With Pope John Paul II having departed at long last to meet his maker, the question of his legacy is not hard to answer: it is disastrous and bloody.

Having been enthroned relatively young, Karol Wojtyla had 27 years to spout the most evil bile from the world’s post powerful bully pulpit.

“People who renounce desires often turn, suddenly, into hypocrites!” said the immortal Jelaluddin Rumi. And while this Pope never found himself in a position of obvious hypocrisy, like so many odious conservatives in this country that preach one thing in public and do another in private, the list of which is very long, this Pope has been very diligent in cultivating a friendly image for himself full of goodwill toward all people and religions. It’s only upon close examination that the goodwill turns into hypocrisy and evil reeking to high heavens.

Take for instance his much ballyhooed opposition to the culture of death. You’d think that capital punishment would be high on the list, yet his cardinals in the United States have hardly been active campaigning against it. Unlike abortion, where some have refused to give Communion to politicians that support a woman’s right to control her own body. None of those Catholic clergymen refused to give Communion to politicians that support the death penalty or a Middle East war that the Pope allegedly opposed.

Does this make sense? Well, actually it does.

While the Pope liked to wax lyrical about such lofty issues as social justice, the sanctity of life, and world peace, he did very little to advance such causes in practice. He could have single-handedly stopped the bombing of Iraq by taking up residence in Baghdad but he didn’t. And when Archbishop Romero went to Rome to plead for help in his fight against the excesses of the murderous right-wing regime in El Salvador, the Pope gave him a cold shoulder. Preach social justice, but only in the abstract; that was his motto. God forbid some of those murderous right-wing regimes get overthrown, they’ve been so good to the church.

And so have the US neocons and religious fanatics that are as reactionary as the Pope himself and crusade against the same “evils:” namely the sexual revolution, abortion, science, feminism, gay rights, godless communism, and such. That’s why the Catholic Church in the United States came out in support of Bush for president in 2004, despite the fact that he had killed 155 death row inmates and more then 100,000 Iraqis, most of them innocent civilians, and against John Kerry (who’s a Catholic, ironically). So much for the vaunted sanctity of life. Birds of a feather flock together, in this case hypocrites extraordinaire who preach life but kill people en masse.

And kill people en masse, both Bush and Pope John Paul II did.

It’s perhaps in developing countries that the deeds of Pope John Paul II are most nefarious and where his vile legacy will be most disastrously felt, not in Europe or North America. Few people at the end of the twentieth century, the Taliban included, have done more to harm the cause of women worldwide than this Pope. From his opposition to women priests (read: women are second class beings) to his traditional view of the family (read: “go back to the kitchen, you uppity witches”) to his opposition to contraception, millions of women suffer. Europeans have learned to respect the Pope for his stance on social issues (however hypocritical) and ignore his reactionary preaching on matters they consider private. For instance in Italy, home of the Pope, abortion is legal and nobody’s firebombing clinics or shooting doctors. And the use of contraceptive measures is widespread.

But as Marx teaches us, “Religion is the sigh of the oppressed creature.” And it is in developing countries that the Catholic Church is the most powerful and where the Pope’s reactionary doctrine on contraception has been most devastating. It is safe to say that millions of people have been infected with the AIDS virus because the Pope would rather see people die than use a condom, that sinful enabler of promiscuous sex. Like people are going to quit having sex just because the church has made sure that no condoms are available.

And since people infected with AIDS invariably die in Africa where access to anti-retroviral drugs is prohibitively expensive, those deaths are the direct results of the Pope’s reactionary preaching. Oh sure, he’s come out against the excesses of capitalism (which are responsible for high drug prices in the developing world, among other things), but he has done little to combat those excesses. Unlike the excesses of communism against which he has crusaded personally all his adult life.

Then there’s the issue of gay rights. Love the sinner but hate the sin? Well, Pope John Paul II certainly hated the sin. But he didn’t display much love for the sinner, either. For him gay people, when fighting for their most basic human rights, are promoting a “new ideology of evil.” Homosexuality is still a crime in more than 70 countries thanks to the efforts of religious fanatics, chief among them Pope John Paul II. And when gay people get killed, as it happens every day all over the world, it’s thanks to the flames of hatred and homophobia that the Pope helped fan personally.

