by
Bill's Spirit
Member since:
March 3, 2006 Popeful Ponderings -- The Holy Father In America
April 16, 2008 11:17 AM EDT
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His Holiness The Pope is visiting America. Apparently, this is only the third time that a pope has visited our blessed land. Father Thomas Williams, CBS News Faith and Religion Analyst, stated on April 16th's "The Early Show" (2008) that the Pope believes he is addressing the American people by talking to the person of 43. I'm not sure how accurate a think that can be, seeing as how 43 only has a 28% approval rating among the American people. Can you really speak to the entire orchard by interacting with only one tree; especially one whose fruit is considered to be 72% different than the rest? Is the Pope Right or Left? He's against abortion. (right) He believes in Jesus. (right) He's against the Iraq War. (left) He has throngs of loyal followers. (right) He has a private jet (Shepherd One) and a custom made automobile (The Pope Mobile). (right and left) He seems to believe that taking care of the poor is more important than making profits. (left) He has an entourage AND a security team. (elitist) Rumor has it that he believes the words of prophets are more important than the words of accountants. (left) So, is the Pope Left or Right? He seems to have some left leaning tendencies, and the American Right have been heard to say that if you are not with them then you are against them, so maybe that makes him "left" in America's context. The Pope's representatives say that he wants to stay clearly away from our partisan politics. Perhaps he's an Independent. I'm not Catholic; and I'm not anti-Catholic. (Just as I'm neither Jewish nor anti-Jewish; nor Pagan or anti-Pagan; Zoastrian or anti-Zoastrian.) Religion is a personal choice/calling heard differently in the hearts and minds of every individual. It's always up to us. I have a lot of respect for the good the Catholic church has done over the millennia; good, that has been sorely tainted by certain egregious periods within their history. I guess the Catholic's body of Christ doesn't seem to be any more perfect than any other of the bodies of Christ here on our mortal coil. What I respect is that they ARE a body of Christ, attempting to spread the message of grace, salvation, forgiveness, compassion, consciousness, conscientiousness and hope throughout humanity. I'd botch it up totally if I ever had to meet the Pope. I'm not much of ring kisser. I'm poor at acting humiliated, impressed or awed when in the company of "Great" people. I'm kind of like The Fool, in that way. Welcome to America, Mr. Pope. May your stay be blessed, fruitful, pleasant and inspiring. May you sow some seeds of Hope. Peace To All -- -- 16 April 2008 -- Bill's Spirit is an Artist, Writer, Poet, Philosopher currently wordsmithing from a humble digital forge in small town Ohio. The works of the man behind Bill's Spirit have been published in small alternative and amateur presses since 1986. Before that, they just filled notebooks, decorated walls and gathered dust in piles and boxes. --
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Comments: 30
The Popemobile came into use after John Paul II was shot and almost died
Ash you hubby where is his sense of history.
Faith does not stop bullets or knives or bombs or wild animals. We have known that for 2000 years.
Do you know the relationship between the words "clerk" and "cleric"?
Do you have even the slightest idea of how much wealth the Roman Catholic church hordes?
Conscientious religions usually advise their adherents to be cautious and somewhat accommodating while being mindful and outspoken in the world around them. Words and ideas are what change things in our world, and a person usually needs to be alive in order to speak and spread them. The longer they live, the more effective they have a chance of being.
If the clerics of our ancient churches weren't the ones who created paperwork, they would certainly still be the ones credited for perfecting it the most; well, until the dawn of modern day corporations.
And, yes, of course the Catholic church has hordes of riches. It is one of the oldest and largest of the established religions in our world. They've been filling their centralized institutional coffers for well over fifteen hundred years.
But the Catholic church has also always exercised an effective amount of their economic might to combat poverty, disease, hunger, and suffering around the world; as well as funding areas of medical study, the spreading of helpful knowledge and the explorations of the undocumented lands.
If not, at least in part, for the works of the Catholic church, these United States of America would neither have grown as quickly, nor likely lasted as long as we have.
They've been a powerful force of positive change in our world; for more than a dozen centuries.
To be honest, I decided upon Benedict's election that I was never going to like him so when I accidentally read something here or there that he has written, admire it and see his name at the end...well, I have stopped saying, "Grrrr!" and learned that there is more to this man than my knee-jerk, uninformed and unfair initial judgment of him.
