I was going to lay off this blog ’till after the New Year, but this is one of those stories that just comes busting out! The Vatican is insisting that the war-time decisions of “Pius” the twelth should not overshadow his so-called “christian life.”
The Vatican spokesman, the Rev. Federico Lombardi, issued a statement saying that the beatification process evaluated the “Christian life” of Pius, who ruled from 1939 to 1958, and not “the historical significance of his choices.”
In one sentence, the Vatican spokesman encapsulated the major problem with the christian religion – no matter what you say or do, or how badly you treat your fellow man, all that matters in the end is that you’re suitably “sorry” and receive the necessary “blessing.”
This miserable excuse for a human being stood tacitly by while genocide was being committed on an entire race of people, and when the war was over, he actively assisted those responsible for the genocide in escaping the consequences for their actions. Germany was (and still kind of is) a Catholic country. Hitler was a professed Catholic. The German army (including papanazi) wore a uniform belt buckle that said “god is with us.” If the head of the catholic church had cared to intervene, millions could have been spared, but he chose to do nothing.
Now, they want to make him a saint? What the hell is the matter with these people? Have they no sense of shame at all? I can’t help but wonder how many hail Mary’s the Pope had to say to obtain absolution for abetting the holocaust, or did he whip himself instead?
I suppose that Papanazi will be up for sainthood when he dies, after all, didn’t he do a hell of a job covering up the rape of the innocents at the hands of priests all over the world? That should be worth sainthood, should it not?
I have not posted for a while – again, trying to detach from some of the things going on, but sometimes I just can’t do that! This story in Politico just caught my eye, and sometimes I wonder if anybody is really awake out there, and keeping track of what’s going on. According to the story, Ben Nelson from Nebraska, a state with the same population of Charlotte, North Carolina, is threatening to filibuster the health care bill if an amendment, being written by the Catholic Bishops is not included within it. From the story:
“The United States Conference of Catholic Bishops, which proved highly influential in the House health care debate, is assisting Nelson and Sen. Orrin Hatch (R-Utah) in drafting an anti-abortion amendment, and its representatives are meeting with senators, including Byron Dorgan (D-N.D.).”
Have we somehow slipped under some form of christian sharia law while we weren’t watching? Since when does the pedophile – protecting conference of catholic bishops get to write our laws? Why are we giving Ben Nelson this much power? Why isn’t there a massive public outcry over this?
No one with an ounce of sense should respect these people, or give them the slightest access to our legislative process. Those in the christian community who spend so much time trying to control the reproductive process have one aim and one aim only – the subjugation of women, it has been so from the earliest beginnings of the christian church, and remains so today.
As reported by David Dayen at Firedog Lake, the Catholic Bishops are at it again. Not content with influencing the House health care bill, they are taking a shot at destroying the rights of patients all over the world:
The US Conference of Catholic Bishops released an “Ethical and Religious Directive” this month that would ban any Catholic hospital, nursing home or hospice program from removing feeding tubes or ending palliative procedures of any kind, even when the individual has an advance directive to guide their end-of-life care. The Bishops’ directive even notes that patient suffering is redemptive and brings the individual closer to Christ. (Emphasis mine)
Closer to christ? That’s the old Mother Theresa line of bullshit so prevalent in many flavors of christianity. How any sane human being could allow one of their own to suffer indefinitely is totally beyond my understanding. I couldn’t do it, and I would not respect anyone who could.
…(T)he Church has staked out a radical position on end-of-life care, without patients of the 565 Catholic hospitals and other Catholic care facilities even knowing about it. As Barbara Coombs Lee, president of Compassion and Choices, an advocacy group, put it, “When a patient goes to one of these facilities, they don’t know that they’re choosing Catholic dogma. The bishops see the hospitals as an extension of their ministry.”
Catholic hospitals take a good deal of government money. There is no way the hospitals should be legally able to void living wills and/or ignore the wishes of next-of-kin who may not have been aware that religion is capable of trumping both law and common sense.
This substitutes the wishes of the bishops for the stated wishes of families and the patients themselves, said Coombs Lee. Even if the family can produce an advance directive or living will, Catholic hospitals and nursing homes would be expected to maintain the feeding tubes. In addition, all Catholic health care workers are required by their faith to continue palliative care, according to the document. The directive even addresses patients. “These are directives for you, from the church,” said Coombs Lee.
In many cities, this means that every hospital or medical care facility will not allow the withdrawal of a feeding tube. “In Spokane, Washington, if you don’t get Catholic health care, you don’t get health care,” Coombs Lee said. “In Eugene, Oregon, if you don’t get Catholic health care, you don’t get health care.” Coombs Lee characterized it as a kind of entrapment, with a sense of “my house, my rules.” If a patient’s family wanted to comply with an advance directive, they would have to leave the Catholic care facility, adding a level of stress and disruption to the already difficult time of aggrievement. “Decisions on feeding tubes are hard enough without adding this extra adversity,” said Coombs Lee.
