Reply #26: As deeply loyal Catholic

[PATRICK]

I find it hard to be hard on those dismayed and reacting accordingly to the worst, most untimely choice of Pope since...well I think you have to go back to the Renaissance.

I think to myself, the epithets and quick reactions to the Hitler Youth thing are obscuring far far more serious matters now coming into better focus. Like Hoover, this guy helped crush the REALLY far out RW traditionalists for whom Vatican II was complete heresy. Like Bush, this pope believes redefining things to do the same is the real way to go. His belief in his use of words is what is really absolute, but relatively speaking, he is much too sure in the claims he is making in the very use of words, sometimes devoid of spirit and charity. A bad sign to the spiritually discerning. Old prejudices now seem to contain validity but those hate propaganda bones of the past are corrupting the process of getting at the truth. The fruit of the tree seems to be division and enmity and not because the new pope is pitting Christian charity against the world's evils. Nearly the reverse.

I have often posted that the long time the previous pope had in appointing cardinals and bishops had been not very healthy to say the least. They were more worried(like our Dems) in reaching out to the hard, bitter right, even the fringe loonies, than the completely loyal and generally compassionate left. His experience with Communism pushed the ideological envelope the wrong way and away from dealing with power people as power people. He suffered longer under Communism in Poland than under the fascists. Like all people wielding too much power and influence they simply cannot get around criticizing their own judgment.

Right off the bat the new Pope who has been preparing for decades is blossoming into an authoritarian who will divide the Church and test the teaching power of the Church to the limit. Curious forays into bedroom morality will be nothing compared to a blind RW absolutism in its effect on making people just chuck the bloviated Vatican I doctrine of infallibility into the wastebasket to keep their own sanity.

Our suspicions here are not only on target but bear as close watching as any of the other sad list list of right wing TRex's afflicting our soon to be decimated masses. I caught myself trying to list the guy's good points and possible pluses, what he might do honestly or for the good and I thought- why? I have been down this road my whole life and studied a lot of abysmal history. All my instincts tell me this is bad news, a sad commentary on the poor leadership of the Church(which has been warring with a wasteful control fight for many decades), and another example how the bunker mentality has been inverted, all decent people ducking in the open air while the power elite in closed rooms gleefully, arrogantly, destructively, push buttons.

Thanks to the fantasy of top heavy power mystique that never was justifiable or healthy in politics or religion, the wolves have moved in all over as a new Century of Crisis begins, a largely self-inflicted and constantly aggravated crisis that makes all who support this exploitation of power responsible for the increasing amounts of suffering to come.

And they are worried about ideology or abortion. The day might well come when a brutalized humanity will spit on this generation for such small scale hypocritical concerns. Humanity itself is in danger of abortion and its institutions have been deeply betrayed. The sign is that we will not survive delegating responsibility or trusting in fantasies. Those avenues have been cut off and taken. Time to grow up or face the consequences.

Peter never had to campaign or fix his selection. His opposition and his mistakes are noted in Scripture so anyone trying to wield greater authority had better mind their humility quotient. Anti-popes, anti-presidents and the like always seem to point the finger at others to accuse them of illegitimacy. A bad sign indeed. As with democracy, the work of the spirit must move elsewhere through the masses as it must. This is the real necessity of our times but it a labor under the shame of being so easily misled and betrayed by institutions granted more than their rightful respect and power.

It is better to get our steam out in the open and move quickly on to more important matters. And not gratify the enemies of mankind and God with bickering, and divisions and other results of the broken mirror.

It might do some good to examine our prejudices, those quick judgments and traditional epithets and get a little more real.

I think no one yet has felt how disastrous this event threatens to be more than Catholics who know the inside of their Church. A little sympathy please. Despite all the progress in collegiality not even our bishops get a say much less a ballot.