But when closeted gay men put on a frock and go molesting young boys by the tens of thousands, that’s an internal affair of the Church, best kept secret, and certainly not a crime under the law. The current church sex scandal is the result of legal lawsuits and not any action on the part of the Catholic Church to purge its ranks from pedophiles, despite the Pope’s platitude on the subject. Hypocrisy as always. We are still to discover the full extent of this criminal abuse of children in countries where the victims do not have recourse to courts, i.e. in the developing world where the Catholic Church is most powerful and where nobody dares report or investigate their crimes.

It is customary not to speak evil of deceased people. So the obituaries will laud this pope as a compassionate clergyman who fought communism in his native Poland and inspired millions of faithfuls around the world. Inspire he did, that much is true. But the people he inspired the most are the reactionary religious zealots that would like nothing better than to turn the clock back to the 16th century.

So unless you happen to believe that God created the Earth 6000 years ago and it’s flat with the sun orbiting around it, the passing of this pope is very good news indeed. After all, Friedrich Nietzsche said it best, “I call Christianity the one great curse, the one great intrinsic depravity, the one great instinct for revenge for which no expedient is sufficiently poisonous, secret, subterranean, petty – I call it the one immortal blemish of mankind.” Pope John Paul II has elevated that intrinsic depravity to new heights.

.. let's also remember that two of JP II' s predecessors, John XIII [1958-1963] and John Paul I [1977] may have been murdered by reactionary Catholic hierarchy because they sought to reform the church John Paul I only served a month before his mysterious death that lead to JPII's election .

See Yallop "In God's Name"

Part II of "The Godfather" also dealt with this subject.

ATTENTION LEFTISTS, STATISTS, SOCIALISTS AND OTHER VERMIN. THE PARADE OF IDIOTS DENOUNCING THE POPE HAS BEGUN!

What You Didn't Know
About Taxes & The 'Crown'
By Mark Owen
2-17-5


There are two Crowns operant in England, one being Queen Elizabeth II. Although extremely wealthy, the Queen functions largely in a ceremonial capacity and serves to deflect attention away from the other Crown, who issues her marching orders through their control of the English Parliament. This other Crown is comprised of a committee of 12 banks headed by the Bank of England (House of Rothschild). They rule the world from the 677-acre, independent sovereign state known as The City of London, or simply 'The City.'

The City is not a part of England, just as Washington is not a part of the USA. The City is referred to as the wealthiest square mile on earth and is presided over by a Lord Mayor who is appointed annually. When the Queen wishes to conduct business within the City, she is met by the Lord Mayor at Temple (Templar) Bar where she requests permission to enter this private, sovereign state. She then proceeds into the City walking several paces behind the Mayor. Her entourage may not be clothed in anything other than service uniforms.

In the nineteenth century, 90% of the world's trade was carried by British ships controlled by the Crown. The other 10% of ships had to pay commissions to the Crown simply for the privilege of using the world's oceans.


The Crown reaped billions in profits while operating under the protection of the British armed forces. This was not British commerce or British wealth, but the Crown's commerce and the Crown's wealth. As of 1850, author Frederick Morton estimated the Rothschild fortune to be in excess of $10 billion. Today, the bonded indebtedness of the world is held by the Crown.

The aforementioned Temple Bar is the juristic arm of the Crown and holds an exclusive monopoly on global legal fraud through their Bar Association franchises. The Temple Bar is comprised of four Inns of Court. They are; the Middle Temple, Inner Temple, Lincoln's Inn and Gray's Inn. The entry point to these closed secret societies is only to be found when one is called to their Bar.

The Bar attorneys in the United States owe their allegiance and pledge their oaths to the Crown. All Bar Associations throughout the world are signatories and franchises to the International Bar Association located at the Inns of Court of the Crown Temple.

The Inner Temple holds the legal system franchise by license that bleeds Canada and Great Britain white, while the Middle Temple has license to steal from America. To have the Declaration of Independence recognized internationally, Middle Templar King George III agreed in the Treaty of Paris of 1783 to establish the legal Crown entity of the incorporated United States, referred to internally as the Crown Temple States (Colonies). States spelled with a capital letter 'S,' denotes a legal entity of the Crown.

