The Catholic Church
The Catholic Church has had a number of "windows of opportunities" regarding reparation of relationships with its own parishioners. The Catholic Church has, of course, withstood the "test of time" for about 1,900 years. However, we begin to think it is less about having withstood Time than it has withstood investigations, circumspection, and examination into its affairs - simply through the sheer power of cash, real estate, and denominational control.
The Sicilian Mafia also survived 1,000 years - and then it was Americanized. The Sicilian Mafia also had a mutual love-hate relationship with the Catholic Church in all those years. Sicilian-Italians considered "blasphemy against the Church" as a far more serious infraction than "treason against the state." The state, after all, was made by man, whereas the church (they were taught) was made by God.
Who wants to go up against God?
The Sicilians were basically a peasant race, like many of those who in the 19th and 20th centuries who decided America was the land of opportunity. The "land of opportunity" was usually more than a privilege to work for food, and to eat the food one worked for. (This is not romanticism; this is economics.) Freedom was also considered not just the privilege, but the right, to exist, and to be called a citizen, without paying a tribute for this right.
The Catholic Church today, in 2004, is facing a tidal wave of - the word "resentment" is not strong enough, nor is the term "litigation." We hate to resort to cliché, "Where there's fire, there's smoke" but that does seem appropriate.
But from hundreds, in the U.S. alone? From 1,000's, if one considers the international community? Heads are getting ready to roll - but not fast enough to save the True and Faithful. The very foundation of the Catholic Church is about ready to go to pieces. The Catholic Church, of course, will deny this, because whoever's running the church (and it's not the Pope) will run faster than Nixon did at Watergate.
If the Pope really were in charge of the Vatican, we'd feel a lot better, because the Pope feels his responsibilities to the individuals, as well as the collective, of his church. It is his "job" if we may say so, to be a profession empath, someone whose job it is to hear the voice of the tiny as well as the mighty.
But, we don't see this happening, in the current trend, simply because so many power-hungry freaks have been so accustomed to hearing and revering the MIGHT of the Catholic Church.
The Catholic Church has no real might, and hasn't since the 16th century. What it has is popularity, convenience, and familiarity. We believe there are many strong, resolute priests who will seriously carry out their vows - all of them - but we see them as reflective of the church simply because the Catholic Church seemed the best outlet for their vocation, rather than being an expression of their vocation.
But today, when we're hearing and reading about acts of perversion between priests and their flocks, gay/straight/whatever, adults and children (ugh!), and finding out these aren't just "alleged" relationships confessed to counselors and psychiatrists, but also documented upon film (as in Vienna, Austria, July, 2004) we realize not only is this a current, popular crime against Humanity, but a prevalent one - and not "new".
The Catholic Church has hidden behind its sanctimony for centuries. Frankly, we accept this - we don't like to rock the boat, either - until it becomes a choice between letting hundreds, even thousands, of souls be extinguished, or protecting the Catholic Church, and our choice becomes clear.
We had hoped that the Catholic Church, in its age and experience, might perhaps be one of the last salvations, if not the last bastion of comfort and reason to those Souls crossing over into the fourth dimension. We had hoped that the Catholic Church might be the one to survive, realign, and "get with the program" in the Age of Light.
But no, the "politics of religion" appear to have triumphed, and thus legions are lost, and it becomes our turn to destroy an obsolete, outdated form that seeks the destruction of its own flock.
The Form has overwhelmed the Spirit, in this case. The "soul" of the church may be embodied by a single man, but when the other single men surrounding the "vessel of God" have triumphed, then the Form of the church has become sacrosanct, and has therefore become obsolete. The "Soul of the church" has utterly departed.
The vessel no longer channels the Divine, but channels instead, the Group Will; it has become "human" - and therefore "debased". This term is debatable; some take it to mean "unholy" - we take it to mean "un-transmuted, un-redeemed energy."
