Human Too Human

"A welcome for the Republicans

Dear Fellow Sufferers in the Shopacalypse.

We are lost in the mall of the transnational corporation known as America, a name taken from a movie produced by tax- and draft-dodgers who hate you. But forgive them, for they have POWER, and power is either grand or it is comic, but either way it is simply the script for CORRUPTION the musical, which was produced by tax and draft-dodgers who hate you. But forgive them, for they have MEDIA drilling each of us for our dreams, memory fragments, moral whispers, and wonderings beneath the night stars, which is used to create a new PERFUME by tax and draft-dodgers who hate you. But forgive them, for they have SEX in the distance, beneath snap-on sunsets bulk-zipped to celebrities who look at you and call you a MARKET, and put you in a dome, and send you down an aisle in a big box, and make you so bored with your life that you actually think that THE NEW TOM CRUISE MOVIE WILL SAVE YOU. This, children, is the Harvard Business School nonsense that made the dead children drink tea in the big 2-day White Sale, do you remember those children? How they discussed Shock and Awe in their displays case while the generals began to sob?"

And you can hear one of his speeches here. Show, but truth too.

Sunday, August 22, 2004

Uhm now I get newsletters from Catholics?

I have noticed that now and then I receive an Catholic newletter (in Italian) which I have never registered with (proselytism used the internet too, of course). Today after at least four of them, actually two but probably mistakenly sent twice, I was about to mark them as spam, but then I thought not. The last one one contained a greeting message of the Pope for the Friendship Festival (Festival dell'amicizia) organized in Rimini (Italy) by the movement Communion and Liberation (Comunione e Liberazione). The following is the Pope's message (stress is mine):

Al Venerato Fratello
Mons. MARIANO DE NICOLÒ
Vescovo di Rimini

1. Sono lieto di inviare a Lei, ai promotori e a quanti intervengono al Meeting per l’amicizia fra i popoli il mio beneaugurate pensiero.

Questo tradizionale appuntamento, che anima e arricchisce di contenuti l’estate italiana, giunge quest’anno alla sua venticinquesima edizione. È un traguardo significativo che si colloca nel contesto delle celebrazioni per il cinquantesimo anniversario della nascita di Comunione e liberazione, movimento ecclesiale scaturito dallo zelo sacerdotale di Mons. Luigi Giussani. Due ricorrenze importanti, che si illuminano a vicenda.

"Il tema scelto per il Meeting offre stimolanti motivi di riflessione sulle questioni più spinose che si pongono drammaticamente all’uomo d’oggi. Molta luce può infatti gettare su di esse la consapevolezza che "il nostro progresso non consiste nel presumere di essere arrivati, ma nel tendere continuamente alla meta".

2. In realtà, è ben noto quel "senso di potenza che l’odierno progresso tecnico ispira all’uomo" (Gaudium et spes, n. 20).

Particolarmente forte è, quindi, la tentazione di pensare che l’opera dell’uomo trovi in se stessa la giustificazione dei propri obiettivi. I risultati raggiunti nei vari ambiti della scienza e della tecnica vengono da molti considerati e difesi come a priori accettabili. Si finisce così per pretendere che ciò che è tecnicamente possibile sia di per sé anche eticamente buono.

Secondo questa opinione, proprio perché il progresso delle conoscenze scientifiche e dei mezzi tecnici a disposizione dell’uomo spinge di fatto sempre più in là il confine tra ciò che è possibile "fare" e ciò che ancora non lo è, tale progresso finirebbe per spostare indefinitamente in avanti anche il confine tra il giusto e l’ingiusto. In tale ottica, il progresso diverrebbe allora un valore assoluto, anzi la fonte stessa di ogni valore. La verità e la giustizia non sarebbero più istanze superiori, criteri di giudizio ai l’uomo si deve attenere nell’orientare le azioni che alimentano il progresso stesso, ma diventerebbero un prodotto della sua attività di ricerca e di manipolazione della realtà.

Non c’è chi non veda le conseguenze drammatiche e desolanti di tale pragmatismo, che concepisce la verità e la giustizia come qualcosa di modellabile ad opera dell’uomo stesso. Basti, come esempio fra gli altri, il tentativo dell’uomo di appropriarsi delle fonti della vita attraverso gli esperimenti di clonazione umana. Qui tocchiamo con mano la presunzione di cui parla proprio il titolo del Meeting: la violenza con cui l’uomo tenta di appropriarsi del vero e del giusto, riducendoli a valori di cui egli può disporre liberamente, cioè senza riconoscere limiti di sorta, se non quelli fissati e continuamente superati dell’operabilità tecnica.

3. La via insegnata da Cristo è un’altra: è quella del rispetto per l’essere umano, che ogni mezzo di ricerca deve anzitutto mirare a conoscere nella sua verità, per poi servirlo, non manipolandolo secondo un progetto considerato talora con arroganza come migliore di quello del Creatore stesso.

