vol 6: Essays
2008
Religion and Survival
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Religion and Survival
World Youth week is over. WYD 2008 The Pope has gone home. Pope Benedict XVI - Wikipedia The RTA can stop plugging religion and get back to directing traffic.
One cannot dispute that the Papal visit was a magnificent display of the spin doctor's art. Public relations - Wikipedia The young and vulnerable were targeted with smoke and mirrors. Joy and laughter abounded. Serious issues were minimized.
Catholics believe in miracles and magic. Miracle - Catholic Encyclopedia Benedict indicated that our own blessed Mary McKillop will be sainted as soon as another miracle is 'authenticated'. I think that ultimately, miracles are the only evidence that the Church is really connected to God. In our quantum mechanical world anything can happen, so that miracles are not so much miraculous as natural.
The climax of Benedict's visit was a celebration of the mass. John Paul II The Catholic mass is a dramatic re-enactment of the 'Last Supper' (Matthew 26:26 sqq). To be a Catholic, one must sincerely believe that the words 'this is my body' spoken by a duly consecrated priest really change bread into the body of Jesus.
How can this be? It is said to be a mystery, a miracle, magic wrought by God to demonstrate the truth of His Church.
* * *
When it comes to making decisions that constrain our future we need all the help we can get. Once we start looking there is no shortage of information. But much of it is contradictory, so we must decide who to trust. In this way, faith enters human life and guides our fate.
Can I trust the Pope? Can I trust an institution that demands that I ignore the evidence of death and assert the reality eternal life in another invisible world? An institution that claims my ancestors disobeyed God and so defected the whole universe?
As I see it, the fundamental error of the Roman Catholic Church is denial of human experience. It surrounds itself with secrecy and mystery while claiming be infallibly trustworthy. It demands belief without evidence. We are being asked to live with our eyes closed.
Disaster is inevitable. The Church is nowhere more evidently wrong than is the area of gender, sexuality and reproduction. Kalbian
First of course, women are of no account. Women may be used but not heard. With the Church as it is, we will never see a woman become pope, let alone a woman priest or bishop. Campaign for the ordination of women in the Roman Catholic Church
Secondly, the Church extols celibacy to the exclusion of normal sexuality. Pius XII - Sacra Virginitas Only the nominally celibate have access to the levers of power. The error of this position is very evident in the public sexual crimes of the Catholic clergy. The error is compounded by attempted cover ups. Catholic sex abuse cases - Wikipedia
Finally, having no official experience of sexuality, the Church maintains that any sensual or sexual activity outside marriage is sinful. Sex within marriage is ok, as long as no steps are taken to prevent conception. Sexual fun and games are out. Pius XII - Casti Conubii
Such deep misunderstanding can only be possible in an institution blind the reality of humanity. They say that the Fall defected human nature, but there is no evidence for the Fall. Decree Concerning Original Sin
* * *
So what are we to do about this Church? Ignore it? Oppose it? Outlaw it? Make out, as our governments have done, that it is a benign organization, entitled to propagandize our youth under the rubric of religious freedom?
A thousand years ago, the Church ruled Europe in a very concrete way. It lay at the heart of political, military and industrial power. The Popes were potentates who expected the allegiance of princes and their armies. They used the secular arm to execute non-believers. Catholic monasteries were at the centre of industrial power. Church and state in medieval Europe - Wikipedia
Fortunately, this grip was loosened by the likes of Martin Luther, Henry VIII, Galileo and the millions of others who saw themselves as better than sinful inhabitants of a defective world. Martin Luther - Wikipedia, Henry VIII of England - Wikipedia, Albert Van Helden, Elizabeth Burr
Loosened, but not broken. Fundamentalism still roams the world. Fundamentalism - Wikipedia George Bush believes that he was on a mission from God when he invaded Afghanistan and Iraq. BBC
Our freedom and survival depend on our respect for reality. Our grip on reality is mediated by evidence. On the other hand, there can be no doubt that our collective behaviour is deeply influenced by religion. World Youth day is evidence of that. We must therefore work to replace mystery, miracles and magic with evidence based religion.
The truth is not hidden. The world is not a puppet worked by an invisible God. Reality is here for all to see. I trust the world. Bread is bread, and I am perfectly happy with that.
