JESUITS IN THE LAB?

I’m sorry, but this headline was irresistible:

Jesuit College: Immortalisation Project Begins

I’m thinking, They should patent it before they announce it. And, like, What will this mean for world population?

The story is not so racy. It’s from an African country, apparently Nigeria.

The move to immortalise the 60 students of Loyola Jesuit College who died in the December 2005 Sosoliso plane crash in Port Harcourt, Rivers State, commenced yesterday with the ground breaking ceremony of the N1.3 billion ($10million) Port Harcourt campus of the School.

According to the story, surviving parents were admonished repeatedly not to grieve but to see the beauty of God’s will in everything, including plane crashes.

I’m sure the dead students would have traded a few more decades of life for this kind of immortalization.

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CONTRACT REVISIONS

The model of Judeo-Christianity is that of a contract, a quid-pro-quo agreement between God and His Chosen People.

The word “Testament” means contract.

The Old Testament says if Jews obey Jahweh He will favor them among nations. When misfortune befell the Jews it was seen as divine retribution for disobedience, or as unjustified. The contract was two-way, and Jahweh was expected to uphold His end.

The New Contract is between God in the person of Jesus and each of us individually, that faith hope and charity here on Earth will merit eternal and exquisite bliss after death.

The great Novalis (wikilink) once asked, “Who declared the writing of the Bible complete?”

Just by clicking around recently I found that while the writing of the Bible may be complete, the editing of the Bible continues to this day.

When you consider that the Bible is the written contract(s) between God and us, it’s a little disconcerting that the exact language of the contract is subject to change.

I glanced at this quote at the top of a newsweek.washingtonpost.com article by Thomas Reese, S.J., and focused on the words which I have highlighted:

Apocalyptic literature has been a favorite genre of oppressed peoples who feel powerless in the face of unjust structures and authority. God’s justice will be victorious. But as the Gospel of Matthew says, “As for the exact day or hour, no one knows it, neither the angels in heaven nor the Son, but the Father only” (Matthew 24:36). If the Son does not know it, who are we to try to predict it?

These words literally mean that God the Father can keep secrets from God the Son. This seems to contradict some Trinity dogma.

So I looked it up in Skeptics Annotated Bible and found this. Notice that the Bible verse as quoted omits “nor the Son.”

24:36 But of that day and that hour knoweth no man, no, not the angels of heaven, but my Father only.

The best and earliest Greek manuscripts say, "not the angels of heaven, neither the son, but the Father only." But apparently it bothered the scribes that there were some things Jesus didn't know, so they fixed it by omitting the phrase, "neither the son." (Bart D. Ehrman, Misquoting Jesus (2005), p.95)

So I looked it up. Douay-Rheims, which I grew up thinking was official Catholic, and found it agrees with the version quoted in Skeptics Annotated.

Douay-Rheims
36 But of that day and hour no one knoweth, not the angels of heaven, but the Father alone.

So, gosh darn it, I had to do some more googling and found the newer version quoted by Father Reese is the New American Bible, with the accompanying commentary.

New American Bible
36 “But of that day and hour no one knows, not even the angels of heaven, nor the Son, but the Father alone.

22 [36] Many textual witnesses omit nor the Son, which follows Mark 13:32. Since its omission can be explained by reluctance to attribute this ignorance to the Son, the reading that includes it is probably original.

I guess the Trinity is a mystery.

It’s kind of funky. Like, with the U.S. Constitution, we don’t go back and revise the wording of the original document, we add, when necessary additional verbiage. No matter how many amendment we add, we can’t change the fact, for instance that the original wording counted a negro slave as two-fifths of a human being.

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CHURCH FAILING IN CZECH REPUBLIC

It’s not unusual to hear a church person lamenting the faithlessness of his would-be flock. But in this funny little CNA article Father Benno Benes SDB seems to lament the prosperity and freedom of the Czech people.

“In communist times, the people stuck together, because they could feel that the Church was under enormous pressure. But today, the freedom and the liberalisation of life are so strong, that the Church does not belong any more to the priorities of people’s life,” the Salesian father lamented. “Society is not interested in the Church.”

It does seem that Father longs for the bad old days. Like, if there are no atheists in foxholes, let’s have universal war and all souls will be saved.

It’s sort of like a horseshoe-er bemoaning the advent of the automobile.

It’s a career thing.

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GAY CATHOLIC KIDS, READ THIS:

Gay sex is NOT sinful. Prejudice against gay people IS sinful.

According to a recent N.Y. Times story, a Jesuit theologian has been condemned for these and other pro-sex views of Catholic doctrine.

The theologian, Daniel C. Maguire, teaches religious ethics at Marquette University, a Jesuit institution in Milwaukee. He is a 75-year-old former priest and a prolific writer, educated at the prestigious Gregorian University in Rome, who has been challenging Catholic teaching on sexuality for years.

One of the two pamphlets in question is available free on-line, A Catholic Defense of Same Sex Marriage, which includes, of course, a defense of same-sex sex.

