Posted on 01/10/2007 4:24:37 PM PST by Dennis Paul Morony
Or is he (she) simply "overmedicated?" Because if the problems for the students don't stem from drugs, like a 100%, there may be something else at work here.
He carefully explains to us in footnote one, for example, just what he means by "paranoia."
In the case of his article "state paranoia" applied to East Germany and its chief practioners were the dreaded STASI, or secret police.
I honestly believe we can do well to apply what he has learned to the problems encountered by many of us mainstream folks in RCIA, or Bible Studies, or Religion Studies in Catholic dioceses all across America.
Because what strikes me when I compare his comments on STASI with what I and others have experienced first hand with many contemporary American Catholic instructors is simply this:
It almost seems certain that many Catholic educators have been carefully conditioned in their own training to accept -- and to use -- variations of old time Marxist-Leninist methods of psychlogical domination, intimidation, classroom management and outright total control.
Thus, any RCIA, Religion Studies, or Bible Studies student, male or female, who has the effrontery to quietly and calmly insist, matter of factly, that there is no way to "mix hell with holy water," as we often see in screwbally texts is automatically viewed as the enemy.
As Eric Voegelin puts it so well:
"Marx, like Compte, does not permit a rational discussion of his principles -- you have to be a Marxist or shut up."
Worse, as his biographer Ellis Sandoz puts it regarding gnostic balonia in general:
"Dream and reality are identified as a matter of principle, and anyone who challenges official truth in the name of [real life] reason and truth meets vituperation or worse. Rational debate is impossible."
Thus, here in the Diocese of El Paso, for example, Bishop Ochoa's henchmen mandate the use of such things for Bible Studies as Dr. John Pilch's masterpieces.
One of which we used last year seems to link both Jesus Christ and John the Baptist as co-members of a sort of "spirit possesion priesthood."
PROBLEM:
As "the real deal" anthropologist Richard Maddox points out to us in his article located in the same book we've cited above, "Sexual Secrets: Candomble,Brazil, and the multiple intimacies of the African diaspora" there seems to be a pretty strong male on male sexual equation in "spirit possession priesthoods," that makes linking Jesus and John the Baptist problematical, to put it tactfully.
But not HERE in the Diocese of El Paso's St. Patrick's Cathedral, where aging diehard "revolutionary peoples' vanguard" veterans still flourish in the Religious Education Division.
Albeit, they HAVE apparently long since switched their basic allegiance from Comrade Brother Karl Marx to Comrade Brother Groucho Marx in so far as teaching materials and classroom management is concerned.
Believe it or not!
I tried to work with them for nearly three years, but I was finally forced to give it up.
Dennis
I see no book cited above. A title, author/editor, publisher, year and maybe an isbn number would be appreciated.
But still unsure whether this thread is about one book, several books, one article, several articles, or a vanity opinion.
Bumping because of Voegelin quote.
Wow, this could be like another Religion Forum undead Zot thread.
http://www.stupidstuff.org/main/rorschach.htm
What the heck are you talking about?
If he gets zotted, would it the moderators allow me to point out that the adjective is "moronIC," not Morony?
http://www.sup.org/book.cgi?book_id=5006%205007
Off Stage/On Display
Intimacy and Ethnography in the Age of Public Culture
Edited by Andrew Shryock
blurb:
Why are public identities so predictably, and often so radically, different from identities that flourish in realms of collective intimacy? Why does belonging to a group, knowing about it, or displaying its qualities to others require that certain aspects of identification be denied—not because they are false or stereotypical, but because they are thought to be accurate and indispensable signs of membership?
In Off Stage/On Display, ten scholars with diverse geographical, theoretical, and topical interests take a close, critical look at the vexed relationship between public identities and the intimate spheres in which they are made. They ask how scholars and activists can engage more creatively with problems encountered on this awkward terrain, which is now global both in location and political significance. Their answers, careful and suggestive, point to more effective strategies for representing aspects of identification that cannot be easily shown or, in an age of mass mediation, easily concealed.
