Pope Benedict XVI, otherwise known as Joseph Ratzinger, is deemed infallible when it comes to matters of church dogma. According to the Church, God tells him what to say, and he cannot be wrong. Last weekend, Ratzinger lifted the excommunication of some pretty nasty people who were excommunicated by his predecessor, Pope John Paul II. The four guys who were kicked out of the church were high officials...bishops, who belong to a notoriously anti-Semitic sect called the Society of St. Pius X, the largest of the so-called "traditionalist" groups in the Church. Among other things, the group denies the reality of the Holocaust. The spokesman for the group, a British-born bishop named Richard Williamson claims that only a couple hundred thousand Jews were killed in the Nazi concentration camps, instead of the 6 million most historians agree perished there. He claims that no Jews were gassed, saying, "There was not one Jew killed in the gas chambers. It was all lies, lies, lies."
He has also said that Jews drink the blood of Christian babies, an old myth used to incite the pogroms that killed many innocent Jews in Europe during the last century. His organization advocates segregating Jews in ghettos because they are "known to kill Christians." He also believes that the attacks of 9/11 were an American plot to justify invading Afghanistan and Iraq.
It's clear why John Paul II wanted nothing to do with such lunatics. So why has Ratzinger reversed the excommunication? Various rationales have been proposed. The Church is deathly afraid of any move toward a breakup...of splinter groups separating from Rome. Also, these "traditionalists" favor a return to traditional ways...performing the mass in Latin, instead of the local language, and a rigid adherence to church dogma. Ratzinger is known to share many of the same views, even though he has stated his disagreement with them on the Holocaust.
Some apologists in the Church have claimed that Ratzinger's action falls within the Church's canon law, saying that to deny the Holocaust is not heresy, even though it is a lie. Therefore, the excommunication can be lifted because they are not heretics...merely liars.
So what should reasonable people, both Catholics and non-Catholics, make of this? Was the Pope directed by God to make this judgment, to let these anti-semitic bigots and spreaders of lies and hate back into the Church? Is canonical law so important that lies and bigotry should be tolerated in order to maintain church unity?
Churches always claim to be the keepers of our absolute moral standards. Religious people often claim that without religion, human society would descend into chaos, and they decry the "moral relativism" of non-religious people.
I dare say that this action by Ratzinger smells strongly of moral relativism.
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Comments: 51
My mother is Lutheran, and from Germany. It was she who told me that the pope had once belonged to the Hitler Youth. I don't know if that was ever substantiated or disproved. This sort of action tends to lend credence to that type of rumor though.
Of course, during Hitler's time there were many Catholic Bishops and Cardinals who tacitly approved of the what was happening. There are many resources that have documented the connection between Rome and Hitler. In the end, the Catholic church did the right thing and condemned it, but not until the damage and the murder of millions of Jews was complete. There will always be Holocaust deniers, I suppose. We have to suffer these fools. It is always disappointing when educated and learned people express such hateful garbage. When it comes from someone who doesn't know any better, it is much easier to take. I think that the Pope made some very poor decisions with these reversals of the ex-communicated.
I am waiting for someone to challenge my last statement...which is indeed arguable.
Let the Poop put them back in the Church from whence they came! That Church has been based on nothing but lies... and heretics were those who attempted to expose the truth, and were put to death.
They used to be discriminatory in their relations. It's not news that they hated the Jews - I was taught growing up in Catholic catechism classes that the Jews killed Jesus and were in league with the devil. These leaders are all corrupt - anything that will provide them increased power and money will do. They are the antithesis of Jesus' teachings. They might as well chuck the entire New Testament out the window of the Vatican at this point.
There is an excellent book out there by Rep. Donna DeGette:
http://www.amazon.com/Science-Stem-Cells-Diana-DeGette/dp/1599214318/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&qid=1233254234&sr=1-1
It is horrifying to read about what these clergymen have been doing in regard to lobbying Congress for this and other sex-related issues.
It seems likely Bishop Williamson's controversial views were not considered or known by the Vatican when the process of bringng these Bishops back into the Church was started some time ago.