The Pope's function, in our opinion, IS to transmute, and to redeem Matter, but we gather there are a number of clerics standing in the way of this divine activity. (Perhaps they don't want to "tire him out." Perhaps, if they would let him do his job -- he wouldn't be so tired! -- Just a thought.)
But, this is only an expression of concern for the current Pope. (We don't keep up with their names. We're not Catholic, and it's our understanding that each Pope wants to be remembered - not for himself - but for being a vessel of God. We take him/them at their word.)
The Catholic/Holy Roman Church was not responsible - even indirectly - for the invasion against the Ireland Druids in 347 A.D.. That was a plot dreamed up by Patrick the Madman, endorsed and backed by the stupid "Huns" of the Roman Army, and carried out without knowledge or authorization of the Roman or Church governments.
However, both the Roman government and the Church tacitly endorsed this activity after the fact. The Druids and the Christians had cohabited quite successfully for at least several generations (before and after Jesus of Nazarene's birth and death), but when word came that the Druids had been "exterminated" from Eire, lights went off in the heads of megalomaniacs who realized that the removal of a race of scholars, teachers, and healers had been effected.
It is misleading, today, to declaim the Irish for being "Roman Catholic", for in fact it was the Irish that were exterminated, and it was the Romans who remained. However, it is fair to say that those of Roman-heritage who settled Eire had claimed the land as their own, and had assimilated with the indigenous Celts.
Patrick was granted Sainthood not so much for being wonderful, noble, or virtuous, but for many of the same reasons that the Beatles were awarded the MBE (Members of the British Empire) which John Lennon said was because the Beatles' albums were the top export-product from Britain to other nations in the mid 1960's. This was considered absolute heresy at the time, but it was the truth.
Patrick was sainted, after the fact, as in other economical matters - for consolidated power into the hands of a few by singling out, neutralizing, and destroying a dissenting voice that might have thrown into jeopardy any overt attempt to "seize the crown", as they say.
With the removal of the more vocal Druids, the Roman government and the Catholic Church had no impediments to absolute dictatorship... and that's exactly what they went for, and is still what the Catholic Church is vying for today, in its corner of the world.
As we mentioned earlier, Christians and Druids had cohabited peacefully within one nation. This truth has been all but eradicated, thanks to the Catholic Church, and even more so by the prevailing winds of the more ignorant, misbegotten self-temple churches of the United States who know even less about Druidry than the traditional, classically-trained Catholics.
The classically-trained Catholics tends to have at least a nominal perception of the true Druids, and respects the culture of what they have been taught to consider as an indigenous, though "heathen" culture. (Not quite, but almost, as condescending, as white people still consider Native Americans and Shamanism, today.)
Yet, the Catholic Church does not promote this knowledge outside of its academies. The Church can't afford to; if it did, it would have to start addressing some serious theological issues regarding racial superiority, spiritual divinity, and most of all, Christian imperialism.
It was the Catholic Church that destroyed, or attempted to destroy, by discrediting the work, of Copernicus and Galileo. How ridiculous was that to attempt to destroy not art, but science? This is common knowledge, but has anyone considered the implications? The question becomes not what has the Catholic Church done to keep its flock enslaved, but what would it do? What DOES it do?
It is laughable today that anyone would argue whether the Earth is flat or round, or whether the Earth revolves around the Sun or the Sun revolves around the Earth. We LAUGH today to think this was ever an issue - but there was a time when the Catholic Church considered these issues mortal - and were prepared to toast (in a very personal way) other human beings just to make a point.
We would like to think - as the Catholic Church would probably like us to think - "we were all just a little crazy back then". It was the Dark Ages after all. But, we say, start asking yourself, WHY were they the Dark Ages. Did they have to be dark? Doesn't Dark/Light tend to apply to knowledge, and the free flow of information?
We gather, then, in the Dark and Medieval Ages, Light was at a premium, and certainly not available to the unwashed masses.
