Opus Dei takes La La Land

Two days after a kissy huggy licky speech from Cardinal Sodano about petty gossip not getting in the way of Joe the Pope’s mediocre rule and lack of compassion for the victims of clergy abuse, Joe the Pope is about the appoint the first active Opus Dei Archbishop of Los Angeles.

Los Angeles is the largest Catholic archdiocese in the United States with an estimated five million members, 70 percent of which are Hispanic.

Archbishop Jose Horacio Gomez of San Antonio Texas has been named Coadjutor Archbishop of Los Angeles, co-ruler so to speak until Cardinal Mahoney retires at 75 in February.

The European press are mentioning the fact of Gomez’s active membership in Opus Dei. One British news site alleges his appointment as revenge on Hollywood for The DaVinci Code. Whatever.

Pope's 'revenge' as LA gets Opus Dei bishop

Benedict XVI's choice comes after Colombia Pictures depicted Opus Dei as a secret society of murderous monks who, according to author Dan Brown, were trying to cover up the truth of Jesus's secret affair with Mary Magdelene.

The appointment will give Opus Dei enormous influence in the American Church and Vatican, and is the most senior appointment for a member of the group.

Gomez holds both conservative and progressive views

He denounced one Catholic university when it invited then-Sen. Hillary Clinton to campus, because she favored abortion rights, and another when it invited a Benedictine nun, because she had advocated the ordination of women. Under his reign, a local Catholic high school ended its relationship with an organization that raised money to fight breast cancer, because the same organization gave grants to Planned Parenthood. After a 17-year-old lay advisory commission created by his predecessor suggested that gay marriage might be a human rights issue under one reading of the church's teachings, Gomez disbanded the commission.

I went line per line in the L.A. Times article and there is no mention of Opus Dei. Are they waiting for another article to investigate Gomez’s ties to this new vanguard, Sea Organizaton type, Jim Jones Kool-Aid brigade commune, New-Jesuit army to keep the RC faith pure. Or has the L.A. times scrubbed the story and self censored itself so typical of the American MSM these days?

Joe the pope likes him. Jose surely won’t listen to petty gossip about child abuse.

In San Antonio, critics have alleged that he failed to address abuse allegations forthrightly and failed to hold accused clergymen accountable for their actions. In one case, a clergyman who was accused of sexually abusing a teen was permitted during Gomez's tenure to live in a parish residence next door to an elementary school and a day-care center, said Barbara Garcia Boehland, the San Antonio chapter director of Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests (SNAP).

SNAP has written several times to Gomez seeking an apology and more direct confrontation of abuse allegations but has heard nothing, Garcia Boehland said. She said her son, Eduardo Ramon III, was violated by a priest as a boy; he committed suicide at age 20.

The selection of Gomez, she said, made her question how determined the Vatican is to root out and end abuse in the church.

"Elevating him is not being tough on people who know," she said. "There is going to be more hiding of priests. Gomez is good at that."

Just when you thought that the RC church would be turning to a Vatican III to purge itself of its sex sins and misogyny, the trend changes. The trend now in the United States is to turn dioceses over to strangers not originally from the diocese. No doubt these new conservative politician outsider bishops are making plans for a Council of Trent II to add another six hundred pages of rules and dogma to the computer data base of faith.

Good-bye to all of Los Angeles’ Catholic progressive programs.

So it goes.

Blasphemy and the Last Supper

I think the concept of blasphemy is archaic and obsolete in light of the free speech and expression as mandated by law in our Constitution.

Still the concept for Muslims, if enacted by U.N. international law, would put Danish Newspapers and Danish Cartoonists in the category of criminals. I cite the recent hubbub regarding the image of Mohammed as a terrorist depicted in a Danish cartoon.

Terrorism and blasphemy are in the eyes of the beholders. The Global Town Square should be neutral in the enforcement of blasphemy concepts across national borders which also usually reflect national local feelings or religious local beliefs.

I think it inappropriate that the local minority Muslims in Denmark made an international issue over the cartoon. A minority has no right to impose privileged or entitled status of private religious opinion on the majority.

Perhaps in a more civil world, the occasion to insult will be reduced in the interests of respect of the rights of others both locally and internationally.

Thomas Aquinas says that “it is clear that blasphemy, which is a sin committed directly against God, is more grave than murder, which is a sin against one's neighbor. … it is called the most grievous sin, for as much as it makes every sin more grievous.” Wikipedia

Of course, in the recent Texas School Book deal to replace Aquinas for Jefferson is a poor choice IMHO. Aquinas is really a very abstract medieval theologian and obsolete on many of his opinions. Banning Jefferson in Texas will only excite, entice the curious to find the father of modern revolution and enlightenment.

Regarding the above image of a censored in France and Italy clothing advertisement in 2005, I take exception to it being banned in the name of Blasphemy.

The Last Suppers

BBC News:

France's Catholic Church has won a court injunction to ban a clothing advertisement based on Leonardo da Vinci's Christ's Last Supper.

The display was ruled "a gratuitous and aggressive act of intrusion on people's innermost beliefs", by a judge ......

The authorities in the Italian city of Milan banned the poster last month ......

Italy's advertising watchdog said the ad's use of Christian symbols including a dove and a chalice recalled the foundations of the faith and would offend the sensitivity of part of the population.

The Catholic Church used a similar argument against the advert, which also shows two of the apostles embracing a bare-chested man in jeans.

"When you trivialise the founding acts of a religion, when you touch on sacred things, you create an unbearable moral violence which is a danger to our children," said lawyer Thierry Massis.

"Tomorrow, Christ on the cross will be selling socks."

I find that the DaVinci Code the book, while a pile of myth and speculation, opened a true door not to enlightenment but in opening the mind up to all the possibilities of ancient myth and how it all could have been rewritten differently especially in the New Testament that is.

With the current meltdown in the Vatican over cover-ups and conspiracy over sex abuse crimes worldwide, the concept of private “church” matters (the way these crimes were treated) comes into question with the “infallibility” invoked in this covering up of crimes against children.

Getting back to the DaVinci Code, what would the world look like if women had been the predominate sex throughout history?

Getting back to the Vatican scandal, I think this image above from 2005 is more appropriate now with the image of an aroused and or prostitute male figure in place of the John/Mary figure of the DaVinci Code’s interpretation of DaVinci’s Last Supper mural.

Even more appropriate in the symbolism of that john/mary/prostitute image is that modern image being embraced by the Peter figure of that famous original icon image and with Judas’ legs intertwined in the whole mess.

Any good Christians feeling betrayed these days, as if by Judas, but instead by the Chair of Peter?

Blasphemy is not always a crime especially if it tells or depicts the Truth.