Mea Culpa - Enigma - Othodox Version

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Cistercian Brothel/Hotel in Rome shut down

Pope ousts 'loose living' monks of Rome's Santa Croce monastery

… a renowned monastery in Rome where monks staged concerts featuring a lap-dancer-turned-nun and opened a hotel with a 24-hour limousine service has been shut down by the pope.

As part of Benedict XVI's crackdown on "loose living" within the Catholic church, 20 or so Cistercian monks are now being evicted from the monastery at the basilica of Santa Croce in Gerusalemme, …

"An inquiry found evidence of liturgical and financial irregularities as well as lifestyles that were probably not in keeping with that of a monk," said Father Ciro Benedettini, a Vatican spokesman. "The church remains open but the monks are awaiting transfer."

Reports saying the monks amassed large debts have also emerged, but Benedettini declined to give further details of the Vatican report, which was signed off in March.

The monks' days have been numbered since 2009, when the Vatican sacked their flamboyant abbot, Father Simone Fioraso, a former fashion designer who built up a cult following among Rome's fashionable aristocratic crowd as well as show business worshippers such as Madonna, who prayed at the church in 2008.

…In 2009 Anna Nobili, a nightclub dancer who became a nun, was invited to perform her "holy dance" before an audience including archbishop Gianfranco Ravasi, head of the Vatican's cultural department. For her performance Nobili, who says she uses dance as a form of prayer, lies spread-eagled in front of the altar clutching a crucifix or twists and turns as in pole-dancing routines…

You cannot make this kind of shit up!

Madonna praying in the presence of all of St. Helena’s Rodeo Drive style boutique relics ( quite chic and fashionably nice ). ??????????????

They use every other word in the dictionary other than brothel, the MSM does, in their kid glove treatment of cleric abuse, right under the nose of Joe the Pope, aka the local bishop.

( BTW the monks take master card, visa and american express for your anonymous stay in holy luxury and a relic in every bedroom for your kinky pleasure! ) ( do IT just the the Borgias did IT! – Tee hee hee )

Hotel, Limousine 24/7, Lap Dances by a Nun – Holy Chris!t! – Luther, as metaphor, has come back to life to witness the debauchery of the Church of Rome all over again five centuries later.

These truly are the end times of the RC church as we have known it.

And then again maybe this is being all blown out of proportion.

A simple bed and breakfast at an old monastery to earn a few shekels, with a taxi service available to tourists? Yeah right!

“Jesus, Mary and Joseph!” as one of my many sainted Aunt Marys used to say.

You can’t really, really make this kind of shit up!

HMOG! (sic). ETC.

Itinerate Lay RC Preacher Michael Voris

I guess when local newscaster types, past their prime, need to find a niche market to sell MSM stuff; why not try to sell the old religion and chotsky stuff.

I ran into this right wing traditionalist speaker on You Tube. I tried to find a full bio on him which is hard even with the Internet. This is one of the least offensive You Tubes I found. Full of Pride and the Old Traditionalist Catholic spirit that I have not seen in generations.

The only saving grace in his YT video chotskies are the limited number of hits this crap gets.

I have not heard so much medieval clap trap since my youth in the RC church. The church militant can be quite offensive. No?

Apparently there is a traditionalist Catholic out there who also questions the credentials of such a glibbed tongue itinerate media prophet. From his blog:

Staten Island Catholic

I have no reason to distrust him, but I'm finding it increasingly odd that I have not been able to find one single piece of independent information about this man on the internet, except for what he himself has revealed. And all of the various websites that rave about him are simply repeating the facts he's provided in his own biography and interviews. I have no solid reason to be suspicious, but I'd like to know a bit more about the man before I'm comfortable seeing him elevated to the position of orthodox Catholicism's public face in America. Where was he born? Who are his parents? Where did he go to school? Why did he leave seminary? Is he now or was he ever married? Does he have children? Are there any skeletons in his closet that could potentially embarrass the Church and the faithful should they be revealed?...

It was kind of odd to see a layman up there preaching the Gospel from the altar, with a priest sitting meekly in the first row. It made me sad that the clergy has so abdicated their responsibility to preach the Gospel with the power of the Spirit that we need a layman to get up there and give us spiritual meat. I for one have never in my entire life heard a priest speak with such passion and inspiration. I'm sure it was a novel experience for most of the people there as well. Still, I couldn't help feeling ashamed for the Church that a layman from Michigan had to come all the way to Staten Island, NY so we could be inspired with the Gospel message. This parish has multiple priests in residence. Why aren't they giving lectures and inspirational sermons on Friday nights? Why aren't they evangelizing? Why aren't they tending to the spiritual needs of the flock? Why did they need to bring in Michael Voris? (no offense to him).

More thoughts on this later on.

Book of Revelation, the Anti-Gospel

Comedienne Harold Camping of recent cancelled Rapture fame is being called a false prophet by many other fundamentalist preachers. Of course their condemnation does not have the same amount of venom they spewed toward Rob Bell. Their condemnation has more of hidden admiration. Something like “Hot damn! Why didn’t I think of that one first?" Or “Hell I could have pocketed part of the 100 million same as dear old Harold supposedly spent on the PR campaign and retired.” Etc.

Indeed, the lack of prosecution for fraud on dear old Harold is evidence of the timidity that now shows when up against the new reality of the powerful and moneyed lunatic classes of church and Wall Street. Money makes right. It is the new secular might. Whatever.

Let me go back to my favorite theme and that is that the Book of Revelation does not belong in the NT; that it is a Greek play styled narrative to promote the new Christianity thing. As such, with its awful injectures (yes, it’s a new word - urban) to die a horrible death here and in the hereafter if you do not join the Christian thingy. Sounds more like a Roman Army recruitment spiel “Join the army mate or get crucified.” (no joke).

As such, and amidst the absolute chaos and tailspin of these last days of Christianity, and perhaps civilization as well, let me once again label this poor piece of doped up writing that Harold Camping is getting his jollies with at age 89.

The Book of Revelation is not so much the anti-Christ as it is the Anti-Gospel.

If you start off with Love your Neighbor in Matthew, Mark, Luke and end up with Damn you Infidels and the violent End of the World shit for your neighbors, then it is reasonable to assume that this ending chapter of the user manual for the Christian church says a great deal about the insanity of the species when it comes to the category of religion.





Secret Solis Dei Cult – the Vatican

Nothing in Catholic church architecture to left to chance. Everything has a place and a reason for its placement in RC churches (and with a meaning, overt or otherwise). What is out in the open under the umbrella term of Sacred Tradition might surprise some.

Something occurs to me looking at both the floor plans of the old St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome with the Disneyesque RC mandated Baroque fun house – the new St. Peter’s Basilica. After the Reformation, Roman Catholicism got turned into smoke and mirrors. Got turned into PR rhetoric propaganda and not substance.

Few realize that St. Peter’s is not a Cathedral or chair or a bishop as in the bishop of Rome. The bishop of Rome’s seat is in the cathedral of St. John Lateran, a building, or its foundations, that is as old as Constantine’s religion itself.

And Constantine, was perhaps one of the first or earliest of many Universalists of history, following Akhenaten, Amranmosis (mosis – son of - Amran or just plain Moses), Saul of Tarsus and maybe even Jesus of Nazareth as well.