(Written for ABC Perspective. ABC Broadcast 31 July 2008. Jeffrey Nicholls Revised 2 December 2008)
Further reading
Books
| Kalbian, Aline H, Sexing the Church: Gender, Power and Ethics in Contemporary Catholicism, Indiana University Press 2005 Amazon product description: 'Product Description The regulation of human sexuality in contemporary Catholicism, a topic that monopolizes public conversation about the Catholic Church, is also a central concern of Catholic theological discussions of religious ethics. Aline H. Kalbian traces the history of the connection between moral theology and sexual ethics as it applies to the concern for order in official teachings on marriage, reproduction, and sex. She explores order as it is reflected in the theology of marriage, the 20th-century challenge to that order in the debates on contraception and assisted reproduction, and the way attitudes about gender in Catholicism connect theological and moral order with ecclesiastical order.' Aline H. Kalbian is Assistant Professor of Religion at Florida State University. She lives in Tallahassee, Florida Amazon back |
Links
| ABC Perspective 'Mon-Fri 5.55pm (Q/NT 6.55pm) presented by Paul Barclay repeated Tuesday-Saturday at 3.55am presented by Sue Clark.' back |
| Albert Van Helden, Elizabeth Burr The Galileo Project 'The Galileo Project is a source of information on the life and work of Galileo Galilei (1564-1642). Our aim is to provide hypertextual information about Galileo and the science of his time to viewers of all ages and levels of expertise.' Albert Van Helden, Elizabeth Burr back |
| BBC BBC - Press Office - George Bush on Elusive Peace 'Nabil Shaath says: "President Bush said to all of us: 'I'm driven with a mission from God. God would tell me, "George, go and fight those terrorists in Afghanistan." And I did, and then God would tell me, "George, go and end the tyranny in Iraq ..." And I did. And now, again, I feel God's words coming to me, "Go get the Palestinians their state and get the Israelis their security, and get peace in the Middle East." And by God I'm gonna do it.'"' back |
| Campaign for the ordination of women in the Roman Catholic Church The ordination of women in the Roman Catholic Church 'We love our family, the Catholic Church. We fully accept the authority of the Pope. We respect his personal integrity as an outstanding spiritual leader. But we are convinced that the Pope and his advisors in Rome are making a serious mistake by dismissing women as priests. We feel obliged in conscience to make our carefully considered reasons known, fulfilling our duty to speak out as our present Pope has repeatedly told us to do.' back |
| Catholic sex abuse cases - Wikipedia Catholic sex abuse cases - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia back |
| Church and state in medieval Europe - Wikipedia Church and state in medieval Europe - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia 'After the fall of the Western Roman Empire in the 5th century, there emerged no single powerful secular government in the West, but there was a central ecclesiastical power in Rome, the Christian Church. In this power vacuum, the Church rose to become the dominant power in the West.' back |
| Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith - Wikipedia Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith - Wikipedia, the fre encyclopedia 'The Congregation for the Doctrine of the Faith (CDF) (Congregatio pro Doctrina Fidei), previously known as the Supreme Sacred Congregation of the Holy Office, and sometimes simply called the Holy Office is the oldest of the nine congregations of the Roman Curia. Among the most active of these major Curial departments, it oversees Catholic doctrine. The CDF is the modern name for what used to be the Holy Office of the Inquisition.' back |
| David Hobson The Holy Mass 'The Holy Sacrifice of the Mass is the unbloody sacrifice of the Body and Blood of Christ. It is substantially the same as the bloody sacrifice of the cross, and was instituted by Our Lord Jesus Christ at the Last Supper on the first Holy Thursday evening, just as He was entering upon His Passion. Then it was that He changed bread and wine into His most holy Body and Blood, and offered them in sacrifice, giving at the same time to His Apostles and their successors the power and the command to continue this sacred action in commemoration of Him to the end of time.' back |
| Decree Concerning Original Sin Paul III - Council of Trent '1. If anyone does not confess that the first man, Adam, when he transgressed the commandment of God in paradise, immediately lost the holiness and justice in which he had been constituted, and through the offense of that prevarication incurred the wrath and indignation of god, and thus death with which God had previously threatened him, and, together with death, captivity under his power who thenceforth had the empire of death, that is to say, the devil, and that the entire Adam through that offense of prevarication was changed in body and soul for the worse, let him be anathema.' back |
