sends her regards ..............

re: hamidm2 # 22

I think that your initial post was more accurate, because as a I was surfing the web engaging in my daily reading routine, I came across the article, which I feel must be be made a part of this debate. I think that you will appreciate it, because it is really interesting. The article is from Counterpunch.

Ciao

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

God`s Rottweiller
Pope Ratzinger`s Pie-in-the Sky for the Masses
By MIKE WHITNEY

Imagine there’s no heaven; it’s easy if you try,
No hell below us; above us only sky.

“Imagine”, John Lennon

Marx was wrong. Religion isn’t the “opium of the masses”. Its effects are never that benign. No, religion is a shackle clasped to the mind of man, keeping him from utilizing the one thing that lifts him above the primordial swamp of fear and superstition; his inquiring mind.
The appointment of the new pope, Joseph Ratzinger, guarantees that that mental shackle will be cinched up a notch-or-two, and the papal caravan that’s winding back to the dark-ages will steadily gain in momentum. Wherever we look, the institutions that protect secular democracy are being uprooted from their moorings and tossed on the slag-heap. A right-wing ideologue, like Pope Benedict XVI, just puts the finishing touches on a global system that’s already dominated by Islamic fanatics, Jewish settler-extremists and Christian fundamentalists all brandishing the same cudgel of intolerance and all eager to force “infidels” to conform to their twisted doctrine.

Ratzinger is a particularly aggressive form of this modern-day sarcoma. His inflexible views should merge seamlessly with the chauvinism of Bush, Sharon and al Zarqawi. During his tenure at the Vatican he personally spearheaded the effort to elevate the Nazi-collaborating Pious XII to sainthood and led the charge to publicly humiliate candidates (like John Kerry) whose views on abortion and birth control were not consistent with his own. (by threatening to bar them from the sacraments) He also “publicly praised the fascist movement in the Church known as Opus Dei and supported the canonization of Josemaria Escriva, the founder of Opus Dei, an open fascist who served in the government of Spain’s dictator Franco, and who publicly praised Hitler.” (quote from Rabbi Michael Lerner.)

Ratzinger’s critics have dubbed him “God’s rottweiller”; a sobriquet that captures his combative and polarizing style. He’s lived up to that title by taking the most stridently conservative positions on nearly every social issue. He summarized the women’s liberation movement by saying that “women should “follow the roles inscribed by her biology”; a comment that suggests women that should accept their traditional function as domesticated breeding-machines. It’s the same as saying that, “A woman’s place is in the home.” Not much changes in Rome in 2000 years.

On homosexuality, Ratzinger’s views are even more odious. He is quoted as saying that gays are inherently disposed “to intrinsic moral evil” and that their rights can be “legitimately limited”.
“Intrinsic moral evil”?

What unbelievable gall. This is the type of statement we would expect from a gay-bashing, white-supremacist, not the pope. No wonder America’s right-wing punditocracy is all a-twitter over his appointment; they know they’ve got a friend in Rome who shares their same world view. (And, by the way, it was an appointment. Despite the universal belief that some form of democratic process took place, the reality is that “John Paul appointed all but 2 of the men who elected the new pope” (al Jazeera) That’s as close to a sure thing as an Ohio optical scanner.)

Ratzinger, however, has been much more guarded in his opinions about pedophile priests. Perhaps, that has something to do with the various cover-ups that were arranged under his authority, like evacuating the serial-criminal Cardinal Law from the Boston diocese. Ratzinger was apparently involved in arranging a sinecure for Law in Rome to save the Boston Cardinal from facing felony charges at home.

In another story recently run by Reuters, “New Pope shelved sex abuse claim”, Alistair Bell shows that Ratzinger was directly involved in “deliberately shelving a probe into (sex abuse) claims for 6 years.” The allegations were filed with Ratzinger’s office at the Vatican and claim that 9 former members of the Legion of Christ were sexually abused by the order’s founder, Marcial Maciel.