Per il cristiano il mistero dell’essere è talmente profondo che risulta inesauribile all’indagine umana. L’uomo invece che, nella presunzione di Prometeo, si erge ad arbitro del bene e del male, fa del progresso il suo ideale assoluto e ne rimane poi schiacciato. Il secolo appena trascorso, attraverso le ideologie che ne hanno tristemente marcato la tragica storia e le guerre che lo hanno profondamente solcato, sta davanti agli occhi di tutti a mostrare quale sia l’esito di tale presunzione.

Il tema del Meeting di Rimini invita a volgere al Creatore uno sguardo stupito per la bellezza e la razionalità di ciò che Egli ha posto e mantiene nell’essere. Solo questa umiltà di fronte alla grandezza e alla misteriosità del creato può salvare l’uomo dalle conseguenze nefaste della propria arroganza.

Auspico di cuore che il Meeting contribuisca a favorire questo atteggiamento di umiltà di fronte ai tesori che il Creatore ha disseminato nell’universo come riflessi della sua sapienza, così che il credente possa trarre dalla loro contemplazione motivi sempre nuovi di luce e di conforto nel quotidiano confronto con gli interrogativi emergenti dalla vita.

------

The text is interesting. It underlines the need of maintaining a constant ethical concern in technological achievements and possibilities. But when the Pope talks about the superior "Truth and Justice", opposing it to the supposed danger of prometheic arrogance animating progress, and the danger of humans establishing themselves as "arbitrators of good and evil", he indeed appears to betray a form of hidden arrogance, typical of theistic thought: the idea of possessing an absolute truth given by God as opposed to the darkness in which the non Christian is thought as groping.

Christians think that the truth is given, revealed by a superior entity, and is absolute, but in doing so, they simply hide their human vision behind a masquerade of God-given truth. Any idea, concerning anything, that humans have, is of human origin. Nobody can in a philosophically acceptable way, claim to possess, once for all, an absolute truth given by God. Which does not equal to saying that anything is allowed and fine, but simply that truth and justice are concepts of human origin and reflect visions that humans have at a given latitude or in a given moment in history.

Moreover the theistic pretension of possessing the absolute truth shows the very "lack of humbleness" that the Pope suggests (gratuitously) be typical of science and technology.

What is needed nowadays is not a religious ethics but a human ethics that can be rationally recognized as valid by everyone and that could not be suspected of being grossly arbitrary (even if smuggled as God-given), sectarian or reflecting the interests of a certain party/church. AN ethics that do not use ideological or religious lingos.

Also, the Pope's words suggest that it is the "prometheic" arrogance of humans as "arbitrators of good and evil", their extolling progress as an absolute value, which leads to disaster. And, he says, the evidence is in the history of last century "sadly marked" by ideologies and wars.

But the relation between technological progress and ideologies is quite vague in the Pope's words, while it is surely wrong to suggest that 'ideologies' had only progress as absolute value. In fact, one could say that it not progress in itself, but the presumption of exclusively possessing absolute truth and rights (typical of religions and ideologies) that leads to disasters. Communism, nazism, blind capitalism, religious fundamentalism, all generate / have generated horrors. They all have in common the presumption that "ours" is better than "theirs", that "we" are better than "others" (who are less or worse), that "our welfare" can be pursued to the utmost degree, irrespectively of whether that causes problems to others.

In this respect, the constant reference to justice and truth as a privilege from God, which cuts all the unlucky "non saved" ones away, contributes to maintaining the old-fashioned way of thinking which creates arrogance, intolerance and conflicts. Justice and truth are not given by a god: they are human concepts, hopefully filled in the best, most efficacious ways possible to make living fair and good for all people on earth. Not just for the Christians and not just for the lucky westeners who happily use most of the world resources while leaving nearly nothing to the majority of others.

Friday, August 20, 2004

Madness

"I am chased by ghosts, they are all around me" says X.

X has been diagnosed a mental illness. He is a madman. It is a fact that madness is not the result of some evil spirits. It has reasons that come from within. In some cases it might be the result of some physical problem (biochemical alterations for instance), in most cases it is the result of intense conflicts. An individual does not become mad intentionally, yet mental illness responds to an individual interest somehow. It is a way by which certain individuals cope with unsustainable aspects of reality. In particularly severe cases, such 'psychological strategy' may lead to hallucinations (psychosis).

Let's now consider an individual that claims an entity has spoken to him. He also claims he sees it, while others don't.

This entity he calls God. This is not a detail of little importance. If the same individual says "a bottle has spoken to me" one could either think that the bottle contained wine, and he has possibly drunk it all, or that he is, exactly, off his head. But if one says "God has spoken to me" and if the words are somewhat well structured (apart from the detail of their origin) some people will, more likely, be inclined to accord trust to this person. Whereas, really, in all the above cases, the origin of the statements or visions is always one: the mind. And the reason for such statements or visions is always one: a need to cope with reality, conflicts, fears of the unknown (in the past people would speak about 'the God of the seas', 'the God of the winds' and so on) and death.