The Catholic Church is beginning to rediscover what it once knew; that not all persons are heterosexual, that many people are homosexual and that this is just fine. In the past, the Church accepted homosexuality more openly and even had liturgies to celebrate same sex unions. There was a recognition that different sexual orientations are clearly part of God's plan for creation-some people are heterosexual and some are homosexual-this is the way God made us and we have no right to criticize God.

The basic issue is can there be multiple Catholic views. The bishops and the pope say that there is only one Catholic view—theirs. As a Hitler Youth, pope Ratzinger was taught that homosexuality was bad. Hitler sent gay people to concentration camps. Ratzinger’s position hasn’t changed, except Ratzinger sends gay people to hell.

Maguire argues that to condemn homosexuality is as silly, but more harmful, than condemning the eating of shellfish. He cites other theologians who agree that gay sex is ok.

The Catholic Church directly contributes to the suicides of gay youth every day by teaching that gay sex gets hell. Professor Maguire states what is obvious to us gay people, that anti-gay prejudice is a sin.

In addition to teaching, Maguire runs a group called The Religious Consultation-on population, reproductive health, and ethics. Their home page is here.

Jesuit Watch congratulates the Society of Jesus for its continued support of Professor Maguire’s academic freedom.

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YAHWEH PREFERS HAIRLESS BOYS

Entire religious movements have been triggered, or justified, by individual Bible-verses.

Thus, the story of Jacob and Esau could reassure pederast priests that their longing for males without body hair, is, well, God-like.

Maybe not too big a deal, except Jacob was renamed “Israel.”

Sooner or later genome mapping stuff will be able to tell us, in those days, were the Israelites less hairy than their neighbors?

Read a fun take on the founding of Israel, Bears: God Hates You, on sfwillie’s blog.

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FESSIO SHITCANNED AGAIN

From the semi-sophisticated University of San Francisco to a small hospital in Duarte, California, is a big step down, if only in air quality. Father Fessio S.J. was shitcanned by his Jesuit superior for peddling his fundamentalist, hegemonic form of Catholicism

Maybe Father Fessio felt a little underused in the 40-bed-hospital assignment. Like, obedience is one thing, but, sheesh! Who's ever heard of Duarte?

So he got himself a job at an intellectual sinkhole called Ave Maria University (wikilink) in America’s capital punishment capital, Florida. He was to be a big poohbah

There have been no reports of why Fessio was fired. Does he just rub people the wrong way. Is he a spy for Ratzinger? He couldn’t be one of those priests who “gets moved around.”

It’s a big country. There’s are places where a degree from Oral Roberts or from Liberty University might give some entrée to something. But, in the bigger world, what an embarrassment!

Like, does Scientology have a university yet!

Ave Maria U was founded, funded, and CEOd by the conservative Catholic* guy who made millions off of Domino’s Pizza. (You've tried his pizza, now try his dogma.)

Even Father Joe says he can no longer recommend Ave Maria U. His article here provides some good speculation. Apparently it was just academic politics, couched in churchly mumbojumbo.

I think it was Henry Kissinger, still unindicted, who said, “Academic politics is the most vicious, because there is so little at stake.”

* “Conservative Catholic” is like “primitive caveman.”

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FESSIO--UPDATE

This just in. Father Fessio who was fired yesterday and told to leave campus by sundown has negotiated a parachute even a secular academic would be proud of.

The below email was posted on AngelQueen blog. AngelQueen has more speculation about what went on. Some say Fessio and Healy didn’t get along. One of them had to go. So the pizza guy dropped the hammer on Fessio.

From: Nick Healy
Sent: Thu 3/22/2007 6:22 PM
To: Fla-Faculty; Fla-Staff;
FLA-Students
Subject: Father Fessio - update

We expressed yesterday that the separation of Father Fessio from the University's administration had nothing to do with our shared commitment to our mission as a Catholic university ex corde ecclesiae. As a sign of our esteem for his great gifts and abilities, we have asked Father Fessio and he has agreed to continue a relationship with us. This will include the following:

(i) He will be designated a theologian in residence and maintain a room on campus.

(ii) He will join us for the Commencement exercises.

(iii) He will teach the planned summer program for high school students.

(iv) He will explore a semester abroad program in Rome and how our Austrian semester abroad program might be continued. It is expected that in developing plans for study abroad programs Father Fessio will be spending a significant amount of time in Europe.

(v) It is anticipated that beginning in the spring semester, Father Fessio will assume teaching responsibilities at AMU, although the precise schedule for the teaching hours will need to be worked out.

We are pleased that we can confirm the continuing association with Father Fessio and his commitment to the ongoing development of Ave Maria University in a non-administrative capacity.

I’d say this is retrenchment from the earlier summary dismissal. The Keystone Kops should have known better than to mess with a smart Jesuit.

They totally messed with him, now they’re sending him on an all expense paid vacation in Europe, then they’re going to keep him around as a teacher.

Parents are spending good money, I assume, to send their kids to this place.

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NUDITY

Nudity was a big deal to the writers of Genesis. Embarrassment at their nakedness is the only immediate effect of Adam and Eve eating the apple.