By now, we all know the drill. Once the claims are filed, the church elders go into lockdown-mode and hide behind a wall of denial. What a joke; the same characters who feel free to wag their fingers at homosexuals and scold struggling parishioners about the sinfulness of birth control, sweep their own criminal activities under the Vatican doormat. The hypocrisy would make a Pharisee wince.

Ratzinger’s intolerance stretches well beyond homosexuals and women. In 1997 he said that Europeans were attracted to Buddhism for its “autoerotic spirituality” that offers “transcendence without imposing concrete obligations”. He has been equally dismissive of Hinduism saying that it offers “false hope” and condemns its adherents to a “morally cruel” concept of reincarnation that resembles “a continuous circle of hell”.

Similarly, Ratzinger laid out his belief that Catholicism is superior to other forms of Christianity in his theological treatise “Dominus Jesus” (Jesus is Lord”) The document angered many Protestants by its declaration that the real message of Christ, “subsists in the Catholic Church, governed by the Successor of Peter and by the bishops in communion with him”. Skeptical Protestants took this to mean that the Catholic Church did not consider their churches as true.

As the head of the Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (which was originally called the Office of the Inquisition) Ratzinger led the crusade to silence or remove dissenters, visionaries and progressives. The office served as the papal “thought police”; rooting out the liberals and bringing them into line with Catholic doctrine. Ratzinger’s aptitude for this new task won him the appellation “Cardinal Enforcer”, the high-priest of Catholic orthodoxy. In just a few short years he managed to stamp out “liberation theology”; (the fusing of Christianity with activism) crushing the aspirations of desperately impoverished people in their struggle for social justice.

To his credit, Ratzinger was a strong critic of the war in Iraq saying that the invasion “had no moral justification” and that the concept of “preventive war does not appear in the Catechism of the Catholic Church.”

Nevertheless, we can only guess what his feelings may be about the broad-based, national liberation movement (“the insurgency”) that has sprouted up in reaction to the illegal occupation of Iraq.

Also, how will the new pope regard the nascent resistance movement in Haiti, where the democratically elected Aristide was removed in a coup organized by the United States? Judging by Ratzinger’s efforts to crush Latin American liberation theology, we can expect that the pope will condemn these indigenous movements aimed at reclaiming their country through force of arms. Ratzinger won’t be delivering any “fatwas” from Rome, nor has concept of “jihad” caught on in Vatican City. Instead, we can expect the plaintive appeals for “peace and justice” accompanied by tacit support to the powers that be. Traditional Church doctrine offers no relief for the struggles and suffering of the common man; just the “pie-in-the-sky” promise of an easier life in the netherworld. That won’t change under Ratzinger.

hamidm:20

Excerpt from `` The de-demonistion of hamidm2`` by Holey Seesaw. Printed by the Lucifer press.
ISBN 666.

``...the machines to beam little satans into humans were all assembled in the City Square. Who would have thought a few years ago that it would be machines that would come to the rescue of mankind to make a human out of a satan; but such is the lot of the satan community. Over the centuries such has been their lot, no one has ever shed a tear over the demise oftheir loved ones ever since Baba Shaitaan was unceremoniously & contemptously condemned from the Heavens and into the Hades..

..`` Mamaaa! I`m home. That is what our Grand Abba had said when he re-entered the fold. It has been a long long time and now the prodigal son has returned home to ``go forth & multiply``. Now those were not the exact words of blessing which were said to him at that primordial goodbye moment, but in satan-talk that is what would be its rough translation...

It has been years when the Fiery One had left his hometown in the Hades to seek a better fortune up up on the crust where it was still hot humid and hazy . The clime was not so hospitable for those used to the cinders & brimstones but then there was work. ``There`` in Hades everyone was already converted and every satan knows that you cannot convert the converted ..

So he boarded the Earthship and oared his way up & up on the Lava stream.