What caught my eye was the Chair of Peter thingy in both the old and the new St. Peter’s. Not much historical detail or paintings of the old St. Peter’s. But the new St. Peter’s has the smoke and mirror stained glass window of a dove surrounded by a sunburst above this mythical chair of Peter. Why all this emphasis on the power of Peter? He is not even buried there. He was buried in Jerusalem and never traveled outside of Palestine in his entire life?

The problem with a Universalist agenda then was that you had to tie all the strings together, just like string theory theology these days in the new secular religion of science.

Well back to placement of Significant Statues surrounding the main altar at the new St. Peter’s where there are two rather curious statues out of four.

One of course is of St. Helena, Constantine’s mom. It was mom’s lap pet religion of Christianity that caught his eye in terms of consolidating and merging all religions in the Roman Empire into one. It was mom who did the big Asian tour to Palestine and decided on which antiques from Rodeo Drive type antique shops she visited that became the official relics of her pet religion, now trading up under sonny’s growing patronage.

It was the bones, partial skeleton, which St. Helena signed off on, on Vatican Hill that became the present bones of “St. Peter” under the high altar at St. Peter's Baroque theme park/church.

But the one Statue, the first one at the right, facing forward towards the Chair of Peter Bronze sculpture below the sunburst stained glass window is St. Longinus. St. Longinus - all fifteen odd feet of him in height and gazing into the oculus.

St. Longinus is one of those verbal tradition things that you have to blindly believe in as a RC. Longinus is the so-called Roman soldier who pierced the side of Jesus on the cross.

No name mentioned of him in the NT but it is a tradition thingy.

If I were to analyze a myth, I would have to say that the statue of whomever (St. Longinus) carrying a long lance (and or of a ray of light) in his right hand gesturing in the direction of the chair of Peter below the Oculus stained glass window (the sun god), that statue is also guarding the stairway down into the grotto where ancient Romans like Constantine worshipped his sun god, Roman army cult god Mithra, born December 25.

More on this centuries old, sacred, secret global Solis Dei cult later on.

Whatever.

The old and new Pantheons in Rome

I love architecture. Everybody knows about the Pantheon in Rome. It is almost two thousand years old and it is virtually intact.

It is the only intact ancient Roman, still functioning, original building in existence.

The Pantheon and the name imply was a home or a temple to all the gods of Rome.

It of course got turned into a church somewhere along the way. The pagan idols got scraped away and replaced with Christian idols of the saints etc. It also got an interior face lift during the Renaissance with a lot of marble and design and whatever.

The most important feature of the Pantheon is the Oculus, the eye open to the sky in the center of a vaulted circular concrete ceiling/roof.

Hadrian designed the Pantheon to be a solar calendar. Indeed the sun, through the oculus, goes through the front door on the June 21st Solstice.

The only thing that saved this pagan temple from destruction was its construction, very hard to destroy, and its being dedicated to the catholic earth goddess Mary in 609 by bishop/pope whomever.

What I find interesting is that when it got its Renaissance makeover was that Rome’s Pantheon moved across the Tiber River to the new Saint Peter’s being built.

Of course you are going to say that Saint Peter’s is filled with statue after statue of Christian saints and not pagan idols.

If a second century Roman got swept up into a UFO and was frozen and came back to today, deposited back onto the streets of Rome in his toga and he saw the present church of Mary and the Martyrs, he might wonder what had happened to the gods.

If our ancient visitor might by chance catch a glimpse of the one of the tallest structures in Rome today, if he walked there into present day St. Peter’s he would cry and realize that they moved the Pantheon across the river to Vatican Hill.

Whatever.

Francis Spellman - Patron Saint of Closeted Clergy

Looking at the agony of some closeted clergy who can’t leave their job and or vocation, they have no job skills. And quite frankly they have never touched a child or adolescent in the rounds of their duties.

Looking at the heartbreak of young men who cannot lie to themselves about their natural sexuality, who cannot pretend that they are not homosexual in their life outlook or deny their birthright. They do not want to be clergy living a lie. That is one reason the clergy is dying. For centuries it has always been the "odd" son that got foisted off the family meal ticket and into Holy Orders.

Looking for an image to match the hypocrisy of the self serving American Bishops, trying for close to a decade now, to keep throwing shit against the wall in hopes that it will stick and find a sufficient scapegoat, to blame the clergy child sex abuse scandal on, nothing sticks except the truth.

Mismanagement and not caring about humanity has marked the American Catholic Hierarchy for decades.

The magisterium of the RC church has always been trickle down from the top. Arch-conservatives such as Francis Cardinal Spellman set the tone of things to come, failure, in the American Catholic church when he said “Change will not get past the Statue of Liberty” at Vatican II to his cronies.

When the John Jay College/USCCB whitewash talks about priests not properly trained in the 1940s and 1950s and not being able to function, they only scratch the surface of ten more needed studies on human sexuality and the repressed state of it in the RC church.

“Researchers at John Jay College of Criminal Justice said most of the abusive priests were ordained in the 1940s and 50s and were not properly trained to confront the social upheavals of the 1960s.”

Interesting point. But who was in charge of the American Catholic Church in the 40s, 50s and 60s or set the tone for the whole nation. None other than Francis Cardinal Spellman of New York, first among equals among American Catholic clergy and very clever and very ambitious to push that church’s foreign born agenda.

“Franny” was the success role model of every Irish Catholic boy in the Seminary who wanted to be rich, respected and powerful. And yeah there was that ritual and Jesus thing too. But the real power was in raising money from rich friends to build schools, hospitals, universities and churches too.

The baby boom of post WWII meant that you had to crank up the seminary machine and spit hundreds and thousands of new priests out on an annual basis to maintain all that new church property, schools, hospitals, universities and churches too.

On that point, the John Jay College report may be right. But then again what the Vatican is presently embracing with pandering to the right wing SSPX party in the church is probably a mistake and an unintended cup of hemlock.

Grinding out priests out of makeshift seminaries in South America, Africa and Asia is setting the stage for the final refuge of the RC church and also the final death throes of that church using the Spellman model of church business success to sell the product. It is a defective dysfunctional model of that product, because child abuse among untrained and sexually repressed, closeted, celibate clergy will produce the same results in the rest of world that it has done here in America in the past half century.

I remember attending the Army Navy Game in 1967 with my father in Philly. The loud speaker made the announcement that Francis Cardinal Spellman, Vicar General of the Armed Forces, had died. The crowd was momentarily silent and then went back to its business.

I asked my father who Cardinal Spellman was. He gave me that “don’t ask” non verbal Irish look. It was also the look you might get when asking about uncle Fred who you never met. It was that don’t ask about your crazy queer uncle in the attic look. I shut up.

Indeed, Cardinal Spellman’s taste for chorus boys was no secret amongst Irish Catholics it would seem. The MSM complied with the conspiracy to keep quiet as well on the subject of the biggest queen in America, red dress and all, living in the Bishop’s Palace at 50th St. and Madison Avenue in New York City on the grounds of St. Patrick’s Cathedral.

Perhaps the present political culture wars started in the thirties when people like Joseph P. Kennedy, Eugenio Pacelli (Pius XII) and Franny Spellman sat down to dinner in Boston to plot the silence of radio populist Father Charles Coughlin and plot other political strategy for the 1936 re-election of FDR. But this is not really a history lesson, is it?

