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Posted on 05/05/2009 9:02:29 PM PDT by ReformationFan
Pope: "Non-Negotiable Human Rights" include "Right to Life and Right to Freedom of Conscience and Religion"
VATICAN CITY, MAY 5, 2009 (LifeSIteNews.com) - Pope Benedict XVI addressed members of the Pontifical Academy of Social Sciences yesterday at their plenary session which is focused on the theme of Catholic social teaching and human rights, and called for the promotion of universal human rights based on both faith and reason, affirming the "right to life and the right to freedom of conscience and religion as being at the center of those rights that spring from human nature itself."
The Holy Father noted that though these human rights are not strictly "truths of faith, even though they are discoverable - and indeed come to full light - in the message of Christ who "reveals man to man himself," they do "receive further confirmation from faith."
Giving an historical perspective to human rights as "the reference point of a shared universal ethos - at least at the level of aspiration - for most of humankind," the Pope spoke of the "vast suffering caused by two terrible world wars and the unspeakable crimes perpetrated by totalitarian ideologies," as a consequence of which "the international community acquired a new system of international law based on human rights."
(Excerpt) Read more at lifesitenews.com ...
That was the position of the most pious and respetced minds of the genuine, early Catholic Church.
I take it that you consider yourself a true Republican and a true Catholic...does that make you one?
The genuine, original, orthodox Catholic Church, not the Frankish innovation you call Catholic Church, forbade capital punishment. The Catechism of your Church surrenders to the Augustinian invention of a "just war" (accepted only in the west), and proposes that death sentence can be carried out only as a last resort and option. That is nowhere to be found in any early Christian writings.
Trying to stay true to Augustine's error, the way your Church's catechism is worded prohibits capital punishment for all practical purposes. As long as someone can be guarded or incarcerated or isolated, the capital punishment is not an option. When does a state not have the the option of isolating an individual? Never.
The fact that the Church qualifies it does not mean she forbids it, which is what I said. I honestly do not know how this could be made clearer. Especially with you EOs being so intent on the letter of the law.
Your Church does not forbid it, but the genuine original Catholic Church did, and does. It couldn't be clearer than that. The problem with the RCs is that they think Christianity started in the 11th century.
I think that was way before Hitler got elected Chancellor. Once the Nazi regime was established I seriously doubt too many clergymen were speaking out against it.
More than ONE BILLION babies have been murdered by abortionists in the last century. That is DOUBLE the number of people that have been killed in all of the wars and acts of genocide in history combined.
A great many Lutheran and Catholic clergymen were persecuted, imprisoned and killed for opposing Hitler, the great Lutheran pastor and writer Dietrich Bonhoeffer is probably the best known.
Well, no to the first, yes to the second, and I submit to the Magisterium.
Really?
Luke 22:36
But they said: Nothing. Then said he unto them: But now he that hath a purse, let him take it, and likewise a scrip: and he that hath not, let him sell his coat and buy a sword.
Trying to stay true to Augustine's error, the way your Church's catechism is worded prohibits capital punishment for all practical purposes. As long as someone can be guarded or incarcerated or isolated, the capital punishment is not an option.
Acts 5:1-11 1 But a certain man named Ananias, with Saphira his wife, sold a piece of land, 2 And by fraud kept back part of the price of the land, his wife being privy thereunto: and bringing a certain part of it, laid it at the feet of the apostles. 3 But Peter said: Ananias, why hath Satan tempted thy heart, that thou shouldst lie to the Holy Ghost and by fraud keep part of the price of the land? 4 Whilst it remained, did it not remain to thee? And after it was sold, was it not in thy power? Why hast thou conceived this thing in thy heart? Thou hast not lied to men, but to God. 5 And Ananias, hearing these words, fell down and gave up the ghost. And there came great fear upon all that heard it. 6 And the young men rising up, removed him, and carrying him out, buried him. 7 And it was about the space of three hours after, when his wife, not knowing what had happened, came in. 8 And Peter said to her: Tell me, woman, whether you sold the land for so much? And she said: Yea, for so much. 9 And Peter said unto her: Why have you agreed together to tempt the spirit of the Lord? Behold the feet of them who have buried thy husband are at the door: and they shall carry thee out, 10 Immediately, she fell down before his feet and gave up the ghost. And the young men coming in found her dead: and carried her out and buried her by her husband. 11 And there came great fear upon the whole church and upon all that heard these things.