Before they ate:

Gen 2:25
The man and his wife were both naked, yet they felt no shame.

After they ate the apple:

Gen 3:7
Then the eyes of both of them were opened, and they realized that they were naked; so they sewed fig leaves together and made loincloths for themselves.

Gen 3:9-10
The LORD God then called to the man and asked him, "Where are you?" He answered, "I heard you in the garden; but I was afraid, because I was naked, so I hid myself."

This is at the very beginning of Judeo-Christian tradition. The writers assumed that embarrassment regarding nakedness was universal, and that it somehow involved good and evil.

How does this apply to nudists? The instances in which I’ve enjoyed nudism are fondly remembered. There’s a physical and emotional sensation that I find pleasant. There’s nothing particularly sexual about it. Many will tell you a bikini is more sexually provocative than full nudity.

This old young man pictured above would have trouble relating to Genesis. The picture comes from the website of the Forest Hills [nudist] Club. Given the range of offerings on the web, a person with prurient intent wouldn't be going to their site.

There was sex weirdness from the start.

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A SOLEMN OATH

There’s lots and lots of minimizing by Germans who got through the Third Reich alive and without getting into trouble with the Nazis, and Ratzinger is no different.

Though denying any enthusiasm, Ratzinger was a member of the Hitler Youth, which means he must have taken this oath (from The History Place).

"In the presence of this blood banner which represents our Führer, I swear to devote all my energies and my strength to the saviour of our country, Adolf Hitler. I am willing and ready to give up my life for him, so help me God."

But what’s a guy to do? If Ratzinger had denounced Hitler and his works he would have suffered some negative consequences. There were lots of negative consequences in Hitler’s Germany, and Ratzinger was able to avoid all of them. Like, if he had professed his faith that Christ, not Hitler, is the saviour of Germany, he might have joined millions of others, nameless, in a mass concentration camp grave.

That just wouldn’t do for someone who wanted to become Pope.

Hitler's anti-Marxism survives in Ratzinger.

Maybe we truly are evolving per Teilhard: Ratzinger only censured Sobrino, Hitler would have killed him.

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MY FAVORITE HERETIC #1

On SFWILLIE’S BLOG I’ve posted a little essay, Pierre and I, about my agreement with Pierre Teilhard de Chardin on the basics of what is. This could be the first in a series covering My Favorite Heretics.

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HIT MAN FOR GOD

One guy is sprawled on his stomach, his face against rough downward sloping rock. Another guy is jumping on the sprawled-guy’s back with his right foot, and is about to thrust a spear into the back of the sprawled-guy’s neck.

Murder in progress? Crime scene?

No, this is Yahweh’s will being carried out.

It’s about good and evil. The guy flat on his face is evil. The guy about to thrust the spear is good.

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MOST U.S. CATHOLICS LIVING IN SIN

It’s a simple syllogism:

1) Per Baltimore Catechism #2, it’s a mortal sin to willfully miss Mass on Sunday.

390. Q. Is it a mortal sin not to hear Mass on a Sunday or a holyday of obligation?
A. It is a mortal sin not to hear Mass on a Sunday or a holyday of obligation, unless we are excused for a serious reason. They also commit a mortal sin who, having others under their charge, hinder them from hearing Mass, without a sufficient reason.

2) Only one-third of U.S. Catholics attend Mass weekly.

According to a CU prof, quoted in this USA Today article, only about 33% of U.S. Catholics go to church on a weekly basis.

The "most damaging change in Catholic life is the precipitous decline in Mass attendance. It's the sign of a church collapsing," says Catholic University sociologist William D'Antonio, co-author of statistical studies of American Catholics.

3) Therefore: Most U.S. Catholics are living in mortal sin and would be deserving of Hell if the world were to end right now.


Conclusion: The threat of eternal damnation ain’t what it used to be.

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THE ESTEEM OF OTHERS

Here are two rather off handed quotes on non-religious websites by visitors to Mexico.

This quote from a mountain biking website. The particular article is about biking in Baja California.

Here’s what the author has to say about the Jesuits.

Loreto nestles against the ocean beneath a western skyline of jagged desert peaks. It's a quiet town where dogs sleep in the shade and kids cruise the cobblestone streets in low-slung Chevys. Loreto's significance in Baja dates back to 1697 when Jesuit explorer Juan Salvatierra founded the Mission Nuestra Senora de Loreto and gathered the indigenous peoples to convert them to Catholicism...or else.

Over the years the Jesuits came and went along with other religious explorers, ravaging the native population under the guise of Christianity. Today, Loreto is a hub for outdoor enthusiasts who fly in from Los Angeles or drive the Trans Peninsular Highway 1 to fish, kayak, snorkel and mountain bike.

Or from another site belonging to folks just vacationing in Mexico

He's referring to a high-walled compound that clings to a steep street. The wall itself is old and multiply-patched and rubbled with talus -- unwedged stones and broken bricks -- at the base. We follow it around a corner to an entryway.Beneath its wide gate are wrought-iron letters that spell MUSEO DE LA INQUISICION -- Museum of the Inquisition.