Various degrees of coherence and stability can be found in mentally disturbed people, it should not be surprising to see a common link between religion and madness. It is a well-known fact that in ancient or tribal religions madness is considered a sign of god. And many "oracles", were likely mentally disturbed people uttering incoherent words which people could interpret in their own way, possibly re-organizing their words in more reasonable ways.

In sum, when not started on the grounds of mere imagination to fill the gaps of ignorance or to soothe fright, religions started to make their way on earth because of madness. Then masses of people found that it was reassuring and comfortable to organize reality using the words of their lunatic predecessors. Traditions started and were perpetuated, finding a fertile ground in people's need to have meanings - however contrived - as opposed to a lack of them, and in the need to cope with their fears.

Tuesday, August 17, 2004

A little parable

The story of Jack the jackal

...so Jack the jackal got resented when he was told that humans considered jackals carnivorous animals.

"Even if many studies have proved that meat is constantly eaten by Jackals, that should not lead to the conclusion that jackals are carnivorous!" said Jack the jackal, and barked with indignation.

"Ladies and gentleman" - continued Jack the jackal solemnly - "we jackals are inherently vegetarian! Even if the majority of jackals are carnivorously active and appear to enjoy meat, that does not prove anything at all!"

"Jackals are weak, like all animals" said Jack the jackal "but deep inside they are vegetarian, therefore they should be considered vegetarian, even if they eat meat!"

Some people are so secretely irritated with themselves for their cowardish and dull compliance with false beliefs, that they would be absolutely happy if the fellow man, who has refused soothing lies, believed in anything whatsoever, even in, say, spirits of the trees and magic mountains or the big manitu. As long as the vice was shared.

Candidates for priesthood: 8% deviant, 70% psychosexually immature

Excerpt:

In 1968 W. J. Coville authored a paper on candidates for the priesthood and presented it at St. Vincent's Hospital. Although small (107 male candidates), it is evocative. Eight percent were (8%) were labeled "sexually deviant" while 70% were described as "psychosexually immature, exhibiting traits of heterosexual retardation, confusion concerning sexual role, fear of sexuality, effeminacy, and potential homosexual dispositions."

Read the rest here.

An intelligent article by Father Richard P. Brien

An intelligent article written by Father Richard P. McBrien is the Crowley-O'Brien Professor of Theology at the University of Notre Dame.

Excerpt:

"By restricting ordination and the continued exercise of priestly ministry to those willing to commit themselves to life-long celibacy, the Roman Catholic Church is forced to draw from an exceedingly narrow slice of its male population for its most important pastoral ministry, a ministry that is indispensable to the church's sacramental life, without which the church cannot function as church.

Within that narrow slice of the Catholic population, there is likely to be a disproportionately higher percentage of sexually dysfunctional or immature individuals [JoeLondon's note: studies, some commissioned by American Bishops, stated that the majority of priests are psychosexually immature. Read here] than in the general male population, and there is also likely to be a disproportionately higher number of homosexuals, many of whom may have a true vocation to the priesthood, but others of whom may have been attracted, sub-consciously or not, to the "cover" that a celibate priesthood offers.

The sexual-abuse scandal has undoubtedly changed public perceptions in this regard.

Defenders of the status quo sometimes point to surveys that show that the majority of priests would not marry, even if given the choice. What they do not add, however, is that the majority of those same priests nonetheless believe that celibacy should be optional.

One final question: If celibacy has nothing to do with the sexual-abuse crisis, why is it that the scandal has not touched in any significant way the non-Roman, Eastern-rite Catholic churches, which have a married priesthood?"

Read all the article here.

If you have any doubts about the nonsense of religion, just think of the perception modern theistic people have towards witch-doctors and their attires of feathers and hornes and tribal rituals: usually an amused smile of pity. But really, apart from the external fashion, a witch-doctor is exactly the same as a gowned Christian priest, with his incense, and ritual singing and gestures.

If it were not for a form of senseless indulgence, similar to that accorded to some aged people that are a bit off their head, religion would be clearly considered a mental illness (Catholic being one of the most severe). In fact, closely looking, many saints - supposedly examples for the masses - showed in their life clear signs of hysteria and various behaviours of pyschiatric relevance. Would you consider healthy someone castrating himself, or self-scourging, or licking the sores of lepers?

In Christian theology, reality - inescapably tainted by sin and imperfection - is technically a disease. The cure being the negation of life to gain access to a consoling fabricated after-world. Life-haters, Christian theologians and ministers are soaked with gloominess and disgust towards reality. No wonder that black-gowned ministers may suggest a sense of discomfort, similarly to what is felt in the vicinity of deviant, dissociated, duplicitous people.

Monday, August 16, 2004

Religion in upbringing: a factor of abuse

I have recently read a post in a blog by a student who was complaining about the mother always mentioning the Bible during discussions. I suggest this person be patient and look at the bright side of it: the use of 'sacred' books and rituals has surely something amusing, every anthropologist knows that. Quoting the bible or the big spirits of the forests is really pretty much the same.

The non bright side of it is that being subjected to obsessive religious piety (fanatism) can be utterly distressing. Often the appeal to a 'higher', albeit arbitrary, authority - that of the Bible - is simply a way to convey attempts of coercion.