Individuals saints and martyrs notwithstanding, the official Churches did not oppose the regime openly. Yet there is no comparison.
No Church suffered more than the Russian Orthodox Church. Patriarch Tikhon, and his locum tenens, refused to submit to the regime of Vladimir Ilyich Lenin. By 1924, faced with pogroms unseen and unparalleled anywhere in the 20th century, Tiikhon's locum tenens finally signed a paper under duress promising to cease resisting the regime (at that time, Pat. Tikhon was exiled).
What kind of a duress? Well between 1927 and 1940, the number of Orthodox churches in the Russian Soviet republic declined from 29,584 to less than 500, or 98.3%!
Tens of thousands of Russian Orthodox priests and bishops were arrested and executed. Estimates vary, but almost all of them hover between 98 to 120 thousand. I am sure no other Church in Europe has suffered as much.
It is nauseating to read about the "collaborationist" Orthodox Church in the USSR by members of west European Churches which, overall, lived in great harmony with the Nazi and Fascist regimes during World War II, from Franco's Spain and Mussolini's Italy, to Nazi Germany. After all, young Ratzinger did not serve with distinction in Hitler Jugend, but he did not resist it actively either, certainly not enough to be arrested or to cause his parents to be arrested.
Catholic Church and Protestant communities acted in their own interest in Nazi Germany and elsewhere in Fascist Europe. By comparison, the number of Catholic priests, mostly from Poland, as individual martyrs, who died in Nazi concentration camps 2,800 along with 289 nuns.
It is a historical fact that the Catholic Church looked favorably on Hitler's party in 1933 as a barrier to spread of communism.
In that same year, the Catholic Church signed an agreement with Hitler's regime to stay out of politics. Sure sounds like open collaboration to me. No different than the patriarchal locum tenens signed in the Soviet Union. But the Orthodox are "collbaorationists," while the Catholic Church is not?!? Especially given the fact that this was done under no duress!
Pope Pius XI issued his "Mit brennender Sorge" not over the treatment of the Jews but over Hitler's arrest of of some activist Catholic clergy. But the Church as a whole was never sacked.
The treatment for he clergy and the churches in a large part depended on where the churches were located and whether the clergy belonged to "inferior" Slavic race, the case of Polish priests already having been mentioned, and whether the Slavic population was supportive (Ukraine, Croatia) or opposed (Poland, Czechoslovakia, etc.) to the Nazis.
Nürenburg documents show that the Church in Czechoslovakia, especially the Orthodox Church, but Catholic and Protestant communities as well, were actively persecuted, while in Fascist Croatia the Catholic Church was not just tolerated but favored and highly visible and cooperating with the regime in forcibly converting scores of Orthodox Serbs to catholicism, thereby implementing Ante Pavelich's tripartite "solution" to the Serbian question (convert one third, exile one third, exterminate one third).
As many as 3,000 Czechoslovak Catholic priests were arrested and some 700 killed as early as 1941. Still, as terrible as these figures are, they do not represent a Church-wide persecution by the Nazi regime, but a political one in select areas.
The Church as a whole was not brutalized if it collaborated with the Nazi regime. The fact that the Catholic Church survived Nazi Germany and even in places like Poland is indicative of no systematic campaign to destroy the Church.
In short, there is simply no comparison to the suffering endured by the Russian Orthodox Church and her clergy, and there is no question that the Catholic Church and Protestant communities collaborated with the Nazis. In view of the historical facts, neither Catholics nor Protestants have any moral right to criticize the Russian Orthodox Church as "collaborationist" except as an extreme form of hypocrisy and outright ignorance.
You should rephrase that as historically Catholic countries such as . . .
True Catholic Church never had a Magisterium. That's also a latter-day innovation.
The True Catholic Church has always had a Magisterium, it's just a latter-day naming convention.
I am glad to see your Protestant Random Cherry-Picking Verse Generator (aka PRCPVG) is working properly, but you need to turn on the Rational Context-Interpreter (RCI) as well (and don't bother with Protestant model—they have a programming bug).