Consider the artwork of Hieronymus Bosch, who painted aliens, spaceships, nightmares, and other unsettling images, in the 14th and 15th centuries. Bosch also painted many Biblical images - which apparently he was commissioned to do - and it also clear through his sheer profligacy, if that's a word, that he found these issues deeply disturbing. Yet somehow, he "got away" with what he did, because his artwork still remains with us today.
It is the artists of a revolution that paint the truest pictures of the times and political climates they live in. Bosch seemed to be deeply disturbed, at least by our standards, and yet he was able to master form in the mediums available at the time, sufficiently that his language of art still resonates with us today.
We'll probably get back to Bosch later. At the least, he deserves credit for having been an "ancient" artist who is still present today, and provides a lovely inspiration for so-called "sci-fi" artists - because Bosch was "sci-fi" back when they were still arguing whether this planet was round or flat.
At worst, Bosch still deserves credit for having pioneered the ability to transcribe nightmares as art. Truly, his work is stunning, and should - in our opinion - be considered a testament to history, simply because of the time and place he did his work, and realize how accurately he placed feeling, thought, emotion, and history "sugar-coated" throughout his canvases, as a message to younger, future generations.
It is safe to say Bosch was, in fact, a "visionary" - which must have annoyed the hell out of the Catholic Church, because they like all their visionaries to have such nice, sweet, pretty pictures - especially of the Catholic faith.
Goya, the Spanish artist, didn't fare much better, but he did do a little better (than Bosch), as far as the Catholic Church was concerned, because his monsters were clearly monsters, and frightening. Goya's paintings depicted the realities of Hell, and the Catholic Church found that convenient. (Those little Mexicans needed some control to keep them from being so violent, and so fruitful.)
It must be tough to be a cleric in the Catholic Church, to have to tire one's self in the effort of preaching the effort and misery that goes into Hell. Let's say one has a kindergartener new to church who doesn't know about Hell, and apparently has not had the fear of Hell instilled in him at home. (For which Mom and Dad are going to have to do at least three rosaries each.)
How does a freshly-graduated cleric describe Hell in a way that impresses our kids today:
Cleric: Hell, you know it's awfully
HOT.
Kindergartener: Oh yeah, HOW HOT?
Cleric: Oh it's so hot, you'll feel like the tar is burning off the
streets onto your face.
Kindergartener: I live on Michigan Avenue, and that's how we always feel.
What else ya got?
Cleric: Just for that, I'll tan your ass with 10 licks!
Kindergartener: I'm supposed to be impressed? Last night my old man gave
me 20 licks just for calling a nun a "penguin squaw."
Cleric: You're going to Hell, young man!
Kindergartener: Well, at least I'll get out of this dump.
As you can see, "conditioned shame and guilt" didn't go very far with this particular scenario. But, let's not feel sorry for failed attempts at guilt and shame.
But it is true, and fair to say, that there are just an awful lot of rigid Catholics out there who are so desperate that they're trying to scare the Catholic-Lites and Low-carb Catholics into finding Hell on their own street.
A circuit, or fuse, seems to be busted, somewhere between the Vatican and the normal Catholic citizen of whatever country, because the Vatican is still using hand shadows in the light to create terrible monsters, and its Catholic parishioners are responding with amusement, because such shadow-illusions no longer scare them.
What does scare them is the idea that anyone still thinks those old tricks work.
But, what's up with the fuse, or the circuit? Has the Catholic Church, after all this time, become a parody of itself? Is there something about the 20th century, the age of television, landing on the moon, and psychiatry becoming a cure to what used to be thought of as possession that has put a damper on the old Roman Catholic megalomaniac drive for conquest and annihilation?
Can the Catholic Church no longer bring the rabbit out of the hat?
Speaking of rabbits, it must be common knowledge by now that the first deliberate experiment in bio-terrorism actually occurred in Australia, with the Catholic Church's permission. The Germans who were heading the Nazi Party when the Nazis were still building their platform asked the Vatican if they would be amenable to such an experiment, to introduce a foreign element (in this case, a bunny rabbit) into the Australian eco-system, where no natural enemies (like foxes) were known to exist.
