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Pope Labels (Totaliarianism Masquerading As) Democracy "godless"
Telegraph ^ | 2/23/2005 | Bruce Johnston

Posted on 02/23/2005 8:49:27 AM PST by Pyro7480

Pope labels democracy 'godless'
By Bruce Johnston in Rome

The Pope published a new book yesterday strongly attacking the "negative" society of the West, calling it a godless "anti-Gospel and new totalitarianism" masquerading as democracy.

Entitled Memory and Identity: Conversations Between Millenniums, John Paul II's fifth book, printed first in Italian, blames the moral permisiveness of the West for undermining society with divorce, free love, abortion, euthanasia, and genetic manipulation.

He also talks for the first time of the attempt on his life in 1981, describing his survival as an "act of divine intervention".

But its main focus is the risk democracies pose to the law of God. La Repubblica, the Italian daily which was shown advance excerpts, wrote yesterday: "The nihilism of the West is disturbing to the Pope. His claim is that democratic parliaments are the carriers."

Driven by "powerful economic forces," the Pope claims, the "anti-Gospel" is spreading the idea that "one must live life as if God does not exist".

By contrast, Eastern Europe, the Polish Pope said, had reached "a spiritual maturity for which certain important values are less devalued than in the West".

He adds: "The main threat which central Europe finds itself facing is that of falling without criticism under the influence of the negative culture so widespread in the West."


TOPICS: Culture/Society; Extended News; Foreign Affairs
KEYWORDS: bookreview; democracy; johnpaulii; memoryandidentity; nihilism; pope; thewest; west
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To: ninenot
The idea around which liberalism coheres is that NOTHING actually matters but PR.
I'll go you a step further--and add 'successful advertising.' Because IMHO, it's not PR--it's PROFITS.
No, IMHO - the problem is the lust for power, and for the appearance of virtue without which you don't really have power (see Nixon, Richard M.).

Journalists become journalists because they want the power (they don't call it such, but . . . ) to "comfort the afflicted, and afflict the comfortable." IOW, they want the appearance of virtue - and, through that, they want power. Journalism is politics. And journalism is especially political when it claims that journalism is NOT politics - when it claims the virtue of objectivity wisdom.

To be a celebrity is to have PR - which is an appearance of virtue, seen through the entertainment media in general and journalism in particular. For the mere celebrity, PR - the appearance of virtue - is his/her only stock in trade; what does the shapely form and smooth skin of the movie actor to do with the virtues which PR enables them to project? What did Meryl Streep actually know about the condition of farm wives and the policy which would be virtuous (because its benefit to farm wives was not at the cost of greater imposition on people who are not farm wives - including the great-grandchildren of those same farm wives)?

To be a celebrity (of that sort) is to lust for PR as an expression of lust for power. And the journalist, who reports on things on which s/he is not expert, is a mere celebrity who lives and dies by PR. Even though the journalist (or his boss) "buys ink by the carload," s/he yet lives in terror of other people who do likewise - thus, journalists "go along and get along" by never questioning the objectivity of another journalist.

Thus, the phenomenon of mainstream journalists evading the issue when 60 Minutes II is caught trumpeting obvious forgeries - somehow CBS is not "comfortable" enough to be "afflicted" by the rest of journalism when CBS is caught with smoking gun in hand. Too comfortable to be safely afflicted, more like . . .

Why Broadcast Journalism is
Unnecessary and Illegitimate

41 posted on 02/23/2005 3:30:14 PM PST by conservatism_IS_compassion (The idea around which liberalism coheres is that NOTHING actually matters but PR.)
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To: steve-b
I think I agree with the gist of what I believe you're saying.

The following an excerpt from the article attributed solely to Pope John Paul II: [The article is titled: What Catholics Should Do About Democracy -- Zenit ZE04101602]

Citing his encyclical "Centesimus Annus," the Pope noted that the Church values the democratic system in that it ensures all citizens can participate in the governing process. But an authentic democracy is present only when there is a correct conception of the human person, the 1991 document said.