At least five Templar Bar Attorneys under solemn oath to the Crown, signed the American Declaration of Independence. This means that both parties were agents of the Crown. There is no lawful effect when a party signs as both the first and second parties. The Declaration was simply an internal memo circulating among private members of the Crown. Most Americans believe that they own their own land, but they have merely purchased real estate by contract. Upon fulfillment of the contract, control of the land is transferred by Warranty Deed. The Warranty Deed is only a 'color of title.' Color of Title is a semblance or appearance of title, but not title in fact or in law. The Warranty Deed cannot stand against the Land Patent.

The Crown was granted Land Patents in North America by the King of England. Colonials rebelled at the usurious Crown taxes, and thus the Declaration of Independence was created to pacify the populace.

Another method used to hoodwink natural persons is enfranchisement. Those cards in your wallet bearing your name spelled in all capital letters means that you have been enfranchised and have the status of a corporation. A 'juristic personality' has been created, and you have entered into multi-variant agreements that place you in an equity relationship with the Crown.

These invisible contracts include: birth certificates, citizenship records, employment agreements, driver's licenses and bank accounts. It is perhaps helpful to note here that contracts do not now, nor have they ever had to be stated in writing in order to be enforceable by American judges. If it is written down, it is merely a written statement of the contract.

Tax protestors and (the coming) draft resistors trying to renounce the parts of these contracts that they now disagree with will not profit by resorting to tort law (fairness) arguments as justification. Judges will reject these lines of defense as they have no bearing on contract law jurisprudence. Tort law governs grievances where no contract law is in effect.

These private agreements/contracts that bind us will always overrule the broad general clauses of the Constitution and Bill of Rights (the Constitution being essentially a renamed enactment of English common law). The Bill of Rights is viewed by the Crown as a 'bill of benefits,' conferred on us by them in anticipation of reciprocity (taxes). Protestors and resistors will also lose their cases by boasting of citizenship status. Citizenship is another equity agreement that we have with the Crown. And this is the very juristic contract that Federal judges will use to incarcerate them. In the words of former Supreme Court Justice Felix Frankfurter, "Equity is brutal, but we are merely enforcing agreements." The balance of Title 42, section 1981 of the Civil Rights Code states, ".citizens shall be subject to like punishment, pains, penalties, taxes, licenses, and exactions of every kind"

What we view as citizenship, the Crown views as a juristic enrichment instrumentality. It also should be borne in mind that even cursory circulation or commercial use of Federal Reserve Notes effects an attachment of liability for the payment of the Crown's debt to the FED. This is measured by your taxable income. And to facilitate future asset-stripping, the end of the 14th amendment includes a state of debt hypothecation of the United States, wherein all enfranchised persons (that's you) can be held personally liable for the Crown's debt.

The Crown views our participation in these contracts of commercial equity as being voluntary and that any gain accrued is taxable, as the gain wouldn't have been possible were it not for the Crown. They view the system of interstate banks as their own property. Any profit or gain experienced by anyone with a bank account (or loan, mortgage or credit card) carries with it - as an operation of law - the identical same full force and effect as if the Crown had created the gain.

Bank accounts fall outside the umbrella of Fourth Amendment protection because a commercial contract is in effect and the Bill of Rights cannot be held to interfere with the execution of commercial contracts. The Crown also views bank account records as their own private property, pursuant to the bank contract that each of us signed and that none of us ever read.

The rare individual who actually reads the bank contract will find that they agreed to be bound by Title 26 and under section 7202 agreed not to disseminate any fraudulent tax advice. This written contract with the Crown also acknowledges that bank notes are taxable instruments of commerce.

When we initially opened a bank account, another juristic personality was created. It is this personality (income and assets) that IRS agents are excising back to the Crown through taxation.

A lot of ink is being spilled currently over Social Security. Possession of a Social Security Number is known in the Crown's lex as 'conclusive evidence' of our having accepted federal commercial benefits. This is another example of an equity relationship with the Crown. Presenting one's Social Security Number to an employer seals our status as taxpayers, and gives rise to liability for a reciprocal quid pro quo payment of taxes to the Crown.

Through the Social Security Number we are accepting future retirement endowment benefits. Social Security is a strange animal. If you die, your spouse gets nothing, but rather, what would have gone to you is divided (forfeited) among other premium payers who haven't died yet.

