Worlds Series - Braves vs. Athletics - Shibe Park Philadelphia - Oct 9, 1914

Overflow bleachers - World Series - October 9, 1914

http://www.baseball-reference.com/boxes/PHA/PHA191410090.shtml

Shibe Park, home of the Philadelphia Athletics, longer before Shibe Park became Connie Mack Stadium, home of the Phillies

Shibe Park - 1953

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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.

http://www.colbertnation.com/the-colbert-report-videos/423715/february-11-2013/garry-wills


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Gated White Diocese in Knoxville Tennessee – New Wave of the Catholic Right’s Future? – Glory Hole of Corruption?

Bishop Stika / Cardinal Rigali of Knoxville Tennessee

This all started when I saw Cardinal Rigali getting good air time on some eyewitness news channel related article that gives good air time or print time to local human interest stories to children, animals at the zoo and or a OMG Real Live Cardinal Living in little old Knoxville Tennessee with all us hillbillies kind of media story. 

Rigali in my previous article was of course spouting what qualities a new pope should have. Whatever on that.

In my previous article, I thought that maybe the new Cathedral “Rectory” and or Bishop’s Palace had not yet been built in Knoxville. Further research thwarts me on finding any real news on the Internet regarding that matter.

So just giving a reread of some standard things like Wikipedia, one sees where Bishop Stika's career soared under the tutelage of Cardinal Rigali in St. Louis Missouri. Bishop Stika of course dealt with aspects of priests as personnel, Vicar General, and their sexual habits (alleged) with children.

It occurs to me that one of two things seems to be needed for promotion in the Roman Catholic Church IMHO. Cash for bribes and Sexual Blackmail and or knowing a lot about the secrets in the Diocesan Priests’ Personnel Files etc. Of course, that may not be the case in this matter. Bishop Stika came up through the ranks on pure merit. Yeah right. LOL

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Richard_Stika

http://en.wikipedia.org/wiki/Justin_Francis_Rigali

When Philly crime boss Justin “Big Frank” Rigali was forced to resign in July 2011, in the middle of the Local authorities, District Attorney’s Office in Philly having to take over, intervene, clean up the mess of decades long child abuse and child rape in the Philly Archdiocese, exasperated by Rigali being a part time Philly bishop when not in Rome and hanging with the Swiss Guards etc., I quoted in another article at the time that Rigali was retiring to Knoxville:

Rigali is expected to head to Knoxville, Tenn., to visit his best friend, Bishop Richard Stika, who has "built a home for him to get away from it all," said Michael Sean Winters, a blogger for the National Catholic Reporter. Additionally, Rigali will be making trips to Rome as he is still a member of the Congregation of Bishops.

Apparently Michael Sean Winters quoted correctly or incorrectly in the Philly Press was doing his usual fawning Catholic half-assed PR propaganda best. Cheers, Mikey!

Apparently, Rigali was already looking for retirement digs even before his forced resignation in Philly as mentioned in a blog dated June 2010. Knoxville was “delighted” to have a retired red hat coming to Tennessee?

http://blog.frankmurphy.com/WordPress/2010/06/southern-cardinal/

Do read all the many links attached to above article. Makes very good reading about the Knoxville Diocese.

Well looking into how Opus Dei Archbishop Gomez is no doubt giving retired Cardinal Mahony grief in retirement, hoping to suggest a vote, Mahony’s vote, in the papal election in exchange for friendly prison privileges in his L.A. retirement hell. Etc. -

Looking for the mythical Michael Sean Winter’s memorial Rigali retirement home in Knoxville, I see some shuffling around of funds, funding, Cathedral plans, non-plans, rectory shuffling, convent shuffling, new Bishop’s palace architectural plans in Knoxville, - Justin Rigali is or is not somewhat homeless except for digs in Rome and the occasional sleepover in Stika’s bailiwick to save Justin from the wrath of Charlie Chaput in Philly who should have the upper hand here in asking, suggesting who Justin should vote for as pope/ceo of the Vatican Inc..