If a young person is constantly subjected to an obsessive regime of systematic indoctrination, harsh blaming, and use of offensive or despising terms aimed at obtaining compliance and obedience, with no respect whatsoever for his/her personality, this equals to being abused in a way which is not less dangerous than physical abuse. The same applies to subtler techniques of psychological-emotional blackmailing.

Religion beliefs within a family can be a strong factor of abuse. The reason is very simple. When some pious Catholic or Methodist or whatever parents hold their beliefs as unquestioningly and absolutely right and more important than rationality and the conviction arising from reasonable arguments, the approach that these parents have towards their children, almost unfailingly, becomes similar to that of a "sacred war". Upbringing turns into a crusade for the triumph of 'divine laws' and loses its real aim: creating individuals responsible for their own actions, able to make their own choices, and take up consequent responsibility for them. Which is the opposite of creating compliant and submissive sheep of the herd of God.

Another aspect to consider is that surely religious fanatical parents are more likely inclined to 'rationalize' (make acceptable to their own eyes) ambivalent components of their behaviour. If, for instance, a pious father, deep inside, is jealous of his pretty sixteen year old daughter who gets many phone calls from boys and enjoys the display of her femininity; if he is consumed by the fact that his daughter is no longer 'his pretty princess' and looks for princes elsewhere; if his narcissism is wounded by the diminished attention, as opposed to the exclusivity enjoyed in the past; in all these cases, the pious father can easily convince himself that forcing his daughter unreasonably to stay home, or behaving possessively, is justified by moral and divine rules and not by his egotistical interest. This is just an example, the same could apply to behaviours of a mother, driven by narcissistic wounds and/or envy or antagonism

Likewise, if due to their upbringing, parents have also been abused and have built up violence and rage, or are otherwise affected by personal problems, they will more likely resent that their children appear to enjoy life (unhappy people enjoy creating equals), but they will 'rationalize' their unfair abusive behaviour by claiming to act in the name of morality and God.

The bottomline is that the already complex and often ambivalent family life is fed, through religion, with a supplementary streak of irrationality and arbitrariness, as well as with a handy prompt alibi for such irrationality and arbitrariness. Which surely does not help.

Parents, even the very pious ones, should be aware that religion cannot be imposed, nor used to make their argumenst more solid or credible. Viceversa, it just complicates relationships which cannot be based on confronting orthodoxies but on reasonability and mutual respect. And surely no respect is present in coercion, obsessive indoctrination, thwarting of their children's natural need to live, express themselves as individuals, and develop/maintain their own vision of life.

The Bible, 'guide of life'

Whenever I read about how some people expect the Bible to guide their life, I just can't help laughing uproriously. The Bible contains everything and its contrary, not to mention the fact that it is, at best, literally outdated.

However the best evidence of how life clashes with the orthodody of faith are priests themselves: they are the first who cannot comply with what they teach (it is well known, and proved, that their celibacy is a joke).

They keep gazing piously at their fabrications of after-worlds, like trepid virgins anxious to have their nuptial consummation, while maintaining utter ignorance on what the real world and real human beings are like, themselves included. Experts of angels, archangels and cherubs, they don't want to know anything aboout the 'despicable' tangible world.

Thursday, August 12, 2004

Systematic abuse by nuns, priests and educators in Germany

"Nuns, priests and educators in German children's homes systematically abused the young people there, according to a recently-formed lobbying group. It's now demanding a public apology." Read the article here.

Austrian Catholic seminar closed for sexual scandal

The Austrian Catholic seminar of St. Pölten, at the centre of a scandal of 'sexual misconduct' - as the widespread pederasty amongst the Catholic clergy is usually called euphemistically - and internet pornography, has been closed today.

This is the outcome of the investigation carried out by Bishop Klaus Kung, appointed by the Vatican.

The scandal started in July when the Austrial newsmagazine Profil published pictures in which "the rector and deputy rector of the seminar appeared to be kissing and fonding seminary students", as an article of the New York Times has reported.

The seminar was founded in 1455. And one could wonder how many people might have been guided on the paths to...."theological same-sex love" in so many centuries.

Mere obedience, passivity, compliance, acquiescence, servilism, self-annihilation are not compatible with true spirituality which can only find expression in the freedom of the being.

If not so, a human being only becomes a mule, a sheep, a pitiful nothing.

Sunday, August 08, 2004

Evidence of Catholic 'love' for the body

DrChrist: "Joe London still believes that the Church hates the body"

"He [Joe London] still believes that the Church hates the body", so DrChrist states in his comment to my thoughts on Opus Dei corporal mortification, and he implies that the Church does not hate the body.

So perhaps the following picture is an evidence of the Catholic love for the body? Incredible how twisted some concepts are in the approach of the Roman Catholic Church.




This picture shows the typical twisted practices of a member of Opus Dei, notice the whip (called discipline) and the spiked metal chain (called cilice), worn on the upper thigh, which often makes the skin bleed. (Picture found in this interesting article).