But the Crown views failure to reciprocate in any of these equity attachments as an act of defilement and will proceed against us with all due prejudice. For a person to escape the tentacles of the Crown octopus, a thoroughgoing study of American jurisprudence is required. One would have to be deemed a 'stranger to the public trust,' forfeit all enfranchisement benefits and close all bank accounts, among other things. Citizenship would have to be made null and forfeit and the status of 'denizen' enacted. If there are any such natural persons extant who have passed through this fire, I would certainly appreciate hearing from them


Comment
From GazorgFarkelman@aol.com
2-18-5


Mark Owen is INCORRECT. A spouse of a deceased gets Social Security payments of 1/2 of the deceased monthly payment, or their own entitlement, whichever is higher.

A spouse need not have worked at all to receive the 1/2 payment.

There is also a "death benefit" of approximately $250. paid to the survivor.

Those who do not fact check should not submit false articles to Rense.


Reply
Mark Owen
2-21-5

Your reader is somewhat correct in his Social Security surmise. The act is constantly in a state of flux and was ammended last year. I possessed copies of the act of 2003. Thus ammended, and according to their own words today:

"...The number of years you need to work for your family to be eligible for Social Security survivors benefits depends on your age when you die..."

There are other restrictions on spousal death benefits too numerous to cite.

A case is made in civil law according to a preponderance of evidence. Under contract law, the complainant (your reader) would be the victor. Under tort law, my arguments would still suffice and be actionable.

My article emphasizes overarching themes of the Crown matrix that have heretofore not been broached.

"ATTENTION LEFTISTS, STATISTS, SOCIALISTS AND OTHER VERMIN. THE PARADE OF IDIOTS DENOUNCING THE POPE HAS BEGUN! "

Absolutely! You thought it wouldn't.

These fools can and will cobble a conspiracy and an inane smear campaign around just about anything.

All that's left is to blame the Jews for his death.

I suspect sheepdog will chime in soon with a critical missive illustrating the "zionist claws" in all of this.

The jews, I mean. I thought it was those inhuman Muslems. As you always go on about.
Racist little soul that you are.

If you think they are hypocritical, what are you doing about it? What are you doing to show that you care for people? By endlessly griping? Or by rolling up your sleeves and helping the poor and needy and the suffering? Actions speak louder than words, my friend.

The papacy has a long history of assassination of popes and cardinals. There is a lot of money and power at stake.

By far the larger number of Popes has been more political than ecclesiastical, playing a vigorous role in the politics of Europe and sometimes paying the price of politics. The first Pope to be assassinated was John VIII — the slightly inadequate poison took so long to take effect that the assassins decided to speed things up by clubbing him. Other inventive methods to get rid of Popes included placing crushed glass in figs or lemons offered to the Holy Father.

See the link for a complete list of all popes

http://www.newadvent.org/cathen/12272b.htm

It’s a corrupt and bloody history by any standards.
Also this is a not a left vs. right issue it’s a human rights issue.
The historical facts are clear: the church and state have caused more death and destruction than any single individual ever. These are the institutions that must first be abolished before there can ever be any chance for peace and justice in this world.

Given the current sate of the world the new pope is likely to be even worse.

Having watched the PBS Special on the Pope - and Knowing (seeing) the atrocities committed by the US financed Death Squads of Central America (during my visits in 1998 and 1989) - I copied the transcript for the show and was searching around the internet when i found this report on indymedia - Wow - It is true...

I believe that in order to understand the crisis of the church and of politics in Latin America that we need to identify the Good, the Bad and the Ugly of the church and its Pope (s) ... !

Special on Pope John Paul

[Titled: Pope a War Criminal and Hypocrite for Bush ]


Martyred Archbishop Oscar Romero to Become a Saint - John Paul to Be Tried for War Crimes and Genocide;



Having watched the PBS Special on the Pope - and Knowing (seeing) the atrocities committed by the US financed Death Squads of Central America (during my visits in 1998 and 1989) - I copied the transcript for the show and was searching around the internet when i found this report on indymedia - Wow - It is true...

I believe that in order to understand the crisis of the church and of politics in Latin America that we need to identifiy the Good, the Bad and the Ugly of the church and its Pope (s) ... !

Pope II
http://narcosphere.narconews.com/story/2005/4/4/151259/0345
http://publish.nyc.indymedia.org/newswire/rate/147249/index.php#147249

http://nyc.indymedia.org/feature/display/147242/index.php

http://boston.indymedia.org/newswire/update/index.php



Pope Was Right But Did Wrong

“Wealth should not be accumulated for its own sake. It should not be gained by injustice or oppression. Wealth often leads to covetousness. It belongs to God, not to us; we are simply stewards. We sin if we do not use it to help the poor, the weak, and the oppressed (Ezek. 22:29)"

Most people in wealthy countries are raised to be fully middle class and materialistic - even most activists and people who think or pretend to be poor......