Somewhere in there is a grant to build the new bishop’s house for Stika/Rigali in Knoxville from a Dan Murphy Religious Foundation in Los Angeles with a lawsuit from a former board member listed below regarding disputed reporting and or value of assets…

Getting back to the previous link above, it would seem that Former Bishop Kurtz of Knoxville may have been involved in middle of a shell game of funding with an archdiocese loan of $11million to build a great medieval church worthy of being a cathedral in the middle of the rich white western suburbs of Farragut Tenn.  The Cathedral Church of St. John Neumann is on a 42 acre campus and is ready for perhaps a college and or seminaries, convents to sprout in the shadow of the Cathedral church.

Saint John Neumann - Farragut Tennessee

A new very richly appointed rectory was supposed to be ready for construction in 2010 at St John’s of a similar rumored budget, later quoted as a misprint, as the new rectory going up next to the old sixty year old modern Vatican II era Cathedral more centrally located to the center of Knoxville. 

Vatican II Era Sacred Heart Cathedral Knoxville

And here is why I used the word shell game for Bishop Kurtz in that the whole thing reminded me of the story I did on Phoenix and the delicate diplomatic long term switching of cathedrals from old urban inner city space from the 1950s and in minority territory to the raging flavor of the month “Rich White Suburb” geographical goal of the Catholic Church in many places in America to replace that old city stuff, that old Vatican II stuff and be on top as a city on a hill in the burbs. (Phoenix's game plan slightly different.)

I have to wonder too with the South involved that the new St. John Neumann Cathedral in Farragut/Knoxville will not be unlike the big plantation house with its colleges and seminaries and nunneries, missionary convents already arrived from Uganda, will receive tithes and adoration from all the brown and Hispanic parishes down the hill and in the valley so to speak. 

                                                                                                                                         (Google maps)

A gated Diocese and or Cathedral – I.D. required to enter the segregated whites only house of God?

That art and or religion imitates politics and the GOP goal to loot the national treasury and build economic fortresses and gated white castle communities is not unlike how the Diocese of Knoxville may be going.

I also wonder too that how maybe Bishop Morlino of Madison Wisconsin thwarted in his attempts to outright build a new cathedral or skim funds off for personal (bribes?) and secret Vatican projects, may in fact be making a large diocese loan at this very minute to build a new mega parish in the middle of some cow pie pasture in Wisconsin that one day will be the new Madison Cathedral.

Without transparency, with tax exempt and tax free status, with religious barriers to civil and secular review of the books let alone review by the peasant laity in the obedient ranks, how much money laundering and cash flows and what not rival the teachings of Jesus, discount those teachings into zero and less than zero in the hearts of the RC hierarchy these days?

Etc. Links and Quoted Material:

http://www.stltoday.com/news/local/pastor-here-named-bishop-of-knoxville-monsignor-richard-stika-is/article_15a870f1-26b8-5cb2-948c-6e02b46c35fb.html

Rigali also put Stika in charge of Pope John Paul II's visit to St. Louis in 1999. Marti Aboussie was on the St. Louis Board of Alderman at the time and worked closely with Stika on the planning process. "He'll be a good administrator," said Aboussie, "but more importantly, he'll make an excellent bishop without compromising the pastoral skills that made him a great priest." In 2004, Burke named Stika to be the director of the archdiocese's Office of Child and Youth Protection and delegate to the archdiocese's review board and chairman of its Child Safety Committee. "With the exception of proven, admitted or credibly accused pedophiles, there is perhaps no priest in the archdiocese less qualified, in our view, to be a bishop than Richard Stika," the Survivors Network of those Abused by Priests said in a statement Monday. "In his dealings with child sex abuse and cover up cases here, he has repeatedly shown a penchant for secrecy, reckless and half-truths."

http://www.gagenmccoy.com/developments-of-interest/new-cases-interest-may-21-2012

Donovan v. Dan Murphy Foundation (2012) 204 Cal.App.4th 1500.  A former director of a non-profit charitable organization sued the organization and its current directors alleging that he was wrongfully removed after he had raised concerns about financial oversight and governance.

http://www.casp.net/california-anti-slapp-first-amendment-law-resources/caselaw/california-courts-of-appeal-cases/donovan-v-dan-murphy-foundation/

2   Roupp and Rewinski were elected as directors after Donovan was removed from the board of directors of the Foundation (Board).