Be sincere, does the above suggest an idea of health, harmony, love, acceptance of the body and the material world?

Sorry, but to me nothing can justify such practices. They are a sign that something went wrong. They show a ill vision of reality. And any 'theology' trying to justify them is obviously a psychotic rationalization. Ask any psychiatrist or psychologist about it.

In the last two posts of this blog, you can find my extensive comments on Opus Dei's masochistic practices, and their meaning. It is important to point out that the above masochistic practices are the natural result of the Catholic vision of reality. As it is well known, the Catholic vision stresses sin and suffering while unhealthily casting a light of sin, guilt and evil on tangible reality and natural pleasures.

It is also important to point out that even without reaching such extremes, other dangers are directly related to the unhealthy dissociated vision of the Roman Catholic Church: neurosis, compulsive behaviour, sexual immaturity, unhealthy association of sex to sin, mental passivity, general spreading of a sado-masochistic way of relating to authority. And, likely, given the mysogyny of the Church, and the massive presence of sexually immature, queer and perverted priests, surely a streak of queerness and sexual unbalance can be subtly spread in society.

Again on the sick practices of Opus Dei

DrCrist's comment on my post regarding Opus Dei: a perfect example of faith as blindness and passivity to dogmas


DrCrist has commented my previous post on Opus Dei's masochistic 'corporal mortification' practices'.

Interestingly, his comment is not a real reply or a rebuttal, but simply a dismissal on account of some not better specified wider sense of such practices. Perhaps his patronizing, if unsubstantial, comment is meant to reassure his faithful readers, with something like a "don't worry, we are right" type of remark and simply evoking some deep priestly knowledge that one should trust without further investigations. In this, DrChrist proves to be a good learner of priestly techniques of elusion, speciousness and partisan ways. Moreover he is examplarily Catholic, in that Catholics are asked to stick obsessively to what they are brought up with and educated to accept unquestioningly: dogmas, authority, rules, norms, however unhealthy or nonsensical (until of course, somebody changes the rules, then the pious priests and faithful will acquiesce to the new ones, in an equally sheepish and passive way).

But I must have hit a nerve if DrChrist cared to comment on my post instead of carrying out his usual work of Catholic propaganda and self-complacent celebration of Catholic virtues. Probably because the quotes by Saint Josemaria Escriva, founder of Opus Dei (see my previous post) are too obviously sick for any sensible, normal human being.

However does DrChrist explain why wearing a spiked chain for two hours each day or whipping oneself, or taking cold showers for the sake of suffering, or jumping out of one's bed when waked up in the morning and kissing the floor while saying "I will serve", or special stricter rules for females (considered as requiring more discipline), should be considered healthy?

Tell us clearly, DrChrist, are those practices healthy? If so, everybody should take on doing them, no? Tell me on the ground of what medical and psychological reasons the above practices are good for people. Maybe I missed something.

No, DrChrist, man of Church, thus man of passivity to dogmas and rules, could not provide any sensible explanation, could not give an account persuasive for any normal person, can only resort to the self-justifying non-reasons of Catholic mythology.

He thinks it is sufficient to vaguely suggest all the above has a theological "logic". Surely, also bulimia, anorexia, cutting oneself and addiction have a "logic", somewhat similar. They logic of illness, the logic of mental disturbance. There cannot be seen any other logic in the practices of flesh mortification of Opus Dei. The only difference is that such practices rely on well-structered, self-justifying written 'theology'. But is this sufficient to not consider them unhealthy? Not at all. Even Nazism was based on a 'philosophy' and many actually believed it, but this does not make it less insane. And perhaps not coincidentally some have remarked that the quickly-made saint Josemaria Escriva, founder of Opus Dei, was "self-obsessed, snobbish, a Nazi apologist and stooge of Franco", as this article reports.

But DrChirst, having chosen to do the job of the priest, behaves accordingly, and expresses his unconditional loyalty to the institution he represents. Unconditional and not subject to a rational explanation of its tenets. The only (non) explanations given appear to amount to saying, more or less, that when things are told or supported by the Church they have got to be right! (thanks a lot, but that's called a circular argument). If some facts appear absurd or sick to any sensible person, but relate to the Church, to him it is because such facts have been taken out of context! Or because one does not see the whole picture, except the the "whole picture" is a self-justifying faith, so really his "explanations" are, again, simply circular.

To DrChrist, what relates to the Church really does not need rational explanations or questioning. But DrChrist fails to understand the difference between rational discourse and religious lingo, whereas my objections against the sickness of corporal mortification, and its wider implications, stem out of non-sectarian rational thoughts, a land where Catholics are not too inclined to venture, as they are inescapably and even ridiculously biased. But amongst Catholics, bias, prejudice, passivity, subordination, blind obedience are not called with their name, they are called faith. So really that DrChrist should dismiss critics with, more or less, a shrug is not surprising.

But if this makes a debate with him and his fellow pious sectarian friends nearly impossible, in that they are philosophically incapacitated by a presumption of truth deemed unquestionable, it is still useful to reply, because other people do question things, other people do use their reason instead of annihilating it in blind obedience.