The excommunication had been over rejecting Vatican II reforms (as the Latin Mass etc). Such excommunications in the history of the Church are often temporary and Ratzinger had made it clear for years one of his aims was to unify the Church by bringing back such fringe groups. The doctrine of papal infalllibility was dropped several Popes ago, but the doctrines of the church are considered authoritative for the membership. Ratzinger was chosen by John Paul II to be enforcer of the doctrine and he ruthlessly expelled some for doctrinal reasons before becoming Pope.
As far as I know, Bishop Williamson was the only one of this faction who had expressed controversial political views. The Curia in Rome who carried out the process of bringing thus group back may have been unaware of his statements ; Ratzinger,too, was likely unaware of this. His aim was to unify and purify the church. There are about a billion Catholics, a minority of them in the Western industrialized nations, and this Pope, who is profoundly anti-secular and at the same time an authority on capitalism and the value of Marxist thought, believes in the universality of the spiritual mission and doctrine of the church. Whether the church is greatly reduced in size is not his prime concern. That it be true to its spiritual truth in the world is his aim to preserve. He seeks to defend the faith for all Catholics. The role of the church is significant throughout the world. China may have the largest number of Christians (and also of Muslims) of any nation in this century, for example.
I was not raised in the Roman Catholic faith and do not know well or subscribe to its doctrine. I would not presume to judge how true its spiritual message may be and I don't agree with a lot of this Pope's views. Certainly many Catholics , including openly gay Bishops, express views contrary to his and are not excommunicated.
The views of rationalists, atheists, and some who claim "science" as a measure of "truth,"
have no authority to judge the value of any spiritual doctrine .
Obama has been criticized for including the fundamentalist Pastor Rick Warren at his inauguration. Warren indeed has hateful views . Obama is a very tough-minded politician and he wants to gain support from all the citizens. At the same time he has also made clear that his Christian faith is essential to him.
I have not read anything about the organization changing its positions on the Holocaust or Jewish "blame" for the death of Jesus....or their infamous "blood myth" that I described earlier. This is a religious sect that illustrates how destructive religion can be to society.
Of course the Taliban and Wahabbi sects of Islam are even worse with their amputations and stonings dictated by Sharia law.
Godless Americans
Separation of Church and State
Council for Secular Humanism
Naturalism
Universists
It is fair game to criticize how humans have used religions to serve egoistic aims. Has the survival of humanity not depended on a superhuman or "spiritual" power and authority? Where in what we know of history has this not been an active, perhaps seemingly "miraculous" factor?
The majority of humans are surely limited in their development. Yet for every million that are far from developed perhaps one is demonstrably more so. We all have seen this.
The decay of civilization in the last century is conformable with previous ages. The old is destroyed and a new stage replaces it.
Adolescents rebel against authority in order to seek an identity
Sorry to come in late to the thread. I've been serving on a jury this week (criminal case. I'll be posting about it after the trial's over)
I DO NOT claim any expertise here. I was just vaguely remembering something I read a few years ago. So I checked with that eminent authority, Wikipedia.
Infallibility wasn't even mentioned until the 9th Century, and then only regarding ecumenical councils. A few hundred years later medieval theologians began to discuss infallibility related to the pope (among them Thomas Aquinus).
Still, it's a brilliant political strategy, claiming god speaks directly through you, without claiming to actually BE divine. The pope can sin (!!!) and still be infallible when he declares that god has spoken. Beautiful!!
Could you please explain this, Clarke? I do not know of any objective evidence that humanity's survival is due to faith-based beliefs.
Gary...I have read recently...and I don't have time to cite the source...that the Pope is considered infallible on matters of church dogma. On all other matters, he is not. I'll research this when I have a chance. Thanks for your input.
The recorded history of many civilzations, their creation and destruction isn't "evidence" ? How does this relate to the last few hundred years?
There was what could be described as a world civilization encompassng East and West, un the 14th century, yes? What is the possible form of the next world "order" ? What values will it serve? There has been the denial of what might be called "celestial causation."