Nick explains the Inquisition as the Catholic Church's office for orthodoxy, a small army of fervent priests who tortured "confessions" of heresy from Jews and intellectuals and native Indians, then meted out grisly punishments. The Inquisition was especially bad in the New World, where distance from Spain gave rise to terrible atrocities. He describes an unfathomable laundry list of horrors, including the immolation of entire Indian families at the stake. Meanwhile I'm thinking of the paradoxical Jesuit friars, who built the majestic University of Guanajuato -- and also the torture chamber for the local Inquisition.

Inside the mood is spooky and grim. We clack across wooden floors in near-darkness, moving from one display case to the next. Holding hands we stare down at backlit antiquities that are terrifying in their mundaneness. A parchment letter of execution in swooping script. Bibles fashioned into torture devices. The broom used to sweep up bone chips and blood. Neither of us says a word.

The showpiece display is a recreation of the actual torture chamber. We grasp the iron bars and peer into the dismal stone room, decorated with a torture rack and skeletons in rags and guttering electric candles. I try to imagine what kind of person would equate this depravity with God's work. A monster. A blind believer.

Are these just mistaken perceptions? Or is there a history that’s hard to live down?

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WORLD'S LEADING RELIGION

I first heard of Ambrose Bierce (wikilink) in sophomore English class at St Ignatius High. He is a major figure in San Francisco’s thin literary history.

His delightful Devil’s Dictionary is in the public domain. Bierce wasn’t a big fan of religion in any form, per the below entry.

MAMMON, n.
The god of the world's leading religion. The chief temple is in the holy city of New York.

He swore that all other religions were gammon,
And wore out his knees in the worship of Mammon.

Jared Oopf

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CELL PHONE INTERRUPTS CONFESSION

Margaret G writes to Catholic Answers – Ask an Apologist about an attempt to receive the sacrament of Penance from a particular priest.

Then in the middle of confession his cell phone rang, he picked it up to see who was calling and then put it back without turning it off. Because of this distraction he even forgot to give me my penance. I tracked him down to tell him that he forgot to give me my penance and he was adamant that he gave it to me and I must have forgotten it. What would you suggest I do about this?

She receives this answer from Michelle Arnold.

He may have had the cell phone with him in case of emergency. But, if you were uncertain whether the call had been disconnected and wanted to make sure that the confession was not being overheard, you could ask politely, "Father, is your caller still on the line?" and, if so, request that the call be disconnected.

You can mention in your next confession that you didn't receive a penance last time. Whatever penance the priest gives you at that confession will cover last time. Should a similar situation happen in the future where a priest insists that he gave you a penance and that you must have forgotten it, I recommend politely asking him to give you another penance.

We find this advice appalling. The idea that it’s ok for a priest to leave his cell phone on because of possible emergency messages is total bullshit. This same priest would definitely turn his cell phone off if he was performing a wedding, or a funeral, or attending a symphony.


OFFICIAL ADVICE FROM JESUIT WATCH

Dear Margaret G.

This priest is a bad man. His main job as a priest is to perform sacraments. He’s obviously not doing his job but he’s still taking his pay. This is a sin for him.

When you pointed out a mistake he made, he called you a liar. Don’t bother talking to this priest, he doesn’t care about you, or about doing his job, and he will continue to blame you rather than admit any fault of his own.

Here’s what we recommend.

Write an letter to this priest’s superior and describe this particular confession story, just as you did above. Be sure to name the priest.

Then, write that you will withhold your donations from the parish until the priest apologizes from the pulpit. Also, demand that the parish publish a firm policy that priests will turn off cell phones when hearing confessions.

If you get no response, send the same letter to the nearest bishop, with a cc to the local pastor.

This could bring results. You see, Margaret, the Church may or may not care about you, but it definitely likes your money.

The most disturbing part of this episode for Margaret must be the way the Catholic apologist defends the priest, and seems to condone cells phones in the confessional.

It’s not a religious issue, it’s a delivery-of-services issue. Margaret knows she’s getting cheated, no matter what Michelle Arnold says.

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CARPENTER, NOT ARCHITECT

We have mentioned that the role of the Church as interpreter of Divine Scripture is necessitated by the inarticulateness of God.

There are things that God wanted us to know, so he dictated the Bible. But for some reason, God wasn’t able to explain things in a way that humans could easily understand.

Omnipotent in every other way, God needs help from really smart humans, Catholic priests, to figure out what He was trying to say in the Bible.

Baltimore Catechism #2, Question 10.

Q. How shall we know the things which we are to believe?
A. We shall know the things which we are to believe from the Catholic Church, through which God speaks to us.

So, why is it that Catholic priests, headed by the Bishop of Rome, have the sole authority to interpret the Bible? Well, the Bible says so, at least according to the Pope.

Jesus supposedly said the peter/rock/church thing in Matthew 16. This is where Jesus said the bound-on-earth/bound-in-heaven thing. I’m sure Matthew just forgot to write down the except-for-Galileo part.

