>>>> Now Pope John Paul II has set up a sports department to give the Vatican a kind of new playing field in its drive to spread Christian values around the world.
"Christian" values like pedophilia and sodomy? The Catholic church has no business organizing youth activities until they have shown REAL commitment about curing the cancers inside rather than just masking or relocating them.
And if this doesn't work, they might try opening up amusement parks. And if that doesn't work--how about a chain of restaurants, with the Blessed Sacrament served up with a side of spaghetti? This is obscene. These people are not Catholics.
Another way to waste money.
Here's a recent traditio.com commentary which relates to this development:
It was only after he had left office that U.S. President Ronald Reagan was revealed to have Alzheimer's Disease. Then, in hindsight, some of his strange aberrancies became explainable. In our time, we may be witnessing a pope day by day losing his mind. In hindsight, the pattern is becoming clearer.
The pope's Church of the New Order -- or New Pentecost, or New Springtime, or whatever he calls it today -- is falling down around his knees.
Large numbers of his presbyters, bishops, and cardinals are deeply mired in immorality: whether theft from Church funds, sexual immorality, or apostasy from the Catholic Faith.
The "New Mass" that was foisted by illegal and invalid force upon the Church in the late 1960s has proven to be a disaster. Even the New Vatican talks about rampant "abuses." For the Novus Ordinarians, the novelty has worn off: attendance has plummeted from 80% in 1958 to 15% in 2003.
So widespread is the disintegration of Newchurch that "vocations" to it have almost completely dried up. New Order seminaries are closing all over the world, and many dioceses have no one to "ordain" this year.
So, what does this pope do? Does he follow his predecessors in calling for a renewed traditional devotion to Our Lord, the Blessed Virgin, the Holy Angels, and the Saints? No. Instead, we have the "Rock Star" pope, pandering to the godless music of the present age instead of promoting, as did his holy predecessors, the music of the Church. We have the "Movie Star" pope, mugging for the secular press. We have the "Flower Child" pope, recording beatnik poetry for worldwide CD distribution.
And now we have the "Sports Bum" pope, worshipping at the altar of what, for many people in the modern age, is the new god: the Great God of Sport. This new god comes with its altar (the playing field), its priests (the players), its congregation (the spectators), its hierarchy (the officials), and even its own theological vocabulary (sports-talk). [Newsday]
For, you see, the New Vatican on August 3 announced its latest initiative to restore the Catholic Faith in the world: it established a new Department of Sport.
And what is the purpose of this department of the New Vatican? According to the announcement, it is to do a P.R. job on behalf of professional sports, which have been "marred by stadium violence, athletes' failing doping tests, and game-fixing inquiries." We have come a long way from Pope Pius XII, who quite properly condemned as immoral professional boxing lethal high-speed car races. One wonders what he would have said about modern-day professional ice hockey, soccer, and football! Now his successor has done a 180-degree spin and become a pawn for professional sports.
And it gets worse than that. This is the pope's charge to the new department: "fostering a sports culture that promotes a vision of sports activity as a means of integral personal growth and as an instrument in the service of peace and brotherhood among peoples."
Has the pope gone mad? Are we to find our salvation now in greedy professional sports instead of Our Lord Jesus Christ? Let me rephrase that charge to what a real pope would say (it will take only two changes to make it Catholic): "fostering a religious culture that promotes a vision of spiritual activity as a means of integral personal growth and as an instrument to the service of peace and brotherhood among peoples."
It this a pope, or a frustrated pop-culture idol?
"Sport does not of itself have anything to do with the perfecting of the human being or with his destiny, and is of no assistance in attaining either, since excellence in physical attainments is quite compatible with a weakening of the subordination of these lower powers to reason. It is only the exercise of the will that confers any worth on the exercise of physical strength, inasmuch as an exercise of the will can increase the power of a man's reason and the extent of his moral freedom. One should not imagine there is any continuum between the physical and moral orders. There is a leap involved, that only the moral will can make."