The Pope understood more about human development and long-term needs than almost any one who has ever lived. His great mistake was in underestimating capitalist materialism and the Evil of GW Bush (and almost all Americans!)

Pope John Paul did and said many great things. However, his experiences in Poland under the Nazis and Communists (stalinists) did warp his perceptions of the spiritual and also the real battles raging across the planet.

He thought that if he vanquished communism that the Church could deal with the excesses of capitalism. In this ONE VIEW ONLY was he wrong. But this was a terrible blunder that will doom him to be regarded as an evil influence, especially in Latin America.

HIS VIEWS ON MORALITY AND THE EVILS OF MODERNITY were nearly perfect: homosexuality, birth control, abortion and women's roles in the church. This is quite hard for the narrow-minded left of the US or Europe to understand - though they matter little now that Bush has taken over the West and the Pope has deformed Latin America.

The Pope opposed these social-moral diseases because he knew that to accept them meant to embrace band-aids rather than truth. He wanted a spiritual life for all instead of a life mediated by technology and vices.

From the Sermon on the Mount, Matthew 6:19- 31
"Do not store up for yourselves treasures on earth, where moth and rust consume and where thieves break in and steal…”

Jesus asked his followers to sell everything, give their money to the poor and follow him. It is a time-honored tradition in India for a man who has completed his working life to give away his possessions and retreat to the forest to pray. The focus of Islamic life is devotion and surrender to Allah. Theravadan Buddhist monks take a vow of extreme poverty as they dedicate themselves to realizing the Buddha's teaching. The world's prophets knew that the material world offered limited satisfaction and directed us to look beyond it.

“The message of the Christmas tree is that life is always green if you give, not many material things, but of yourself through friendship and sincere affection, through help and forgiveness, by spending time together and listening to each other," said Pope John Paul, December 19, 2004. (http://uk.news.yahoo.com/041219/325/f8uy9.html)

“Wealth should not be accumulated for its own sake. It should not be gained by injustice or oppression. Wealth often leads to covetousness. It belongs to God, not to us; we are simply stewards. We sin if we do not use it to help the poor, the weak, and the oppressed (Ezek. 22:29)
--- “Watch out! Be on your guard against all kinds of greed” (Luke 12:15

"The church in Latin America has much to say about humanity.

It looks at the sad picture portrayed by the Puebla conference:
faces of landless peasants mistreated and killed by the forces of power,
faces of laborers arbitrarily dismissed and without a living wage for their families, faces of the elderly,
faces of outcasts, faces of slum dwellers, faces of poor children who from infancy begin to feel the cruel sting of social injustice.
For them, it seems, there is no future – no school, no high school, no university.
By what right have we cataloged persons as first-class persons or second-class persons?
In the theology of human nature there is only one class: children of God." - Oscar Romero


The Pope's Economics
He probably hoped for a type of Christian Socialism, but never could describe it. John Paul II was no follower of neo-liberalism. For him, markets and profits were not a solution to human problems, but a mechanism to be used for moral purposes. Indeed, we often forget that both Adam Smith and Herbert Spencer’s reasoning are very similar. Both of them – the two greatest thinkers that promoted the idea of the free market – were also moral philosophers. For them, as for John Paul II, the free market and profits were ways to improve humanity. They were sometimes naive, as when Spencer hoped that rich citizens would nearly automatically be good citizens and thus find it natural to help those who were not so successful. John Paul II might have been naive, too, but only up to a point.

Everything depends on our idea of human nature. If we believe, as the Catholic Church believes, that human beings bear the burden of original sin, but are perfectible; that human beings can understand what is good and bad and can choose between them because we have free will, then approval of the free market is understandable and not naive. By this one encyclical, John Paul II moved Church teaching from the Middle Ages to modernity.