The Vatican - whoever the Pope was at that time (like we said, we're terrible with names) was intensely uncomfortable with the idea, yet he consented. (That we do know.)
It's sort of like watching a soap opera on television. You know the characters are going to wind up in a bad situation, and no matter what they do, they are going to lose. And, even though you know they're going to lose, you tune in anyway just to see it happen.
Curiosity killed the cat.
So somewhere around the late 1920's, somebody brought a single bunny rabbit to Australia. We imagine it was no coincidence that the bunny rabbit was female - and loaded with a surprise, as it were.
Miracle, you say?
Nonsense. Everyone knows that the best science begins and ends with the utmost empirical data. Introducing 5, 10, or 100 rabbits, would not have proved the viability of bio-terrorism, or "germ warfare" as it was called then. To prove that bio-terrorism, or germ-warfare, would be effective, they first had to be empirically consistent by introducing a foreign element to the eco-system.
The same thing had also been done in the American colonies several centuries before, with the difference being that the invaders did not understand germ-warfare as a deliberate concept. What some did understand, apparently, is that a blanket that had been wrapped over a smallpox victim could be passed on. Thus, many smallpox blankets were passed on in the form of "treaty" exchanges with American Indians.
We do not excuse this cruelty, nor mitigate it in any way, yet, if we may be allowed, we'd like to make a distinction between the people who learned by observation, and those who simply saw "cause and effect" and exploited that.
For all the "pillaging", and cultural rapes, et al., which history acknowledges occurred between the British and American continents, it is also fair to say that many British scientists responded quite impassionedly in behalf of the quest for scientific knowledge.
This makes sense; so much of Britain had been inbred, to some extent, that the Colonies were considered a great opportunity to gather information in the most empirical method, with "random" test subjects who were not part of the "33 flavors of Baskin-Robbins ice cream", so to speak. Thus, America, as a continent whose opportunities had not been entirely exploited, seemed like, at the very least, a fresh new database for empirical research. This fact can NOT be underestimated.
Britain - and we love her - has not been kind to Australia, in history. Britain has been comparatively kind to America, but we fear this may be because America declared its willingness to fight for Independence.
It is like a schoolyard where those who will fight don't get picked on, and the ones who don't fight get picked on constantly. It has nothing to do with "who's the better person" - it is strictly a matter of who will fight to defend themselves. Very often (as in schoolyard brawls) those who are the most willing to fight are the ones least likely to have to do so.
Having said all that, everyone (including the Germans) knew it was out of the question to ask the American government if they would mind participating in an experiment. But Australia...
The government in Australia was so weak. And Britain still considered the land nothing but a pestilence of exiled criminals - what it HAD been 400 years before, a dumping ground for exiled debtors. (Not murderers, but debtors, as in people in financial straits who might have been able to come up with some creative financial solutions, had they been allowed, and not been strangled by insane interest rates.)
So Australia seemed like a great place to dump a bunny-rabbit in the 1920's. Full world-globalization had not yet taken effect, and Australia, even more than Antarctica, was considered a lost continent, because of its social status (or lack thereof) in England at the time.
It was a great opportunity for the Vatican, which owned most of Australia - primarily because of the "debts" that exiled Britons in the first place. Americans are given credit for "grabbing" the land in the North American Continent, but at least those Americans were, for the most part, individualists - and American citizens. Those who grabbed land on the continent of Australia were primarily clerical, and thus belonged to no nation.
So when Australia was plagued by bunny-rabbits, and it was known they had no natural enemies, it was welcomed by Australian citizens that a germ warfare had been introduced, some kind of disease that suffocated the bunnies and killed them. The bunnies had been eating the grass that was needed by the sheep, sheep being the source of the number one crop export, namely wool.
I don't care what country you're in; when you feel threatened by another life source that is threatening the source of your income, you're going to have an opinion.