A current threat to this authentic democracy is the tendency to relativism, added the Pontiff. This relativism can lead to the error of thinking that adhering to the truth is an obstacle to the democracy. But the truth as revealed by Christ is a guarantee for the human person of a full and authentic liberty, the Holy Father said. This truth, he continued, is the best antidote against ideological fanaticism, be it of a scientific, political or religious nature.

This goes into a bit more detail, but doesn't seem to veer to far from his view as noted in the title of article being addressed in this thread.

Although how can one really tell what the Pope thinks in detail about this so called democracy as totalitarianism? I can't judge specifics from the piece we're discussing in this thread. And what I'm about to express has little to do with the Pope.

My parents left Italy with me and my brother in tow in '58. God was everywhere, bread was nowhere, so they came to the United States. The old Italian saying goes Patria e pagnottta, paganotta is bread; where your bread is, there too is your fatherland.

When the missionaries go into a very economically depressed area, before they preach to the great unwashed, they feed them. Fasting can direct you closer to God, starvation numbs. The sheep have to actually be fed, before they can be Fed.

The best way to make sure the sheep are fed, before they're Fed can be located in the Bill of Rights, an encyclical to be reckoned with. The purest philosophical and practical distillation -able to be read by all, the barely literate to the most literate- destined to achieve the ability to freely look for, find and worship God.

My admiration and affection for the Founding Fathers, sins and all, warts and all is equal to my admiration for Popes, sins and all, warts and all, save, of course, the Pope I love the best, St. Peter.

Jefferson's Bill of Rights was so perfect that it was to eventually be a rebuke unto him for his own attachment to slavery.

The same building blocks that we are being critiqued for produced and destroyed slavery, were able to marshall unparalled martial will and prowess leading to the destruction of the filthy axis powers, which supposedly existed in a more 'godfull' time.

If Western Democracies don't presently appear to be godful, why that can be said about the clergy as well.

No, as far as advise on what makes a good democracy, I have to defer to Jefferson, Franklin and Churchill. The free love of God is still more possible and fruitful here, than in Europe, the mid-east, China, Russia, and who can forget Cuba?

If the Pope is talking about America, he fails to see the big picture, IMO. And if he's going to criticize what appears to him to be a godless society, let him also remember and record, the copious bloodshed of American boys and men, littered across the globe that lifted the poor up, that sprung the locks of the Camps.

42 posted on 02/23/2005 4:18:54 PM PST by AlbionGirl
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To: steve-b
[democracy's] virtues (e.g. the way in which successful democracies develop a live-and-let-live ethos in which all civilized peaceful people can make a place for themselves).

The Golden Rule virtue has nothing to do with democracy. Democracy is 51 people telling 49 people how to run their lives. Democracies succeed for a while if there is an extra-democratic system of morals informing people's decisions. That system of morals is religion, and the Golden Rule is one of its principles. Democracy is an attempt to legitimize immoral decisions that are taken by the majority and so it is always harmful. How soon the harm results in a disintegration of society is another matter. In the US, thanks to autocratic (some would use a more palatable term, "republican") elements in its constitution, the collapse is not yet complete.

43 posted on 02/23/2005 4:24:13 PM PST by annalex
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To: conservatism_IS_compassion

Just goes to show you will never be able to please everybody. The Pope has always been condemned as too conservative by liberals and too liberal by conservatives.

It's enough for me to agree with what he said and be glad he said it.


44 posted on 02/23/2005 5:22:07 PM PST by Guelph4ever (“Tu es Petrus, et super hanc petram aedificabo ecclesiam meam et tibi dabo claves regni coelorum”)
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Comment #45 Removed by Moderator

Comment #46 Removed by Moderator

To: Pyro7480
But its main focus is the risk democracies pose to the law of God.

That's OK. We're not a democracy.

And he's right. Without an enforced recognition of absolutes that are beyond the reach of popular will to address, a democracy will quickly become a dictatorship, and God-given rights will disappear.

47 posted on 02/23/2005 8:14:53 PM PST by Tribune7
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To: royalcello
. Cardinal Ratzinger himself said that Vatican II was the Church's attempt to "come to terms with the new era inaugurated in 1789."

Yes, Peter stepped out of the boat but didn't have enough faith in him and started to sink into the waters. How long will he wait before crying out "Lord save me!" Christ asks for faith and rebukes Peter's doubt. And doubt is the hallmark of modernism and all its forms starting with DesCartes.