Are you complaining that the religious instruction in your diocese is too leftist, or too degenerate, and go in for non-faithful texts, with the argument, You will accept this or leave?
Or did I misunderstand you?
Seems like writing that got overly condensed, and thus lost the reader, rather than a zottable.
Wow!!! You found it! I'm impressed!
LOL! I was thinking of the Mormons' angel, Moroni.
Knitting A Conundrum:
You're right on! "You toe the Party Line or you're history."
Thanks,
Dennis aka "IT's Village Idiot of the Year!"
x_plus_one
You're right, I literally have. After all, I AM an Ex-US Marine.
Thanks for the input.
Dennis aka "It's Village Idiot of the Year, Encino Man Division."
I thought so!
(Been both a Catechist and an English teacher!)
I was blessed with having a pastor who insisted we use the Ignatius Press materials for Catechism...
Right on!
Seriously, it's almost uncanny, but have you (or anyone else) heard of what I THINK is called the "Eastern Diocese of Oklahoma?" My guess is their bishop would most likely be the Bishop of Tulsa, right?
Anyway, he invited some Tridentine-Mass saying monks, including an Ex-US Marine officer, from over in France to set up shop for him.
Which they're doing as far as I know, even today.
The first thing?
"We want a foundation able to last 1,000 years."
The tough, hardworking Baptist contractor delivered.
NOW! TWO KICKERS!
The last time I checked that Diocese's website, these guys were "invisible."
The only monks illustrated looked like they were rejects from the farthest reaches of the all-American Prozac Nation, like the Diocese of El Paso's Dr. Pilch and Company!
Number two, and this relates to your textbooks from Image:
In spite of the New Age Gnostics nominal control over most of his website, THIS Bishop's list of approved catechetical materials includes a respectable chunk of -- you guessed it!
Image books!
As far as I could see, it was like "Zero" on Dr. John Pilch and his loonies.
Dennis
Being born Catholic I never attended an RCIA class, but I hear that in most places it is wishy washy. I have read in the past that most of the leadership in RCIA are definitely of the theologically liberal persuasion. I guess it really hasn't changed very much in the last 20-30 years.
Yo, Brooklyn Dave!
That's a good point, about not changing much for 20 or 30 years.
Funny thing, though, about our liberal brethern in a certain generic sense and that is while oozing ecumenism from out of every pore they can't stand being told, no matter how tactfully, that those warm fuzzy little monkeys we read about in Kipling's story about Mowgli make them, the liberals, sound familar even if you've never met one.
As I recall the monkeys boasted to Mowgli something more or less like this:
"Anything we ever tell you is the real truth because we all agree with one another that this is so."
And so the problem I have Brookly Dave, is simply this:
"How could those warm, fuzzy little monkeys, so beloved by the rest of their jungle neighbors, have predicted the intellectual level of so much of American Catholic Theology today?"
For me -- it's like "My, oh my! It's ALL such a mystery!"
Dennis
The RCIA instruction in my parish was so syncretist that my wife and I will no longer help out with it. I am hoping that our new pastor is straightening it out.
Howdy, Straight Vermonter!
Say, somebody told me almost a year ago that when we really want to make a difference in this kind of situation write a letter detailing all the facts and figures, and send it registered mail, return receipt requested, to your local bishop.
After pondering all this leisurely for 8 months of so, I decided "O.K, let's rock: but we'll sent all four pages (or however many) to the ARCHbishop (heh! heh!). So, we did.
Things went along their merry way, until all of a sudden, pow!
A certain individual started running around with a curiously wan expression and a "changed attitude," perhaps because he was the individual who, as we had stated matter-of-factly, "Had Lost Control."
Moreover, we painted him as someone in need of fraternal correction inasmuch as his alleged "loss of control" could potentially have involved "this particular diocese being sued into financial oblivion," and backing THAT admittedly sensational statement with some basic intel.
So, I guess that other fellow was right, and doing this registered letter + return receipt requested routine CAN (at least sometimes!) be of help.
Thanks for the input,
Dennis
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