[ A few chapters after this talk about his abduction by the folks who had come from the
Land-of Lighted-ones. These folks considered the Earth/Hades folk as from the Land-of-the-ignited-ones``. Such is the story of the one who left Lava-land ( for that is what Hades was affectionately called by the purists who had found a piece of their own in Hades
to distinguish themselves from the ones who had gone astray; had started doing good deeds and nurturing illuminated thought. That sure was a sign that they were getting the lightbeams from somewhere]

Fastforward to last chapter, and the last millinium and a few lines about the de-demonisation itself:

..They came to the grotto where hamidm2 had been incarcerated and had refused to recant his rants against the religious and the ridiculous.

``Why do you do it ``? one Inquisitor Conquestidor asked him breathing his hot breath into hamidm2`s nostrils--as if hamidm2 really needed this oxygen

`` Why do you do it``? he insisted

Hamidm2 suddenly rose and peering down shouted in the ear of the man:

`` Because they are there``.

A riot, a pandemonium of utter abject silence greeted him instead.

Such eloquence, such profoundness and such pedantry had never ever graced the ears of the ruthless-one--for he was not a man of many books. He did not understand, comprehend, and figure out what all this meant `` Because they are there``. such answers were usually the style of those in their teens & for the teens everything is forgiveable until their youthmarrow is sucked dry and they start getting funnyideas of their own.

But this hamidm2 doesn`t seem to be growing up he is refusing to let funny ideas into his head instead he is kind of lark happy all the time, even in this grotto. He well knows that he cannot make an insanity plea because we already know that it is the insane who can only dare to talk such talk --and it is for that reason that we have invented these machines which can read minds and photocopy thoughts.

The real issue is not to know the thoughts; we already know that. It is that we always are in the neeed of tithe-payers and those who must serve by their leg-and-limb. It is for this reason that we need these hamidm2`s to get -de-demonised.....``

Re: # 21

ferozek,

...... that was a very sensible post - now i am ashamed of my rant against the poor old man !........... but you must admit that in this day and age, the pope does seem to be quite silly and irrelevant - not as silly as the queen of england, but silly never the less ........... sometimes i wonder if our ancestors, homo habilis and homo erectus, were not more intelligent than us ...........

re: Adeel Khan

The issue and concept of an inter-faith dialogue is a prickly one, because the only way and manner in which such a dialogue can happen is, and it is a huge if, if all faiths are willing to overcome their own religious philosophical doctrines of infallibility and admit to flaws within their own religions.

Secondly, Pope Bendict XVI`s biggest concern is not to encourage an inter-faith harmony between the Abramhic religions, but to arrest the decline of Catholicism in Europe. Europe is one of the most secular continents in the world and the new pope will be more interested to increase the appeal of the Catholic faith. As the situation stands right now, the shrinking appeal of religion to Europeans suggests a possibility that the Catholic Church might implode from a rapidily disappearing congregation.

Thirdly, this papacy is a transitory papacy. Bendict XVI was anointed pope to manage the transition to another papacy, which will be more profound and long tenured. Benedict XVI will offer stability and continuity to the church and his policies will be more inclined towards upholding status quo of the Catholic Church with the secular Europe.

As to his comments about Turkey, it should be noted that those comments will not influence EU policy, because the policy of EU is still secular and after all the bloodshed, which Europe has seen and experienced over the issue of religion and politics, it is very unlikely that the EU will once again allow religion to influence politics. Twenty years ago, no one in their right mind would have predicted that the EU would include the nations of the former Warsaw Pact nations and that Russia itself would be eager to join it. Politics is a very funny and unpredictable creature. Turkey`s joining of EU is simply a matter of self-interests and if it in in EU interest, then Turkey will be a EU member.

For example, there is a proposal to make China a member of SARRC. What does China have to do SARRC nations? The same arguments, about history and geography and religion, which are used by the Europeans against the Turks can also be applied to China by the SARRC nations.