48 posted on 02/23/2005 10:18:28 PM PST by TradicalRC (I'd rather live in a Christian theocracy than a secular democracy.)
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To: Pyro7480
But its main focus is the risk democracies pose to the law of God. La Repubblica, the Italian daily which was shown advance excerpts, wrote yesterday: "The nihilism of the West is disturbing to the Pope. His claim is that democratic parliaments are the carriers."

Driven by "powerful economic forces," the Pope claims, the "anti-Gospel" is spreading the idea that "one must live life as if God does not exist".

Congratulations to JPII. He is beginning to recognize the fleurs du mal that have bloomed in the West. Pius the IX and Pius the X already recognized the bad seeds of modernism over a century ago. Vatican II did its part in watering those seeds which found little growth within the church until then. Now he sees. Better late than never, yet it seems that our Pope may have spent more time reading the worldly philosophers when he should have been reading from the library of the Magisterium.

49 posted on 02/23/2005 10:29:35 PM PST by TradicalRC (I'd rather live in a Christian theocracy than a secular democracy.)
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To: mason-dixon
Any pronouncement "from the Vatican" must be interpreted in the context of this world-view.

A Pope is not the 'papacy' -research the term Magisterium...

Anyway, what you suggest is objectively false because truth is not based upon a moral relative world-view -truth is absolute; not relative...

50 posted on 02/24/2005 4:28:52 AM PST by DBeers
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To: AlbionGirl
If the Pope is talking about America, he fails to see the big picture, IMO. And if he's going to criticize what appears to him to be a godless society, let him also remember and record, the copious bloodshed of American boys and men, littered across the globe that lifted the poor up, that sprung the locks of the Camps.

That pretty much says it all. (It also gives some insight as to why I find myself offended at a visceral level when someone criticizes free nations as "decadent" because freedom means -- gasp! -- freedom to do things the critic doesn't like. If you want the virtues of freedom, you just have to put up with that, and to wallow in the latter to the point of minimizing the former strikes me as pompous preening.)

51 posted on 02/24/2005 5:17:57 AM PST by steve-b (A desire not to butt into other people's business is eighty percent of all human wisdom)
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To: royalcello
LOL! I knew that you guys would show up here.

I do like talking with you and your fellow monarchists, you are all pretty interesting.

Trouble is kings tend to treat people like possessions. Get a good king (of which there have been many) and things go well. Get a hedonist and you are in for hard times.

Take a look at the fall of the Eastern and Western Roman Empire. There were some truly great and good emperors (Justinian among them), and many more just horrible ones. The trouble was that there was no real good way to check the power of the emperor or king. He could do what ever he felt like until the Praetorian guards finished him off or an usurper showed up.
52 posted on 02/24/2005 5:56:02 AM PST by redgolum
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To: Pyro7480; Edgerunner

The government systems and constitutions of Europe and the U.S. are godless, and built upon Freemasonic principles. We are reaping the inevitable.


53 posted on 02/24/2005 6:08:00 AM PST by Mershon
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To: redgolum
That's why it's a good idea to also have some sort of legislature, ideally with both a hereditary and an elective component, to act as a check on the power of the Crown. Britain had such a system for many centuries before the monarchy was totally emasculated, and it worked pretty well.

But a democratic majority can be just as tyrannical as a bad monarch. And I am not convinced that the quality of history's elected leaders is any better than that of hereditary monarchs.

Here's one of my favorite quotations:

Regarding things in the abstract, there is nothing more strikingly absurd than hereditary monarchy, the succession secured to a family which may at any time place on the throne a fool, a child, or a wretch: and yet in practise there is nothing more wise, prudent, and provident. This has been taught by the long experience of ages, it has been shown by reason, and proved by the sad warnings of those nations who have tried elective monarchy. Now what is the cause of this? It is what we are endeavouring to explain. Hereditary Monarchy precludes all hopes of irregular ambition; without that, society always contains a germ of trouble, a principle of revolt, which is nourished by those who conceive a hope of one day obtaining the command. In quiet times, and under an hereditary Monarchy, a subject, however rich, however distinguished he may be for his talent or his valour, cannot, without madness, hope to be King; and such a thought never enters his head. But change the circumstances---admit, I will not say the probability, but the possibility of such an event, and you will see that there will immediately be ardent candidates.