The debate the Pope began on the relationship between the free market and moral problems remains unfinished. Eliminating the abuses that accompany capitalism and harnessing it for the benefit of society and human morals still needs to be tackled. John Paul II had the courage to raise the fundamental questions that needed asking. Will we continue to ask them without his leadership and prompting?

http://www.commondreams.org/views05/0404-33.htm
- Archbishop Oscar Romero, March 2, 1980


Pope a War Criminal and Hypocrite for Bush by Enrique Munoz
internacional@ becouz.com 04 Apr 2005

"It was a tragedy what the Pope did in Central America and Latin America in the 1980's." The PBS show goes on to cite a number of observers who question whether the pontiff's judgment was clouded by his personal experience with communism in Poland.

http://publish.nyc.indymedia.org/newswire/update/index.php

Martyred Archbishop Oscar Romero to Become a Saint - John Paul to Be Tried for War Crimes and Genocide?
; By Enrique Munoz, Mexico City


The defining moment in John Paul's legacy was his unjust and disrespectful treatment of Arch Bishop Oscar Romero in 1980. Romero thought that the church's place was with the poor and to back radical social change to end the suffering and repression.

After meeting with the Pope, Romero said to an aide: " Help me to understand why I have been treated so badly by the Holy Father." The Pope had told Romero to get along with the government of El Salvador that with US money training and moral support was frantically killing priests, peasants and organizers by the tens of thousands yearly. Romero himself called the Pope's response to his pleas and the situation in El Salvador as "Unjust."

One month later the Arch Bishop was assassinated while saying mass. Romero's funeral turned into a bloody riot as the US-backed death squads (the Salvadoran Government) opened fire on the crowds.

From a 1979 letter to US President Carter by Oscar Romero:

"You say that you are Christian. If you are really Christian, please stop sending military aid to the military here, because they use it only to kill my people."

http://www.creighton.edu/CollaborativeMinistry/rom ero.html


Pope John Paul made similar statements to GW Bush before the invasion of Iraq in 2003.

Millions of people all across Latin America call for sainthood for Oscar Romero.

Next the Pope turned his attention to destroying the Sandinista Revolution in Nicaragua and the many priests who supported the revolution in the sprit of Romero, particularly Ernesto Cardenal. The Pope put the unity of the church ahead of the salvation of the world and its role to defend the poor.

As a US PBS television special on the Pope stated: "It was a tragedy what the Pope did in Central America and Latin America in the 1980's." The show goes on to question whether the pontiff's judgment was clouded by his personal experience with communism in Poland.

The Pope continued his right wing purge of Church officials, seminaries and Liberation Theology activists throughout Latin America until his death, though he also increased his attacks on capitalism and the imperialist designs of the US and its hero GW Bush.

Since 1990 the Pope had intervened in Mexico - especially in Chiapas - installing conservative Bishops and seeking to discredit or silence Bishop Ruiz and others who supported the Zapatista revolution and called for an end to oppression and oppressive structures in Mexico..

The torment of the Pope - or else a grand act of hypocrisy - can be seen in the pope's focus on the Culture of Death: Modernity. He opposed birth control, abortion, homosexuality and women in the church because he (Unlike anyone we know of on the left or right) understood that these were band-aids seeking to cover up or justify a society promoted by the US, one of materialism and self-centeredness. He said that a self-centered concept of unlimited freedom allowed no place for solidarity and that this drew attention away from the violence done to millions forced into poverty. This freedom to him became a Culture of Death... a new holocaust. He rightfully saw only darkness in modernity and he was appalled at the betrayal of humanity exhibited in his native Poland with their sex shops, McDonalds and materialism.

The Pope changed Eastern Europe and single handedly destroyed the Stalinist communist system and yet he ultimately saw this as a terrible failure as he witnessed materialism grow there.

In Latin America he stopped the change that was so necessary and surely went to his death knowing the evils that he spawned.

"We agree with almost every single thing that that John Paul wrote or said. He was the greatest and most powerful person to live in at least 100 years and probably ever again - given the weakness and illrepute that the Catholic Church suffers today because of sex scandals.

But what the Pope did was one of the greatest evils in all of history. His systematic destruction of the popular church and Liberation Theologists constitutes a war crime, a crime against humanity and genocide. he should be tried in absentia and all of the church's property and wealth should be transferred to the poor people of Latin America that he persecuted and betrayed so utterly.

Only by acknowledging these crimes - crimes that the Pope did admit to some degree in his trip to Mexico, can the church reclaim its mission and that of Christ for a preferential option for the poor. If the church does not move immediately to recognize Oscar Romero as a saint and the true leader of the church then all Catholics, and all people should boycott and attack this decrepit and evil institution."