An aside, I don’t think that J. Edgar Hoover was as big a queen as Francis, as some say. J. might have been a closeted gay and maybe even asexual. I don’t think that he wore dresses. I think those stories about J. Edgar are exaggerated and revenge after that blackmailing bureaucratic snake went to his eternal reward and have been perpetuated by his many, many, many enemies.

Indeed, the dysfunction of recent American culture seems to stem from the McCarthy era. Everybody knows that Joe McCarthy was a tortured repressed closet gay and only married to have a beard wife. Another crony of Joe Kennedy, former gangster and bootlegger, and father of a future Catholic (first and only, thank God) U.S. President.

The overtone of the present culture war is not so much about gay or suppressed gay sexuality as it is about suppressed sexuality among Christians who have a mindset that all sex is dirty. It is an immature view that the rest of the world is not aware of from a distance. But if the American Empire falls tomorrow and people, future historians, ask why. One primary reason was that honest discourse in the public arena had to always talk around the elephant in the room, and that is the Christian distorted view of human sexuality. Laws against women, laws against gays, they are all laws against God’s gift to humanity – sexuality.

In a sense there was one great conspiracy among the RCs or the Irish Catholics in general to get a RC and or Irish Catholic into the White House. And if that meant covering up everybody’s personal flaws - of McCarthy, Kennedy, Spellman, well it worked. Don’t ask, don’t tell worked quite well for centuries among the rich and the elites of governments and church hierarchies.

There is an incredible amount of silence and lack of published documentation about Franny Spellman’s open secret sexuality. Even the New York Times kept silent. Now that was power to be feared for the NYT to be silenced back then when that paper still had a backbone.

So when the present hierarchy of the American Catholic Church want to blame child abuse on the 40s, 50s and 60s, let’s also have an open discussion about celibacy and closeted clergy and the patron saint of closeted “celibate” clergy, let’s start talking about Saint Franny, our gay uncle in America’s history attic. The truth could set you free.





Saint Francis Xavier NYC - Gay Pride

june 2010

“Fools rush in where angels fear to tread.” That’s me a fool. And a fool too sometimes for the sack of a metaphoric Christ – anointed and or mark of a theoretical perfect evolutionary spirit or being. Anyway, the quote is a cliché and I don’t even want to waste the time looking up the source/author of the original quote.

I may be butting my nose in here but here I love to comment on things that touch my inner spirit or energy.

I ran into this story and it is old. I write it in thought to make a comment of people reacting in face of possible institutional hate or reacting gracefully in the face of moral or spiritual adversity.

It is not at all as serious as that but here is the link below. I guess I am back on my defense of Gays thing in response to what I see as unreasonable misunderstanding, anger and hatred against homosexuals and or their alternate life style (another cliché?). In any case it might be my retracing the steps of my life and or inherited and held onto homophobia over the years. Time to clean up some karma for this or any possible future life? Etc.

A couple of things connected for me with this article related to the New York city Gay Pride Parade last June 2010.

New York church maintains Gay Pride presence, but with blank banner
 
Apparently there is something of a somewhat independent parish, a Jesuit property on the edge of Greenwich Village. I have passed St Francis Xavier Church hundreds of times over the decades either on foot or viewed from the window of the old “6” bus going north up Sixth Avenue. Never been inside. A lot of steps, way high up from the sidewalk as I recall.

There is or at least was a Gay Outreach ministry at Xavier’s last year. The spies, the catholic purists, more catholic than the pope, more holy than Jesus, got hold of some video of Archbishop Dolan rededicating the altar there and the video showed at least that verbal credit was given to various ministries including the gay ministry. Dolan did not say anything. His body gestures, since he did not storm out of the church, have been interpreted as some sort of sacrilege or break in church canon law, not withstanding that Gays can and do conform to Catholic teaching and receive sacraments etc.

The purists, the fanatics turned some CNN interviews with some gay and lesbian members of the parish into proof that the RC church, this particular parish was in sin for being too “gay friendly”. One thing led to another and the “Cheesehead” archbishop known for sacrilege during mass – i.e. the Cheesehead scandal when he briefly donned a cheesehead hat for a few seconds of a homily in 2002 on a critical Packers game day, Sunday – had to do his bureaucratic duty regarding this Xavier matter. (And it is the purists and not me critical of Dolan for a stage prop on his head, but the pure Catholic blogosphere that has not forgiven him to this day – for being human.)

It had been pointed out to the archbishop from letters delivered by Vatican carrier pigeons (real modern communications stuff) of distress among the purists here in the colonies and the archbishop had to act to cover his ass.

The gay ministry had been marching for several years in the Gay Pride parade behind a banner announcing the Gay outreach program at St. Francis Xavier’s and handing out leaflets, not condoms, along the parade route per my research.

The archbishop had to act very quickly because of a time factor and forbade the St. Francis Xavier’s banner from being used in the parade and from being used by the fanatics with video cameras trying to turn a mole hill into a mountain of misery. The church could not be seen to endorse the Gay Pride parade in any way shape or form.

The gay community at St, Francis Xavier’s had to comply or lose their peripheral outreach ministry at the church.

The gay marchers chose instead to march under a blank banner. This is really all a tempest in a teapot kind of thing. I find it outrageous that people wanting spiritual comfort in the belief system of their youth have to be beaten down for the sake of mean spirited rule book carrying catholics. It reminds me of SMX – St. Mary’s in Exile in Brisbane Australia where a statue of Buddha on the property and use of modern language to describe Constantine’s Trinity invention were the basis of throwing a whole parish out into the street there.

Why are some catholics so unchristian, inhumane and nasty? Why would they rather see people thrown into the street instead of embracing them with love, the kind of love that the radical Jesus in his day preached?

Whatever.

Have a nice day.

june 2007

New word for Gay – Takei (Tah-kay)

This is so cool!

Cool in terms of my definition of Cultural Christianity - turn the other cheek and all that (at least once in the face of adversity).

In response to HATE Legislation pending in the Tennessee state legislature forbidding public school teachers from discussing homosexuality –

in other words, the use of the word Gay BANNED! in the classroom –

Actor George Takei, “Sulu” from Star Trek days, has volunteered for his name to be used as a substitute for the word gay to offset this Fairytale Christian backed legislation in Tennessee.

Of course this may just be a publicity stunt by an out of work actor but hey, it is a creative construct against Institutional Hate.

The Tennessee Legislature’s Camfield/Dunn Gay Hate Bill cannot be passed until 2012, must be held in committee, in order to cloud the election then with the hate agenda thingy. People are motivated not to come and vote for issues of the common good? They are more likely to turn out to vote on discrimination and hate legislation?

Why not pass the law now? Why waste good hate legislation on 2012. You can come up with some other form of Christian tough love towards the men and or women, humanity that you single out to hate. Pass it now. Let’s test it in the courts.

Instead of getting government out of your face as these social conservatives claim they want, these dudes want to put government in your underwear. Perverts.




In other words – It’s okay to be Takei (Tah-kay)!

(for some people at least)

My retired friend Jesus (Hay-soos) in Vegas thinks it is a sure bet for love and tolerance to offset the hate(rs).

Have a nice day.

