Decadent world is in the grip of Satan, says Pope

The Daily Telegraph ^ | April 15, 2006 | Malcolm Moore

[MadIvan]

Pope Benedict said last night that the world was in the grip of Satan and prayed for mankind to open its eyes to the "filth around us".

At an Easter ceremony that recreated the passage of Jesus Christ to the crucifixion, Benedict XVI lashed out at man's "decadent narcissism".

He said "a slick campaign of propaganda is spreading an inane apologia of evil, a senseless cult of Satan".

The Good Friday service, held at the Colosseum, showed the 14 stages of Christ's suffering and was designed to allow worshippers to share in the agony of Jesus. During the first and final stage, the Pope carried the cross.

The prayers, written by Archbishop Angelo Comastri, the Vatican City's vicar general, were approved by the Pope, and reflected his strongly conservative outlook.

"Surely God is deeply pained by the attack on the family," the Pope said. "Today we seem to be witnessing a kind of anti-Genesis, a counter-plan, a diabolical pride aimed at eliminating the family."

He also expressed fears about genetic modification, and said it was "insane arrogance" to play with the "grammar" of creation.

The meditations were designed to invoke a feeling of man's sinfulness ahead of the dark hours of Easter Saturday. Bodies are "constantly bought and sold on the streets of our cities, on our television channels, in homes that have become like streets," he said.

Accumulating wealth was "robbery" when it "prevented others from living". He deplored "the division of our world into belts of prosperity and belts of poverty".

The Pope said society valued "immorality and selfishness as if they were new heights of sophistication".

The downbeat message echoed the Pope's words at the same ceremony last year, when, as Cardinal Joseph Ratzinger, he led the Way of the Cross in place of the ailing Pope John Paul II.

In those meditations, he compared the Church to "a boat about to sink, taking on water on every side". He lamented "how much filth there is in the Church", and said that "a Christianity which has grown weary of faith has abandoned the Lord".

Since his election almost a year ago, the Bavarian-born Pope has surprised many with his gentle public persona. At yesterday's service, however, his ferocity was a reminder of why he was once nicknamed "Cardinal Rottweiler".

John Allen, the author of two books on Pope Benedict, said: "Is this the real Pope Benedict re-emerging? He has projected a very different tone in the last year, but that does not mean that he has changed."

On Thursday, the Pope poured scorn on revelations within the recently published Gospel of Judas, a fourth century text which is sympathetic to Judas Iscariot and whose crumbling fragments claim that Jesus instructed Judas to betray him.

The Pope celebrates his 79th birthday tomorrow, Easter Sunday.

Mr Allen said he would adopt a lighter tone at an open-air Mass at St Peter's.

[StarfireIV]

I'm a former Catholic and I agree with him on this issue.

[Antoninus]

I don't think the Pope understands that. I don't think he took an economics course. I don't think he understands economics as well as his immediate predecessor. Just a guess.

If your job description said, "Witness to the Truth; be a fisher of men; follow and teach My doctrine; and lead as many into My heavenly kingdom as you can," don't you think you'd find economic theory to be tangential to your work--at best? Pointing out that poverty exists and exhorting the rich to assist the poor is not "socialist"--it's the message of Jesus Christ. Now, when you exhort governments to steal the assets of the rich and distribute them to the poor, that's a different story--and Popes, including John Paul II have fought long and hard against this very attitude.

BTW, Benedict is an extraordinary intellect. My guess is that his grasp of economics eclipses yours and mine put together.

[Torie]

Exhorting the rich to have an eleemosynary attitude is grand, and they tend to have it spades in the US (in part thanks to the US tax code, but only in part), unlike Europe (and to give the current Pope some slack, he has a Eurocentric attitude it seems), but when you say, "My guess is that his grasp of economics eclipses yours and mine put together," I say that that is a leap of faith. I see no evidence of that at all.

[Admin Moderator]

Censorship, that's just great.

You have no First Amendment Rights here. This is a privately owned and operated website.

[Tim Long]

I know, but the fact you that you would remove any negative reference to Catholicism, the bastion of pacifist liberalism, (that was intended as a joke, no less) is pitiful.

[Admin Moderator]

... the fact you that you would remove any negative reference to Catholicism ...

Not a fact. Posters can and do criticize the Catholic Church. However, one must draw a line somewhere, and I draw it this side of Chick and his “death cookies.”

[AnAmericanMother]

You have to look at that statement in context. The rich young man was bragging to Christ (!?!?!) that he had ALWAYS kept ALL the Commandments "from my birth" and that he had already done everything Christ commanded.

So Christ touched him where he lived. He couldn't serve both God and Mammon, and right then and there he chose Mammon.