For its first three hundred years the Church was disorganized and disagreed on even the most basic question, Who was Jesus? Readers of Gore Vidal’s Julian, or of Wikipedia’s entry on “Arianism,” (not Aryanism), know that for the first three centuries there was violent disagreement about the trinity. Arianism asserted that God created Jesus.

If Jesus is truly God, he always existed, that is, he pre-existed Adam and Eve. Since Jesus’s role of redeemer wasn’t necessary until after the Fall, that means the Fall was predestined.

It’s a problem.

Things got so messy that the Roman Emperor had to step in and force an agreement. The question still isn’t settled, at least for Unitarians.

So God is unable to communicate clearly with us. And God isn’t very good at establishing a church. Even after two thousand years doctrinal and jurisdictional disputes within Christendom just won't go away.

When you throw in the blood shed in wars between his followers, Jesus, whatever He might have been, wasn’t much of a Messiah.

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POPE POOPS ON THE POOR

According to predictive reports, Jesuit liberation theologist Father Jon Sobrino will soon be silenced by Pope Ratzinger.

Liberation theology focuses on helping poor people and on eliminating systems of poverty. Ratzinger’s view is that strictly speaking the Church’s only obligation to the poor is one communion wafer per person per day—any more is optional, like charity.

Ratzinger’s opposition to liberation theology should not be controversial. It demonstrates simply that he understands the role of religion in society as noted by Napoleon:

Religion is what keeps the poor from murdering the rich.

The error is Father Sobrino’s. He has the fantasy that the Church can be made an instrument for progressive political change. History points in a different direction.

It’s difficult for a kid to admit that mommy isn’t a very nice person. Or that daddy was a Hitler Youth.

The Church cares ultimately about only one thing, itself.

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MY FAVORITE ORDER

[This post also appears on SFWILLIE'S BLOG.]

The last time San Francisco’s Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence were in the news was a controversial celebration on Easter Sunday. Local Catholic thick-necks took umbrage at the date and petitioned the Board of Supervisors to withhold a street-closing permit.

Gay people were determined to close the three blocks in question with or without a permit, but the Board caved to the gay people and there was no confrontation.

The Sisters, (men who like to dress up as Catholic nuns) grew out of the original genderfuck theater troupe, the Cockettes. Genderfuck, for males, means dressing in female clothing and hairdos and all, but also displaying male secondary sex characteristics—beards, moustaches, hairy shoulders.

NOTE: These days the Sisters have affiliated "houses" worldwide, and membership is open to many sex categories.

The Sisters is a fraternal organization. They run a lively (you can imagine) weekly bingo game, and otherways raise funds for neglected community needs. They are fun and self deprecating, and they actually promote religious values.

You can see on their website a very succinct mission statement,

Soon after the San Francisco Order was founded in 1979, the mission of the Sisters — to promulgate universal joy, expiate stigmatic guilt and serve the community — spread far and wide. Orders can be found across the United States and in several countries around the world.

The Sisters have never issued any dogma ex cathedra that this FOME can’t accept. I assume each of them claims infallibility.

This quote from the Wikipedia entry shows their sense of fun:

The Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence believe that many institutions and social constructs are a source of dogma, hypocrisy, guilt and shame. This has lead to encounters with the Catholic Church. One was when they staged an exorcism of the Pope on his visit to San Francisco in 1987.

This story illustrates why I like them so much.

It was maybe fifteen years ago, a small group of fundamentalist Christians decided to minister to San Francisco’s gay community by gathering at the main intersection of gay nightlife and handing out salacious anti-gay literature, chanting anti-gay slogans, and singing some sort of Jesus songs.

It was completely legal, and should have been ignored, but some of the many gay people passing by took umbrage with nasty verbal exchanges resulting. Same thing the next night.

It looked like there would eventually be trouble, so the Sisters of Perpetual Indulgence brought a bullhorn and a boom box, and led a gathering of gay people across the street. We had some talks, and played some music, and whenever the Christians would start a chant we’d drown them out with our own chant, “NO MORE GUILT!”

I believe they had “ushers” helping to guide people around the Christian group so they wouldn’t be waylaid.

The Christians quickly gave up.

There was real trouble brewing if the Christians went unchecked. The Sisters came up with a creative, non-violent response that Martin Luther King or Mahatma Gandhi would have been proud of.

Members pictured above, top to bottom, Sister Bea Attitude, Sister Harlette O'Scara, and Sister Tilly Comes Again.

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BOYS FOR DEACON JOE

Boys – The Beatles

The Jesuit values of excellence and leadership are important in worldly as well as spiritual endeavors. For instance, the effort put into a still life painting can be totally AMDG.

Joseph (Deacon Joe) Lundowski, assigned by the Jesuits to tend to the spiritual needs of a remote Alaskan village, was not a still life painter in his spare time, he was, allegedly, a child molester.

Now grown, they said that over a seven-year period, "Deacon Joe" molested nearly every boy in St. Michael and the neighboring settlement of Stebbins.

According to this LA Times story, Lundowski wasn’t a mediocre molester, he was excellent at it. It wasn’t just a boy here and a boy there, he pretty much got them all.