Fairytale Christianity vs. Fairytale Atheism

Fundamentalism is a mental disease at present trying to exterminate imagination and creativity out of the collective mind of the human race.

One thought, one truth, frozen, stagnating in time, is one book or many is all that can ever illuminate the world. My book, my knowledge is all that is needed to hold time and the universe back from any further investigation or thought.

Two old fools seem to represent the quagmire of the new Fairytale spectrum of belief systems on this third rock from the sun.

Fairytale Christian Fundamentalist Harold Camping with his billion dollar god business, after a lifetime of reading the funny book can’t even determine a train schedule from Heaven for his Roman pagan god Jesus. Are you stupid or something dude? Typical greedy carnie media preacher!

Jesus of Nazareth in Matthew, Mark and Luke is totally different from the Roman god Jesus in Revelation, a Hitchhiker's Guide to the Galaxy type text.  Was John of Patmos a wizard and or science fiction writer (snort, snort)?

Fairytale Atheist Cosmologist Stephen Hawking, after a lifetime of study of the infiniteness of the cosmos, is determined to state that there is nothing passed this life.

Both are fools. Both are fucktards. Both should be banned from decent company or social intercourse by the media.

Both are addicted to what is written in books by other people or those they have authored themselves.

Facts are only facts if they are written down by religious lunatics or by the new age wizards and or alchemists known as scientists. Both have absolutely no imagination. Both make idols out of one book or many books.

Both are morons IMHO.

So, if you are fundamentalist the world must end yesterday. God’s big six day experiment has to be erased. The experiment was a failure. Time to abort the experiment. Abortion is this one instance is a virtue instead of a vice?

So, if you are the smartest man in the world, the cosmos just happened by accident and the one ten billionth of a fraction of possible knowledge of the universe in books is all that science at this present time can fathom. But it is enough to say that there are no other possibilities or that time, space and or a creator have any other plans than those formulated by one Oxford Cambridge man.

Bullshit! Stephen Hawking you asshole!

The old high priests, the religionists are no different from the new wizards of the age, the scientists.

Jesus rides dinosaurs and Heaven has been foreclosed on (written off by a slide rule) .

Live with it!

The middle ages have officially returned.

Ignorance, on both sides of the human spectrum, rules the world!

Enjoy.

New Roman Missal Discounts Jesus’ Mission

Criticism of the new white bread Roman Missal is starting to make the rounds of the Christian blogosphere.

New Roman Missal: Archaic, elitist, obscure, awkward and sexist

...However, the Association of Catholic Priests (ACP) in Ireland has objected to the translation and called for the new edition to be postponed for five years for more consultation.

The ACP argues that a word-for-word translation “demonstrates a lack of awareness of the insights gained from linguistics and anthropology during the past 100 years.”

A statement from the association said, “The ACP is gravely concerned that this literal translation from Latin has produced texts that are archaic, elitist and obscure and not in keeping with the natural rhythm, cadence and syntax of the English language.”

Further, it said the new text was unfair to females.

“We fear that the continued use of sexist language with its use of man, men and brothers as generic terms will alienate some women and men,” it said.

The association also raised the issue of theological accuracy in the new missal in which the Eucharistic prayers state that Jesus Christ died “for many” rather than “for all.”

“A central teaching of the Christian Churches is that Jesus died for all people. This meaning is conveyed in the current translation of the Latin words of consecration over the chalice, pro vobis et pro multis. The phrase is translated for you and for all in the current missal. The new text opts for the more literal translation, for you and for many. In English, the word ‘many’ contrasts with the word ‘few,’ so people may be led to ask, are there some for whom Jesus did not die?” added the statement.

Some Australian priests have called for a boycott of the new translation. However Fr Peter Williams, executive secretary Australian Catholic Bishops Conference Liturgy Commission said to boycott the translation was “opening the doors to liturgical anarchy.”...

So Jesus only died for “many” and not “all”. Died only for guys and not the chicks? Only Europeans? Defintely not the Protestants or Cultural Christians. Etc.

That’s leaves ninety percent of humanity left out of the Roman god Jesus’ magic earth mission. Oh well. More Fairytale Christianity I fear? Maybe Jesus’ half brothers of Hercules and Apollo finished their missions with better sales numbers.

They, the Romans, wrote the real Jesus out of that religion a long time ago in the fourth century C.E..

And they look down at us Cafeteria Christians! At least we know what is the good stuff being served through Jesus’ name and teachings. Universal Love for All Humanity! Not just for the some or the “many”.

Whatever.

Problem with looking for a better translation from a dead language like Latin to a living language such as English is, in the final result, to leave a Deadening Down effect/meaning and put it in conflict with that living, breathing, evolving tongue of the People of God.


Rapture Cancelled – by This Cultural Christian

Talk about the rapture happening, whatever that is, on May 21, 2011, is just that - talk.

I just got word that it is not a sure bet. So what the heck, here goes.

The Rapture IMHO as predicted for May 21, 2011 is hereby cancelled.

You can quote me!

I called my friend Jesus, a retired dude in Vegas, to get the odds at one of the casinos on the end of the world as a hedged bet.

“Waste of money dude! The world ain’t gonna end anytime soon. It is the end of your world that you should be thinking about, preparing for mentally and spiritually.

“Rapture. What the hell is that? Where in the funny book is it written down that the world ends on Saturday?”

To which I replied .

“Okay dude. Chill. But there are an awful lot of fairytale Christians running around thinking they are getting a free ride to heaven on Saturday. “

To which he replied.

“Ain’t no free lunch on earth or any free rides to heaven. They should now that. You want to go to heaven – you’ve already arrived - heaven is here on this earth. Worry about the life after when you get there. We all got reservations don’t you know? I got to run. General Hospital is starting. Bye guy.”

I just also heard from a friend of a friend of a friend that some poor fool on Staten Island just paid $140,000 of their life savings to pay for billboards around New York City in support of this Rapture Rumor BS thing. Quick! Try and get your money back.

A lunatic or I should say Fairytale Christian Harold Whathisname should be indicted for fraud or at the very least lose his tax free religion status in punishment for this malicious superstitious pagan prank on humanity.

April Fool’s day is supposed to be April the first.

Whatever.

Have a nice day and a full nice weekend.

P.S.

May 24, 2011

Brother Harold was wrong and now he is resetting God's clock to end on October 21, 2011.

This Cultural Christian hereby cancels the Rapture and or the End of the World on October 21.

My friend Jesus (Hay-soos) in Vegas agrees with me on that according to the betting odds at the casinos there.

Have a nice life you old fraud Harold.   Don't fleece too many sheep this time.  LOL

John Jay College – American Bishops Whitewashed Report on Child Abuse

The American Catholic bishops pulled a Bill Donahue of Catholic League fame by moving the goal line and redefining pedophilia as only having to do with children under 10 in this hack academic report out of John Jay College of Whatever Persuasion the winds blows in NYC.

If you control the definitions in any argument, you win the argument. The argument I think here is about common human decency as measured against catholic CEO mismanagement on this whole sex abuse scandal that does not want to go away. The truth could set them free? I don’t think so.

Children aged 10 and over must have wanted to be abused – were consentual ? – in this “blame Woodstock” “blame modernity” whitewash financed by the same American bishops who failed their flocks in this abomination these past decades that has caused so much desolation in the Christian church.