According to the complaint, Donovan first began expressing his concerns in 2008, after the Foundation’s assets had dropped approximately $65 million in value from the previous valuation of $250 million. Donovan’s concerns were shared by two of the seven directors at that time, Julia Schwartz and Rosemary E. Donohue, but were rejected by three other directors, Edward Landry, Richard Grant, and Maria Grant.

The complaint detailed Donovan’s disputes with his fellow directors. First, during a proposed transfer of management of the Foundation’s assets, Donovan sought a review of the transfer by the full Board. Landry and Richard Grant opposed Donovan’s request, and the management of the Foundation’s assets was transferred without a review by the Board. Second, Donovan “demanded” that the Board exercise its responsibilities under the Probate Code to oversee the management of the Foundation’s assets.

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Cardinal Rigali States Requirements of a Good Pope – Pot Calling Kettle Black?

Justin "Big Frank" Rigali - Philly Crime Boss (Retired)

Cardinal Regali is not under the rule of Archbishop Chaput the same way Cardinal Mahony in under the fat thumb of Archbishop Gomez in Los Angeles and being criticized for past performances. 

Mahony is being pulled through the mud in the Italian Press regarding his dirty bloody hands voting for a new Pope.
 

No such media mucking about for fellow retired reprobate Rigali. Both Mohony and Rigali are under 80 and as Cardinals are still eligible to vote.

No doubt Opus Dei wants to influence Mahony’s vote since OD Archbishop Gomez had not yet gotten his red hat.

Rigali will no doubt be selling his vote for a promotion for his portege Ambrose St. John Richard Stika to get out a shithole assignment of Knoxville Tennessee. 

Young Richard has yet to spend the money, build a new Bishop’s palace for his old boss now that he smells promotion in the air. Maybe even Chicago at this point. Anything is possible in papal elections.

The American Media is eating up the Cardinal Emeritus of Philadelphia’s fatherly advice on picking a new pope.  It is good to have your old protégé give you protection from mean old Charlie Chaput in the form of Bishop Stika of Knoxville Tennessee still planning and trying to fund a new Bishop’s palace for his old Philly crime boss Justin “Big Frank” Rigali (retired – yeah right).

Cardinal Rigali, in retirement and in shabby digs, when not in Rome, with his former Protégé Bishop Stika when not in Rome, from former glory days and exile in St Louis (wink, nod), states what the new Pope needs:

Compassion

Experience

Understanding

Linguistics

What? Nothing about Kids Justin????????????

http://catholicphilly.com/2013/02/local-news/local-catholic-news/before-conclave-cardinal-rigali-lists-qualities-cardinals-will-seek-in-electing-next-pope/

“He is first of all, going to be the Bishop of Rome. He is going to be pastor of the Universal Church with all that entails, so just imagine the qualities that are needed.”

Among the qualities he listed are compassion, and “he has to have experience, he has to have understanding.”

Also, “the question of languages is not without consideration. Since the pope is pastor of the Universal Church he has to communicate with people. Pope Benedict certainly was very good at languages and Pope John Paul II was even more so; he had an extraordinary capacity to speak languages.”

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Northeast Catholic High School for Boys Philadelphia 1926 - 2010

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Chapter Two - The Long Dark Corridor – The Sounds of Silence - “222”

Chapter Two - The Long Dark Corridor – “222”

The thought comes to you sometimes. That things do and do not matter.

I had the occasion with the abundance of information floating around the Internet to see the stories of two former high school teachers’ end run of career and retirements.

The first teacher had been a been a very well groomed and interesting Spanish teacher who I had been in freshman and sophomore classes with. Through a childhood grade school friend or some similar connection, the retirement of “S.” had been shown in a two minute You Tube clip. The teacher had survived all the way to the age of sixty-five just as the last class of an inner city high school was deemed obsolete by the Archdiocese.

"S." had given up Spanish classes, and had become the disciplinarian, no doubt for job security, at that Catholic High School. The You Tube saw him making the rounds and being surprised by a group of former students cheering and applauding him as he entered the school auditorium.