The Terri Schaivo affair should have been a lesson to us all that there are no limits to how far our elected officials would not go to pander to the religious interests in this country. It is only a matter of time before there is an attempt by some Senator or Representative to give these new “directives” the force of law by writing them into the US code. Then the police power of the government can be used to overturn the wishes of private individuals and family members in dealing with end of life issues.
In a Washington Post story, the Catholic Archdiocese of Washington is threatening to cease their adoption and homeless programs in D.C. if the City Council doesn’t change a proposed gay marriage law.
Under the bill, headed for a D.C. Council vote next month, religious organizations would not be required to perform or make space available for same-sex weddings. But they would have to obey city laws prohibiting discrimination against gay men and lesbians.
Fearful that they could be forced, among other things, to extend employee benefits to same-sex married couples, church officials said they would have no choice but to abandon their contracts with the city.
“If the city requires this, we can’t do it,” Susan Gibbs, spokeswoman for the archdiocese, said Wednesday. “The city is saying in order to provide social services, you need to be secular. For us, that’s really a problem.”
Several members of the City Council indicated that they would not be swayed by the Catholic pouting, and if the Catholics decided to cancel the contracts, so be it.
The church’s influence seems limited. In separate interviews Wednesday, council member Mary M. Cheh (D-Ward 3) referred to the church as “somewhat childish.” Another council member, David A. Catania (I-At Large), said he would rather end the city’s relationship with the church than give in to its demands.
“They don’t represent, in my mind, an indispensable component of our social services infrastructure,” said Catania, the sponsor of the same-sex marriage bill and the chairman of the Health Committee.
I’m glad to see the Council standing up to the church, which seems to be hastening its own slide into irrelevancy on several fronts. Many of us are trying to remove religion from everyday American life, and sometimes, like now, the religions even lend a hand, and expose their own bigotry and uselessness.
Not quite dead yet, but buried nonetheless, is the 2009 version of healthcare reform. The pathetic version of the so-called “public option” that managed to sneak through the House last week would do absolutely nothing to control costs, even if it managed to survive the Senate, which it has no chance of doing. The onerous rusty coat hanger amendment that the anti –abortion nutbags tacked on to the bill at the last minute will serve as a poison pill to assure that the liberal Democrats will vote the bill down if it ever returns to the House with the “Stupidpak” amendment still attached.
Lieberman and now Nelson in the Senate, both in the thrall of the insurance industry, are threatening to vote with the Rethuglicans to filibuster any bill with a public option attached, even one as weak as the House version. Several House and Senate Democrats have threatened to vote against any bill without a public option, or one with the coat hanger thing. And, of course, no Rethuglicans in either house are liable to vote for the bill, no matter what’s in it.
So, where does that leave us after six months? Exactly nowhere! There appears to be no way that meaningful health care reform will pass this year, and probably not any other. I lay the blame for this directly on the White house! Obama has provided no leadership on this effort, and what’s worse, they gave the game away early, making a horrible deal with big Pharma.
Personally, I think we’re all screwed! Obama is turning out to be a hell of a lot less then I and many others thought he was. One disappointment after another.
On November 10th, 1975, twenty-nine men were killed when the Edmund Fitzgerald, a Great Lakes ore carrier, went down in a storm. I found this clip on the net and had to post it. As someone who spent over three years at sea, the most haunting line in the Gordon Lightfoot song is “Does anyone know where the love of god goes when the waves turn the minutes to hours.” Believer or not, the line captures the feeling of absolute helplessness of being tossed about by an angry sea in a ship of any size. Anyone who has been at sea for any length of time understands what I mean.
I guess the film, which shows a mild blow, was probably made on a prior voyage of the Fitzgerald. Enjoy it, and perhaps give a thought to the sailors currently bouncing around out there.
This is a debate featuring Chris Hitchens and Stephen Fry on the motion: The Catholic Church is a Force For Good in the World. This is a five-part presentation that should automatically switch between clips as you view it. Of interest is the “score” in the end. Enjoy! Turns out I couldn’t get it to switch, so I’m just going to link to Atheist Planet, where I got it from in the first place.
Congratulations to those tea-baggers, know-nothings and all you other seventeen per-centers who have apparently been successful in killing meaningful health care reform. In spite of the wishes of the majority of the country, you have managed to remove everything of any value from the House bill, and add that wonderful rusty coat hanger amendment which will make abortion impossible for those women who need it most.
Looks as though even the watered down public option that survived in the House is a non-starter in the Senate, and will probably be stripped, leaving nothing in the way of further price-gouging by the insurance companies. What a country!
Just one thing, though, I don’t want to hear you whining about your liberties’ five years from now when your premiums are over twenty grand a year, and your carrier won’t cover your wife’s cancer treatment ‘cause you used to smoke years ago, and even exposure to second-hand smoke is now a pre-existing condition. Don’t worry, though, you can have her prayed for, and if the bill passes your insurance company will even pay for it!
The reality of our universe is so much more impressive then the false reality presented by any of its’ man-made religions, it boggles the mind. The gods presented to us as candidates for worship are all so small and inconsequential when compared to the vast reality of what is, it is really a wonder why anyone pays any attention to them at all. If man is searching for meaning, he need look no further then his place in the cosmos.