US Catholic Church study

…Researchers at John Jay College of Criminal Justice said most of the abusive priests were ordained in the 1940s and 50s and were not properly trained to confront the social upheavals of the 1960s. 

David O'Brien, a historian of American Catholicism at the University of Dayton, said the report, Causes and Context of Sexual Abuse of Minors by Catholic Priests in the United States, 1950-2010, was dangerous because it seemed to exonerate bishops.


"This recalls an old tabloid banner headline from an early pre-Boston stage of this crisis: 'Bishops Blame Society'," said O'Brien, referring to the sexual abuse scandal in the Archdiocese of Boston in 2002…


…Less than 5% of the abusive priests could be defined as paedophiles because the majority of victims were aged between 11 and 14.


"There's no indication in our data that priests are any more likely to abuse children than anyone else in society," said lead researcher Karen Terry.


But the finding was criticised by victims because the American Psychiatric Association defines paedophilia as an attraction to children aged 13 or younger….


…The Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests dismissed the report as "garbage in, garbage out" because the bishops providing much of the funding for the report.

I am tired of ranting about these failed RC executives who do not even match their original job description. What good are they? Not worth a pile of …. IMHO.


1 Timothy 3:1-5 (KJV)


1 This is a true saying, if a man desire the office of a bishop, he desireth a good work.


2 A bishop then must be blameless, the husband of one wife, vigilant, sober, of good behaviour, given to hospitality, apt to teach;


3 Not given to wine, no striker, not greedy of filthy lucre; but patient, not a brawler, not covetous;


4 One that ruleth well his own house, having his children in subjection with all gravity;


5 (For if a man know not how to rule his own house, how shall he take care of the church of God?)





Counter Reformation Failed – Proof - Study - USCCB

Just as a twat like Stephen Hawking is battling Dawkins and Hitchens for legal regal  title to Atheist Pope over the new global Atheist religion, the dumb f**** over at comedy central (USCCB) come out with a  new report:

Study: Homosexuality, celibacy didn't cause abuse

WASHINGTON – Researchers commissioned by the nation's Roman Catholic bishops to analyze the pattern of clergy sex abuse have concluded that homosexuality, celibacy and an all-male priesthood did not cause the scandal.

The study by the John Jay College of Criminal Justice in New York instead said that the problem was largely the result of poor seminary training and insufficient emotional support for men ordained in the 1940s and 1950s, who were not able to withstand the social upheaval they confronted as pastors in the 1960s. Crime and other deviant behavior increased overall in the United States during this period, when the rate of abuse by priests was climbing.

"The rise in abuse cases in the 1960s and 1970s was influenced by social factors in society generally," the report's authors said. "Factors that were invariant during the time period addressed, such as celibacy, were not responsible for the increase or decline in abuse cases over this time."

Victims' groups dismissed the report as an attempt to focus blame for the scandal on priests, instead of on bishops who allowed offenders to stay in ministry without warning parents or police. "They want us to fixate on abusive priests, not callous bishops," the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests said in a statement.

In other words, the Council of Trent, the Counter Reformation, and the 613 odd pages of the Tridentine Catechism, the training manual for all RC priests, fell apart and proved a failure in the face of “Modernity”, an instrument of democracy, humanism and of course Satan.

The Devil and or Modernity made them do it – the sexual abuse thing.

If the modern world continues, the Vatican hierarchy, the spiritual sons of Borgia, cannot save us all from Hell.

Or the Bullshit of the Council of Trent just ran out of official steam in the mission statement of whatever it is these days - real estate, banking money laundering, anti-human sexuality (birth control), anti-heterosexuality (as in the case of Father Cutie), anti-homosexuality that the RC church thingy has in reality become today.

What the hell ever happened to Jesus? 

Jesus H Christ! ( damn these a-holes make me angry in the name of ... )

Whatever.

Of course this BS study is all backtracking. Trying recently to blame the gays in the priesthood for the failure in the seventeenth century mission statement does have a potential backlash. If ninety percent of your males only clergy walk, the corporation is a shell and technically out of business. (Amen) (Hallelujah)

(Can’t let that happen yet - not until the last parish property in North America has been sold, assets desposited offshore and hopefully forgotten and not prosecuted - cross your fingers.)

Have a nice day.


Bishop Bill Morris of Toowoomba - Vagina qui partem

On one hand you’ve got a Catholic like John Boehner, the Speaker of the House, weeping at his delivery of a commencement speech at Catholic University in Washington, District of Columbia, and it gets a lot of Lame Stream Media coverage.

LSM – thank you or your ghost writer for the invention of that one literary footnote Sarah.

John, were they, tears of omission, for all that you and your party have not done for the poor or for women as a good Catholic?

Speaking of women – ( and that Vagina thing ) – The Vatican did not fire bishops for sins of omission – covering up sins of pedophilia – (Jesus’ favorite forgivable sin) – No- this bishop down in Oz got the pink slip for openly talking about having a discussion about women as priests in the dying RC church.

CathBlog - Bishop Morris and the nourishment of the Eucharist

We've just celebrated Good Shepherd Sunday. A day when we read from John 10 where Jesus says, “I am the Good Shepherd; the good shepherd lays down his life for his sheep” (John 10:11).

This week in Australia we are left puzzling over the fate of a man who has been consistently called “a great pastor” by his priests and people. I speak of Bishop (now retired) Bill Morris.

The details of Rome’s reasons for wanting his dismissal are not known. What is known is that other bishops and cardinals who protected paedophiles were not asked to resign/retire, while Bishop Morris was. Such skewed decision-making is perplexing at best and in many eyes scandalous.

At the heart of Bishop Morris’ concern lay the Eucharist and the long Catholic value of being a Eucharistic community nourished by the Word and the Table. Across Australia, such Eucharistic nourishment is becoming less and less possible.

…Parishes are joining up, placing impossible demands on a single priest to be the sole pastor for one conglomerate parish where there were once two or three or four. Dioceses are importing pastors from India, Vietnam, Africa, Poland and unfortunately many of these men lack the cultural awareness to genuinely pastor Australian Parishes. In one Parish, when the new priest arrived, the pastoral council was immediately dismissed.

Toowoomba's sacked bishop is not alone in calling for debate on women

Pope Benedict's decision this month to dismiss William "Bill" Martin Morris, bishop of the Australian diocese of Toowoomba, 190,000 square miles of bush inland from Brisbane, was a really, really sad one. Morris was accused of calling for an open debate on the ordination of women and the extension of married clergy to the whole church. In his Advent pastoral letter in 2006 he had indeed called for such debates and added that there should be similar discussion about Catholics accepting Anglican and Lutheran orders and those of the Uniting Church, a grouping of Australian Congregationalists, Presbyterians and Methodists.

It is an open secret that there is a crescendo of debate about such questions in the Catholic world. The precedents for such action are well known. There are thousands of married priests in Catholicism's eastern rites, all living – doubtless happily – with their spouses in complete harmony with Rome. Such has been the case for perhaps two millennia. And as far as female clergy are concerned, the consecration of various women to holy orders during the Stalinist dictatorship under which Czechoslovakia lived following the second world war, while never officially publicised, has never been declared invalid by the Vatican. And, leaving Czechoslovakians aside for a moment, wasn't Mary Magdalene some sort of heroine in the church's earliest days?

