tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-719785905284272861.post1524235252991323861..comments2013-04-02T07:40:10.048-05:00Comments on Heresy & Humor: Pope's Pet Peeves Proclaimed ~ in Abstract DrivelTheraPhttp://www.blogger.com/profile/17684120043427738135noreply@blogger.comBlogger7125tag:blogger.com,1999:blog-719785905284272861.post-59655821710222193522012-12-26T10:51:38.785-06:002012-12-26T10:51:38.785-06:00Brilliant analysis, TheraP, and so well-written--c...Brilliant analysis, TheraP, and so well-written--con brio. I will point readers to this at my site, and am glad you posted a link to in a recent comment there. Thank you for this powerful and insightful commentary!William D. Lindseyhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/07246026074693891965noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-719785905284272861.post-85816397350244758912012-08-24T10:00:33.683-05:002012-08-24T10:00:33.683-05:00Thank you for taking the time to comment, Robert. ...Thank you for taking the time to comment, Robert. It's painful, for a convert especially perhaps, though really for all of us who think deeply, to find that leaders of a faith dear to us, have abandoned their responsibilities to the flock and to God - to be foot-washers and lovers. And to set aside pettiness and arrogance and a need to control.<br /><br />In my blog "Nothingness" (there's a link in the sidebar) I have a couple of posts related to good shepherds. One is on Br. Pierre (true shepherd) and the other on someone now an Orthodox Bishop, a post I called "The Capstone of Holiness." <br /><br />You have my blessing and my prayers that you may find peace of soul within the God who never loses patience or mercy with his children and will always guide us to the Truth.<br /><br />Peace be with you. Thanks again for your long comment.TheraPhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17684120043427738135noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-719785905284272861.post-31187330810778251582012-08-23T21:12:14.072-05:002012-08-23T21:12:14.072-05:00In reading this again, I am reminded of the diffic...In reading this again, I am reminded of the difficulty I had with people in the Catholic Answers website, which banned me forever for questioning with good intentions certain doctrines about Papal power over the soul after death, or purgatory. Some posting on the NCR have the same mindset as the Cardinal, now Pope Benedict. Believe everything the church teaches or leave. <br /> This mindset is new to me, an adult covert during the Vatican II years. I have had some experience with cultic religious groups, but until now immune to what appears to be a kind of Ultramontane religiosity in today's church. <br /> I have a theological background and ecumenical experience. I believe the best assessment would be to liken the present climate in the <br />church to a cult. The present Pope is willing to create a cult around his personae which must, for its very survival, depend upon unswerving obedience and uncritical acceptance of authority. Given the history of the Papacy, this is nothing new. <br /> What is important is to recognize the evil for what it is and respond rationally, which is to think for oneself and decide whether this demand made by the hierarchy of acceptance and submission to their teaching authroity is legitimate or not. <br /> One of the methods used by deprogrammers when counseling people exiting cults is to suggest that they "do theology". The same applies here.<br /> The issue has profound ramifications. Cults do not, typically, function in ways that are ethical. Ethical actions may include those that edify the human person and do not debase and demean the intellect by subverting the proper action of conscience in the life of faith. <br /> Notice I used the term "human person". This is to dialogue using the same methods as those used by the hierarchy in what passes for profound theological discourse. The tragic flaw here is the in this view, people are reduced to abstractions.<br /> This is a form of brainwashing. Those who are not willing to follow won't-those who do, could just as easily have been a Moonie or drunk the Kool-Aid at Jonestown, in my view. There but for the grace of God go I. And thank God for that grace. Amen. <br /> By the way, I learned a form of spontaneous writing from Jack Kerouac, (not directly) which led to my comment about Molly Bloom. Other than having read the end of James Joyce's book some 50+ years ago in Booklyn, NY I don't know who Ms. Bloom is, except that I have a hunch she was making love when she said something like. <br /> "Tis better to have loved and lost, than ne'er to have loved at all." "Would the power, the giftie gie us, to see oursels as others see us". This last, from Robert Burns.Roberthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06466552819119744652noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-719785905284272861.post-74045683832114939512012-08-06T12:24:35.661-05:002012-08-06T12:24:35.661-05:00Thank you for your comment, Robert.
Blessings upo...Thank you for your comment, Robert.<br /><br />Blessings upon you!TheraPhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17684120043427738135noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-719785905284272861.post-33002764131642522892012-08-03T19:36:43.374-05:002012-08-03T19:36:43.374-05:00This is a good read. It can give me a chance to ta...This is a good read. It can give me a chance to take a vacation from posting at the end of NCR articles, which is going nowhere, and accomplishing nothing. I question the wisdom in setting myself up for scrutiny by the temple police in that format. <br /> To say a prayer for the Pope while knowing that in many ways he is a perceived enemy is an act of obedience. Offer it up, I say. Better than the bitterness of spirit that cannot laugh at the absurdity of the situation. <br /> There was a section the the READERS DIGEST that one may have read in the dentist's office called LAUGHTER, THE BEST MEDICINE. I will quote Molly Bloom from UlYSSES: "Yes, yes, yes". <br /> So be it.Roberthttps://www.blogger.com/profile/06466552819119744652noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-719785905284272861.post-2149701788611949942012-06-10T11:36:45.229-05:002012-06-10T11:36:45.229-05:00God bless you, Colleen! It is a relief to get fee...God bless you, Colleen! It is a relief to get feedback from someone else in this field.<br /><br />I too at first considered mistranslation. But then concluded that such a detail-oriented man would likely never allow a mistranslation to be disseminated. (Not for 23 years!)<br /><br />I am so grateful you posted the speech at your blog. (I've spent much of the past week pondering it.) And, busy as you are, it's so obivious why you did not intersperse it with your usual comments. For it takes a great deal of time and mental agility to carefully analyze what more and more looks like the thinking of a mind unhinged.<br /><br />So what does an institution do, if the man at the top of a self-perpetuating hierarchy (where moving up the ladder requires oaths of allegiance and unquestioning swallowing of infallible statements) has lost his moorings and gone off the rails?TheraPhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/17684120043427738135noreply@blogger.comtag:blogger.com,1999:blog-719785905284272861.post-90952157604314180912012-06-10T11:12:42.523-05:002012-06-10T11:12:42.523-05:00Made me yearn for two tylenol.
I have to admire ...Made me yearn for two tylenol. <br /><br />I have to admire you TheraP for this analysis. I've read the thing three times and can't get past the leaps in abstract logic. In my more generous moments I think maybe it didn't translate well, but this piece of Ratzinger's is.....well....makes less sense than many delusional systems I've encountered from the truly psychotic.<br /><br />The reason I posted this gem was to let folks know Pope Benedict has been orchestrating his culture war for a long long time, but the convoluted abstract thinking which underpins his solutions are just mind numbing. No wonder I can't get any messages from my body, my mind is numb.colkochhttps://www.blogger.com/profile/03432916690101599393noreply@blogger.com