It is for those who are interested in questioning things and pursuing truth that what I write might have some value (irrespectively of its being right or wrong), surely not those who think they complacently believe they possess the absolute truth which, in a very functional way, they never question.

The masochistic practices of corporal mortification of Opus Dei are only the most eloquent expression of the general vision of Catholics towards the tangible world, that of rejection and disgust. They express a form of antagonism against the body: the body is deemed as something to tame in extreme ways. The body, with its drives, is bad, so I should 'kill it' (that's the etymology of the word mortification). This is clearly a pathological vision.

Where does all this originate?

In the mythology they support, Catholics think that the world is irremediably 'tainted' by an 'original sin, which has condemned humans (creatures considered special in the universe, made after God's likeness) to illness, strife and death.

In their incredible narcissism, Catholics - in this similarly to other religions - think humans are special and they should live a god-like existence, pure and perfect and eternal. Of course such are not the features of earthly life, but that's because - Catholics claim - humans did something wrong, the original sin. But no fear: humans can still become the super-humans, near-gods they wish to be. They just have to suffer, mortificate themselves, obey to the Church and its endless list of unhealthy dos and donts, be strict with "abominous" sex (which trasmits the STD of the original sin), not attach themselves too much to earthly things. Basically they have to 'put up' with life and consider it a trial, a preliminary stage to the real life that supposedly comes after. The more they suffer, the worthier they are! Pleasures should be kept at distance (expecially sexual pleasures), which are suspicious and evoke death and decay and sin, and suffering should be pursued, mortification of body and mind: and this is supposed to be healthy? The rejection of the material world, the sense of suspicion towards the body is intrinsic and central in the Catholic religion.

The founder of Opus Dei is not the only supporter of sick self-mortification and denial of the body and material reality. It is sufficient to read texts of the "Doctors of the Church" (for instance St. Augustine and St. Gregory), passionately studied by many priests, and frequently quoted in official documents of the Roman Catholic Church, to realize that this approach pervades massively the whole of the Catholic teachings. Many texts narrate in an apologetic way forms of extreme mortification by saints or monks: throwing themselves in thornbush, dropping hot wax on scourged skin, licking out the sores of lepers, self-castrating and so on. How sick is this? (Some examples can be read here)

Hot wax! Is this a sado-maso movie or something? And Licking sores of lepers (St. John of the Cross). Sick.

Surely, they were doing it for reasons. Because they were fighting against the body and material reality, and because they considered their natural drives as sinful, paths of Satan, as per the life-hating Catholic mythology. But as I say, does a well-structured mythology (theology) makes psychosis less insane?

Really I don't expect DrChirst (who has chosen a path of mental passivity under the teachings of the Roman Catholic Church) will ever comprehend the sickness of all these practices of mortification, and their meaning of being practices against the body and the material world, perceived antagonistically, as evil, as opposed to the goodness of the soul.

But those free form the leashes of a sectarian, dogmatic faith, cannot fail to see the sickness of the idea of flesh-mortification (and other practices listed here), supported actively by the Opus Dei, and theologically and/or politically by the Roman Catholic Church.

Not to mention the inherent vanity of many of these 'saint wannabees'. While indulging in these sick masochistic practices they probably feel a great feel of sainthood and elevation, and a triumph over the vulgar sinful body.

If they want to suffer, instead of indulging in this self-inflicted masochistic pleasures (which probably are somewhat fun for them), why don't they go and work in Africa or in some third-world countries and get their hands dirty with hard work? I mean all priests should do the same. Instead of teaching with nonsensical words, they could become examples with actions (but please leave the nuns alone). And abandon the queerish rich vestments and accessories and wear a simple sack cloth, like Saint Francis, and give the money to the poor. That I would understand more (as it is, Opus Dei has been involved in many financial scandals, some related to seedy or criminal circumstances, which would deserve a separate post. You can read something here, in relation to Banco Ambrosiano in Italy, Roberto Calvi, who was found hanged under Black Friars Bridge in London etc.).

Will DrChrist or some hardcore Catholics ever see how much dissociation and illness are present in the Catholic 'theology' and in Opus Dei? I doubt it. But others do. Others understand their psychological and social dangers.

Whip ("discipline") used by members of Opus Dei

Metal spike chain ("cilice") to be worn on the upper thigh by members of Opus Dei

A view of the instruments of self-mortification with which the saint-wannabes of Opus Dei pursue their personal paths to eternity, while probably sickly enjoying them somehow, meanwhile rejecting healthy normal pleasures (pictures found here, the last one found here.).

Further readings. An article was written by James Martin, S.J, associate editor of America - The National Catholic Weekly, and its attempts to present facts objectively are, indeed, commendable. It presents facts that surely are alarming. You can read the aricle here.

Friday, August 06, 2004

"St. Benedict threw himself into a thornbush...You... what have you done?"