Of course, there were arguments that a school that had graduated many successful men, it was an all boys school, had an alumni base willing to subsidize the losses listed on the books of keeping a great institution going for another year or two.  That the successful white alumni loved their Alma Mater and did not care that the student body was not now one hundred percent, or even fifty percent, white as in olden days. That the Archdiocese’s game plan looked to a future model of new Catholic High Schools to be built in the rich white suburbs.

In any case, there was talk of a Jesuit high school to purchase the property but in the end the Public School System forked over the cash to start one of those so-called “Charter” High School things using the bones of existing buildings as the base of a new education operation in the inner city.

Getting back to "S.", he had studied Spanish in Mexico in his junior year in college. So besides the grammar of that language was a bag full of stories of his experiences relating and interrelating to that foreign culture.  In retrospect, it is strange how Americans can be so ignorant of a culture right next door and over the next border.

The friend from childhood that had told me or wrote to me or maybe just posted the You Tube on Facebook had been passing along some info. Much appreciated. And another grade school chum had sought me out to become part of that social network after another childhood friend had died. The dead classmate had in fact lived just two doors down from me back then. 

That the social network thing can keep old acquaintances alive in indirect contact and act in a manner that word of mouth, neighborhoods or hardcopy local newspapers had acted as in the recent past before the coming of this in some way mysterious new global culture thing.

The story about a Spanish teacher, though perhaps long winded was an intro to the another part of my story here and my reaction of sorts to an English teacher in high school.

I had related the story of Father Ed in The Long Dark Corridor. I had touched upon some matters perhaps delicate and now long gone of the sexual orientation of some of the priests that taught in that high school. But I cannot let go of things sometimes. 

I also read recently of a retirement of an English teacher that went on to much higher things in the front office education bureaucracy of the archdiocese in the chancery downtown, sharing space with the hierarchy in that strange little office building, prefab, and hastily risen close to forty years ago.

“E.” was no doubt a very ambitious teacher. He no doubt was filled with many innovative ideas to modernize education in my high school and beyond to other schools in the archdiocese. Considering that I knew him in his salad days. I did not like him from day one. His loud high pitched boisterous way of talking and acting out the role of teacher as if on a stage and in a large auditorium without a sound system, in retrospect, speaks to me of a self-taught orator or one that did not adjust from the larger stage as in a college debating club to that of a classroom with about forty students.

In a way I did not seek to be put into his showcase “honors” English class.  And from day one, he made it clear that this was a showcase program and the whole world, meaning the Principal’s office and the archdiocese was looking to see how this pilot program would produce great students and great writing from the inner city turds that populated this high school's hallways.

They did segregate all us white male students according to the entrance test to the high school that we took in eighth grade into perhaps A, B, C tiers. With tiers overlapping.  And as I think back I was at the bottom of “A” or more likely the top of “B”. That people you sat next to in homeroom, you never saw again during the day except maybe at lunchtime. You were grouped according to your academic scores. Small bubbles within bubbles in an education system, wheels within wheels.

I had done very well in freshman year in terms of test scores in the English course. One of the strange things was that in this new elite English class in sophomore year, I saw no familiar faces except one. And as I think back, my freshman English class was something of hodge podge of kids of various levels of achievement. 

The teacher had been a Reverend Mister, a seminarian in his fifth year in seminary study who had just accomplished a four year degree and was being farmed out into the field for teaching experience in a religious order famed for its education status as a teaching order of priests and brothers.

On a side note, at the end of my junior year in high school, I was in the school band, marching on Memorial Day.  We stopped for a quick break and pit stop somewhere along the way.  That Reverend Mister came up to me in civilian clothes, tee shirt, shorts, and sneakers to say hi.  I could not but help notice that he was with a young lady.  He had not been in the school in my junior year.  He briefly explained that he was no longer in the seminary and wanted to know how I was doing etc. No doubt his hetero ways made him decide on a change in career etc. Never saw or heard of him again btw.