Way to go, Joe!

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DOES GOD HATE GAYS?

There’s a gathering in San Francisco this weekend for teen Evangelicals called BattleCry. (Chron story here.) It seems intended to energize teen Christian culture warriors. Planners predict over 20,000 attendees for rock concerts, rallys and other events.

There are Christian critics of BattleCry’s hostility. The Chron quotes one of them.

"You can tell people about God in more of a loving way than tell them there's no hope for them or that God hates them," said P.J. Cooper, 14, who skateboards, listens to punk rock and attends Regeneration, an evangelical church in Oakland, where he lives. "Last year with BattleCry, it seemed like a war. ... Christians are supposed to be loving and understanding and not so extreme and making things into wars."

Jesuit Watch salutes young Mr. Cooper on his excellent understanding of Christ’s message. [There’s a nice picture of P.J. included with the Chronicle story.]

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CALLING DR. MENGELE

Jesuit Father Gianfranco Ghirlanda says the Church needs to use the psychological sciences to help weed out homosexual candidates from the priesthood. What a moron! I’m sorry, what I meant to say is that Father Ghirlanda could possibly be mistaken. (CNS story here.)

When this guy Ghirlanda gets to the “individual judgment” and the sin of employment discrimination comes up, he’ll be pleading incompetence and stupidity.

The stupidity defense works well with Yahweh (we’re told). The problem is God doesn’t like to hear this defense from the Jesuits. They’re supposed to be smart. It’s like the Puerto Rican and the Jew.

Once I overheard two members of my softball team arguing. One was an older, crusty, Puerto Rican ex-junkie from Spanish Harlem, the other a fussbudget young Jewish kid from the suburbs. At one point Izzy got exasperated and said, “Scott, you’re the first dumb Jew I ever met.”

So Father Ghirlanda wants to use science-based health care professionals to assist the Church in discriminating against homosexuals in employment. No can do.

The underlying assumption is that vows are more likely to be broken by homosexuals than by heterosexuals. Can anyone spell lol?

Then Father Ghirlanda mentions transitory versus deep-seated homosexual tendencies. I’ve been gay all my life, I’ve been gay longer than the average person on earth has been alive, and I have never heard this distinction. It sounds like something dreamed up in a steamy seminary dormroom to justify “just one more time.”

I aver that all competent psychology professionals in the industrialized world agree:

1) Sexual orientation is involuntary and unmanipulable.

2) Sexual orientation is a predictor only of sex partner choice.

3) To impute any moral, or psychological, or functional deficiency to anyone based on their perceived sexual orientation is scientifically unjustifiable.

4) To discriminate against homosexuals in employment is a violation of human rights.

5) For a practitioner to assist in a process that identifies homosexuals so that they can be discriminated against is a gross violation of medical ethics.

So, Father Ghirlanda’s idea is a non-starter. Any psychologist who would assist such a program is either a crackpot or someone with dark personal motives. Either way, the outcome will be a botch.

The Church is going to get the same crappy candidates for the priesthood that they’ve always been getting until they allow females and married people to be priests.

For a young man to vow to never have sex for the rest of his life makes as much sense as the same young man vowing never to drink orange juice. Like, why?

The vow of celibacy itself selects for weirdos, as discussed in “Celibacy Math.”

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AN ABORTION PREVENTED

She was a nice young woman, we’ll call her Ms M. She had been in the wrong place at the wrong time and she got pregnant. She decided to have an abortion.

There are many heart-wrenching stories that lead up to women’s decisions abort their babies. Ms M’s was particularly innocent. Ms M wanted above all else to be a Catholic nun. She thought that having a baby would disqualify her.

Ms M had been raped. Otherwise she was and remained a virgin. She was an extremely unlucky girl.

Ms M had walked to the small clinic where the abortion was scheduled. As she approached the entrance, Ms M saw a blinding flash of light.

The abortion was prevented.

The date was August 9, 1945. The place was Nagasaki.

The losers in this story are Ms M. and the doctor who was going to help her. Because, at the last moment of their lives they were intent on murdering an unborn child, they both spend eternity in hell.

Of course the overall American effort in WWII was AMDG, and the atom-bombing of Hiroshima was AMDG.

The man who raped Ms M survived the war and later converted to Catholicism and the remainder of his life was exemplary.

The rapist would like to apologize to Ms M, but he can’t. Their paths will never cross. The rapist will spend eternity in heaven, Ms M in hell.

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A MARRIAGE "ACT"

We were taught that Mary, mother of Jesus, is, was, and always will be a virgin. When pressed, priests told us that, yes, to this day Mary’s hymen is intact.

This means that Mary and Joseph were never really married, that is, they never performed the marriage act.

The sacrament of matrimony is performed by the couple involved. Sexual intercourse, “the marriage act”, is itself the sacrament. According to this definition Joseph and Mary were never married.

So, the fake marriage of Joseph and Mary was a cover-up, it was a lie designed to hide the fact that Jesus was illegitimate.