We all know Bishop Morris meant well but “actum de vagina pars illa arcte vetabat” - discussion about that (thing) is strictly forbidden.

Will the last few decent catholics left in the church just shut the F-up while the other bishops, the sons of Borgia, go on with their holy work?

Enjoy your retirement Bill. You, in a very good Christian sense, have earned it mate.



Bloodbath in Jerusalem just around the corner?

If they ever rebuild the Jewish Temple in Jerusalem, how many sheep, cows, pigeons are going to get their throats cut on an hourly, daily basis? How much blood will get splattered onto the sacrificial altar all day long? How much smell of burning carcasses thrown into the fire will fill the air all day long in that ancient heathen town? How much barbecue gets sliced up with the tourist worshipper and how much burned flesh gets doled out to the new priest class that needs to be supported?

A lot of questions. It is part of a lot of fundamentalist Christian preachers’ idea that the Temple should, in fact must, be rebuilt. Of course it means scraping thirteen hundred years of history off the Noble Sanctuary and turning it back into Temple Mount and reopening the charnel house of animal bones and reinstituting the holocaust (place of fire and sacrifice).


Reality check. Time check.


That all sounds gruesome, but this is for many fundamentalists Christians and Jews a requirement for the return of or the first time appearance of the Christ, the messiah etc.


I hope I am using these terms correctly. I do not have a degree in theology or doctorate in divinity. Just using all these terms and invoking these images kind of scares me. I am not necessarily an animal rights person but I can see where the rebuilding of the Temple in Jerusalem will in its own way elevate the souls of animals, of God’s creation in general, to new higher global standards of respect in reaction to such revived ancient cruelty.


Can you imagine the smell of barbeque, the smell and chatter of the tourist crowds, the noise of the money changers, the occasional blaring of trumpets and bang of drums? This is what Jesus would have seen in his day. This is what Jesus was in rebellion against.


When did a simple, formed in the desert, concept of a single deity, of one God get turned into such a circus and business machine? (Jesus wept.)


Well as I say this is what some say is what is needed to bring the stage actor, plastic Jesus thing to earth to enhance the already stage presence and drama of public worship of the local deity also know as God, Yahweh, Jesus, Allah, Mohammed, Buddha, Shiva etc.


It is easy to forget that the whole Greek drama thing, the theatre thing, the entertainment thing, the thing that fills a majority portion of our entertainment time to this day aka as TV, the box, Cable – how it all started as religion – as sacred morality plays – of men and their flaws living their lives and being judged or rewarded by the gods, the many gods of antiquity.


Indeed, we monotheists, primarily have our Trinity god – Yahweh/Jesus/Allah carved out of our local beliefs and backed up by our local deities, sacred texts and other Modus Operandi.


Drama, drama, everywhere and not much sanity in sight.


Someone sent me a piece about some White Bread Fundamentalist preacher from White Bread Town aka Pasadena that spoke, preached, that Osama Bin Laden went to Hell because he did not repent of his sins or accept Jesus as his exclusive official broker to get into Heaven. Poor Osama.


But wait a minute! Osama did not die in Pasadena. Thank Allah!


He died in Pakistan where he was hiding off the grid and with the help of his local friends at the military academy that recognized that it was good for local business, the military academy, salaries, promotions, pensions, loot, spoils of war, the local military industrial complex and atomic bomb making thing – that these things were a good thing for the local economy and under the local deity of Allah.


Osama was a martyr in that part of the world and went straight to his sixty odd virgins in Paradise. What happened to the seventy two virgins, as it is stated in the Koran? Hell, Osama’s agent gets ten percent of the action. Right? (business is business).


My fear about dying is where do I end up? Pasadena or Hell? Is there a difference? ( a little attempt at humor )


Well anyway, this week I talked to several people whose local ethnic church in Bethlehem, Pa. has come onto the real estate market for the sake of cash flow in the Allentown diocese. Problem with the catholic thing is that the local bishop has the deed to St. Joseph’s Church.


That is one reason bishops and or priests can’t get married. You don’t want all these deeds and properties to get confused with a priest or a bishop’s personal estate going to his wife, boyfriend, or children and get confused with the diocese bank accounts etc. (sorry, getting off subject here).


Studying that situation, I would not be surprised if St. Joseph’s RC church gets sold, scraped of ornamentation and turned into the Yusuf Mosque and Islamic Center for the Muslim students at the nearby Lehigh University. Probably more Muslims on campus than surviving members of the Slovenian community on the border with that ever growing, ever land consuming, urban institution.


I am just kidding myself on that. Whatever Lehigh University has planned for that property it is not a recycled and or new Islamic center for Lehigh students. Maybe another chemistry lab above a tiered parking garage and to be used for animal testing. A new Temple of Science? Whatever.


Science has no conscience and therein lies the rub between traditional values, myths, local belief systems and the new atheist world (global) view of things.


Times change and we all apparently willing or not have to change with them.


The Catholic thing is celibacy and no deed for the local church. The Prot thing is to keep the deed local and in the hands of the preacher. In a way the local god of Rev. Whomever in Pasadena is not much of an improvement over the minds of men and women in need of the simple love of one’s local and global neighbor.


Getting back to the animal sacrifice thing. I was looking at the floorplan of the old St. Peter’s Basilica in Rome, the one that stood there for a thousand years, and there in the front of the church is the altar. Altar. For a sacrifice? Of course, the sacrifice of Jesus (once was surely not enough), his blood, the martyr, the doorway to Heaven etc.


Problem with changing times is that when they destroyed Herod’s Temple in Jerusalem in 70 A.D./C.E., they got rid of the live stage thing in the Greek drama. The ideas of the Jewish faith got turned into two different abstracts, one part that stayed Jewish to this day and the other part that got rewritten in the Jesus script/play.


The irony of it all is that Saul of Tarsus was probably trying to convert gentiles to Judaism, a Jewish sect, as it still was in his day and not as he supposedly envisioned it in the later day Roman pagan rewrite of the script.


I saw a picture of the front of St. Joseph’s Slovenian Catholic church in Bethlehem Pa, that I cannot show you here. I was not taken by the predictable gothic architecture or need of sand blast cleaning of dirty old stones. I was impressed by the balance of the handicapped entrance ramp to the front of the church. I saw that whether designed by an architect or done with old world craftsmanship, it looked as if it was a labor of love. It was built with a purpose in mind and to a need of an aging congregation. It shows even to this agnostic type person.


I respect everyone’s right to worship as they see fit to whatever local or universal god they see fit to pray to and not pray to. It is the cornerstone of our written constitution. It is the stone the builders reject in much of the rest of the world. My Jesus, I know, would back me up on that point.


I see how a living piece of European history like St. Joseph’s gets discarded in the new godless, new fangled MBA spreadsheet way of dealing with humanity or in fact eliminating humanity – and eliminating that humanity from the bottom line of Diocese profit and loss statements - and by some green, white bread temporary cleric in charge on Chew Street in Allentown – well I could just about cry.


The world is not getting larger. The world is not getting smaller and or global. The world is getting reduced to decimal points on a spreadsheet for some of us. “Oh! The Humanity!”


Whatever.


And so it goes.

St. Joseph’s Bethlehem Pa – New LU Parking Lot?