- Anamaria Salvedra, speaking for underground remnants of Liberation Theology in Central America.

Remembering Oscar A Romero: http://www.stpetersnottingham.org/saints/romero.ht ml

One priest, Fr. Rutilio Grande, was particularly outspoken in denouncing the injustices against the 30,000 peasants working thirty-five sugar-cane farms in his area. Archbishop Romero defended Fr. Grande against official criticism:
"The government should not consider a priest who takes a stand for social justice, as a politician, or a subversive element, when he is fulfilling his mission in the politics of the common good".

In March 1977, Fr. Grande and two companions were murdered. Archbishop Romero was summoned to view the bodies - a hint of what happens to meddlesome priests. This and the lack of any official enquiry convinced him that the government employed - or at least supported - people who killed for political convenience. He responded by prohibiting the celebration of Mass anywhere in the country on the following Sunday except at his own Cathedral, a celebration to which all the faithful were invited - and came - overflowing in their thousands into the plaza outside. The event served to unite the faithful and remove any doubts about Romero's commitment to justice. The government of course was furious, even more so as the church began to document civil rights abuses and seek the truth in a country governed by lies. Visiting the Pope in 1979, Archbishop Romero presented him with seven dossiers filled with reports and documents describing injustices in El Salvador.


New pastoral letter blasts economy
Despite the conservative turn of the Mexican hierarchy ecclesiastically, the bishops released a new pastoral letter which denounces the structures of the Mexican economy for being "poverty-generating." The letter, entitled, "From the encounter with Jesus Christ to solidarity for all," calls on all the people of Mexico to engage the struggle "to build a more just society" (IPS, Mar. 24).

The product of a year's worth of dialogue, input from many social sectors, sharply divided debate, writing and re-writing, it is said to be the broadest and most "consensus-driven document in the last 30 years, [according] to Archbishop Luis Morales, president of the [Mexican] Conference of Bishops."

With Ruiz's departure, Mexico loses one of its last remaining exponents of liberation theology. Bishop Arturo Lona of the Diocese of Tehauntepec in Oaxaca, the last of this line of bishops, turns 75 later this year. In a recent interview, Lona said that the impact of liberation theology will remain at the grassroots, in base communities and among the poor. It is the poor, he said, who "evangelize us and help us awaken the message of Jesus" (IPS).

He also criticized the "official" church and "my superiors" for their "obsession...with obedience and authority, which I believe is authoritarian at times. The church is hierarchical, but it really must be democratic, which is not a contradiction."

Former nuncio Prigione (retired 1997) has left a staunchly conservative imprint on the hierarchy in Mexico, having overseen the replacement of 86 of Mexico's 100 bishops over his 19 year tenure. The country's newest nuncio, the recently-named Leonardo Sandri, is also a staunch conservative, opposed to the liberationist line.

The bishops, responding to these economic realities, proclaim that an economic model that prioritizes the market as "the central factor in development," "is unstable and immoral." The bishops also critique the problems of democracy in Mexico, saying the country must develop alternatives to "anti-democratic and fraudulent structures that are obsolete and unjust, and deteriorated by corruption, impunity and authoritarianism."

http://www.rtfcam.org/report/volume_20/No_2/articl e_12.htm

-- IRENA ALBERTI, Editor, "La Pensee Rousse," (Friend of the Pope):
"The Pope believes that the 20th century is the most evil of all of mankind's history."

http://www.pbs.org/wgbh/pages/frontline/shows/pope/etc/script.html


http://www.rtfcam.org/report/volume_20/No_2/articl e_12.htm

Comments Re: Pope a War Criminal and Hypocrite for Bush ]

See interesting Intro at (Above link)
http://narcosphere.narconews.com/story/2005/4/4/151259/0345


From the April PBS Special on Pope John Paul:

JAMES CARROLL, Author, "American Requiem," Former Priest:

"Well, the man is nothing but contradictions. He's the most political Pope in modern history, but he won't allow priests to be in politics. He is the great protector of the church, yet seems blind to the way the priest sex abuse scandal under minds the spiritual and financial health of the church... He's contemptuous of contemporary consumerist culture and yet he's the master of the consumerist media and has become a world celebrity because of it."