I think it would be hard to make the case that religious faith has helped to "civilize" the human species, Clarke. Much of the conflict and bloodshed throughout history was caused directly or indirectly by religious beliefs.
From a traditional point of view, all knowledge originates from a higher level of being. Every civilization is created by a small group who is able to receive and transmit this knowledge. Science , art , religion , pholosophy etc are forms used transmit this knowledge. Some "Messengers" and their followers are known about in history (Christ and his disciples, for example) but most of what they taught is transmitted directly to a few who are prepared in schools, the "Mystery schools." So there is "one knowledge, " but it is transmitted successively, according to time and place, in each civilization.
The great library in Alexandria probably had answers to many questions about ancient knowledge, but it was burned and destroyed deliberately...a huge loss of accumulated knowledge.
When I cited the "Scientific Method (formally or informally)," I meant that long before it was formally recognized and defined, men (and women) were basically doing the same thing...observing the world around them and "how things work," and using that knowledge to their advantage. Here's a Wiki piece on early civilizations' use of scientific principles, even though they didn't call it that.
Do you think the nature of "man's observations" presented in academia, the media etc today compares to the level evident in previous civilizations? There is no question of the value of the scientific method in our time. But the quality of knowledge is a different matter. We clearly don't understand much of what previous civilizations did. The challenge we face is to discover ( or rediscover) what we lack and the faults in our thinking that block us. Serious thinkers, including scientists, are aware of this.
I didn't see your response before I erased and modifiied my post. It is indeed puzzling "how" previous civilzations possessed knowledege that we are rediscovering - the astromological observations of the Dogons in Africa , for example - but the levels of consciousness available to humans have been described in Western and Eastern teachings, including the Christian traditions and they all are rather alike. They are reflected in mystical teachings, which tend to be colored in cultural and subjective ways. Philosophers like Plato simply describe them as traditional knowledge and as "myth." Plato was not allowed to transmit "Mystery Wisdom" on pain of death. But many Western teachings have transmitted the essential teachings in various forms since, in both secular and religious "schools" and "societies."Many popular "New Age" teachings are not "all wrong" although subjective and not based on real experience and reason.
I am a member of the Skeptics Society. Founded by Michael Shermer, a prolific author, lecturer and debater. Basically, the Society treats spiritual and paranormal claims with....skepticim. If you are interested, Google it and read some of their writings. They publich a very interesting magazine...I think it's bimonthly.
It is a profound tragedy when the knowledge of a civilization is lost, and must be re-learned later. Clearly, the scientific progress we have made in the past four or five hundred years would have been impossible without that accumulation from our predecessors. Let's hope we never allow that to happen again.
of the thoughts offered in a recent discussion on Science I took part in recently.
(The Ph.D.'s were dominant, you might have guessed.)
I would only interject in response to the following statement,
"Do you think the nature of "man's observations" presented in academia,
the media etc today compares to the level evident in previous civilizations?"
is dramatic enough, but by its very wording, cries out for someone to introduce
into evidence to the contrary, the Hubble, the electron microscope, the
super collider, and the microprocessor. Still, continue, please do.
Repeated manned trips to the moon, and the unmanned robotic exploration of the solar system are also great modern human achievements.
I am aware of M Schermer's work, specifically of his critique of others research , notably the Princeton Global Consciousness Project, Dean Radin, Charles Tart, Stephan A Schwartz, some IONS projects and many others. He seems to me to have misrepresented and failed to offer reasonable arguements or evidence to support his views of them.
My knowledge and experience of mind-to-mind transmission , telepathy, higher intelligences and so on , which is described in many traditional and so-called "sacred texts" (Patanjali, for example) has not been related to the efforts of the above who seek to make this "scientifically legtimate."
I have no doubt that many millions share my experience, whether educated in the West or East, "religious" or not. I sympathize with those who deal with the negative attitude to those who seek to deny supersensible faculties.