It doesn’t take much brains, especially in real estate, to know when a piece of condemned property is about to be turned into a parking lot or a student parking lot as in the case of St. Joseph’s Church in Bethlehem, Pa..

Property got closed because of a “shortage of priests” in the Allentown diocese. Whats a matta? You can’t insource more foreign born priests to staff St. Joseph’s? Duh!!!

About six churches ended up in some appeal to the Vatican and the Vatican agreed that previous real estate tycoon Bishop Cullen’s reasons for closing these six churches were invalid.


Pa. diocese nixes appeal over 6 church closures
 
The current Bishop, John O. Barres, has now pulled the plug on any further interference from the Vatican. How convenient.

The parishioners at St. Joseph’s stay boarded up and out on the street and screwed because of some possible sweetheart, real estate “done deal” between the Diocese and Lehigh University?

To extend parking for the Zoellner Arts Center (?) across a street or two from the about to be permanently decommissioned church property? Whatever.

Valuable real estate plum for the Allentown Diocese – any secret commissions in white envelopes to be handed out – with like say a holy card??? Or did outgoing Bishop Cullen already seal that deal and let’s not blame John? That this long term planning scheme of a nearby secular institution has been in the works for well over a decade?

New Temporary Bishop - Allentown - John Barres
 
I am so cynical.  But the problem is for me, that previous bishop Cullen’s two million dollars (estimated) of personally owned real estate, and the 1.2 million dollar estate of the late founding Joe the Bishop of Allentown, Joe McShea, makes you wonder what kind of bonuses get paid out in Allentown, without accountability to parishioners, to these RC CEOs (and how they get funded) etc.

Cullen’s Assets leave the Flock Aflutter

But don’t take my word for it. Do an internet aerial search map – 416 E. 5th Street, Bethlehem Pa, - St. Joseph’s address, to see that its immediate proximity to Lehigh University makes it a very valuable chunk of real estate.

Hell !

I do rant and rave a lot. And ask a lot of questions.

If there is a secular need to extend this urban university, then eminent domain for a private institution’s needs such as Lehigh University, (and I don’t know the local laws in Pa. regarding eminent domain by private industry), then LU doesn’t have to play the bad urban gobbling entity in this secularization of what looks to me should be a landmarked church property?

It is a pity that the Christian architectural and cultural history of an area like Bethlehem is likely to be destroyed and go the way of a bulldozer in the name of progress.

So it goes in Bethlehem/Allentown Pa..

Dark Night of America’s Soul – Bin Laden’s death

I am glad that that bastard Osama Bin Laden is Dead!

It is not very Christian of me to say that.

An eye for an eye.

WWJD? (What would Jesus do?) I don’t know. He turned the other cheek and got killed by the state.

In the dark night of this nation’s soul, there seems to be a slight sliver of light, of hope, in this long chaotic morass of this new century and this new millennium. That sliver of light and hope lay in the death of a self proclaimed messiah of Islam.

Self appointed messiahs rarely succeed in the vision thing.

Divinely anointed messiahs are quite another story.

The man in the Arab and Muslim streets came no closer to moral, political or intellectual freedom under this Al-Qaeda world wide reign of terror. The turmoil in many Arab states these days reflects a desire for self determination and more freedom. The turmoil is also the result of the collapse of the dollar and the price of bread in those countries.

I, as a citizen of the United States, have very little control over world or military events let alone military budgets.

In the dark night of this nation’s spiritual soul, in its seemingly disrupted journey to moral excellence, it is hard to turn the cheek if we have a presence in 150 nations. Etc.

Perhaps out of all this political chaos comes a united global world or a more human world that fits into the vision of the Sermon on the Mount. “Blessed are they that …”

And still I am glad that that bastard Bin Laden has been served justice on a cold platter.

God forgive me.

I am only human and personally witnessed 911 here in New York City. Witnessed that event and witnessed, am witnessing the long journey of this city’s soul out of the depths of tragedy and back to something resembling normalcy.

It has been pointed out to me that celebrating the death of Bin Laden is wrong. I agree. Celebrating that death would indirectly celebrate his life – which was a poor example of simple local humanity or love of one’s global neighbor.

I also see the spontaneous outburst of joy on Sunday night in Times Square not as a celebration of death but more as a celebration as an event, a turning point, in an ever growing smaller world where everybody is truly your neighbor.

In any case I quote from the Hebrew testament for lack of my own words to match such eloquence.


Ecclesiastes 3:3-4

a time to kill and a time to heal,

a time to tear down and a time to build,

a time to weep and a time to laugh,

a time to mourn and a time to dance,

Phoenix Rising - World Trade Center - NYC

 

( 911 Memorial - foreground - under construction )

[click on above photo to get expanded image]

What is a Devout Skeptic vs. Cultural Christian ?

I ran in to a comment via e-mail that mentioned something in terms of not being PC for a Cultural Christian or a Devout Sceptic.

Devout Skeptic? What’s that?


Never heard that one before. And believe it or not, Wikipedia does not have a small article of explanation for the phrase. Rather odd.


Needed to do some Internet research.


I did run into the British spelling of skeptic as sceptic.


Apparently there was a Brit radio show for many years by that name which is a possible answer to the question of what is a devout skeptic?


Bel Mooney

She was a regular presenter on BBC Radio 4 from 1982 until 2008, notably as presenter of Devout Sceptics, a programme devoted to public figures' private beliefs, not necessarily agnostic or atheistic, as the name might suggest.

A quote from Theo Hobson, a British “post-Anglican” theologian:

Confessing Evangelical

…this: a certain dishonesty and laziness of mind, and a certain pretentiousness. The Devout Sceptic wants to lay claim to the glamorous depths of religious tradition, without the embarrassment of actually identifying with it. Do not confuse me with a common atheist (he says), like that brash chap Dawkins, who is blatantly ignorant of the controlling passion of Western culture. Consider me to have the integrity and depth of a believer, yet also the searching mind and defiant heart of a Romantic.

And going back to Mel Mooney:

Devout Sceptics

… Ever since, at the age of sixteen, I rejected the idea of God - believing that no God of Love could preside over a world so apparently lacking in that commodity - the longing for him/her/it has been like a guilty secret inside me, with no curtained confessional in which to whisper. When a bereavement left me bleak and bitter, I skulked around lighting candles for comfort yet hurling insults at a God I steadfastly denied….

Devout Sceptics are seekers who won’t trust the maps they have been given, but know there is a destination towards which to stumble. Even if it proves to be the place they began at, and (to invoke T.S. Eliot) they know it for the first time.

It is not atheism, not quite agnostic and a phrase that I think in some ways has an affinity with the term cultural Christianity.

So in conclusion, a Devout Sceptic is, in my opinion, is one in a personal comfort and at a certain distance amid the sea of many religious beliefs and practices.

Birther and Sedevacantist Movements - Similarities

Is the Oval Office truly empty???

Doing my hobby of researching the millions of pages of faith, Christian and otherwise, a thought occurred to me (I do have them on occasion) (and they are not all eccentric).


It struck me that the whole birther movement, in the denial of legitimacy of the 44th POTUS (a god of sorts with a small g) is not unlike the Sedevacantist (empty chair) movement in the RC church.


That aside from the Clinton campaign starting this whole birth certificate thing in 2008, the ferocity of this continued meme/myth/urban legend thing has overtones of religion all over it as much as it has coded racism.