Opus Dei, is a Catholic organization, founded in 1928, spread all over the world. Its members are obliged to perform various practices of corporal mortification (literally "killing of the flesh"), which really show the wacky core of dissociation of the Catholic religion. The following are quotes by Josemaria Escriva, founder of Opus Dei (stress i minde):

"Blessed be pain. Loved be pain. Sanctified be pain. . . Glorified be pain!" (The Way, 208)

"No ideal becomes a reality without sacrifice. Deny yourself. It is so beautiful to be a victim!" (The Way, 175)

"Obey with your lips, your heart and your mind. It is not a man who is being obeyed, but God." (Furrow, maxim 374)

"They [Opus Dei numeraries] shall maintain the pious custom, for the purpose of chastising the body and reducing it to servitude, of wearing a small cilice for at least two hours daily; once a week they shall take the disciplines as well as sleeping on the floor, providing that health is not affected." (Opus Dei Constituciones, article 147)

"To defend his purity, St. Francis of Assisi rolled in the snow, St. Benedict threw himself into a thornbush, St. Bernard plunged into an icy pond... You... what have you done?" (The Way, 143)

"What has been lost through the flesh, the flesh should pay back: be generous in your penance." (The Forge, 207)

"Your worst enemy is yourself." (The Way, 225)

"You have come to the apostolate to submit, to annihilate yourself, not to impose your own personal viewpoints." (The Way, 936)


Opus dei manages five high schools in the United States and various retreat houses. Moreover (as it can be read here): "There are over 3,000 Opus Dei members in the United States, with 64 centers, or residences for members, in 17 cities: Boston; Providence, R.I.; New York; South Orange, N.J.; Princeton, N.J.; Pittsburgh; Washington; Delray Beach, Fla.; South Bend, Ind.; Chicago; Milwaukee; Urbana, Ill.; St. Louis; Houston; Dallas; Los Angeles and San Francisco. This is up from eight cities in 1975. Many of the centers are located near large college campuses, where Opus Dei attracts new members. (...) Each center typically houses 10 to 15 members, with separate centers for women and men. Opus Dei also sponsors other programs, such as retreat houses, programs for married Catholics and outreach programs to the poor, like its education program for children in the South Bronx. (...) Opus Dei operates five high schools in the United States (...)."

Only the members are obliged to perform practices of corporal mortification. But one wonders: what type of vision can a school run by Opus day convey in a creeping, subtle way? Self-annihilation, obedience for the sake of it, thinking your body is the worst enemy, masochism. This is sheer sickness and alienation. And yet it is absolutely consistent with Catholic teachings. In fact, after studying Catholic teachings closely, any open-minded, sensible, balanced person, should conclude that Catholics should not be allowed to have teaching responsabilities, as through seemingly commendable social activities they convey a dissocitaed and sick vision of reality and of the self.

Bruce Springsteen's article on the New York Times

Bruce Springsteen wrote an article on the New York Times, "Chords for Change". It provides various points for reflection.

A couple of paragraphs:

"Like many others, in the aftermath of 9/11, I felt the country's unity. I don't remember anything quite like it. I supported the decision to enter Afghanistan and I hoped that the seriousness of the times would bring forth strength, humility and wisdom in our leaders. Instead, we dived headlong into an unnecessary war in Iraq, offering up the lives of our young men and women under circumstances that are now discredited. We ran record deficits, while simultaneously cutting and squeezing services like afterschool programs. We granted tax cuts to the richest 1 percent (corporate bigwigs, well-to-do guitar players), increasing the division of wealth that threatens to destroy our social contract with one another and render mute the promise of "one nation indivisible."

It is through the truthful exercising of the best of human qualities - respect for others, honesty about ourselves, faith in our ideals - that we come to life in God's eyes. It is how our soul, as a nation and as individuals, is revealed. Our American government has strayed too far from American values. It is time to move forward. The country we carry in our hearts is waiting."

Read the whole article here.

Thursday, August 05, 2004

Bruce Springsteen, Neil Young, R.E.M., Pearl Jam and others: concerts for a new America

"Bruce Springsteen, Neil Young, R.E.M., Pearl Jam and a deep roster of other rock stars will unite for politically minded concerts this fall that will give voice to dissatisfaction with the Bush administration."
[...]
"Other artists expected to join the lineup include Earle, the Dave Matthews Band, the Dixie Chicks, Bright Eyes, Ani DiFranco, Death Cab for Cutie and International Noise Conspiracy. There also are reports that Bob Dylan and James Taylor may be part of the bill."

Read the whole article here.

An article by Ron Reagan (son of Ronald Reagan)

Very interesting article by Ron Reagan. An excerpt:

"Politicians will stretch the truth. They'll exaggerate their accomplishments, paper over their gaffes. Spin has long been the lingua franca of the political realm. But George W. Bush and his administration have taken "normal" mendacity to a startling new level far beyond lies of convenience. On top of the usual massaging of public perception, they traffic in big lies, indulge in any number of symptomatic small lies, and, ultimately, have come to embody dishonesty itself. They are a lie. And people, finally, have started catching on."

You can read the whole article here. And it's worth it.

Tuesday, August 03, 2004

Humans felt so miserable and overcome by their smallness and transience that they invented a God after their likeness.