And speaking of the teacher base in a religious teaching facility, a high school run by the archdiocese, the religious still outnumbered the male lay teachers back then. The lay teachers for the most part were under 26 years of age. It was the age of Vietnam and the draft and they gave deferments to teachers. When they turned 27, most of them departed. Bolted in fact!

Two projects of that freshman English class stand out in my mind. One was the reading of the English translation of The Iliad by Homer and the almost chapter by chapter, blow by blow, bloody naked carcass by bloody naked carcass description of the carnage of war of that piece of ancient literature in more like a history lesson than an English class.

Second was a study of Mythology by Edith Hamilton. There had been a twenty question test on the names of all the gods and goddesses and lower categories of Mt. Olympus family members. I got a 100 on the test, being the only one in class to do so. Many had got a 95 but for some reason, I had memorized the secondary name of the moon goddess and I cannot remember now what that name was but no doubt I did well in that freshman class to be sent on to the honors English class in sophomore year.

Now here is where a lot of conflict happened for me. One, I did not know of any honors class in freshman year. Nor had anybody asked if I wanted to join such a club as it termed out to be.

In retrospect, I think that maybe my freshman year in high school and the different path that led me to sophomore honors English was my freshman schedule that I know was different that most of the others who ended up in sophomore honors English. I think that my Spanish class with “S.” had had me end up in a last minute put together freshman class with the reverend mister, a miscellaneous overthrow class to put people whose other courses such as language or math put them in schedule conflicts elsewhere. 

As such I was out of a social loop, and came into a sophomore class many of whom were already acquainted with each other in English in freshman year with schedules arraigned around French and German classes. I only knew one guy from freshman English in that sophomore class and he ironically was someone who had my exact duplicate schedule that first year. He was also someone out sick a great deal of the time, so I never really got to know him very well.

This is where another unpleasant memory pops into mind. Eighth grade and the elitist nun, with her nose raised in the air because she had been assigned to some poor Irish parish in the inner city, she went into such a stink when I submitted my desired optional courses on a piece of paper submitted to the high school. “Spanish”! It’s a mongrel language! You won’t be able to get into a decent college with Spanish on your high school record! You need French or German to get into college etc.

I had in fact took the course because my order sister had taken Spanish and I was hoping for some home tutoring regarding that course on language. 

Anyway, day one of sophomore honors English and the speech about us being the crème de la crème, the pilot program that was going to breakout of all expectations. There was also going to be a college style course load of a book a week to be read, analyzed and tested on and of course only the best writing possible was to be sought for as a targeted goal.  Under no circumstance was anyone ever going to get the coveted A+++ on any assigned essay etc.

Well, the fawning of the troops over this new messiah like teacher started from day one. And the many of them who talked so highly of “E.” outside of class.  Many in his regular English classes had more than enough to say about the crazy sophomore English teacher who no doubt gave the same or similar workloads to them.

I in retrospect have read some points of people not happy with “E.”, in recent years on the Internet, in this academic rule in later years in the Archdiocese head office, and these points seem to confirm to me that unless you joined his cult of adoration of his ideas and his vision regarding education, your careers in education were on shaky ground. Enough said about that because what I have seen on the Internet no doubt only represents a small margin view of the abilities and or accomplishments of this person.

I do remember in Senior Year, many of his prized Sophomore English honor students were in charge of putting together the Senior Yearbook that there were something like thirteen picture of “E.” from still adoring students from his personal and or English honors cult.

I am not a joiner. Perhaps I am loner. Just a few weeks into “E’s” sophomore class we had to write an essay on “The Sounds of Silence” and we were supposed to be creative because there were no guidelines besides the title of the essay.

Well, I can remember getting into this essay for some reason. I got very abstract and perhaps even spiritual. I can only remember the inspiration of a quiet moment in an early morning hour one summer’s day that I happened to be up just before dawn and how beautiful and magical the silence and lack of the presence of any automobiles or trucks in an otherwise very crowded and busy street intersection near where I lived, before the days of the nearby Interstate that became the present main artery of all that north south city traffic.