I'm getting a sense that Benedict is a true shepherd even if he doesn't have the charm and charisma of JPII...that he truly cares about people. I am proud of the institutional side of the Catholic Church which has openly and loudly opposed the war before and after it's inception. I read in the NY Times how Benedict tried to call Bush and Rice to account for the unjust war in Iraq and Rice blew him off. Now that she has decided she wants to talk to him, he is not returning her calls.
I am going to take a second to voice my admiration for the Catholic Church's official stand on life: war is evil, just as evil as abortion, it's believed, unlike some people who say they follow Christ who are against abortion yet support not only the war, but the death penalty. The CC thinks that you can't have it both ways and their consistency on this issue is impressive. Although I wouldn't call myself a fan of Benedict, not yet, anyway, I will say that his followers are not really his followers, but followers of another, more important One and those two should not be confused.
As for the gentleman who mentions the "hoarding" of wealth in Rome. Well, gee, I'll bet if a fair price could be determined for the priceless artifacts and gifts acquired over the centuries could be decided on, maybe by the gentleman? the Vatican Museum could be persuaded to a nice tag sale to benefit the poor. Many of the Church's venues for providing assistance to those in need are not known and don't bear the name of the Church, it is administrated anonymously. For now, anyway, we will just have to be content with sending workers around the world to help alleviate the suffering of people regardless of their faith.
I kind of feel for Benedict. He inherited a host of problems.
And I suspect it can't be easy wearing this pope's shoes, since there's a prophecy hanging over his tenure that his successor will be Satan. That's got to feel really spooky.
In fact, this article is my way of lauding and promoting the Pope and the Catholic church for being centuries active as speaker, symbol and spreader of the compassionate teachings which Christ was known for.
There is no intent on my part to disrespect the Pope or the Catholic church; or any other religion, for that matter.
Ah, yes, context is everything. From where I sit up here in what Faux News has referred to as "Soviet Canuckistan" (and believe me, I've been called worse things by better people), there is no "left" in America. I always laugh when I hear or read about neocons calling Democrats "left-wing" or even "socialist". Any elected Democrat in the USA would likely be comfortable running for Canada's Conservative Party (except perhaps Dennis Kucinich).
Also it is only in the USA where believing in Jesus would be considered axiomatically right wing. While we have Christian conservatives up hear in the frozen north, there are also many Christians who have become involved politically on the left. Our most famous being the late-great Canadian father of medicare, Tommy Douglas, a baptist minister.
As to the pope, I don't know enough about the former Cardinal Ratszinger to form a strong opinion of him. However, his protestations against the stain of child sexual abuse within Catholic clergy sounds like lip service and is far too little and much too late.
If the Catholic church were to defrock any priest who touches a child, turn them over to the authorities in every and all cases, defrock any bishop or cardinal who ever protected or helped to hide a pedophile from justice, willingly paid out compensation without having to be dragged, kicking and screaming, through the courts and the pope himself were to go and meet with the survivors, kneel before them and beg their forgiveness... then I'd take their protestations of contrition to heart.
John Paul II was lauded around the world for his pro-active position on many issues both political and spiritual, but he actually was complicit himself in the tacit condoning of child sexual abuse and, if Catholic dogma is anywhere close to true, he is burning in hell as we speak.
Having said all that, and enraged any Catholics reading this, let me make some mea culpas or at least honest disclosures:
I was raised in the Catholic faith. My father was Catholic and my mother Anglican. My father, the Catholic, would often lie abed on Sunday morning while my mother, the Anglican, would take us to mass. I think the hypocrisy of that was apparent to me before I knew the word for it. This probably has something to do with the fact that I am not a Catholic today.
I was never sexually abused by Catholic clergy or laity, but I know several people who were and some of them have had their lives destroyed by it.
I respect the Catholic faith and anyone who holds it truly in their heart. I do not respect the insitution of the Catholic church at all. Corrupt and evil, in my view.
But hey... Bill, you left out a major Pope fact... certainly in my memory he's the first Pope to be so into Popely Fashions. You all must have noticed his fashion impulses by now... those red shoes, those crazy high hats, the overly-adorned & embroidered robes, and the ermine capelet.
Just another interesting fact, dat's all folks.
what ever.
as for this Papal visit, it is nothing but smaoke and mirrors, just like all "dignitary" events.
What I want o know is whay the hell did they have red coats performing on the front lawn of the white house for the Pope??
And why won't you say Bush?
afraid the google sensors will out you to the feds?
Just wondering no tone or anything there ;-)
"He who does not deserve to be named" is referred to by number.
I do not know why the Red Coats performed.
As for him being elitist for having a security force - that's not elitism, that's pragmatism. There are people who want to kill him.