After that, the most miserable of them, those afflicted by hypertrophic ego and narcissism, displayed solemnity in vestments and posture, haughtiness in words and pretension of truth to perpetuate the original sin of ignorance filled with contrivances: a new chaste was born. That of the bloated self-appointed mediators with the divinity, the simulators of compassion and piety, the protectors of the ancient reliquaries of fabrications and myths, the vaudevilles of displayed sanctity, the masters of duplicity and queerness. The priests.

Monday, August 02, 2004

29 nuns made pregnant by priests in one diocese. One nun forced to have an abortion.

If you have read my blog recently, you may have been amused by the BBC article on the vivacious clergy couple, a priest and a nun, who got caught while having sex in a cark park. Because of this the couple got convicted, though the six-month jail sentence with hard labour was suspended because they asserted "remorse" (though, considering the facts, I have doubts this was the first time for them).

I would like to tell another story which might have been overshadowed by the prevalent sex abuse with altar boys.

Over two years ago a scandal came out concerning a the widespread rape of nuns by priests in 23 countries across various continents.

In one diocese a mother superior complained that 29 of her nuns had been made pregnant, and not by the Holy Ghost. By some pious Catholic priests. One nun was forced to have an abortion.

Again, in this case, the Vatican knew but, following their millennary tradition of sick priestly secrecy, did not do anything for 7 years, until the facts reached the news.

Just read the whole article here. And draw your own conclusions.

How can one not think that when priests, in denial of sexuality and reality, talk about celibacy, abstinence, theology of the body and so on, they are fat living pathetic jokes?

Again the words of Richard Sipe come to mind:

“In what form I don’t know, but in 10 years there’ll be a reformation a reformation in the sense that fundamental issues of human sexuality will have to be brought to the fore.

“In terms of human sexuality, the church is at a pre-Copernican stage of understanding” -- a reference to 15th century Catholic priest and astronomer Nicolaus Copernicus, who resurrected, despite church opposition, the scientific theory of the sun rather than the Earth as the center of the solar system

“The church has not come to understand the nature of sex,” he said. “And it’s not easily understood -- we have to struggle along with the neurological, the genetic, the psychological, the evolutionary basis of it.”

Richard Sipe is perhaps a bit too optimistic, but he is right. Sooner or later the Roman Catholic Church, forced by the presure of widespread common sense and culture, will have to abandon the more obvious signs of their psychotic phobia against sex and material reality, with consequent dismissal of the obligation of "celibacy" for priests and nuns, and change of many of their non scientific, pathogenous teachings.

Misogyny and dissociative sex rejection of the Roman Catholic Church

Interesting article on priest's celibacy, mentioning the encyclical "Sacerdotalis Caelibatus, The Celibacy of the Priest" (1967). Interesting that the encyclical should quote Gregory of Nyssa: "the life of virginity is the image of the blessedness that awaits us in the life to come", a quotation that is revealing of the hidden drive behind the idea of celibacy and rejection of sex by the Roman Catholic Church, that is the association established between bewteen sex and life, thus to decay and death. Chastity (really a joke in the case of Catholic priests, but I won't remark it here again) becomes a sign of the general strategy of transcendence typical of Catholic religion, that of rejecting life as a way to assure eternity (an aspect that by itself should immediately alarm any psychiatrist).

In this respect the following passage by Gregory of Nyssa is amazingly eloquent:

"But those who by virginity have desisted from this process have drawn within themselves the boundary line of death, and by their own deed have checked his advance; they have made themselves, in fact, a frontier between life and death, and a barrier too, which thwarts him. If, then, death cannot pass beyond virginity, but finds his power checked and shattered there, it is demonstrated that virginity is a stronger thing than death; and that body is rightly named undying which does not lend its service to a dying world, nor brook to become the instrument of a succession of dying creatures. In such a body the long unbroken career of decay and death, which has intervened between the first man and the lives of virginity which have been led, is interrupted." ( Gregory of Nyssa,On Virginity, found here).

Other interesting quotes (found here) of Doctors of the Church (who are massively studied, and represent columns of the whole theological construction of the Roman Catholic Church, despite the embarassed denials of some pious ignorants, when confronted with evidence) are eloquent of the misogyny and dissociative sex rejection inherent in the Catholic Church:


Tertullian, referring to women, accusing them to be the source of all evils and, ultimately, of the death of Jesus Christ:

"Do you know that you are each an Eve? The sentence of God on this sex of yours lives in this age: the guilt must of necessity live too. You are the devil’s gateway: you are the unsealer of that forbidden tree; you are the first deserters of the divine law; you are she who persuades him whom the devil was not valiant enough to attack. You destroyed so easily God’s image, man. On account of your desert-that is death-even the Son of God had to die.".


Jerome, on whether widows should remarry:

"Surely it is better voluntarily to embrace chastity than to return to the filth of marriage. To be sure, Paul said that second and even more marriages are permitted to a widow, but that is only because it is better for a woman who cannot or will not remain chaste to prostitute herself to one man than to many.".