“E” hands out the essays with marks on them to most.  He holds back a few of the essays and begins to read them and praise them and criticize them as he went along. He then handed them back one by one to the authors. He continued to read. Then one begins to see the marks on the papers A+++ and one realizes that he does hand out A+++ marks and I was so filled with an internal glee that I had made the cut. I was going to get a A+++ and he was going to read it out loud in class. Such an honor.

My paper seemed to be on the bottom of his pile. Was he saving the best for last? I would never know.

The bell rang. Class was over. He handed my paper to me without comment and it did in fact have the A+++ rating but nobody in the class would hear my words aloud from the performing orator on the stage of the class.  My heart sank in total disappointment. Did he leave the best for last? Did time run out unnoticed to him? Or did he time it all by eyeing the clock. I can be so paranoid sometimes. 

But I got the A+++.  Been there.  Done that.  Time to move on. Etc.

I decided then and there. I would drop his course. So much of what he had fed this class so far was his own personal bullshit full of his ambitious plan to one day run the school system downtown which he in fact did one day. I have since read many things about cults and brainwashing and such and “E.” would have made a great Jim Jones in the secular world etc. IMHO.

I also as I have written this blog for many years have to wonder how ambitious church lady types with penises, how they rise to the top of their professions being perhaps tops and not giving a shit about who gets ground into sausage along the way, especially children.

I also have  to wonder how “E.” built his great education system as the archdiocese, one by one, shut down their inner city schools and high schools.  That glory sometimes is a story, a press release, as the world and or institution dies from attrition. 

Will the last person in the Archdiocese Education Office at “222” kindly turn off the lights as they leave the building forever.

I also have to wonder how many times how the elites of the Education Department rubbed elbows with the Elites of the hierarchy at board meetings or gatherings over cocktails and how polite church talk and education talk never got mixed with the very real talk of child abuse and criminal cover up emanating from the Cardinal’s penthouse office suite on the top floor above?

So it goes.


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Holy Spirit(?) Moves College of Cardinals to Rush into Papal Election to make way for Easter Week Sales at the Vatican Gift Shop for the Tourists.

Crowds are important in the Vatican business. 

Having people standing around St. Peter’s Square waiting for a pope to be elected is not good for business.

Especially for Easter Week Sales of Christ and New Pope chotskis. Of course they might have dolls and stuffed animals with an image of the new Pope ready for the Easter Tourist rush. More than likely there will be a fire sale of Benedict baubles from warehouses full of such outdated stuff now that Benedict’s retirement interferes with future marketing sales of such.

There was an estimated loss of $2 million dollars when from January first until last week, the Vatican ATMs could only dispense cash and not accept Credit Card or Debit Card purchases by tourists.

No doubt the EU Bank Regulators were sending a message to the Vatican State to follow the standard laws and ethics of secular banking.

One strange phenomenon. A German has been named new Head of the I.O.R. or Vatican Bank, no doubt Germany and the EU wanting a foothold inside the Vatican Bank.

Compromise on that I think in that I hear the new German bank guy is a Knight of Malta etc. LOL

Who is going to be the new pope? I hear the Vatican Gift Shop is stocking up on Cheese Hats. Oy vey!

Why are Cuban American Senators Marco Rubio and Ted Cruz Ashamed of their Mothers’ Names?

GOP Token "Hispanic" Senators Rubio-Garcia and Cruz-Darragh (aka)

Senator Marco Rubio -Garcia of Florida and Senator Rafael Edward “Ted” Cruz -Darragh call themselves Hispanic and or Cubano and they appear to hate their mommas.

Marco has problems with speaking in public a lot like Richard Nixon. He is some sort of savior for the Republicans. Nixon used to sweat like a pig on the way to slaughter when he used to speak. Rubio-Garcia goes all dry in the mouth when he gives a speech. He still is shamed of his momma.

Ted Cruz prances around the Senate with a Canadian kind of walk and talk. He was born there. So maybe he dropped his momma’s name up there in Polar Bear Country.  His rhetoric reminds me of Joe McCarthy.  I am like young enough to remember people having a fresh memory of that confused closeted tortured soul. A lot of really really homophobes in the GOP. Not to say that they are all closeted gays. Cruz-Darragh still is ashamed of his momma’s last name.