Just looking at the flash mobs at the White House, Times Square and the Phillies/Mets game on Sunday night reminds me that the super patriotism thing is a tribal, almost secular religion thing. Every recognizable country has at the base of its identity this “we are great” “we are the only true ones” “we are first” tone of things.


As such I wish I had the time and money to follow through on this theme. I see a parallel between the Birther movement and the “Sedevacantists” in the RC church who believe that the Chair of Peter has been empty (Sede Vacante) since the death of Hitler’s pope Pius XII – the Great Appeaser.


John XXIII and his Vatican council thing ticked off a lot of traditionalists and their worship of the Latin mass thingy going in favor of the vernacular service. Modernism and democracy are both sins/depravities in the eyes of the RC dogma.


I have to wonder if the birther movement is a pure redneck populist movement. I have to wonder if big bucks behind the scenes from the likes of Mel Gibson and his more catholic than the pope Dad, along with Opus Dei justice Scalia and Sen. Santorum etc., have not been bankrolling this insane belief that the Oval Office is empty?


And all this birther religious like fervor or insanity is not being funded by church tax free money that should be otherwise taxed and put to better use?

When were the Gospels written / 120 -140 A.D./C.E. ?

Following my own timeline thing and in my personal quest of a better truth of the founding and evolution of the Christian faith, I am saying, I am believing that the four Gospels were assembled somewhere between 120 and 140 A.D. of the common western era.

I say this in my own Jesus seminar styled search. I say assembled above which a little is bit different than written. I believe that the sayings of Jesus in a Gospel of Thomas like format got expanded into metaphoric descriptive fashion.

As in Jesus, if he said this, he probably said it to a crowd and or to a select few. The elusive “Q” document of nineteenth century Christian scholarly fame was no doubt a bunch of quotes on the back of a lot of envelopes from possible eyewitnesses to the event of that great moral teacher’s life.


Of course they did not have envelopes back then but I think you get the idea and image from what I just said.


The other thing that makes me think that the three synoptic gospels were written between 120 and 140 A.D/C.E. is the fact that Jesus is still Jewish in them. He is folksy and short in speaking style.


Going back to my own blog

Trajan’s demonization of the Jews

and the Kitos genocidal Roman war against the Jews and Semites of North Africa and the Middle East, I see the dividing line between the Jews and Christians in real form if not in written form about this time.


In fact while reading about that holocaust, that it started in Cyrene, present day Libya, North Africa, I went on to see that the first three Gospels mention a Simon of Cyrene, a tourist and or refugee of sorts in Jerusalem on the first Good Friday.

To refresh your memory here are those Simon of Cyrene quotes from the first still Jewish Christian gospels.

“And they compelled a passer-by, Simon of Cyrene who was coming in from the country, the father of Alexander and Rufus, to carry his cross.” (Mark 15:2).


“And as they led him away, they seized one Simon of Cyrene, who was coming in from the country, and laid on him the cross to carry behind Jesus.” (Luke 23:26).


“As they went out, they came upon a man of Cyrene, Simon by name; this man they compelled to carry his cross.” (Matthew 27:32).

Researching the Internet for this common thread/reference to Simon of Cyrene led me to this interesting article and quotation.
 
Gospel Mysteries – Gospel of John

Similarly, many of the stories found in the other gospels, but not in John, probably came from sources known only to their authors. Thus, the use of different sources can easily account for many of the differences between John and the other gospels.


But that explanation doesn't work very well for some differences, especially the difference in how Jesus is depicted. The first three gospels portray him as a teacher, healer, and prophet whose main concerns are the problems of society and the need for people to live more virtuously. In these gospels he shows great compassion for poor, oppressed, and outcast people, and he heals many disabled and demon-possessed individuals. When he teaches, he talks in simple language, draws images from everyday life, and uses parables to make his points.


But the gospel of John depicts him quite differently. In this gospel he talks in a different style, and often uses words and ideas not found in the other gospels. Instead of making short penetrating statements about how people should live, he gives long speeches about why he came to earth and why people must accept him as their savior. He rarely uses parables, and he doesn't cure any cases of demonic possession.

Putting the above quote aside for a few moments, I had already decided that this reference to Simon of Cyrene in the three gospels had some real significance and was possibly in fact a little bit of propaganda and or proselytizing of early Christians toward the surviving Jews of the Kitos War 115-117 C.E..


That is, you have an executed Jesus, you have a crucified Jesus, why not build on it as a recruiting tool to many Jews who survived the recent genocide and show empathy in the way of death. No doubt there were thousands of Jews crucified along the Roman roads that connected North Africa to Jerusalem and onto Syria and Turkey (Asia Minor) after the Kitos War.


Now getting back to the recent quote above, the whole article was quite interesting. From that article I get the sense that the original three gospels are written in a Jesus is a common man mode with simple parables and messages. That the original Christians were survivors of the Great Jewish Revolt 66-70 C.E. and living in rural areas all over the Middle East.


That the reference of Simon of Cyrene sharing a cross with Jesus occurs in Mark and is copied into Matthew and Luke. By this I see that Simon of Cyrene was not haphazardly added to already written gospels but was part of original text. As such, I speculate that the first three synoptic gospels are assembled/written in post 117 A.D. after the Kitos War.


That the scattered communities across the middle east and in perhaps Rome as well were living off legend, oral tradition and the Letters of Paul and were coming together, in a still recruiting from the original Jewish cult thing, and turning into a new sect different than the original Judaism.


In fact I think that the historian Suetonius’ quote of fellow historian Tacitus in the persecution specifically of “Chrestiani” is a retroactive cut and paste job of history. That after the Kitos War, the more sophisticated Jewish Christians in Rome were doing a sudden Public Relations blitz and press release thing to say that their history as Christians (sans the Jewish in Jewish Christian thing) went back many decades before the recent unpleasantness in the African and Middle East provinces.


That to say you were persecuted by a hated dictator like Nero was a positive and not a negative in the early propaganda of the church. That and you were retroactively and consciously separating yourselves from the traditional Judaism thing.


In a way, while a rural populist thing is going on outside of Rome, the urbane, sophisticated Roman Christians came up with an Urban Gospel in the form of John. That these changes within the same movement occurred simultaneously or close to it.


In fact, I see the rural country bumpkin preacher of Jesus transformed into this polished Gnostic like god (small g) in the Gospel of John. The Gospel of John I see as the urban guide to the new Christian cult for the largely Gentile only city dwellers from the Mid East, through Greece and into Rome. This, especially after the final Jewish war by Hadrian 132-135 blew all Jews into definitive and seemingly eternal Diaspora.


I find it incredible that I cannot find much on the last two of these three Jewish wars, that they don’t get much mention on the Internet. It is possible that Jewish scholars have not yet put history from books onto the Net. It is also possible that Judaism prefers to forget the whole matter. That the only much quoted writings of the history of the Jews is from Jewish/Roman writer Josephus Flavius and centering on the destruction of Herod’s greatly altered/remodeled Second Temple is enough to address that period in religious/political history.


In any case, my studies and research continue. I hope in the very least that this crazy theory of mine makes some sense and will in time make more sense as bloated, vested Christian theologians die off and the true spirit of Jesus in the early real Christian church evolves back to not a local pagan level but to a truly first and global belief system.