International political economy is not about nationalism or sovereign rights; it is about transnationalism and global business opportunities. EU embodies these ideals and maybe in the near future, these interests and ideals will see the creation of a single economic bloc from the Pacific to the Atlantic as ASEAN joins EU with SARRC acting as the bridge uniting the two blocs together. Right now, this idea sounds like a fantasy, but then again; no predicted that Berlin Wall would fall down!

Ciao

....... the pope is a bad man .......

.......... look guys, i simply don`t understand how anyone can take a man in a funny hat and ridiculous robe seriously ........... just look at him ! ...... there he is, surrounded by cherubic choir boys in frocks and dirty old who should have been defrocked, babbling in a language that nobody understands and handing out cookies and wine ................ this is insanity !........

................ yet, apparantly sane people, are fawning and gushing over a man who presides over the biggest clandestine operation in the world - a group of thugs that has wreaked havoc on earth for centuries in the name of an cruel god and his imaginary son ............ you know what the conquistadors used to do in central america ?.......... they would baptize little babies and bash their brains out against a rock to ``save`` them ?........... by comparison the massacre at khandaq was a church picinic ........... now this man is chairman and ceo of the world`s biggest corporation built on loot and plunder and he is not accountable to anyone except ``Him``......... i say, tax the bas%#ds like everone else !............

........... and what about his links to hitler ?........... okay, i know he says he had to join hitler`s little league, but then that`s what khalid sheikh mohammad would say ........... and lets`s not forget his predecessor pius xii who sang silly hymns outside the batroom while the jews were taking showers ........... you can`t just say, ``oh, but that was in the past, and the last pope was such a lovely man who worked with a senile old president to bring down the berlin wall and reached out to people of all faiths and rapped pedophile priests on the knuckles with a ruler ``......... whoppity whoo !............ i would still keep an eye on this guy .....

........... he is a bad man, indeed .............

p.s i am glad i got that out of my system !

catholic church record of bringing good to humanity in past is mixed. at this point, the church has pretty much lost its moral authority, it is relegated to be more of an ethnic organizatoin (italians or hispanic or irish etc). the church has interest in developing world because it thinks it can increase its franchise. so thru dialog a charter for engagement of the church should be designed about does and donts of church in developing coutries, including external oversight on activities and accounts. that way everyone knows what is expected and can mutually benefit. church still has something +ve to offer via its missionary activities in hospitals and schools which are very much needed in developing world. by having a dialog and demarkating boundaries, it can have a productive and peacful existance (church is still kind of used to its imperial past).

Re: # 16 malik
//... started needling islamic fundamentalism which is completely independent of the subject of this article. ,...//

Actually, it`s not. Islamic fundamentalism is somewhat connected here.

But I understand your frustration... But what you should understand is that - over the years people are just sick of holier-than-thou pakis. Ranting and raving towards all and sundry while their own country has become the terrorist snake-pit of the world.

This author probably means well...but you pakis have no credibility left with anybody. So you folks have to go thru this gauntlet everytime you point fingers towards others. That`s the way things stand right now.

Re: # 4 kaura
//...Critiquing him is like arresting petty thiefs while murdrers run free. ..//

Good analogy. The author wants a ``inter-faith`` dialogue between the petty thief and murderers. Guess how that meeting would turn out ;))

Re: # 14 renash,

i am aware of the allegations you put in your posts, and take whatever responsibility i need to take. how`s that?

but the thing is, you guys seem so obsessed with this islamic fundamentalism thing that more than us, you see things thru it. my point is, this article doesn`t even hint about what muslims think or do, but somebody here picked up the first name of the writer and started needling islamic fundamentalism which is completely independent of the subject of this article.

if a guy from pakistan writes something, he may not be a jihadi aur a sympathizer of one (which is the case most of the time). he sure shares his nationality with them but nationality is not to be taken for complete similarity or for that matter, responsibility. do you think fundos are thriving because everybody likes them? no! believe me, it`s complicated than that.

bhai mere, you think it is the best position you can take for things to get better? i say this is the most convinient position.