So, it was easy for Aussies to look at bunnies as pests, and to be thankful for their extermination.
What few people know is that the same diseases that were introduced to the bunnies of Australia were pretty similar to the diseases introduced to the Jews in the concentration camps in Germany, in the 20th century.
The stories that have been passed around for decades, ad infinitum, tend to be from those who survived the Holocaust. We gather that's less than 1/6 of the people who actually know what it's like to be rounded up as human cattle, with the ostensible privilege of being white, but perhaps with the unfortunate handicap of possessing a large nose.
It's a shame to think that Nazi-ism and Freudianism may have occurred at the same time for a reason. Both have a preoccupation with size.
But back to the bunnies; as a result of the germ-warfare that was introduced, bunnies were subject to - not just nosebleeds - but what would appear to our unscientific minds as, literally, their brains leaking out their ears.
There were quite a few Jews in various concentration camps who also had such an unlovely appearance of having their brains leaking out their ears.
There were some other unlovely appearances, as well, but our point is that the Catholic Church was aware of these events - and allowed such events to occur, because it was far better to exterminate rabble than it was to raze a prime source of real estate transactions.
People are expendable, but property - that lasts forever. Souls come and go, and with any luck they reincarnate within a church and propagate that church, and with even better luck, they corner a rich old son of a bitch with nothing better to do but to tithe over an insane amount of land. Theoretically, one could either the own the Earth, or operate through majority control -- or, we suppose, even control those who control the wealth.
That would simplify things, wouldn't it?
Now let's get to the priests, particularly the American ones. Anyone who's been keeping up with the abuse allegations recognizes that the patterns tend to center around a 25-year perimeter. In short, the 70's. It would be easy to blame the 70's, and to say that the Sexual Revolution of the Sixties, and the promiscuity of the 70's were at fault. In other words, it would be so easy to say this sexual corruption was reflective of a 30-year period beginning with the late 60's.
Let's blame priestly sexual abuse on culture, and divine American decadence. We were all hit with the terrible Sex Ray from Planet Porno, and couldn't defend ourselves from debauchery.
We don't think so.
Why so late, and why are so many people speaking up, honestly or otherwise?
What other things do we associate with the 70's, and beyond?
In addition to funky clothes, long hair, and beads, another trend that caught on big was "self-help groups", personal counseling, and individual awareness.
These things have not left our society. America is still really big into personal-analysis, whether Freudian, Jungian, or shaman, and this particular movement in self-awareness has resulted in some pretty positive steps for self-awareness -- including the need for transparency and honesty.
Given this, we'd like to give one more, for the Catholics we've known, by explaining our relationship with Catholicism.
We (I am) are not Catholic, but what we have always loved about our Catholic friends, even when they deprecatingly explain they are not "true" (read "good") Catholics, is their invariable sense of fair-play, and right action. Most of our friends deny being "good" Catholics, yet they are so transparent (in our opinion) for being honest Catholics. They are so obvious, and actually unique, with having been instilled with the "Catholic principle" at a young age, that they carry it with them for a lifetime and beyond.
We LOVE Catholics, the true Catholics, even if they aren't the "good" Catholics, because we've always known them to be the conscious voice of Truth. A good Catholic, a "true" Catholic, will truly vote or act with his conscience. A good, "true" Catholic will truly answer to no one but God, and to their own Soul.
That is what we love about true Catholics. A true Catholic will defy the Church to answer to God, and that God is within his own Soul.
A false Catholic will tell his Church what the church wants to hear, and will lie to his God, and also expect his God to forgive him in the Hereafter.
The Catholic Church is full of liars at the present time. This almost shames us to say, because we fully trust that 95% (arbitrary number) priests are truly living up to their vocations, and their vows. (Our intuition says the trust rate on return is actually 92% percent. That means there are 8% corrupt priests undocumented in this country.) Almost 2 out of 10 priests are perverts.