There is a lot of dumbed down American stuff about the Hispanic culture where the media gets confused about the Mother Suffix Name system in the general Hispanic Culture.

Of course, things might be different in Cuba.  But a simple reading even of Wikipedia would see that Fidel Castro-Ruz is not ashamed of his momma. Or her name.

Which makes me wonder when you get government handouts, affirmative action, CIA scholarships to go in one generation, according to each of their phonied up Anglicized Hispanic bios, from picking beans, washing dishes, to having college and law degrees from Florida or Harvard. Yeah right.

We all know that the Cuban American Community in Miami is ready to condo-ize Cuba once Fidel Passes. It is possible we see in Marco and Ted, two future stooges, Scott Walker types, being groomed for the very important token role for the CIA, as the First Governor of the Fifty First State of Cuba? LOL

No doubt the Far Right feels comfortable with their token “Hispanic” lap dogs in the form of Cuban American and Canadian Cuban Americans  Marco Rubio-XXXXXX  of Florida and “Ted” Cruz-XXXXXXX of Texas.

Has anybody inside the liberal eastern media climbed down from their corporate towers and asked the average real Hispanic in the Street what they think of the token GOP Anglicized “Hispanics” on the conflicted GOP gameplan spreadsheet for winning future elections with real people or GOP cardboard cut-outs in America.  LMAO

Carmina Quartet - Rolf Lislevand - Boccherini: La Musica Notturna di Madrid - Passa Calle

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The Secret of Fatima - The End of the Papacy?

I remember this thing from first grade in 1958 and it was related to the apparition of Mary at Fatima. The thing of course was the secret letter containing prophecy and to be opened in 1960. Suspense, mystery and absoluteness were hallmarks of this then urban legend.

The legend no doubt twittered out from the convent of Lucia who wrote down these memories twenty five years after their happening. Twenty five years can change a bit of context or connotation. The four gospels were in general consensus written forty to sixty years after the death of Jesus. Of course Sister Lucia’s memory and voice were of one person and not many.

I have read this so-called third letter and released from the Vatican that got spun in different ways. Before I comment, here is the text of that so-called third “secret” prophecy:

"I write in obedience to you, my God, who command me to do so through his Excellency the Bishop of Leiria and through your Most Holy Mother and mine.

 "After the two parts which I have already explained, at the left of Our Lady and a little above, we saw an Angel with a flaming sword in his left hand; flashing, it gave out flames that looked as though they would set the world on fire; but they died out in contact with the splendor that Our Lady radiated towards him from her right hand: pointing to the earth with his right hand, the Angel cried out in a loud voice: 'Penance, Penance, Penance!'. And we saw in an immense light that is God: 'something similar to how people appear in a mirror when they pass in front of it' a Bishop dressed in White 'we had the impression that it was the Holy Father'. Other Bishops, Priests, men and women Religious going up a steep mountain, at the top of which there was a big Cross of rough-hewn trunks as of a cork-tree with the bark; before reaching there the Holy Father passed through a big city half in ruins and half trembling with halting step, afflicted with pain and sorrow, he prayed for the souls of the corpses he met on his way; having reached the top of the mountain, on his knees at the foot of the big Cross he was killed by a group of soldiers who fired bullets and arrows at him, and in the same way there died one after another the other Bishops, Priests, men and women Religious, and various lay people different ranks and positions. Beneath the two arms of the Cross there were two Angels each with a crystal aspersorium in his hand, in which they gathered up the blood of the Martyrs and with it sprinkled the souls that were making their way to God." 

No doubt Pius XII read this letter in private. He may have shit himself if he read it in early 1944 with the Nazi army camped outside the gates of the Vatican. He probably put it away to 1960 as recommended by Sister Lucia when it was supposed to be clearer in its meaning.

John XXIII became pope in 1958 and called for a Council within three months of his taking office, in early 1959. I think he read that “secret” letter and it may have helped in his decision to call a Council.

The difficult part of any “prophecy” is in who interprets and or who understands the prophecy.

Cardinal Ratzinger, as head of the Congregation of the Doctrine of Faith, is one of a handful of people, mostly popes, who had access and read this message of Mary in Fatima before its official release in 2000.

