Thursday, February 21, 2013

Tourist in Venice - 1920


Parade - Main Street USA - 1920


The After Shocks of Benedict Sixteen's Papacy – Election of the Next Igor Clone as Pope

Pope Igor II (2013 -      )


There are turning points in the journey of life. I see this resignation of a power ranger, Benedict XVI, as just one after shock of Karol Wojtyla aka John Paul II. While the official view of JPII was one of media darling and or religious rock band like superstar, he was after all only a politician.

The office of pope and or bishop of Rome is a man-made position.  You just have to do some diligent and sincere research to find out that most of what exists today and aka as Christianity went through a Pagan filter and or sieve when Constantine followed through on Hadrian’s and many other Roman emperors' desire to have one homogenized Roman Religion to unite the Roman Empire over and above its roads, commerce and politics.

That much of what Catholicism is today is a surviving remnant of that Roman Pagan Religion thingy officially sanctioned by the Emperor/god Constantine the great.

Surprisingly, Catholicism did not die out with the Reformation. 

Successful businesses have a tendency to continue to stay in motion with cash flow and then stop or die with extinct cash flow. 

The Reformation in a small way resurrected something of the early Christian essence, pre-Constantine Catholic spin, in the form of some of the Protestant sects.

What Vatican II opened up in the way of a window was a thought or way of looking at what exactly Christianity was all about or could be. And maybe every region can its own traditions, can have a niche, but the overall product needs a unity to succeed. A unity yet to be invented by the many many sects of that old religion. 

Getting back to the media superstar John Paul II, he was without a doubt the premier Cold War Warrior or so his publicist sold him as.  And he did use money funneled, Laundered through his church to fund internal dissent in his native Poland.

Problem is that no man can serve two masters.  Render unto Caesar and Render unto God. I think that men who have immense power get confused as to who or what their original mission statement in life was when they started out on their journey through life, before they hit lotto and got power, power, power.

While the Vatican has always been a political animal as much as a religious one over the centuries, John Paul II with his connections to the West and CIA etc. seemed to lock the water faucet on full with dollars and military and political decisions coming out of the stone talking Oracle at Delphi like mask of Christ, whoever or whatever he was two thousand years ago.

John Paul II and this faithful surviving servant Igor aka Benedict XVI burned out the religious motor of the Vatican religion thing and now the business of the Vatican is simply bu$ine$$ no matter what the press releases claim or say.

In a way too, Reagan merged conservative politics with conservative fundamentalism religion and the resulting GOP mess is neither political nor religious but something nobody can or wants to use in the modern global culture based on the sacred high technology of the moment.

No matter what clone a bunch of John Paul II or Benedict XVI appointed stooge bishops/cardinals elect as the next pope, he will not have any real agenda to fall back on except the present existing Bu$ine$$ Model.

As such, below is a except from a writer Garry Wills, on the Colbert Show acting as a person, one of the people of God, the Church, that does not need a Vatican or a priest to commune with the divine.

The soul and spirit of Vatican II lives on!

Whatever.