During his lifetime, Jesus presented himself as the son of Joseph and Mary. Then, after he’s dead, we’re told that Jesus was the son of Mary and God. Of course, duplicity is part of the divine repertoire. Yahweh’s approval of Jacob’s swindle sets the standard.

This kind of fakery doesn’t seem too God-like to me. It smells kind of human.

Absurd dogma serves as a filter, sort of like an IQ test, for admission to the Catholic Church. It’s like the zen student being asked “What is the sound of one hand clapping?” Most of us respond with dismissal—“Stupid question.” But some (lower IQ) initiates will stop and stroke their little goatees and muse, “What IS the sound of one hand clapping?”

“The mother with the intact hymen,” serves the same purpose. It weeds out the skeptics so they won’t taint the pool of the more “promising” candidates. In this way the Church identifies the “lambs” to be fed, and fleeced.

Another amusing aspect to the story is the notion that St Joseph was chaste. Not only did he refrain from intercourse with his sham-wife, Mary, he never had a voluntary orgasm. I guess the only discharge of semen Joseph ever experienced was nocturnal emissions.

Was there ever a knowing look in Mary’s eye when at bedtime she wished her husband, “Sweet dreams”?

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HALL OF SHAME

Supreme Court Justice Clarence Thomas was educated by the Jesuits at Holy Cross 1968-71. (So much for the value of a Jesuit education!)

[Life is good these days for Clarence Thomas.]

According to this New Georgia Encyclopedia entry, Clarence was recruited to Holy Cross because he was black.

This unusual interview addresses this aleged affirmative action, against which Clarence maybe doth protest too much.

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Proposal: ZERO TOLERANCE

I’ve been dealing with a friend today who has chronic life problems stemming from childhood sexual abuse. The damage is not theoretical, it’s real.

His abuser (a non priest) had this in common with most priest sex criminals, he was able to avoid prosecution for his multiple felonies. It seems that Catholic priests tend to avoid jail by international flight, or by invoking a statute of limitations. A major scandal is how Catholic heirarchy have facilitated the international flight of accused priests.

The Catholic Church hierarchy to show it’s sincerity regarding the victims and its resolve to do everything to stop future abuse should insist its priests and religious submit to criminal prosecution, even in cases where a statute of limitations could be invoked.

The Pope should order all priests and religious to waive any and all statutes of limitation in criminal sex abuse cases. Any priest or religious who invokes a statute of limitation in such cases should be excommunicated, fired, and divested of any retirement benefits.

This would provide some discouragement for perv-vocations. Can the Church afford to weed out all the perv priests? Does it have the will?

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REV JACOBSON'S EXCUSE

According to a deposition cited in this Anchorage Daily News story, Rev James Jacobson, S.J. couldn’t pay for the support of his four children because he needed the money for prostitutes.

Now that the Reverend is retired, he can revisit the mid-370s of Baltimore Catechism #2.

373. Q. What is the seventh Commandment?
A. The seventh Commandment is: Thou shalt not steal.

374. Q. What are we commanded by the seventh Commandment?
A. By the seventh Commandment we are commanded to give to all men what belongs to them and to respect their property.

377. Q. Are we obliged to repair the damage we have unjustly caused?
A. We are bound to repair the damage we have unjustly caused.

As we’ve seen with five U.S. dioceses seeking the protection of civil bankruptcy to avoid such obligations, question 377 is a tough one for the Church.

San Diego diocese needs the money for its “mission and ministries.” Father Jacobson needed the money for prostitutes. From the victims’ point of view, it’s all the same thing.

It’s darkly humorous for us to see dogma twisted to fit self interest, but there’s plenty of pain for the people involved.

Overlooked in this kind of story, because of the sensational sex interest, is the utter failure of pastoral duty, not high falutin’ moral duty, but job-description type duty

Prostitution, for most women, is a necessity not a preference. Prostitution always has the overlay of economic exploitation. Prostitutes frequently have given up on life and suffer in hopelessness.

When a minister of the lord encounters a prostitute, his job is to offer assistance, not to ask, “How much?”

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"BELIEVE IN THINGS YOU CAN'T UNDERSTAND"

Superstition - Stevie Wonder

Below are three questions from the Baltimore Catechism #2.

10. Q. How shall we know the things which we are to believe?
A. We shall know the things which we are to believe from the Catholic Church, through which God speaks to us.

30. Q. Can we fully understand how the three Divine Persons are one and the same God?
A. We cannot fully understand how the three Divine Persons are one and the same God, because this is a mystery.

31. Q. What is a mystery?
A. A mystery is a truth which we cannot fully understand.

Question 10 would seem useful only to those who say, “I just don’t know what to believe!”

To which the Church says, “Believe you me.”

Questions 30 & 31 tell us we have to believe things we can’t understand—“Mysteries.”

Hint: The Catholic Church claims it’s authority comes from Jesus, as documented in the Bible’s New Testament. The Catholic Church wrote the New Testament.

This is nothing but an invitation to intellectual infantilism.