The fringe conspiracy types put a blanket of doubt over the full disclosure by Ratzinger and or the Vatican in that this is a vision interpreted by Lucia and there are no words and or message in this third part of a whole message package.

John Paul the Great, superstar of the Vatican, took this vision to mean that he was the Bishop in White and that instead of being killed, he was saved from death by the divine intervention of Our Lady of Fatima. He was shot in 1981 in St. Peter’s Square and survived on the feast of that Lady of Fatima. Indeed, the big “M” on his coat of arms stood for Mary. He felt that his survival after Fatima Day was more than a coincidence but divine. He was strongly into the Mary cult wing of the RC church which has a tendency to be medieval or “traditional” on its religious perception of the church’s mission.

John Paul II takes the prophecy or vision of Sister Lucia literally. As a playboy superstar who was privately criticized for spending more time on planning with worldwide rockstar tours than spending time on the nitty gritty of politics and bureaucracy at the Vatican, John Paul thought it was “all about me” in the opinion of some who worked with him.

The one man who Pope Rockstar could always turn to in the nitty gritty bureaucrat role was Joseph Ratzinger, the present pope. Appointed as head of the Congregation of the Doctrine of the Faith – formerly known was the Holy Office of the Inquisition - in 1981, Ratzinger was the hard nosed bureaucrat you came up against if you did not follow the party line in your role of layman, nun, priest or bishop.

Joe was John Paul’s bad cop in the good cop/bad cop routine of John Paul raking in the glory and PR success. Now in retrospect, perhaps the historic case or label might be good pope/bad pope in the scheme of things.

This past duty roster and his twenty four year methodology of being a power behind the throne until he himself is now in the superstar spotlight (a hard to follow act of that of JPII) perhaps first and foremost this past is the greatest obstacle to Benedict XVI’s public interface and the public’s perception of him as Bishop of Rome. That and Benedict’s perhaps personal and private thought that anybody can be a rockstar. Yeah right.

John Paul II had the same medieval, backward looking, not friendly user attitude toward the laity that Benedict XVI is now being trashed for. John Paul II could get away with it. John Paul II, if you read current history books, single handedly brought down the evil Soviet Empire. The west, masters of the liberal media, and pro-western, anti-Soviet propaganda, makes John Paul some sort of Nietzsche religious superman if such a combination could possibly occur.

In fact, I think that in fifty years, I believe that historians if they are able to be honest will paint the source of the present crumbling western culture on three people. They will be Ronald Reagan, Margaret Thatcher and John Paul II. Not a true axis of evil so to speak but maybe a goofy “Gang of Three” who set the western civilization down a wrong road toward Global fascism and away from human liberation and freedom – a secular real time salvation.

Right now my personal advice to Benedict XVI is to stop trying to be a rockstar. Tear down the Rockstar Audience Theatre and go back to being a Pope in a photograph on the wall or a holy card in the missal of all good and faithful Catholics. Keep your mouth shut or at least have twenty bureaucrats review your remarks before releasing them to the public

Getting back to Sister’s Lucia’s prophecy/vision – John XXIII understood the meaning of the letter of Fatima all too well. Pope John understood the vision on a symbolic level while John Paul took it on a literal level.

On a symbolic level, if the White Bishop is the all too powerful head of a Catholics only Church, then the organization will die if the Papacy dies or is prevented from acting in an actual political or religious sense. The death of the RC church drags her sister churches down as well with her. The whole world becomes a truly darker place then. This is not unlike the so-called prophecy of the now defunct sister churches in Asia Minor in the Book of Revelation – a book, as prophecy, that I personally do not subscribe to.

The pope and or the Vatican is not the Church. The Church is not buildings – it is people – it is the People of God.

Fifty years from now I can picture not a dead Christian Church but a living, thriving, growing institution on all continents and being the Anglican, Lutheran, Roman, Orthodox Church for want of a better term for a United Christianity that I think is the Great (unrecognized) Legacy of John XXIII and the Second Vatican Council.

http://thisculturalchristian.blogspot.com/2009/03/secret-of-fatima-end-of-papacy.html

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