In the meantime, you may wish to use the God-given faculty of reason and ask yourself What did Jesus tell them to do with the sword? Execute people? Please don't embarrass yourself like this. But since you seem to insist, you may also remind yourself that when Peter used his dagger, Jesus told him to put it away.
Acts 5:1-11...Thou hast not lied to men, but to God. 5 And Ananias, hearing these words, fell down and gave up the ghost.[Peter speaking]...And Peter said unto her: Why have you agreed together to tempt the spirit of the Lord? Behold the feet of them who have buried thy husband are at the door: and they shall carry thee out, [i]mmediately, she fell down before his feet and gave up the ghost..."
If you consult the logic department in your God-given computer situated in your head, you will soon recognize that the "execution" in this case was done by God and not by Peter, because, as the scriputres remind us, vengeance belongs to God, not man, and not the Church.
Oh yeah? What did they call it before (and why did they change it)?
By what authority? Last time I checked, 87.8% of Italians declare themselves as Catholics. Are you Catholic? Why should I believe you and not the Italians? Your word counts more than theirs?
Anyway, I seriously doubt that the Vatican shares your assesment.
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Maybe the roll over and play dead pacifism that you see as Orthodox dogma has something to do with their death toll at the hands of Lenin, Stalin, et al. Franco, as a Catholic, did not roll over and play dead. He fought the reds and anarchists and defeated them. Warren Carroll well documents the facts in his The Last Crusade which covers the Spanish Civil War. The reds and anarchists in Spain burned more than half of the Catholic Churches, raped and murdered countless nuns and murdered more than half the Spanish priests before Franco was able to overcome them and give them a small portion of what they had earned. He did not curl up in the corner whimpering that God must want him to be murdered. Instead he slaughtered the red and anarchist perps while some folks go around whining that they must kiss up to their communist bosses as though that were required of them by Christ. I take it that the woman who put a bullet in Lenin's frontal lobe was not Orthodox. She was not Catholic either but a member of the soviet central committee. There were few Catholics in Russia thanks to the xenophobia that prevails there. The Orthodox directly benefited from Stalin's theft of Catholic Uniate Churches in Ukraine. Again, if all the Orthodox were in the habit of resisting their communist bosses, they would have lost fewer churches and fewer Orthodox clergy and laity under their former seminarian Djugashvili who became Stalin.
Do you miss that pillar of virtue Slobodan Milosevic??? I did not think him worth wasting a single American soldier, probably not a single bullet. I don't think he or anyone ought to be tried by Euroweenies at the Hague. OTOH, I am certainly glad that Milosevic is dead. Maybe Serbia will have a chance for freedom but probably not. The bad habits of a millenium are too hard to break. I do know certain peace-obsessed and non-representative Catholics who admire Serbia as a colorful little satrapy, so picturesque, so thoroughly a throwback, so anti-American. The thrill just overwhelms and runs up what passes for their paleo-spines.
As to open resistance against the Nazi regime in Germany, try Cardinal Faulhaber, the Lion of Munich, who went after Hitler from the pulpit doing what few Orthodox leaders in Russia ever did. If Tikhon had behaved against the reds in Russia as Cardinal Wycinski (sp.?) did in Poland, maybe Tikhon could have died with his boots off in Russia as Wycinski did in Poland after participating in the overthrow of one red regime in the 1950s by calling his Church to the mountain at Czestechova for a display of the Black Madonna in defiance of the soviet stooge running Poland at the time. JP II was crucially instrumental in the fall of the Iron Curtain and openly cooperated with Ronaldus Maximus and Maggie Thatcher to that end, giving the RCC's answer to Stalin's impudent question: How many divisions has the pope?
Joseph Ratzinger was 16 years old when arrested by American troops. He was briefly detained and released.
Catholics and Protestants have every right to observe the collaborationist nature of the Orthodox church in Russia because it WAS collaborationist. You cannot very well celebrate as virtue the spineless cowardice of those who somehow see it as a moral imperative to refuse resistance by force of arms to tyranny and then whine about others complaining of that truth. If you wonder why the chronic moaning and groaning in SOME Orthodox circles is despised in the manlier circles of Christianity which have fought the beasts, just look at the way some of you are whining to tghis day over some generally forgotten (except by you) ancient slaughter of Orthodox (did they fight back? Did they bear arms?) in Constantinople many hundreds of years ago. When the Muslim navy threatened Europe at Lepanto, it was Catholic naval power that sent the Muslims to Davy Jones' locker. When Vienna was threatened by a Muslim siege, it was Catholic Jan Sobieski, a Lithuanian Catholic who was king of Poland who headed a Catholic army that lifted the siege of Vienna, with no help whatsoever ferom the Orthodox. We would all be caterwauling that there is no god but Allah and Mohammed is his prophet if we depended on the Orthodox of the time.