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Premise: A JESUIT DILEMMA

The story idea below is suggested by a post in Idle Speculation about an important Jesuit missionary to China. The suggestive paragraph:

Michael Alphonsus Shen Fu-Tsung was born of Chinese Christian parents and came to Europe at the instigation of Father Philip Couplet, Procurator of the China Jesuits in Rome. After leaving Macao in 1681 they traveled together in Italy, France and England. Shen Fu-Tsung left England in 1688 for Lisbon where he entered the Society of Jesus. He died near Mozambique on his way back to China in 1691.

Story Premise

A present day Jesuit priest whose specialty is comparative literature discovers a “lost” cache of poetry, written in the 17th Century, that rivals the very best French verse of that period. The publication of these poems would set French literary criticism on it’s ear, and earn our Jesuit Priest much secular validation.

Not to mention that they are extremely beautiful works of art.

One hitch, the poems are written by Father Philip Couplet, S.J., and they are love poems. They are written to the young Michael Alphonsus, the beautiful Chinese young man pictured above.

What should our young Jesuit priest do with his discovery?

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BIFFI: ANTICHRIST ALERT!

This guy who preaches to the Pope warned against dialog with other religions. At a retreat attended by the Pope and other Vatican bigshots, Cardinal Biffi cautioned that equal dialog with non Catholics is a temptation of the Antichrist. According to a Catholic News Service article:

He said there are "absolute values such as the good, the true and the beautiful. One who perceives them and loves them also loves Christ, even if he does not know it, because Christ is the truth, beauty and justice.

The Cardinal is certainly free to assert that Christ is truth, beauty, and justice. Just as I’m free to assert that I find God through gay sex.

[Sometimes the Antichrist affects an avuncular smile.]

Biffi has failed to grok the import of Baltimore Catechism #2 question 168. It clearly states that non-Catholics can get into heaven simply by loving whatever notion of God they might have, and generally trying to be good.

If this is true, then why hassle non-Catholics?

If Christians set aside their belief that salvation comes only through Christ, he said, they may find dialogue with others easier, but they will have denied their obligation to share the Gospel and will have placed themselves "on the side of the Antichrist."

Isn’t the notion of the Antichrist just a bit "quaint"? The only real currency the Antichrist has is among Goth kids who want to join his army.

Biffi seems to be an Antichrist expert. He was ridiculed in a year 2000 BBC story headlined CARDINAL: ANTICHRIST IS A VEGETARIAN.

JESUIT WATCH has issued its own alert: Kids, beware of Cardinal Biffi.

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CORPORATION TARGETS KIDS

Here’s the story from AP via Yahoo. Fischer Price got fined almost $1 million because they put profit ahead of child safety.

FP knew that their toy had a choking/aspiration problem and continued to sell the toy and failed to notify the Consumer Product Safety Commission (recall notice here).

It’s bad taste to cheat kids. The Koran is big on this, especially orphans. In Islam, if you mess with an orphan, Allah’s gonna mess with you big time.

During my one and only week in Philadelphia, there was a different public corruption scandal headlined every day. I think it was on Wednesday, the story was about some gangsters ripping off a school lunch program.

Gerber got caught substituting sugar water for fruit juice in their baby food.

Heck, our last (registered) Republican mayor in SF, a guy named Christopher, owned the dairy that supplied milk to the public schools. It was discovered that he was delivering mislabeled and inferior product for the kids to drink.

It’s just really shitty to prey on kids like that.

This is one of my gripes against the Catholic Church, that they try to enslave innocent young minds by threatening them with eternal damnation.

Kids are told that through Baptism they have entered into a lifetime contract with God, and with his earthly representative, the Pope. The contract requires them to obey and financially support the Pope. In return, the Pope supplies salvation.

That's a spes for res trade that puts Wimpy (I'll gladly pay you Tuesday for a hamburger today) to shame.

It’s for the unwitting kid to figure out that the threat of hell is as false as the promise of heaven.

In our enlightened society, a person is not deemed eligible to enter into a contract until the age of eighteen. The Church likes to get to them a little younger than that.

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BALTIMORE CATECHISM

[Note: This post also appears on SFWILLIE'S BLOG.]

Catholic parochial school kids of my generation all learned their religion from the Baltimore Catechism. This book presents, in question and answer format, the basic beliefs and practices of Roman Catholics.

Here’s an excerpt:

LESSON FIRST
ON THE END OF MAN

1. Q. Who made the world?
A. God made the world.

2. Q. Who is God?
A. God is the Creator of heaven and earth, and of all things.

3. Q. What is man?
A. Man is acreature composed of body and soul, and made to the image and likeness of God.

4. Q. Is this likeness in the body or in the soul?
A. This likeness is chiefly in the soul.

It is a comprehensive, if not necessarily in-depth, reference to what Catholics believe, and what Catholics are supposed to do.

Wikipedia has a brief explanation plus links to the complete texts of all four versions. In this blog I use Baltimore Catechism #2.

The nuns made us memorize the damn thing, word for word, for instance, “Tonight’s homework is to memorize Catechism questions 145 through 148.”

So, when you see the Baltimore Catechism quoted in this blog, it represents actual Catholic teachings and beliefs.

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