Why are so many little boys being sexually attacked? Well, it's pretty obvious, isn't it? They can't have babies. Raping little boys, and having "fun with the bum" is less threatening to the Catholic position because fear of reprisal and consequence is so much less.
But what about the scum of the Earth? What about the wolves in sheep's clothing? Five percent is too much. Eight percent is unacceptable.
How do we justify our numbers? Aside from the Press, we can justify rationales for these crimes committed against children.
Probably of all errant priests in the USA, let's say 1 out of 10 are creeps and perverts.
Of those, let's say 3 out of 10 like young women, and the other 7 our of 10 like little boys.
Here's a random question: If you want to mark your pervert of choice by his gender of choice, who's going to be the more frequent pervert victim?
Answer: Boys. 10-1.
Boys cannot conceive children, so there's no messy discussion about contraception, right-to-life, or adoption. With a boy, you can either give him a hand-job or blow-job and let him come on your face, or you can diddle him in the ass, or make him give you a blow-job, and there's no baby, and no need to discuss the sanctimony of the Church.
Whereas, with a young woman, you run the risk that she'll run screaming to her parents, especially if you start introducing interesting sexual techniques to her, because she's been brought up Catholic all her life, and has been told she was a worthless piece of shit for being female, and only Mother Mary (and her own mother) are worth a damn. That girl will run to her parents -- not because she wants to "tell on a priest" but simply because she can't believe a Divine Priest (as she was brought up to believe) would want to "do it" with HER.
Little boys, on the other hand, are bait for the grabbing by sicko priests. They have such round little asses, like little boys do, and when they are so young, their faces are as pretty as girls'.
Priests can't stand androgyny, and yet it's what they engender for any man or woman of the cloth. The "penguins" are distinguished by the fact that men are allowed to wear their hair without shame, whereas women have to cover theirs.
Frankly, we find this surprising, considering modesty is supposed to be a virtue in both men and women. Yet, priests aren't ashamed of their hair, but nuns are taught to be ashamed of theirs.
In both cases, they are taught to be ashamed of their sexuality. This is fine, as most recognize they have sacrificed their so-called "human sexuality" for the opportunity to be a Vessel for God. Be that as it may.
A good priest, and a good nun, will explain to their parishioners that they - not being vessels of God, but rather vessels of Humanity - NEED their sexuality, and will encourage such ideas of carnality, passion, devotion, and trust as being holy sacrosanct instruments of Christ, and will promote the idea that for one Soul to love another as being the greatest sacrifice an individual could make - short of offering themselves up to Mother Church.
These are the good priests, and the good nuns. What's to be said of the others - the priests who like to ram themselves between a young boy's bum, and the nun who likes to tan the ass of a "fresh upstart" from a prominent well-to-do family? Both reflect sexual depravation, but neither have excuses. They knew what they signed up for when they committed to Service to their God.
What we object to is the notion that the perversity between priests and parishioners has only occurred within the last 30 years. Bum-fucking with little boys has been a problem ever since there was a Church. The good news is that until the 70's, there had truly been a 98% of abstinence, but all it takes is 2% to "make it" with a lot of little boys who'd rather die before telling.
Question: How many boys really want to confess to the guy who raped them in the first place, knowing the pervert will get an extra thrill out of hearing his crime re-counted? Probably 1/5 of the little boys raped would love shocking the priest will their crime; the other 4/5 just want to die.
What does one say about a Church that condemns suicide as a mortal crime -- and yet drives so many people to it.
Shame on you, Catholic Church. Shame on you. You feed the wolves, you bless them, and you multiply them. Where are your priests?
Give us your priests, your true priests of the true Catholic Church, and we would give you our flock. But, you have lied to us for centuries, and maintained your fictions for centuries, and you have appeased us only when you were threatened.
You are not a Church. You are a government of religion.
Prove yourself to be a government of the people, if you can. It is your only hope.
You'd be surprised to know how much this is our hope as well.
Love, Galadriel
8/13/2004
Forum/catholic.htm