" John Paul's victory would not last. With the fall of communism, Poland, his heroic country, his Christ of nations, would change, and soon the Pope would come to feel betrayed.

f#$k him. hope he parties it up with reagan, hitler, stalin and all the ilk in hell

Enough discussion about the heretical Bishop of Rome. He real crimes were that he accepted the theory of evolution, didn't believe in the Rapture, never defended the literal truth of the Story of Noah's Ark, never called for capital punishment for adultery and homosexuality, did not support Commander in Chief Bush's invasion of the infidel nation of Iraq, and never gave any Vatican wealth to my ministry or that of my (earthly) father. I should be named Bishop of Tulsa, Oklahoma and the True Leader of World Christianity.

I hope not. But as for the long diatribe above that laments acceptance of homosexuality, abortion rights and other triumphs of freedom as social ills, this represents yet another reason why religion is worse than useless for progressives -- the catholic church, while somewhat supportive of the left on some issues, drags down its adherents around the world, particularly in the global south (where it has so much more influence than the north) with its irrational, superstitious, and frankly foolish views on these and so many other issues. Question religion. Dump it on the historical trash heap of human ignorance where it belongs.

felix If you feel that this person has been nice to you, and that he does not deserve to be punished, you should help him and not tell anybody - not even your pals, about what happened. Remember, telling people is like putting your friend in jail! So before you tell anyone, ask yourself: "Does my friend deserve to go to jail?" t may well be that he does, but please think about it first or you could regret it afterwards. Oh, and there's another thing. Do you know what happens to you when people find out? Well, you go "in therapy".
herapy means that you meet with someone who will try to convince you that all you did with your friend was a horrible thing, and that your friend is a horrible person. And you better say so quickly, or they will never stop. hey may even give you drugs to "calm you down". You become a sick person. o, unless you feel really really bad about what you did with your friend, think about it very well! But what exactly is a pedophile? A "pedophile" is an adult that is sexually attracted to children. Sexually" means that this person may like to touch you, rub your body against his, be very affectionate and cuddly. He (or sometimes, she) may also wish to touch your private parts, or have you touch his. In short, a pedophile likes to do with children what everybody else likes to do with other adults. Sometimes, you will find that there is someone you know that makes you feel good in a way you never felt before. It's called "pleasure". It's something that not all children experience, and if you do, you're lucky. The person that makes you feel pleasure may be a pedophile like me, or it may be anybody. It can be an adult or a child, a male or a female, black or white. It doesn't matter. What matters is that you feel good. When I was a child, I never met a pedophile. But I knew about pleasure.

I always wanted to touch and kiss my children friends. I felt a sort of energy going through my body, when I smelled the skin of other kids.

I felt good.

So, if you have the chance to feel good, why be afraid?
get back to me or send me e.mails

I am a 15 year old male living in California. I strongly believe in the peace movement, and believe that what Bush is doing in Iraq is wrong and stupid. But your the kind of people that turn me off the peace movement entirely. And a comment on Abortion and Capital Punishment:
The millions of unborn childern in the world that are murdered through abortion do nothing wrong, while the psychos in death row are convicted murders who have already taken innocent peoples lives. I say save the inocent childern and hang those murders high. As far as it being the women's body what about the baby what about its rights , what about its body. It doesn't get a descion in it. Instead of having sex and aborting a baby when you get pregnent, why not just not have sex? I am a 15 year old teenager my hormones are going crazy and I don't think that there is an age with more sexual temptation, I know I've stuggled with it but when the time came I said no to sex and stood strong. And if you guys weren't so avidly against the Christian church you would get tremendous amounts of help from them because a majority of them are pro-peace too. But your race for gay and lesbein rights abortion rights and outright anti-Chrisian attitudes turn them away instantly. So congradulate your self because of your absolutely intolerent attitude I would rather go to a war rally then a peace vigil ever!You have completely scared me away from any sort of organized peace movement or protest.

You may be for peace, but it looks like many of your other views are held hostage to superstition. If you must, you can still be religious and still be pro-gay, pro-women's rights, and the like -- just look at the UCC. But my advice to you would be to take the kind of critical thinking that has demolished the adminstration's case for war in your mind and apply it to your religious beliefs. If you truly did, you would see that there is no physical evidence to believe in those fantastic claims, and you would be freed from the oppressive yoke of christianity.