What concerns all of us is the resolution of conflict through non-violence which the current leaders and govenments are not working to achieve when most human beings wish for this. All civilizations have faced this sort of crisis. A new civilation is possible , but how it may take form cannot be determined by the power of contemporary science and technology
I find Shermer and his colleagues' work to be sensible and rigorously scientific. But I respect your differing opinion. Many people believe in supernatural and spiritual powers. The Skeptics Society, and other organizations have conducted carefully designed tests to investigate some of these claims, and as far as I know, they have never found any evidence of their validity. But I am not an expert in this, I admit, and I have not read all the literature on the subject.
I certainly agree with you about the inability of current human institutions to resolve conflicts through non-violence. In fact the death penalty is state-sponsored violence to deter violence.
A new civilization....hmmm...I would settle for just improving this one. But until people shed their primitive beliefs and tribal prejudices, it's hard for me to see how a new civilization will solve anything. Human nature is the problem. It has changed, and will continue to change over time. The question is: Do we have enough time to evolve the changes that will lead to our survival as a species before we destroy ourselves?
have no authority to judge the value of any spiritual doctrine ."
Sure they (we) do. I realize I have isolated a statement from many you have made and I do not wish to address your assertion out of context...but certainly, no "authority" is needed to investigate or form opinions about claims of spiritual worth or spiritual influence.
Frequently, those who claim a benefit from spiritual points of view or spiritually influenced methods.... who peddle their perceived position of being better off or of having an increased ability to deal with life or having a better grasp on the "meaning of life"...do so with the "authority" of self delusion, self deception and moral superiority.
As the statement goes..."extraordinary claims demand extraordinary proof". Of course in the matter of spiritual effects..the argument can be made that certain beliefs, conceptions or spiritual doctrine work in the subjective arena and are therefore not subject to verification or any type of proof. Additionally, there is the difficulty of determining a priori probabilities.
If this is your position, Clarke...it is your prerogative. But to assume the criticism and investigation by those who do not share your spiritualness is unwarranted or not useful or not a reasonable inquiry.... is not only arrogant...it is closed minded.
"Has the survival of humanity not depended on a superhuman or "spiritual" power and authority?
Has it really? I would be interested in your evidence for this statement.
"Where in what we know of history has this not been an active, perhaps seemingly "miraculous" factor?"
Many events include the "miraculous factor", but in reality, there is no such thing as a miracle..only an unexplained event. At some point in our history, almost every event could have been assigned the miracle label.
Good to hear from you...it's been awhile. You have a way of "cutting to the chase," of penetrating to the core of issues under discussion. I really appreciate that...as you know.
"Religious faith depends on a host of social, psychological and emotional factors that have little or nothing to do with probabilities, evidence and logic." MICHAEL SHERMER
The importance of the Mysteries in the spiritual life of Greece can be seen in Plato's conception of the world. The later pupils of Plato, the Neoplatonists, attribute to him a secret teaching, to which he admitted only those who were worthy, and then under the vow of silence.His teaching was considered secret in the same sense as the Mystery wisdom.
Plato speaks of the "secret teachings" in the Phaedo: "And it appears that those men who established the Mysteries were not unenlightened, but in reality had a hidden meaning when they said long ago that whoever goes uninitiated and unsanctified to the other world will lie in the mire, but he who arrives there initiated and purified will dwell with the gods. For as they say in the Mysteries, ‘the thyrsus-bearers are many, but the mystics few;’ and these mystics are, I believe, those who have been true philosophers. And I in my life have, so far as I could, left nothing undone, and have striven in every way to make myself one of them. "(Plato, Phaedo, 69 C)
There have always been what may be called schools of consciousness - sometimes secular, sometimes within religions. The terms "faith," "belief," miracle," do not really describe what is the science of consciousness. Those academic scientists who are seeking to research consciousness in terms of the standard scientific method have produced -several hundred studies that meet the standard criteria. Stephan A. Schwartz, for example, has done several projects and recently described many done by others in his book In Tune with the Infinite.
There are a number of studies by scientists of traditional practitioners of Oriental medicine and different traditional religious groups who are trained in experiencing different levels of consciousness.