Christ did not tell Joseph of Arimathea or other wealthy men the same thing -- because they did not put their God to the test in the same way.

[John 6.66=Mark of the Beast?]

Case closed you have validated my original question.

[AnAmericanMother]

Wrong. If anything, just the opposite. The rich young man was being far from candid with Christ, not realizing that of course he knew.

And what on earth does that have to do with the Church, anyway? Everything the Church has she holds in trust, it does not belong to anyone. It is used prudentially for the propagation of the Gospel and the aid of the needy. Most of the "storied wealth" is just that - stories. The vast majority of the net worth of the Church is tied up in real estate, churches and charitable organizations through which her work is done. Some is in works of art that I suppose could be melted down or auctioned off, but what do you suppose dumping all that on the market would do to its value? And how do you figure in the value of honoring Christ (see John 12)?

I agree, you should practice what you preach and sell your computer. (Do you tithe?)

[Barnacle]

I'm a former Catholic and I agree with him on this issue.

I used to be a "former Catholic". Then, I woke up and went home.

It's not perfect. What endevor involving human beings ever is?

But, it's home. And, there is no place like it.

[RFEngineer]

"You have no idea what you are talking about."

That may well be. But do help narrow it down....with what do you disagree regarding my stated opinion?

[Barnacle]

Hearing those two side by side was disturbing.

Some people call it a wake-up call.

Savage is on my %&* list until he apologizes for what he said about the Catholic church.

But, I have heard him say many truths that Americans in general refuse to acknowledge. For that, I am grateful to him.

[Almondjoy]

Satan's work is greed... God doesn't care about asset accumliation or Capitalism. It isn't our duty to create wealth or to make scientific advances.

Our only duties is to practice what the bible preaches. It's in the government's best interest to act as if God doesn't exist and enact laws that are best for accumlation of wealth.

It is in the interest of the individual to act as God wants us to.. even if it makes us poor.

[RKBA Democrat]

"It means that rich countries are too rich and should give their "excess" to the poor countries."

Not everything that the Pope says is directed toward America or American Catholics or the west at all. In this case, I don't think what the Pope had to say had anything to do with "wealth redistribution" in the sense that American FReepers have come to think about it.

The Catholic church has a huge presence in third world countries where all too frequently a small minority in political control accumulates incredible wealth while the majority quite literally starve.

[RKBA Democrat]

"Today in the Information Age and in the first world we naturally begin a debate about degrees of fairness, when I think the original objection was to absolute, crippling poverty in most while a few gorged."

Your post makes it sound as if the "absolute, crippling poverty in most while a few gorged" no longer exists. Unfortunately, that's not true, particularly in areas such as subsaharan Africa. Which is an area where the Catholic churches have a huge number of parishioners.

I didn't take the Pope's comments in this regard as being directed primarily at the west.

[RKBA Democrat]

"The Pope is not covered under the first amendment he not an American..... If any organization that has a tax exempt statues in the U.S. are bound by law to stay out of politics."

I think you might have missed it, but the Pope's comments were made at the Vatican. Neither the First Amendment to the U.S. Constitution, nor U.S. tax law have any relevance to his comments.

"And it appears that any dissent around here is taken as an attack. I did not know that this thread was for the thin-skinned only."

It isn't. But this thread isn't for the pathologically anti-Catholic either, nor is it for disruptors. Given the nature and tone of your comments, I'd say it's a fair bet that you fall into one if not both of those categories.

[DCPatriot]

I know, but the fact you that you would remove any negative reference to Catholicism, the bastion of pacifist liberalism, (that was intended as a joke, no less) is pitiful.

Hey...at least he/she didn't hunt you down and behead you...or riot by burnng cars, shops, etc..

BTW, the pope's message gives me an indication of why President Bush is determined. I can only imagine what those two guys talked about when they met.

[RFEngineer]

"Satan's work is greed... God doesn't care about asset accumliation or Capitalism. It isn't our duty to create wealth or to make scientific advances. "

I don't disagree regarding greed, but socialism, in terms of the depth and breadth of misery and sapped potential it provides it's human victims, must be the work of Satan. If not, he would surely approve.

[HowlinglyMind-BendingAbsurdity]

Pope Benedict said last night that the world was in the grip of Satan and prayed for mankind to open its eyes to the "filth around us". At an Easter ceremony that recreated the passage of Jesus Christ to the crucifixion, Benedict XVI lashed out at man's "decadent narcissism". He said "a slick campaign of propaganda is spreading an inane apologia of evil, a senseless cult of Satan".

That's a pretty accurate description. Good to see there is at least one clergyman not grovelling on his knees before the idols of liberal secular humanism (i.e., the "senseless cult of Satan").