| Fundamentalism - Wikipedia Fundamentalism - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia 'Fundamentalism as a movement arose in the United States, starting among conservative Presbyterian academics and theologians at Princeton Theological Seminary in the first decade of the Twentieth Century.[ It soon spread to conservatives among the Baptists and other denominations during and immediately following the First World War. The movement's purpose was to reaffirm orthodox Protestant Christianity and zealously defend it against the challenges of liberal theology, German higher criticism, Darwinism, and other "-isms" which it regarded as harmful to Christianity.' back |
| Jeffrey Nicholls Religion and Survival back |
| John Paul II Catechism of the Catholic Church '1333 At the heart of the Eucharistic celebration are the bread and wine that, by the words of Christ and the invocation of the Holy Spirit, become Christ's Body and Blood. Faithful to the Lord's command the Church continues to do, in his memory and until his glorious return, what he did on the eve of his Passion: "He took bread...." "He took the cup filled with wine...." The signs of bread and wine become, in a way surpassing understanding, the Body and Blood of Christ; they continue also to signify the goodness of creation. Thus in the Offertory we give thanks to the Creator for bread and wine,[152] fruit of the "work of human hands," but above all as "fruit of the earth" and "of the vine" - gifts of the Creator. The Church sees in the gesture of the king-priest Melchizedek, who "brought out bread and wine," a prefiguring of her own offering.' back |
| Martin Luther - Wikipedia Martin Luther - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia 'Martin Luther (November 10, 1483-February 18, 1546) was a German monk, theologian, university professor and church reformer whose ideas inspired the Protestant Reformation and changed the course of Western civilization. Luther's theology challenged the authority of the papacy by holding that the Bible is the only infallible source of religious authority[3] and that all baptized Christians under Jesus are a universal priesthood.[4] According to Luther, salvation was a free gift of God, received only by true repentance and faith in Jesus as the Messiah, a faith given by God and unmediated by the church.' back |
| Miracle - Catholic Encyclopedia Catholic Encyclopedia - Miracle 'The wonder of the miracle is due to the fact that its cause is hidden, and an effect is expected other than what actually takes place. Hence, by comparison with the ordinary course of things, the miracle is called extraordinary. In analyzing the difference between the extraordinary character of the miracle and the ordinary course of nature, the Fathers of the Church and theologians employ the terms above, contrary to, and outside nature. These terms express the manner in which the miracle is extraordinary.' back |
| Pius XII - Casti Conubii Papal Encyclicals Online '54. But no reason, however grave, may be put forward by which anything intrinsically against nature may become conformable to nature and morally good. Since, therefore, the conjugal act is destined primarily by nature for the begetting of children, those who in exercising it deliberately frustrate its natural power and purpose sin against nature and commit a deed which is shameful and intrinsically vicious. . . . 56. . . . any use whatsoever of matrimony exercised in such a way that the act is deliberately frustrated in its natural power to generate life is an offense against the law of God and of nature, and those who indulge in such are branded with the guilt of a grave sin.' back |
| Pius XII - Sacra Virginitas Papal Encyclicals Online '32. This doctrine of the excellence of virginity and of celibacy and of their superiority over the married state was . . . revealed by our Divine Redeemer and by the Apostle of the Gentiles; so too, it was solemnly defined as a dogma of divine faith by the holy council of Trent, and explained in the same way by all the holy Fathers and Doctors of the Church.' back |
| Pope Benedict XVI - Wikipedia Pope Benedict XVI - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia 'Pope Benedict XVI (born Joseph Alois Ratzinger on 16 April 1927) is the 265th and reigning Pope, by virtue of his office of Bishop of Rome, the head of the Roman Catholic Church and, as such, Sovereign of the Vatican City State.' back |
| Public relations - Wikipedia Public relations - Wikipedia, the free encyclopedia 'Public relations (PR) is the practice of managing the flow of information between an organization and its publics.' back |
| WYD 2008 World Youth Day 2008 'World Youth Day (WYD) is the largest youth event in the world and was held in Sydney from Tuesday 15 to Sunday 20 July 2008.' back |
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Revealing Vatican attempts to propagate its religion by international treaty
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