--Fr. Jaime Balmes, European Civilisation, 143.

54 posted on 02/24/2005 11:11:03 AM PST by royalcello
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To: seamole
the carrier of nihilism is not in the legislative or executive (the functions of a parliament), but in the unelected judicial branch

In the US our vision is obscured by the temporal phenomenon of the national consciousness turning conservative, and the courts lagging behind. When the nation was turning left under Roosevelt, the courts were the last redoubt of conservatism, in the same way as now they are the redoubts of liberalism. The fact that the judicial branch is not directly elected and therefore lags behind the public sentiment is no proof that greater democracy is compatible with Christian ideals.

Consider this.

The "blue" laws of Massachusetts are not a testimony to democracy. If a vote were taken on them today, they would have been repealed. They are on the books because they are rendered obsolete by the federalization of political life.

The judges are not elected directly (for most part), but they nevertheless derive their power from the elective branches. They follow the public sentiment as well, except for the time lag. One should not confuse lifelong tenure of a judge with monarchy, or any other consistently anti-democratic social system. When judges are elected, they are not necessarily more conservative. The judge in Florida, busy today arranging for the murder of Terri Schiavo, for example, was recently re-elected by a large margin.

The fundamental fact is that democracy is an instrument of oppression, not freedom. When the good people are in the majority and want to oppress the bad people, we tend to begin to like democracy. The principled view is still to stand for what is right, not for what is 51%.

55 posted on 02/24/2005 11:12:33 AM PST by annalex
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To: royalcello
Parliamentary monarchies in theory aren't that bad, and Great Britain is a good example of a better run one.

However, most monarchies only accepted some form of balances at the point of a sword (or pocket book). Even in England, the kings would every once in awhile try to make an end run around Parliament.

The other problem with a monarchy is that, despite your quote, usurpation of the crown was known to happen. The War of the Roses, and the fall of the Plagement line (sp) is a good example. In smaller kingdoms, the prince was often the one who happened to have the most force behind him at the moment.

That being said, republics have their own pit falls. When the electors become complacent, or get bought off, tyrants can often rise to power.
56 posted on 02/24/2005 11:25:59 AM PST by redgolum
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To: lnbchip

Absolutely right! Democracy is only for a moral and religious people!


57 posted on 02/24/2005 11:25:59 AM PST by pbear8 (Latin Mass - gotta love it!)
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To: Pyro7480
I tire of debating the jacobins on this message board, I just point them towards the master Erik von Kuehnelt-Leddihn, Neo-Conservatism and Neo-Liberalism
58 posted on 02/24/2005 11:27:52 AM PST by kjvail (Judica me Deus, et discerne causam meam de gente non sancta)
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To: kjvail

I saw that link is from the Intercollegiate Studies Institute. They are an excellent conservative organization, and they are based in a wonderful part of the country - my home "turf" of suburban Wilmington, Delaware.


59 posted on 02/24/2005 11:40:15 AM PST by Pyro7480 ("All my own perception of beauty both in majesty and simplicity is founded upon Our Lady." - Tolkien)
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To: redgolum
As you come close to admitting, republics and democracies can have at least as many pitfalls as monarchies. But it seems to me that the disadvantages of democracy are worse.

When the electors become complacent, or get bought off, tyrants can often rise to power.

That's neither the only problem. The electorate itself can become tyrannical, and is much harder to throw off than a tyrannical king.

According to St. Thomas Acquinas, [t]o be delivered from tyrants, “the people must desist from sin, for it is by divine permission that wicked men receive power to rule as a punishment for sin.”

Certainly from a traditional Christian point of view, Europe was in better shape when was ruled by kings than it is today in the hands of presidents and prime ministers.

And monarchy has positive advantages in terms of pageantry, glamor, and tradition with which no republic can hope to complete. In today's often dreary modern world, the special kind of magic evoked by kings and princesses still resonates with many and is needed more than ever.

60 posted on 02/24/2005 11:45:27 AM PST by royalcello
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