You have no problem spouting Tito's communist propaganda against the RCC (and nuzzling Obamamessiah as preferable because of his potential to destroy our country by pacifism in the face of our nation's enemies and collaboration with them).
I knew a man in New Haven (now dead of heart trouble) by the name of Bill Kirkiles who was a Greek Orthodox partisan leader against Tito when Tito was stealing the children of Orthodox in Macedonia and Northern Greece to be sent off to Stalin for "re-education" when they were too young to resist so that they could form the next generation's communist cadre. See the movie/read the book as to Eleni, the mother who refused to allow her children to be kidnapped in such a manner and was murdered by the reds while people like you sat around whining about the evils of taking up arms and killing those reds who needed killing. Bill killed them and so did many Orthodox but not the kind who would embrace an Obama. Bill was one of the finest men I have had the privilege of knowing. His pastor was another.
The concordat negotiated with the German government (whose president was the non-Nazi Paul Hindenberg) was typical of Vatican concordats all over Europe. The Catholic Center Party of Germany which agreed not to resist Hitler was not much of a principled institution and not a very effective party. It serves as a useful whipping boy for the Church's enemies.
There was Lutheran resistance to Hitler in the form of heroes like Dietrich Bonhoeffer who went back to Germany to be hanged by Hitler in the endgame of Nazi rule. There were Protestant heroes in families like the ten Booms. There were Catholic heroes galore. One was Franco who allowed an underground railroad through Spain for Jews to escape Europe and demanded of Hitler that his diplomats be allowed to remove from the death camps each and every Jew credibly claiming Spanish ancestry under Spain's law of return. There is a book regarding the Reichmann/Gestetner family of Hjngary and Germany and later the owners of Olympia and York. The writer was a Toronto business reporter. Although the book was about the rise and fall of Olympia and York's Reichmann family owners, it very well covers the cooperation of Franco and his government in saving Jews. The book was published in the 1990s.
Was there something you objected to in the Roman Catholic Church's opposition to communism? Do you not only like Tito but also his and Stalin's ideology??? Do you really wonder why people who share such views you are despised by civilized men???
When you accuse those who fought and resisted of "hypocrisy" and "ignorance," you have spent too much time looking in the mirror and you emit the same odor as Obama would if he claimed fiscal responsibility as central to his (and your?) ideology.
Finally, bear in mind that this entire tempest in a teacup 'tween me and thee emanates from some errant Orthodox buttinskis sticking their impudent noses into the internal affairs and governance of a Church, the Roman Catholic Church, which is quite obviously not their own. If the Orthodox whom I know personally be any guide (exemplary folks one and all), then one wonders whether the Orthodox Church is your own either but that is the business of the Orthodox Church and its authorities and none of mine. Maybe you should be treated as Fr. Jenkins should be treated and just as harshly. I really don't know. Run your own church if you can and mind your own business which does not include the RCC.
“Interfering in another bishop’s diocese violates the canons. That it is being done for cheap politcal gain makes it silly...and given the response its getting, rather pathetic.”
All the Bishops met some time back and had and came to a decision about the sort of thing that is going in ND at this time. To then make a statement in regards to that decision is not interferring and is not done for poltitical reasons it is support for the Bishop in this instance and it is making a statement to other Catholic institutions that that this sort of behaviour is not going to be tolerated anymore.
I can understand you being fired up but to call these Bishops heretical is beyond the pale!
Mel
Their churches go empty on Sundays, that’s my only point.
Church attendance in Europe is about 6%. In America it's 25%. Accordingly, there is no Catholic country in the world.
I am not sure your criterium is a litmus test who is Christian and who is not. The fruits of the Spirit are known by our deeds (for which we will be judged) and not our show of Pharisaical hypocricy (cf Mat 25: 21-46).
It's not the public dog and pony show, but how Christ-like we are in what we do, that matters.
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